A 12-year-old girl from northern Togo, orphaned and displaced to northern Benin with her siblings, is now attending school and benefiting from a cash programme, which supports vulnerable girls’ education and wellbeing. Credit: UNICEF/UNI970733/Njiokiktjien

By Ana Patricia Muñoz and George Laryea-Adjei
WASHINGTON DC / NEW YORK, Jul 8 2026 (IPS)

Almost half of the world’s population now lives in countries that spend more money paying interest on their debts than on education or health. New data shows the cost of borrowing for African countries in particular rose 91% since 2020. Rising debt payments have reduced governments’ capacity to invest in children and build their human capital.

This week UN officials and government leaders gather in New York for the High-level Political Forum, where the Sustainable Development Goal on financing and global partnership (SDG 17) comes up for its in-depth review. They must go beyond short-term fixes and drive sustainable solutions to the debt crisis and its impact on children’s futures. Too many countries are struggling to keep pace with debt payments and facing a stark and painful choice: spend less on children or default. This fiscal crunch has a disproportionate impact on girls, especially in marginalized and remote communities, as efforts to narrow the gender gap in educational attainment are undercut by debt servicing. In 2024, the 10 countries facing the worst barriers to girls’ education spent, on average, four times more on debt servicing than on education.

Debt choices today are also silently eroding children’s prospects and future economic growth. UNICEF analysis shows that African countries spend, on average, just 6.5 per cent of their child-related budgets on the critical first five years of life, while G20 countries invest roughly four times as much. As debt servicing consumes an increasing share of public resources in many countries, governments face difficult fiscal trade-offs that can further reduce investments in children. The result is not only a loss for this generation, but also lower productivity, diminished human capital and weaker long-term growth. The World Bank estimates that today’s children could lose up to half of their future lifetime earnings because of deficits in learning and human capital development.

Work by the International Budget Partnership shows that the global debt crisis is also an accountability crisis. The Open Budget Survey 2025 finds that 50% of surveyed countries do not provide information on the composition of debt in their budget proposals, and just 18% publish any information on the sustainability of government finances over the next ten years. In a recent assessment of 11 African countries, only one country published a borrowing plan that was connected to the annual budget cycle and linked borrowing to specific sectors or projects. In all 11 countries, parliaments approve borrowing without access to comprehensive information on how those funds will be used or what development outcomes they are expected to deliver. Debt crises will continue to recur if governments continue to borrow without telling oversight bodies or the public how they’re borrowing, why or on what terms.

Debt transparency alone will not solve the debt crisis unless it is matched by accountability and smarter financing choices.

Domestic constituencies who live with the consequences of debt decisions should be at the heart of accountability efforts – this includes children. Legal frameworks should mandate governments to release information about who is responsible for debt decisions, what is counted as debt, what it is being used for and what tradeoffs were considered. Governments should embed debt and fiscal sustainability information into the budget process so that there can be regular scrutiny by oversight bodies. Legislators, national auditors and independent legislative bodies need technical support and mandates to deliver informed and accessible analysis of the long-term fiscal implications and risks of these decisions. That analysis must also be accessible to the public. Equipping civil society groups so that they are better able to engage with debt information and better understand how these seemingly esoteric decisions ultimately impact their health centers, schools and children, must be part of any debt accountability agenda. These accountability levers are critical to ensure debt fuels development instead of holding it back, and that public spending choices reflect the rights and needs of children.

We also need financing solutions to address the current emergency and these efforts should support rather than displace domestic accountability. The SDG bond of the Government of Benin has shown that debt instruments linked to social outcomes and public reporting are already working. Debt is not inherently the enemy of development, but must be borrowed transparently, invested productively and subject to public scrutiny. Debt relief frameworks must catch up with reality: as sovereign debt shifts toward private, foreign-currency creditors existing restructuring mechanisms leave too many countries without meaningful relief. Reforming the legal frameworks that govern sovereign debt contracts is long overdue.

The Sevilla Commitment, adopted by leaders at the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, underscored the value of pursuing these options and the importance of prioritizing investments in children. The High-level Political Forum should address how new financing options can avoid opacity by requiring governments to report to legislatures and the public how funds are used and by supporting civil society to track whether resources deliver tangible results.

When decisions with lifelong consequences are made behind closed doors, children inevitably lose first, and longest. We must use all the tools at our disposal to address the debt crisis and demand accountability to ensure public money works for all, especially for children and future generations.

Ana Patricia Muñoz is Executive Director, International Budget Partnership; George Laryea-Adjei is Director of Global Programme Division, UNICEF

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On 26 June 2026, groups search through rubble in the state of La Guaira, Venezuela, after two major earthquakes on 24 June caused homes and buildings to collapse. Thousands remain unaccounted for, and many may still be searching for loved ones trapped beneath the debris. Credit: UNICEF/Rosali Hernandez

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 7 2026 (IPS)

In recent weeks, Venezuela’s humanitarian situation has deteriorated sharply following the twin earthquakes on June 24. Marking the strongest seismic event since 1990, the earthquakes and subsequent aftershocks have resulted in a significant loss of life, widespread damage to critical infrastructure, and considerable disruption to livelihoods and humanitarian response efforts.

Before these earthquakes, Venezuela was already in the midst of a severe humanitarian crisis defined by economic collapse, political instability, and the disintegration of basic services. As of June 2026, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) estimated that nearly 8 million civilians were in dire need of humanitarian assistance, while the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported over 7.6 million forced displacements due to persistent insecurity.

The earthquakes have severely compounded these preexisting vulnerabilities, with power outages, access constraints, and communications blackouts obstructing emergency, life-saving operations and preventing millions from accessing basic needs. According to figures from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the total number of civilians in urgent need of humanitarian assistance has skyrocketed to nearly 1.8 million since the earthquakes, including roughly 680,000 children.

According to figures from the Venezuelan government, as of July 5, the death toll stood at over 3000, while over 16740 people have been injured and 17000 have lost their homes. On June 29, Gianluca Rampolla, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Venezuela, told reporters during a press briefing that the death toll “will unavoidably and sadly keep on growing as the search-and-rescue operation continues, and as we are able to detail further assessment of the impacts and quakes.”

Local authorities have recorded 942 aftershocks in the days following the initial earthquakes, with the latest recorded on July 4. La Guaira has been among the hardest-hit regions, with humanitarian experts describing entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble and displaced civilians living in makeshift camps for survival.

“Families across the affected states are in urgent need of safe water, as well as access to health care,” said UNICEF Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Roberto Benes. “Many are sleeping outside, afraid of more aftershocks. These supplies will help us reach children and families with what they need most right now…But the needs on the ground are far greater than what’s arrived.”

Doctors and humanitarian experts have raised alarm about the thousands of displaced civilians now residing in overcrowded, unsanitary camps. With civilians facing limited access to clean water and a healthcare system on the brink of collapse, experts warn that the emerging medical crisis will claim more lives if urgent intervention is not secured soon.

“It’s very hot, and there’s a lot of concern about potential vector-borne diseases,” said Veronique Durroux, the Head of Information and Advocacy, Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean at OCHA. “Waste management is an issue. Debris management, when you see the scale of devastation, it’s very concerning.”

“The issue we foresee just around the corner is the infections that patients who have been exposed to the disaster for the longest time might bring,” added Eugenio Cova, the head of the trauma unit at Hospital del Oeste Dr. José Gregorio Hernández in Caracas. “We’ve already gone through a period of complex trauma — which will continue to occur — but now it’s complicated by infections.”

Local authorities report that the earthquakes damaged 38 hospitals across the nation, further depleting an already severe shortage of medical personnel, emergency responders, ambulances, and medical equipment. Dr. Huníades Urbina, a board member of the Venezuelan Pediatrics Association, told reporters that the country has only half the number of physicians recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) to meet its needs. He noted that these earthquakes have only further emphasized “the Venezuelan government’s inability to provide an adequate healthcare system that meets the needs of the Venezuelan people.”

A preliminary assessment by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) shows that the earthquakes caused approximately USD 37 billion in direct physical damage to buildings and critical infrastructure. This includes USD 24 billion in direct losses from damage to residential, commercial, industrial, educational, healthcare, and government buildings. Another USD 13 billion in losses was attributed to damage to critical infrastructure, including water and sanitation, telecommunications, roads, railways, energy, ports, airports, oil, and gas.

These losses do not account for indirect production losses, emergency response costs, or costs associated with reconstruction or recovery. Experts project that it will take significant time and a sustained flow of aid to allow for recovery and reconstruction. UNICEF estimates that approximately $52 million is urgently required to adequately respond to the crisis, as part of its 2026 Humanitarian Action for Children Appeal for Venezuela, which has been funded by only 35 percent.

The UN and its partners have been on the frontlines of this crisis since the onset of the earthquakes, helping vulnerable communities access essential services. In La Guaira, OCHA is providing beds, tents, water and sanitation services, primary healthcare, and psychosocial support.

Additionally, OCHA is planning a Rapid Needs Assessment to determine which areas and groups require prioritized assistance. Furthermore, the data collected by this initiative will be used to inform the next phase of the humanitarian response. The Humanitarian Response Plan for Venezuela has received USD 274 million, while over USD 32 million was contributed by the private sector for humanitarian support.

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By Gabriele Koehler and Catherine Mbengue
MUNICH / BRUSSELS , Jul 7 2026 (IPS)

The 2030 agenda cum SDGs are due to be completed in 2030, with negotiations towards a follow-up agenda to begin formally at the UN General Assembly in autumn 2027. Many direct or indirect discussions have, however, already begun, e.g. pluri-laterally at BRICS and G20 meetings and the EU; as well as at the UN in connection with the Summit of the Future, the Doha World Summit for Social Development, the Beyond GDP report; or in fora such as the Hamburg Sustainability Conference. Think tanks and academics, too, are brainstorming on how best to re-ignite a genuine commitment to the SDGs and at the same time reflect on the future.

Therefore, it appears as the right moment to inject some thoughts contributing to chart a better course for the “beyond 2030” development agenda.

Gabriele Koehler

The international community first conceptualized a development agenda– the development decade – in 1960, and this approach has continued in various formats ever since, with poverty eradication decades, the MDGs and the SDGs. Towards the end of each such effort, the tragic verdict is that the aspirations are at best partially met.

Many observers are dismayed at the poor performance of the SDGs, with delivery on many targets underperforming or even regressing. Hence the need to analyse where and why the 2030 Agenda has not met its commitments. One argument is that they lacked analysis and skirted the sensitive issue of the structural causes of poverty and inequities. Political and economic power hierarchies are not addressed.

Another possible conclusion is that, like the preceding development agenda, the SDGs offer a global commitment, but this is not binding. SDG reporting is voluntary and anecdotal, and governments can easily “pretend” to be keen, but in reality, circumvent the required actions. The international community can duck away from its obligations to restructure global economic structures that play out against lower-income countries and socially excluded communities.

Catherine Mbengue

Anchoring a post-2030 agenda in internationally recognised human rights obligations would help ensure that commitments to present and future generations are subject to regular review and accountability. The near-universal ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child provides a particularly strong foundation for such an approach.

A proposal

We therefore propose considering a new tack: attaching the next development agenda to the Human Rights Council (HRC). The conceptualisation, the negotiations, as well as the subsequent reporting and monitoring could make use of the well-established mechanisms of the Universal Periodic Reviews and the human rights conventions.

In HRC processes, governments report on those of the 9 core human rights conventions which they have ratified. The process includes a report by the country itself, findings from independent research by the Office of Human Rights, and where existent, by civil society. Each country must report periodically on those conventions they have adopted. Some of the human rights conventions, notably the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), enjoy near-universal ratification, providing one of the strongest globally agreed foundations for a rights-based development agenda beyond 2030.

Since 2008, the Human Rights Council moreover prepares integrated reviews of human rights-related outcomes of its member states’ decisions and policies in the format of Universal Periodic Reviews (UPRs). The review process examines how a country under review adheres to the UN Charter; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the conventions it has ratified, as well as national human rights policies and/or programmes, and applicable international humanitarian law. Three peer governments supplement and assess the report of the country under review, and independent human rights experts and civil society contribute their own assessment. All 193 member states of the United Nations participated in the first 3 rounds of UPRs. This shows their traction

The experience of the CRC reporting process also demonstrates how periodic reviews, independent expertise and civil-society engagement can strengthen implementation and accountability over time.

In our proposed adjusted approach to preparing a development agenda beyond 2030, the set of eleven ILO fundamental labour standards could supplement the human rights conventions, so as to incorporate decent work, living wages, the rights to social protection and to collective organising and bargaining. This would be in the same logic of making use of governments’ binding commitments.

And thirdly, to address the triple planetary crises, one would want to include the UN General Assembly resolution on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, or the Nationally Determined Contributions under the Climate Conference of the Parties, and other mandatory processes to tackle climate change and ecological challenges. While less codified, these agreements too are binding on UN member states.

Prospects of a shifted development agenda logic

The idea of incorporating human rights into a development agenda is not new. It faced some opposition when the SDGs were negotiated in the run-up to 2015. Nevertheless, at the operational level, a human rights monitoring tool, developed by the Danish Human Rights Institute, has been available since 2015, linking most SDG targets to human rights conventions. So, there would be accumulated experience to draw on.

Our hope is that shifting the ‘beyond 2030’ discourse and negotiations from the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, convened under the ECOSOC, to the Human Rights Council (HRC), in combination with the ILO for example, could help create a new dynamic:

• It could be more efficient, because governments could conflate the reviews of their voluntary SDG reports with the mandatory reporting processes.

• It could be more effective, because the HRC and the ILO oblige governments to react to and report on recommendations made at the respective reviews.

• It could be more honest and transparent because of the multiple viewpoints considered – governmental, academic, civil society, and UN.

• It could be more scientific, because part of the reporting on UN conventions is undertaken by specialists familiar with rigorous and independent academic standards.

Granted, it would be more painful, too, for those countries violating their human rights commitments. It would therefore not be easy to even launch this proposal. There may also be resistance from vested interests or established processes against moving “the SDGs” from New York to Geneva – and if climate is included – to Nairobi. And, of course, it could only function if the Human Rights Council, and human rights bodies and labour standards monitoring in each country, are properly and reliably funded.

Despite expected resistance to this idea, we observe a “magic moment”. We see so many vibrant processes on social and economic justice converging just now. Intellectual examples include the comprehensive compendium on Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth: A Global Roadmap for a New Economy, the radical Global Justice Report, the multifaceted volume on policies for an Eco-Social Contract for Sustainable and Just Futures. Politically, the International Panel on Inequality and the Global Coalition for Social Justice, as well as the movement for tax justice carried by Brazil and South Africa, point to a hunger for fundamental change. In UN inter-governmental contexts, we have the Doha Declaration of the World Social Summit committing to a more just, inclusive, equitable and sustainable world. Shifting the development agenda to human rights arenas could therefor fit nicely into a long overdue momentum for global social justice within planetary boundaries.

Gabriele Koehler is a former UN staff member (ESCAP, UNCTAD, UNDP, UNICEF) and currently a senior research fellow with UNRISD and a member of various NGOs and NGO coalitions (Women Engage for a Common Future, Global Social Justice, Alliance for a Treaty on Business & Human Rights). She follows the UN80 and other UN processes, and has been writing, advocating and giving talks and academic lectures on the SDGs since long before their inception.
gabrielekoehler@posteo.de
www.gabrielekoehler.net

Catherine Mbengue is an independent international consultant with more than four decades of experience in development cooperation, humanitarian action and human rights. A former UN Senior Official (UNICEF Representative and Senior Advisor), she currently advises governments, multilateral organisations and civil society and serves on several international boards working on child rights, social justice and institutional reform.
mbenguec@gmail.com

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UNICEF unloads emergency humanitarian supplies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in response to the Ebola outbreak. The shipment includes protective equipment, hygiene kits, medicines, and medical supplies to support frontline health workers and nearly 100,000 people. Credit: UNICEF/Ndomba Mbikayi

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 6 2026 (IPS)

A new assessment from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) warns that the Ebola outbreak could cost Africa USD 3.6 billion, push 985,000 people into poverty, and put 300,000 jobs at risk.

The new analysis shows that the damage extends well beyond just those infected, disproportionately harming vulnerable populations and creating trade disruptions, transport delays, border restrictions, declining consumer confidence, along with interruptions to informal markets.

Currently, the Bundibuygo species of Ebola has no vaccine or treatment, and garners a fatality rate around 50 percent. The Democratic Republic of The Congo (DRC) records 1307 confirmed cases and 377 confirmed deaths as of June 30th, according to the DRC Ministry of Health. Separately the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recorded 20 confirmed cases and 2 confirmed deaths in Uganda, along with 1 confirmed case and no deaths in France.

According to Dr Abdirahman Mahamud, Director of Health Emergency Alert and Response Operations at the World Health Organization, the new virus only took 37 days to reach 250 deaths, while in 2014 and 2016, during the West Africa outbreak, it took 78 days, and in 2016-2019 it took 130 days to reach the same amount of deaths. “This is the largest number of confirmed cases in the first month of an Ebola disease outbreak in Africa,” said Dr. Mahamud.

Ahunna Eziakonwa, UN Assistant-Secretary-General and UNDP Regional Director for Africa says “Ebola does not stop at the hospital gate. It affects livelihoods, education, food security, trade, public finances and trust. If we treat this Ebola outbreak solely as a health challenge, we risk missing the much larger development emergency unfolding around it.”

This indicates that this outbreak could affect much more than just health. Rather it can be a challenge for all forms of livelihood, among disrupting the movement of goods, food, and money: the backbone behind resilience.

“Ebola is more than a health crisis. It touches every aspect of daily life, bringing uncertainty and fear.” Says Ugochi Daniesl, Deputy Director General for Operations at the International Organization for Migration (IOM)

UNICEF notes that children make up 15 percent of confirmed cases, and over 25 percent of deaths, making children almost twice as likely to die compared to adults. UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russel says that “Children are especially vulnerable because they depend on caregivers and cannot distance themselves from a sick parent or sibling in the same way that an adult can,” revealing a stark reality where more than 130 children have lost one or both parents in the Ituri region, the origin of the current outbreak.

While much of the outbreak looks dark, the WHO Director General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus said on June 24th, “With support from the WHO and the Africa CDC, laboratory capacity has increased from 30 tests a day at the central laboratory in Kinshasa to over 2000 tests a day in nine labs across three provinces.”

The Director General also said that more than 100 people have recovered since, noting that early detection and supportive care can help patients survive the disease. He added “But we could save many more lives with therapeutics. And preparations are now complete for a trial of two therapeutics that is expected to start in DRC next week (The Week of June 28th). The trial will evaluate whether two antivirals, MBP134 and remdesivir, can help to reduce mortality in patients with Bundibugyo virus disease, alone or in combination. We thank the United States and Gilead Sciences for donating doses for the trial.”

The WHO Director General affirmed that “With early detection and supportive care, many can survive this disease.”

The clinical trial opened enrollment for Ebola patients in the DRC on July 2. The trial is coordinated by WHO, the Institut National pour la Recherche Biomédicale (INRB) in the DRC, the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Belgium, and the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, in coordination with international research, clinical and humanitarian partners. The trial will be integrated into clinical care, and will allow for additional treatments to be added as they become available.

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Technician repairing control panel. Mickael Ange Konan/pexels.comù Credit: United Nations
 
The United Nations General Assembly’s proclamation of the Fourth Industrial Development Decade for Africa (IDDA IV) is far more than a symbolic milestone.

By Fatou Haidara and Francisca Tatchouop Belobe
VIENNA / ADDIS ABABA, Jul 6 2026 (IPS)

Amid shifting geopolitical, economic, and technological landscapes, it reflects growing international recognition that Africa’s sustainable industrial transformation is vital – not only for the continent’s future, but also for global prosperity.

Backed by more than 140 co-sponsors and endorsed by 176 Member States, as well as the African Union Executive Council, IDDA IV is the most politically anchored Decade yet. This is especially significant at a time when international development cooperation and multilateralism are under strain.

The proclamation underscores that industrialization is crucial to Africa’s productive transformation, economic diversification, decent job creation, poverty reduction, and long-term growth. It also calls on the international community to support Africa’s industrialization efforts as a contribution to the realization of Agenda 2063.

Building on its predecessor, IDDA IV sets an integrated transformation agenda, which aligns Africa’s structural realities to the opportunities and challenges of a rapidly evolving global economy.

The Third Industrial Development Decade elevated Africa’s industrialization on the global political agenda, mobilized over 700 joint initiatives with development partners and financial institutions, and strengthened industrial policy support across African Member States.

These achievements are a strong foundation to build on. Yet significant structural barriers – infrastructure and energy deficits, limited productive capacity, low technology absorption, and insufficient access to finance – still need to be addressed.

Africa enters the Fourth Industrial Development Decade against a backdrop of volatility and change, but also unprecedented opportunities.

Opportunities

Despite recurring global and regional shocks, the continent has remained resilient. The African Development Bank’s 2026 Economic Outlook notes that real GDP growth reached 4.4 per cent in 2025, making Africa among the fastest growing regions of the world.

With nearly 12 million young people entering the labour force each year, Africa’s youthful population is a major driver of its future prosperity.

At the same time, global supply chains are being reconfigured, and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is creating the world’s largest emerging integrated market, opening the door to regional trade integration, value chains and economies of scale.

Digital technologies are reshaping manufacturing systems worldwide, providing Africa with an opportunity to leapfrog traditional industrial pathways. The digital transition is driving innovation in agro-processing and climate-smart agricultural technologies. It is also fueling global demand for critical minerals, which resource-endowed African countries can leverage by building local value addition.

In parallel, Africa’s growing middle class, urbanization and shifting consumer preferences are expanding markets, from processed foods to pharmaceuticals. Continuing regional integration under the AfCFTA is further adding momentum.

The convergence of these trends creates a historic window of opportunity for Africa, which may not return in the same form.

With IDDA IV proclaimed, the mandate is set; the urgent task now is delivery.

The African Union Commission (AUC) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) are committed to steering this process together as the two institutions entrusted by the UN General Assembly to lead the Decade’s implementation.

The immediate priority for the next 18 months is to develop a collaborative Programme of Action. This framework will translate the Decade’s mandate into targeted investments, secure financing platforms, and measurable results across national and regional corridors.

IDDA IV is not standalone. It aligns with major continental frameworks and initiatives, including the AfCFTA, the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA), and the New African Financial Architecture for Development (NAFAD), while convening the different actors needed to advance Africa’s industrialization.

UNIDO, as the UN’s specialized agency for industrial development, brings technical and policy expertise, field presence, and proven operational models to implement IDDA IV on the ground, including through its Programmes for Country Partnership.

The AUC, with its continent wide political mandate and strong coordination capacity, can align trade, infrastructure, finance, and industry to drive delivery.

This effort will be coordinated with the African Union Development Agency – Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA -NEPAD), the Economic Commission for Africa, the African Development Bank Group, Afreximbank, regional economic communities, development partners, and private sector stakeholders.

However, to succeed, IDDA IV needs adequate and sustained financing. It requires building an industrial investment ecosystem and making private sector engagement a core pillar of delivery.

Governments and international organizations can create an enabling environment, coordinate partnerships and support policy reforms. But it is the private sector that builds factories, creates jobs, and links economies to regional and global value chains.

The next phase will therefore focus on mobilizing public and private capital, structuring bankable projects capable of attracting institutional investors, and using blended finance mechanisms to de-risk investments in emerging markets.

IDDA IV is not merely another international decade. It is the opportunity to redefine Africa’s role in the global economy, shifting from raw material exporter to a producer of value-added goods, and a driver of industrial innovation and sustainable growth.

Ms. Fatou Haidara is UNIDO’s Deputy to the Director General and Managing Director of the Directorate of Global Partnerships and External Relations, while Ms. Francisca Tatchouop Belobe is the AUC’s Commissioner for Economic Development, Trade, Tourism, Industry, and Minerals.

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations

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Excerpt:

Credit: Connie France/AFP

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Jul 3 2026 (IPS)

Right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori has won Peru’s presidential runoff, narrowly defeating leftist Roberto Sánchez to become the country’s ninth president in a decade. She inherits a system so engineered for dysfunction that rather than making compromises, she may decide the concentration of power is her only means of survival. The constitution that created this trap was written by her father.

A system built to fail

Keiko, daughter of authoritarian former president Alberto Fujimori, has finally succeeded in her fourth consecutive runoff, having lost in 2011, 2016 and 2021. She won with a margin of roughly a quarter of a percentage point over a candidate who is a close ally of jailed former president Pedro Castillo. Both sides alleged fraud, filed claims and sent their supporters onto the streets.

Peru is often described as a democracy without parties. The party system disintegrated in the 1990s and was never rebuilt. In its place came a sequence of improvised candidacies and personal electoral vehicles that rise and fall with their founders. For the first-round vote on 12 April, the largest ballot paper in Peru’s history listed 35 candidates. Fujimori came first with just 17.19 per cent. Ultimately, most Peruvians didn’t vote for either candidate who made the runoff. A president elected on that basis has a mandate so weak that rivals can dispute it from day one, and they do.

Congressional seats scatter across dozens of parties, none of which dominates. But parties can combine to reach the two-thirds threshold needed to invoke a constitutional clause to impeach and remove a president on the grounds of ‘permanent moral incapacity’, a mechanism Peru’s constitution leaves deliberately vague. The Congress elected in 2021 removed three presidents in one term.

Authoritarian incentives

The constitutional mechanism that enables political instability is the reason Fujimori’s presidency could be dangerous. As she enters office with a razor-thin margin and no congressional majority, she faces an immediate strategic choice. She can seek compromise with her opponents, but this might signal that the threat of impeachment works, inviting it. Or she can move to concentrate power and weaken the institutions that constrain the executive, denying her opponents the tools they could use to remove her.

Everything points towards the second option. Most presidents recently removed by Congress were, at the time of their removal, attempting to govern within the rules, and the rules were weaponised against them. Pedro Castillo tried a different approach, dissolving Congress pre-emptively to forestall his impeachment. He was immediately arrested and removed. A politician who has watched this dynamic consume eight predecessors might conclude that the only way to survive is to change the game.

Keiko’s father ruled Peru from 1990 to 2000 as an elected president who progressively dismantled the institutions that constrained him. Two years into his first term, citing the simultaneous crises of hyperinflation and insurgency, he dissolved Congress and suspended the constitution. The emergency was real, but it was also an opportunity. Fujimori rewrote the constitution to entrench executive power, won re-election in 1995 and then won a fraud-tainted third term before being forced from office within months. His government became synonymous with grand corruption and human rights atrocities, including the forced sterilisation of over 272,000 mostly Indigenous women. After he was forced out in 2000, he was convicted of homicide and kidnapping, and imprisoned.

The constitution Alberto Fujimori wrote to entrench his power is still in force. The moral incapacity clause that the 1993 constitution retained – useful to Fujimori when he controlled Congress – has become the primary weapon congressional majorities have used to remove president after president. The most significant recent constitutional change, the reinstatement of a two-chamber Congress, may end up increasing congressional power. This is the system Keiko now has to deal with.

The costs of dysfunction

Peru’s dysfunction has long been sustained by a comforting fiction: that while politics is chaotic, the economy runs itself. Macro fundamentals have remained relatively stable. Inflation in 2025 ran at around 1.5 per cent, and the economy grew 3.4 per cent in 2024. But economic growth has roughly halved over a decade of turmoil. Poverty, at 27.6 per cent in 2024, remains above pre-pandemic levels. Homicides stand at 10.7 per 100,000 people, alongside an epidemic of extortion.

Freedoms are deteriorating and those who protest pay the highest price. In 2025, attempts to change the pension system triggered Gen Z-led protests that quickly expressed broader anger at corruption, insecurity and political dysfunction. Security forces responded with violence. In December 2024, the CIVICUS Monitor, which tracks civic space conditions globally, downgraded Peru to repressed status, its second-worst rating, citing years of escalating state violence and the systematic harassment of human rights defenders and journalists, who political figures routinely smear as terrorists and traitors.

In March 2025, Congress passed a law giving the Peruvian Agency for International Cooperation extensive powers to control, censor and persecute civil society organisations that receive foreign funding, threatening fines of up to US$720,000 and criminalising any use of foreign funds to support legal action against the Peruvian state. It is, in effect, a law against accountability.

Danger ahead

Keiko Fujimori ran a law-and-order campaign under the slogan ‘Fujimori returns, order returns’, casting the fight against organised crime as a sequel to her father’s 1990s war against insurgency and promising mass deployments of police and military forces. Her party championed a 2025 amnesty law shielding security forces and civilian armed groups from prosecution for disappearances, killings and torture during that conflict, in direct defiance of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Keiko has been evasive about her father’s atrocities and has recast human rights as a matter of access to basic services rather than accountability for past abuses. Her record offers no grounds for optimism about civic space or democratic norms.

Keiko’s father justified breaking the rules that constrained him by pointing to insurgency and economic collapse. Keiko faces no insurgency and no hyperinflation, so if she moves to concentrate power, she will have to find her own justification, perhaps in a crime wave, a security emergency or a conspiracy of her enemies. The Fujimorist playbook could come back with a vengeance.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Head of Research and Analysis, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report. She is also a Professor of Comparative Politics at Universidad ORT Uruguay.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

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UN Secretary-General António Guterres (left) and Volker Türk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (right). They have called for the universal abolition of the death penalty. Credit: UN Photo/Violaine Martin

By Shuli Wong
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 3 2026 (IPS)

While the movement for the universal abolition of the death penalty advances, this progress “cannot be taken for granted,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres as he greeted the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty.

In his video message, Mr. Guterres said, “the death penalty does not deliver justice. It is an inhumane form of punishment. It puts innocent lives at risk. And it has no place in the 21st century.” Worldwide, the push for abolition has gained momentum, with the Secretary-General reaffirming the UN’s full commitment to universal abolition “firmly and without exception.”

The 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty, taking place in Paris between June 30th and July 2, 2026, convenes governments, UN officials, legal professionals, journalists, and activists to discuss concrete steps to reform and ultimately abolish the death penalty. The Congress is organised by ECPM (Together Against the Death Penalty), a leading French NGO that began campaigning for universal abolition in 2000 and has organised all 9 World Congresses Against the Death Penalty. The Congress is sponsored by France, and the European Union and Switzerland are co-sponsors.

At the opening of the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty, the UN Human Rights Commissioner, Volker Türk, further underscored the UN’s staunch position on universal abolition. In his opening remarks, Volker Türk urged “all States, everywhere, to join the overwhelming, and principled, global consensus that use of the death penalty must end, everywhere, for all offenses.”

France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, mirrored Mr. Türk’s remarks, speaking at the Congress to the fact that “the death penalty has never made a society safer.”

“Never, because it does not act as a deterrent. It’s crazy. It has been demonstrated, observed and measured. The death penalty has never had the deterrent effect that certain, often authoritarian, authorities who defend it would like to attribute to it,” said Macron.

Prior to the start of the Congress, the European Union (EU) put forth a statement to the UN Human Rights Council on June 18, highlighting how capital punishment is a discriminatory practice that violates the inalienable right to life. The statement stressed how the death penalty is incompatible with human dignity and called for a moratorium by states as the first step towards abolition.

The EU Statement reiterates the key points from a May 21st statement from 41 Members of the Inter-Regional Task Force on the Moratorium on the use of the Death Penalty. While more than two-thirds of UN member states have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice, there has been a recent and significant increase in executions among the few retentionist states. The signatories of the statement emphasized how the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty represents an immense opportunity to reaffirm the global commitment to universal abolition.

Within the retentionist states, recent data from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) highlights an alarming spike in capital punishment. These increases were due to executions for drug-related violations for crimes that people committed as children and offences that did not meet the ‘most serious crimes’ criteria. Examples of actions by retentionist states include Iran, with over 1,500 individuals executed in 2025, 47 percent of which related to drug offences. Israel, which has set forth a series of legislative proposals introducing mandatory capital punishment provisions that would apply only to Palestinians. Other countries, including the United States, Somalia and Singapore, have also seen increases in executions.

While these numbers are startling, there has been immense progress towards abolition. 170 countries have either abolished or introduced a moratorium on the death penalty in law and/or in practice. Some states that have not yet fully abolished the death penalty but have taken encouraging steps to limit capital punishment include Vietnam, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Malaysia, and Kyrgyzstan.

These trends confirm that abolition is a core testament of the international community’s commitment to human rights and upholding international law. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which has been ratified by 175 states, guarantees the “inherent right to life” and that the death penalty may “be imposed only for the most serious crimes in accordance with the law” for the countries that have not yet abolished it. The 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty presents an opportunity to take concrete steps towards the path of abolition, with the full support of the UN and Secretary-General António Guterres behind the Congress.

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Reef fish and corals. Credit: UNDP

By James Alix Michel
VICTORIA, Seychelles, Jul 3 2026 (IPS)

In just the first half of this year, Abu Dhabi’s Environment Agency has cultivated 302,415 new coral colonies, bringing the total under the Abu Dhabi Coral Gardens Project to around 1.8 million – a scale of restoration that demands global attention.

Abu Dhabi’s coral project is more than a good news story – it is a glimpse of the future we urgently need.

For decades, I have argued that ocean protection, climate stability and human prosperity are inseparable. I have seen what happens when we ignore this truth: coral reefs bleaching, fisheries collapsing, coastlines exposed, communities losing both livelihoods and hope. That is why what Abu Dhabi is doing today with its coral restoration work speaks directly to my convictions about ocean health, climate resilience and the regenerative blue economy.

This is not a symbolic gesture. Through the Abu Dhabi Coral Gardens Project, the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (EAD) is building one of the largest coral reef restoration initiatives in the Middle East. Scientists cultivate fragments of heat resilient corals in nurseries, then carefully transplant them onto degraded reefs and artificial structures across the emirate’s coastal and offshore waters. Colony by colony, reef by reef, damaged seabeds are being transformed into living “coral gardens” capable of supporting fish, restoring biodiversity and strengthening coastal protection.

Coral as an investment, not a charity case

When a government decides to cultivate millions of coral colonies and restore vast areas of degraded reef, it is making a strategic economic choice, not simply ticking an environmental box. Coral reefs are infrastructure – natural infrastructure. They protect coasts from storms and erosion, underpin tourism and recreation, support fisheries, and safeguard cultures that have lived with and from the sea for generations.

President James Michel with His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan

Abu Dhabi’s decision to expand coral restoration at scale shows a clear understanding: it is cheaper and wiser to invest in living systems now than to pay later for disaster response, coastal damage and social instability.

This is the kind of thinking I have long argued for – treating the ocean not as a dumping ground, but as the foundation of long term resilience and prosperity.

A city of the future

What impresses me most is that coral restoration in Abu Dhabi is not happening in isolation. It sits alongside major investments in renewable energy, digital infrastructure and urban greening. Abu Dhabi is using its fossil fuel wealth to prepare for a post oil future – and that is no small shift.

Across the emirate, we see large scale solar projects harnessing the desert sun, new low carbon infrastructure, and modern digital networks designed for a smarter, cleaner economy. We see mangrove forests being expanded along the coast, seagrass meadows protected, and the city itself being “greened” to make it more liveable as temperatures rise. Abu Dhabi is becoming a prototype of the “city of the future”: one that understands that climate resilience, nature restoration and clean technology are central to development, not optional add ons.

Too many wealthy states still pour money into wars, arms and short term political games, even as their people face heatwaves, floods and collapsing ecosystems. Abu Dhabi may have its shortcomings – all countries have – but it has a vision and is putting serious capital into the pillars of a different future: clean energy, climate resilience, nature based solutions and large scale coral and mangrove restoration. For a resource rich economy, this is a profound shift in mindset.

This is what I mean by a regenerative blue economy: one that restores nature as it develops, rather than consuming it to exhaustion.

Corals on the frontline of climate change

Let us be clear: coral reefs are on the frontline of climate breakdown. In my own region, the Indian Ocean, we have watched reefs bleach and die as waters warm. The Gulf has suffered the same fate. When a place like Abu Dhabi deliberately farms corals that can better withstand heat, it is not clinging to the past – it is trying to give the future a fighting chance.

Instead of simply lamenting the loss of reefs, Abu Dhabi is experimenting, innovating and acting. It is accepting that the climate is already changing, and that we must adapt with intelligence rather than despair.

By focusing on more heat tolerant coral colonies, the project is quietly advancing a new frontier of climate adaptation: learning how to work with nature’s own resilience, rather than against it. If successful, lessons from the Abu Dhabi Coral Gardens could inform restoration efforts in many other warming seas.

Mangroves, greening and clean infrastructure

Coral nurseries alone are not enough, and Abu Dhabi knows this. The drive to expand mangrove forests, protect seagrass and green the city is part of the same story: recognising that nature is our strongest ally in storing carbon, calming storms and cooling our cities.

Alongside nature based solutions, the emirate is directing significant investment into clean infrastructure: solar farms, energy efficient grids, and other low carbon projects that will gradually reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

Importantly, some of this effort is outward looking, supporting clean energy initiatives in vulnerable countries, including small island states such as Seychelles. When a wealthy state backs solar panels, wind turbines and resilient infrastructure in nations on the frontlines of climate change, it does more than tick a development box – it helps anchor a fairer, more stable world.

I have long argued that a healthy ocean is our first line of defence against climate change.

When you connect coral restoration, mangrove expansion and renewable energy under one vision, you start to see what real climate leadership looks like. It is not just about speeches at summits; it is about decisions on land use, budgets, technology and national priorities. It is about accepting that the only truly secure societies in the twenty first century will be those that learn to live within planetary boundaries.

A message to wealthy nations

This is where my opinion becomes blunt.

If you are a wealthy country today and you are not using your resources to restore ecosystems, decarbonise your economy and support those most vulnerable to climate impacts, then you are failing your citizens and the world. It is that simple.

Abu Dhabi shows that another path is possible. You can be an energy producer and still invest heavily in renewables. You can be a global city and still prioritise mangroves and coral reefs. You can be rich and choose to fund regeneration rather than destruction.

So when I look at this coral project, I see more than a local environmental initiative. I see a challenge to the complacency of other rich nations that prefer to invest in weapons and fossil infrastructure rather than in the living systems that sustain us all. It exposes a stark moral choice: spend on the machinery of war and planetary destabilisation, or spend on the stability and dignity that come from a thriving natural world.

Why this matters to me

As someone who has spent much of his life fighting for ocean protection, I cannot simply observe this from a distance. I feel a deep sense of responsibility – and, frankly, urgency. We are fast approaching the limits of what the ocean can absorb. We are already seeing climate impacts that once belonged to scientific warnings, not daily news.

Yet Abu Dhabi’s coral work gives me a measure of hope. It confirms that when visionary leadership, political will, financial capacity and scientific knowledge align, we can still repair, restore and reimagine our relationship with the ocean. It shows that a city built on hydrocarbons can choose to become a champion of coral, mangroves and clean energy instead of doubling down on the old model.

My vision has always been that countries, especially those with resources, should use their wealth to heal rather than harm: to farm corals instead of conflict, to grow mangroves instead of militaries, to build renewable capacity instead of new fossil dependencies.

Abu Dhabi is working towards the embodiment of that vision and it deserves recognition.

If more wealthy states chose this path, the global story on climate and ocean health would look very different – and future generations might say that, when it truly mattered, some leaders chose to use their power and their wealth to restore the ocean that makes life on Earth possible.

James Alix Michel, former President of Seychelles and Founder, James Michel Foundation

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By Shihana Mohamed
NEW YORK, Jul 3 2026 (IPS)

At the Annual General Meeting of the United Nations Asia Network for Diversity and Inclusion (www.UN-ANDI.org) on 21 May 2026, I was invited to share my reflections on both the pre and post separation phases of my UN journey. This provided me with a valuable opportunity to critically examine my decision to leave the UN service after many years at the ICSC.

I recently closed one of the most defining chapters of my professional life, after more than 25 years serving the United Nations (UN) —including two decades at the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC). Importantly, my decision was made entirely on personal and professional grounds, independent of any budgetary or post-related considerations. As a jointly funded UN body, the ICSC is not affected by budget cuts or post reductions.

Why I Decided to Leave Early
My decision to leave under the UN’s Early Separation Programme was guided by reflection, self-respect, and a desire to preserve the enthusiasm and integrity that have always defined my work.

Leaving before the normal retirement age was not an impulsive choice—it was a deliberate act of self-preservation. Over time, I found that the institutional culture I had once admired had begun to erode the very principles it was meant to uphold. The UN’s mission remains noble, but its internal systems often fail to reflect that nobility.

My decision was shaped by several factors:

• Health and wellbeing: The relentless pace and stress of bureaucratic politics and petty backbiting were taking a toll. I wanted to reclaim balance and joy.
• Self-respect and dignity: When merit is overshadowed by favoritism, and integrity is compromised by internal politics, staying becomes a form of silent complicity.
• Desire to serve differently: I wanted to continue contributing to global governance—but from a space of independence, integrity, authenticity, and creativity.

Lessons Learned Before Leaving the UN
Before separation, I faced the same fears many colleagues quietly harbor: visa uncertainty, financial stability, and the daunting question of identity beyond the UN badge. The organization offers structure and prestige, but it can also create dependency. I learned that preparation—both practical and emotional—is essential.

• Plan early and thoroughly: Understand your entitlements, pension, and visa implications.
• Prioritize health and dignity: No professional title is worth sacrificing well-being.
• Seek clarity, not comfort: Reflect deeply on what you want to preserve and what you need to change.
• Build bridges before you leave: Relationships grounded in respect and trust endure beyond institutions.

Lessons After Leaving the UN
The months following my departure were both disorienting and illuminating. Freed from the constraints of bureaucracy, I rediscovered creativity, autonomy, and a renewed sense of purpose. I learned to shape my own rhythm, engage with global issues from a more independent perspective, and reawakened the joy of contributing without the shadow of ineffective bureaucracy.

• Structure your days: Routine restores stability and purpose.
• Embrace uncertainty: It is the space where reinvention begins.
• Stay connected: Continue engaging with colleagues and networks that share your values.
• Reclaim your voice: Independence allows you to speak truth without institutional filters.

Transforming the UN’s Culture
Overall, my time with the UN was a meaningful chapter in my life, offering a firsthand view of the power and potential of global governance and multilateralism in action. I continue to believe deeply in the ideals of the UN Charter—principles that remain both necessary and inspirational in an increasingly interconnected world.

At the same time, honest reflection requires acknowledging the institution’s shortcomings. While the mission of the UN is noble, the work itself is not inherently complex; too often, it is made unnecessarily difficult by people, entrenched cultures, bureaucratic practices, and systems that prioritize connections over competence. Environments that tolerate inequity and erode dignity rather than uphold it continue to undermine the organization’s credibility and effectiveness.

Ideals alone cannot sustain trust. When recruitment and promotion are shaped by back channels rather than merit, when accountability is applied selectively, and when organizational culture enables toxicity instead of transparency, the institution risks losing its moral authority. These are systemic challenges that demand introspection, accountability, and meaningful reform.

This was one reality of my journey, and I know I am not alone in recognizing it. These challenges tested me, but they also strengthened me—sharpening my sense of purpose, reinforcing the importance of competence, fairness, and integrity, and reminding me that institutions are judged not only by their ideals, but by the values they practice every day.

If the UN is to remain credible and effective in the decades ahead, it must confront its internal contradictions with honesty and urgency. Reform must go beyond structures and policies—it must also transform culture. Its strength lies in its people, and its future depends on creating an environment where they can thrive.

Key priorities include:

• Reinforce meritocracy: Recruitment and promotion must be based on competence and educational credentials, not connections. Transparent criteria and external oversight can help restore fairness.
• Empower accountability: Managers should be evaluated not only on outputs but also on conduct, how they treat staff, foster inclusion, and uphold dignity, as well as on the ethical stewardship of public funds and resources.
• Diversify leadership: Representation from all regions must be substantive, not symbolic. Talented and committed staff from developing countries deserve equal access to leadership pathways.
• Model integrity from the top: Ethical leadership must be visible, consistent, and enforced. Leaders should also meet clear minimum standards, including relevant educational credentials and demonstrated competence.
• Cultivate psychological safety: Encourage open dialogue, dissent, and innovation without fear of retaliation.

Practical Tips for Others Considering Separation
For those contemplating a similar transition, my advice is simple but vital:

• Prepare practically and emotionally: Plan your finances, entitlements, and visa matters early, while also preparing for the emotional shift of leaving a structured system. Practical readiness and emotional resilience go hand in hand.
• Develop skills beyond the UN system: The UN ecosystem is unique, and its experience does not always translate directly elsewhere. Build adaptability through new learning, volunteering, or personal pursuits that foster creativity, patience, and perspective.
• Expand your external network: Engage with academia, civil society, philanthropy, the private sector, and local community. Relationships beyond the UN can open doors to new opportunities and collaborations.
• Define your next purpose early: Clarify what motivates you and how you want to contribute next. A clear sense of direction brings meaning and stability during transition.
• Protect your integrity: Leave with professionalism, gratitude, grace, and honesty. How you exit shapes your legacy just as much as how you served the UN. Carry your professionalism and values into your next chapter.
• Transform experience into impact: Use what you learned to create something meaningful. Reinvention is not an ending—it is evolution.

Global service beyond the United Nations
Leaving the UN was both an ending and a beginning. It gave me the opportunity to step outside the system and rethink what global service could be—more inclusive, representative, and accountable. That vision led to the founding of Asia Global Forum, a nonprofit organization committed to addressing imbalances in global governance and ensuring that Asia’s diversity and perspectives are recognized as central to global progress—from governance and economic development to cultural dialogue—while strengthening collaboration with other regional communities.

I leave the UN with appreciation for what was good, respect for those who serve with integrity, and lessons from more difficult moments. At the same time, I leave with the conviction that meaningful transformation often begins outside established systems. Asia Global Forum is my way of continuing that service—building a movement that places representation, merit, and accountability at the center of a fairer global order.

Purpose does not end with an institution—it evolves beyond it.

Shihana Mohamed, a Sri Lankan national, is President of Asia Global Network (www.AsiaGlobalForum.org) and a US Public Voices Fellow with The OpEd Project and Equality Now on advancing the rights of women and girls. She is also a founding member and Coordinator of the United Nations Asia Network for Diversity and Inclusion (www.UN-ANDI.org). A dedicated human rights activist, she is a strong advocate for gender equality and the advancement of women. She served the United Nations for over 25 years.

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U.S. and Israeli army officers talk in front a US Patriot missile defense system. Credit: Jack Guez/Getty Images Source: Council on Foreign Relations

By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, Jul 3 2026 (IPS)

For a generation, no foreign leader bet more heavily on a single American president than Benjamin Netanyahu bet on Donald Trump. Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, tore up the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran, recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and in February 2026 joined Israel in the opening strikes of a war against Iran that Netanyahu had spent three decades urging Washington to wage.

The partnership looked unbreakable. It was, in fact, conditional—and the condition was that their interests never diverge. In June 2026 they diverged completely, and the rupture has exposed a truth Netanyahu has spent his career denying: when Israeli security and the prime minister’s political survival point in opposite directions, he chooses himself.

The break came over a single document. On June 17, Trump signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Iran—the Islamabad Memorandum, brokered by Pakistan—formally ending the war he had pushed to start. The 14-point framework in the memorandum declares a permanent halt to hostilities on all fronts, including Lebanon, reopens the Strait of Hormuz, lifts the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports, and waives sanctions on Iran’s oil exports. It also commits the United States and regional partners to assemble a $300 billion reconstruction fund and to negotiate the gradual release of Iran’s frozen assets worldwide.

What it does not do is what Israel went to war to achieve. The framework deferred the negotiation over Iran’s nuclear program to a later date, and it says nothing about Iran’s ballistic missiles or its regional proxies. Essentially, Trump wanted a short war that would compel Iran to come to the negotiating table. Netanyahu, on the other hand, wanted Iran permanently broken as a regional power. Those two visions could coexist while the fighting continued, but could not survive peace.

Thus, Netanyahu set out to wreck it. Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich branded the agreement bad for Israel and for the free world. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir declared that Trump’s deal “does not bind us” and that Israel “is not subject to the United States.” And Israeli jets kept hitting Lebanon. On June 14, with the signing supposedly hours away, Israel struck Beirut. Trump erupted publicly, then telephoned Netanyahu.

The call was not diplomatic. In a telephone call by Trump to Netanyahu, he said, ”Bibi, you better be careful, or you will be on your own very soon.” In a subsequent call with Netanyahu, there was an even angrier exchange: Trump called the Israeli leader “crazy,” accused him of ingratitude, and—according to US officials briefed on the call—reminded him bluntly: “You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me.”

That last line is the key to everything. Netanyahu has one political lifeline left: the war. As long as Israel is fighting, there will be no elections; as long as there are no elections, he stays in office, and as long as he stays in office, he can postpone the corruption trials, waiting for the moment he loses power. For Netanyahu, peace is not merely inconvenient—it is politically existential.

The US intelligence community reportedly warned the White House that Netanyahu was actively working to blow up Trump’s Iran deal, and analysts said plainly that Trump would have to play the middle man against his own ally. The man who lobbied for the war had become the chief obstacle to the peace.

Then came the moment the world was meant to absorb. On June 18, Vice President JD Vance stood at a White House podium and delivered a rebuke unlike any an American administration has aimed at Israel in living memory. “Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time,” he said. “If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally I have left.”

Then the reminder that doubled as a threat: “Over the last three months, two-thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected your homeland have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars.” Anyone in Israel who thinks their problem is Trump, Vance added, needs to “wake up and smell the reality.” He was basically warning Israel and reminding it who arms its skies to protect the peace deal with Iran.

The warning has not been heeded, and the cost is mounting. The first round of US-Iran technical talks was set for Switzerland’s Birkenstock resort on June 19. The night before, Israeli airstrikes across southern Lebanon killed 47 people, by the Lebanese health ministry’s count, and wounded scores more. Iran demanded a guarantee that the fighting would stop before it would sit down. Vance canceled his trip; the talks collapsed.

On June 20, Iran announced it was closing the Strait of Hormuz again, citing Israel’s strikes as a violation of the agreement. Vance worked to salvage the deal; Smotrich went public: Israel will stay in southern Lebanon “for as many years as necessary,” until Hezbollah disarms, and will not withdraw—adding that the prime minister agrees. It was a statement engineered to sabotage a peace Israel’s closest patron was risking its credibility to build.

This is the heart of the matter, and it is the part Netanyahu, Smotrich, and Ben Gvir refuse to grasp: Israel is almost wholly dependent on the United States—financially, militarily, and diplomatically. Washington is the shield that absorbs global outrage, vetoes resolutions, and replenishes arsenals. Openly defying a deal Trump personally signed is not bold statecraft. It is a slap in the face of the one ally Israel cannot afford to lose, delivered by a government that has confused its own survival with the nation’s.

The damage will outlast this episode. America’s interest now is a stable region, open shipping lanes, and a managed diplomacy with Iran rather than perpetual war. Netanyahu’s interest is the war itself. Those are not tactical differences to be smoothed over; they are structurally opposed, and they will keep colliding for as long as Netanyahu is in power.

The relationship that defined Israeli security for decades has been quietly inverted—the enemy has become the deal partner, and the indispensable ally has become the liability. It will not be repaired by reassurances or photo opportunities. It will be repaired only when Israel has a leader whose political life does not depend on keeping the country at war.

Until then, the rupture is not a crisis to be weathered. It is the new baseline. Netanyahu’s arrogance (chutzpah) will finally come back to haunt him.

Dr Alon Ben-Meir is President of the Institute for Humanitarian Conflict Resolution

IPS UN Bureau

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CIVICUS discusses Mexico’s enforced disappearance crisis with Angélica Orozco, a member of Fuerzas Unidas por Nuestros Desaparecidos en Nuevo León (FUNDENL), a collective of relatives of disappeared people and people who support them. Since 2012, FUNDENL has been searching for the disappeared and documenting the human rights crisis.

Angélica Orozco

What are your demands?

There are over 133,000 people missing in Mexico. To put this into perspective, the disappeared would fill the stadium where four World Cup matches are being played in Monterrey almost two and a half times over. You could put together over 5,100 football teams, and it would take 107 World Cups to see them all play. The UN warns that only about two in 10 of these crimes are reported, so the actual figure could be much higher.

We have been searching by every means possible for nearly 15 years, with almost no support, using our own resources. We have written books, occupied public squares, organised protests and taken part in conferences. The World Cup is yet another opportunity to raise global awareness of the humanitarian crisis caused by enforced disappearances. As the world’s attention is now focused on Canada, Mexico and the USA, we want everyone to know about our struggle.

We are not against football. We are simply asking that the authorities search for our loved ones, bring them home and ensure that no one else is disappeared. For this to happen, prevention is key. When FUNDENL detects recurring cases in an area, we issue alerts to the public. It’s a simple step that the authorities, who have first-hand information, should be taking but are not. They should also enforce the laws and protocols we already have, thanks to the struggle of families and campaign groups. The law mandates a national register of missing persons, but the existing one is incomplete, with misspelt names and duplicate entries. The law also requires search and investigation plans to be drawn up, yet these do not exist.

We simply want the government to do its job. Instead, it’s investing millions in the World Cup to give the impression that everything is fine, while the search for the disappeared continues to receive neither the attention nor the necessary resources. It should work to find the disappeared with the same dedication it has put into organising this tournament.

To this end, we are holding various protests in the host cities. We have translated our slogan, ‘Where are they?’, into 10 languages: the eight languages of the countries visiting Monterrey, plus English and Chinese. Using AI, we have dressed 21 missing people in the Mexican national team’s shirt and called them ‘Mexico’s national team’, because that’s the team the authorities don’t want to see. We’ve also played street football matches in solidarity and put up over 150 photographs of missing people outside the stadium in Monterrey.

How have authorities responded?

The response has been deplorable. Instead of addressing our demands, the state criminalises and stigmatises victims. In Mexico City, there was a heavy police presence to contain the marches. The Secretary of the Interior cast doubt on the funding for the families’ journey from Jalisco to the capital and announced she would investigate the source of the funds. It was an absurd insinuation. We have always organised ourselves using our own resources, precisely because the state has never supported us.

President Claudia Sheinbaum also played down the significance of the protests. She even went so far as to say, amidst laughter, that there were more staff from the search commissions and victim support services than protesters. For us, it’s not about numbers, but about our 133,000 loved ones who are no longer with us. These are people with families, homes and lives that were snatched away from them.

We’d hoped that this government, which prided itself on being progressive, would be different. It wasn’t to be. The first sign was clear. In her inaugural speech, President Sheinbaum made no mention of the disappeared or their families. She’s said so herself: what’s not named doesn’t exist. She’s never met with the families. Like previous governments, it seems she prefers to ignore this humanitarian crisis.

The determination to conceal this reality is evident. Here in Nuevo León, the governor put up tarpaulins in poor neighbourhoods to hide the poverty. He placed giant planters in front of the Square of the Disappeared, which we occupied in 2014, so the faces of our loved ones couldn’t be seen from the street. We protested and stuck their photographs on the planters, and the next day we got the government to remove them.

On that square, we had written a sign on the pavement that read ‘130,000 disappeared’. Against the backdrop of the World Cup, we went back to refresh the paint and update the figure to include a further 3,000 who have gone missing since. The effect was immediate. Some people from Sweden who were visiting the city came over to ask us for more information.

What makes these enforced disappearances?

For a disappearance to be considered enforced, there must be state involvement, whether direct or indirect. And such involvement exists, even if Sheinbaum wishes to deny it.

There isn’t always a video proving it was a public official who took a person away, but there are omissions that prove it. An official who fails to request call records in time, for example, becomes an accomplice, because that information is key to the search, but it’s only kept for two years, and if it isn’t requested before the deadline, it’s lost forever.

In many cases, there’s direct involvement. There have been instances where men wearing municipal police vests have taken people away and cases where traffic police intervened in a road accident and the people involved subsequently disappeared. The constant is that the evidence implicating them always vanishes.

Added to this is the state’s refusal to acknowledge the crisis. It’s like with illnesses. If you don’t recognise you have one, you can’t cure it. That also makes them responsible.

We are not the only ones saying this. The UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances has recognised the gravity of the situation and referred the case to the General Assembly.

Who are the victims and who is responsible?

Anyone can be made to disappear, in everyday circumstances. Some people have disappeared on their way home, or while popping out for a soft drink, or following a road accident.

Nuevo León is the state with the fifth-highest number of missing persons in Mexico, with over 7,000. Between January and May this year, a further 433 people went missing – an average of three a day – and around 70 per cent have still not been found.

If we are disappeared, it’s because the conditions for this to happen exist. The main one is impunity. Out of over 133,000 missing people, only 3,869 have an investigation file open, according to government figures. That’s almost absolute impunity.

Nor are there any consequences for officials who fail to investigate. They are simply moved to a different post. The official who currently heads the Local Search Commission spent three decades in the public prosecutor’s office and is repeating the same practices in her new role. The current mayor of Monterrey was the state attorney-general during the most violent years. Instead of being punished for their failure to act, they appear to have been rewarded. The same applies to criminals. We have come across people responsible for crimes in 2010 and 2011 who are still at large and committing the same crimes years later.

As the state fails to take responsibility, we have taken it upon ourselves to search for our missing loved ones, and what we have found is appalling. In Nuevo León, we have reported the existence of 10 extermination camps. In one of them, Las Abejas, we found over 250,000 fragments of human remains and more than 100 DNA profiles. This means 100 people haven’t returned home. There are also over 3,000 unidentified bodies and remains in mass graves in Nuevo León and over 70,000 across Mexico. Figures like these cannot be reached without a system set up to make people disappear with the complicity of the authorities.

What are you asking of the international community?

We ask our international visitors to turn their attention to this crisis, learn about our missing loved ones, show solidarity and help us search for them, because we don’t know whether any of them have been taken out of the country. We also ask them to take this demand to their governments, so they can add to the pressure on the Mexican authorities.

Pressure matters. That’s why we welcome the decision of the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances. When it was made public, the Mexican state rejected it and treated it as an attack, rather than engaging with it.

Enforced disappearance is a crime against humanity. When someone is disappeared, they are torn away from their family and their entire community. That’s why we appeal to humanity: no person, anywhere in the world, should be made to disappear. As long as disappearances continue, we will not live in complete peace or democracy.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

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The demand for critical energy transition materials such as copper, lithium and cobalt is on the rise due to the expansion of clean energy technologies. Credit: Unsplash/Lj. Filipović

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 2 2026 (IPS)

Demand for critical energy transition minerals (CETMs) is expected to surge over the coming decades as countries expand clean technology capacity, develop electric vehicles, create battery storage, implement renewable energy systems, and introduce digital infrastructure according to UNCTADs latest report, The Shifting Dynamics of Critical Minerals Trade.

CETMs include lithium, nickel, cobalt, and rare earth elements, making them vital to producing low carbon clean energy alternatives and renewable technologies used for electricity production and battery storage. These elements are also commonly found within datacenters, semiconductors, consumer electronics, and any field requiring digitalization.

According to the report, demand for lithium is projected to increase by 353 percent by 2040, followed by graphite (131 percent), nickel (69 percent), magnet rare earths (65 percent), cobalt (49 percent), and copper (28 percent).

Naturally this surge in CETM demand also has changed the composition of where CETMs are being used, with clean technologies absorbing a growing share in the industry of CETMs.

Share of Critical Mineral Demand for Clean Technologies. Credit: Maximilian Malawista / IPS

Although these CETMs are experiencing a surge in demand, from mining to processing or refining, the entire value chain is geographically concentrated between a few countries, dominating the entire global output. This same pattern also follows for reserves of key minerals, such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and rare earth elements which are unevenly distributed among a few states.

According to UNCTAD, China accounts for 69 percent of rare earth element production, and produces 78 percent of natural graphite capacity. Indonesia accounts for 67 percent of global nickel production, while the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) accounts for 50 percent of global cobalt reserves and 47 percent of global cobalt mine production.

“Reserves” refer to mineral deposits which can be economically extracted using available technology, differing from total geological resources, which include deposits not yet commercially viable or known. Due to the situation of current reserves and mining output, only a few nations produce the majority of the capacity of critical minerals. The concentration of production and reserves leaves global supply chains highly vulnerable to geopolitical disruptions, and trade restrictions, among other shocks.

Represented is how much of the global reserves/mining output of CETMs is within just the top three countries. Credit: Maximilian Malawista / IPS

Notably, mining output is slightly more concentrated than reserves for every mineral shown, indicating that mining production is controlled by an even smaller group of countries than the resource base itself.

This means that an overwhelming amount of these materials needed for some of the most critical functions for today and for our future rely on three countries for the entire global trade to function.

UNCTAD states: “Mining is capital-intensive and characterized by long lead times, limiting short-term supply responsiveness and leaving concentrated supply chains exposed to geopolitical risks, governance challenges, and environmental and social pressures.”

While the mining process receives much of the attention, UNCTAD argues in their report that refining represents an even larger vulnerability due to processing capacity being concentrated within a even smaller number of countries.

Refining and other downstream stages are even more concentrated” than that of mining, “creating critical bottlenecks in CETM supply chains,” An UNCTAD spokesperson told Inter Press Service. “A country may possess abundant mineral reserves yet remain dependent on a small number of foreign suppliers for refining, separation, precursor materials or advanced components.” They added explaining how there are “technical know-how, industrial capabilities, infrastructure and market power”, which means that “access to mineral resources alone does not necessarily translate into secure access to supply.”

UNCTAD also highlights that the concentration is also within only a few firms, in “several critical mineral markets” where a relatively small number of companies control “significant shares of mining, processing, trading, refining and technology.”

The issue as UNCTAD points out is that refining requires substantial long-term capital investment, access to advanced technologies, significant energy inputs, and specialized infrastructure, along with being an economy of scale to be cost competitive, which creates massive barriers to entry for new players.

Because global supply is concentrated, naturally international trade is the primary mechanism through which these minerals move between countries. The UNCTAD spokesperson remarked that “Cross-border trade in ores, concentrates, refined materials, and downstream components enables access to geographically dispersed stages of production across complex global value chains, particularly in high-technology sectors.”

What this means is that most countries depend on imports of CETMs at some point of their value chain for their manufacturing or developmental needs.

While diversification of processes would be necessary to alleviate risk associated with CETMs, since 2020 restrictive export measures on CETMs have been on the rise.

Mineral-rich economies like China, Indonesia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are seeking to capture higher value stages of production, rather than just exporting raw materials alone. Restrictive export measures are increasingly being introduced to capture more of the downstream value, encouraging domestic refining, industrial development, and manufacturing, rather than solely relying on commodity exports.

Of these measures, licensing requirements, export taxes, and exports bans make the most common measures.

Since 2020, 37 licensing requirements, 31 export tax measures, 29 export bans, and 1 export quota have been recorded. 18 of these export measures were implemented by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with China introducing 16 followed by Indonesia at 12. Other countries such as Burundi and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela have introduced 8 measures each, while Zimbabwe has 7.

While at the moment supply chains are extremely concentrated and are becoming even further concentrated creating higher risk for importers, UNCTAD notes that major CETM importers such as the European Union, Japan, and the United States are adopting strategies to alleviate risk by diversifying import sources, increasing domestic capacity development, recycling, and developing strategic partnerships. In a three-year period, since 2022 such agreements in developmental stages have grown from just 15, to an addition of 58 new agreements targeting a diversification across value chains, and securing mineral access and production in a safe and future proof manner through policy.

As demand for CETMs accelerates, governments are increasingly looking at supply chains with scrutiny, seeing them as a strategic asset. While producing CETM high-capacity nations are seeking to control more value through domestic production of other stages and create more industry, major importers are moving aggressively to diversify supply sources to build more resilient supply chains. The outcome could not only decide the speed at which the global energy transition occurs, but also shape which countries will emerge as the key trading hubs and industrial powerhouses of the clean-energy economy.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed with Resident Coordinators from the Latin America and Caribbean region. Credit: United Nations

By Mohammed Chiraz Baly
GENEVA, Jul 2 2026 (IPS)

A letter to staff unions from economists working in the resident coordinator system, blows the whistle on a restructuring that could damage the development pillar and downgrade support to middle income countries.

For memory, UN resident coordinators are tasked with aligning the work of different UN agencies in 162 countries with respective government priorities.

Resident coordinators don’t have funds to get agencies to work together. They rely on their powers of persuasion and importantly, their office’s analytical and data handling capacity.

They therefore have a country economist, who provides evidence-based advice to the UN country team on improving development impact and helps mobilise financing from international financial institutions. These economists also represent non-resident agencies such as mine, UNCTAD, in discussions with the government. As agencies shut their country offices, this becomes more important.

The current system has existed since 2019 and the General Assembly has asked the Deputy Secretary-General, who oversees the system, for a review.

According to the letter (there is no other source of information as the process is a tightly-guarded secret), the proposal is a restructuring that, surprisingly, reduces analytical capacity resident coordinator offices in the over 100 middle income developing countries through a blanket downgrading of economist posts, undermining resident coordinators in the process.

There doesn’t seem to be an assessment in the rushed process of different countries’ circumstances nor the situations they’re going through.

It is not clear why middle-income countries, which constitute most UN member states, are being targeted and this appears to run counter to UN policy.

DESA has warned against abandoning support for middle income countries (https://lnkd.in/edKWFJgM) noting they “are a large and heterogenous group. They differ widely in their development needs and challenges, and in their capacity to mobilise domestic and external resources.”

Rebeca Grynspan has called out the middle-income country trap.

Last month the Secretary-General warned not to judge the challenges facing countries by GDP alone (https://lnkd.in/eaB85QFg).

Although, member states have already voiced concerns with the restructuring; it is being imposed regardless, and being rushed through before they can have a further say.

A large number of staff, originating from all regions, some recruited only last year, will therefore be removed from their posts, while UN support to and ability to mobilise financing for middle income countries will be reduced.

As the restructuring is cost-neutral, the savings from cutting staff in the field would appear to then provide more posts to regional offices and at senior level, and upgrade management posts.

The letter alleges an absence of meaningful consultation with unions and resident coordinators. In some countries, the entire cadre of international and national professional staff in a country could be replaced.

There is consensus that the resident coordinator system should be improved and we know resources are limited. It’s not clear though if downgrading substantive and analytical capacity is the right solution. Perhaps a more comprehensive assessment is needed, without the ticking clock of the end of mandate, so that the fragile development pillar isn’t damaged further.

Extracts from the letter are published below :

We write as economists serving in UN Resident Coordinator’s Offices across Standard, Complex, and Multi-Country settings. We come from different regions, work in countries spanning very different development contexts and income categories, and some of us started our careers as national officers. We raise these concerns in good faith and ask for a structured dialogue before the proposals are finalised.

1. The case for economic expertise in the RC system

The RCO economist provides analytical support independent of government preference and agency programming logic — on fiscal space, debt dynamics, structural transformation, SDG financing, and trade shocks. It draws on experience across multiple country contexts and IFI networks. The seniority of the posts matters: it enables credible engagement with finance ministers, private sector counterparts, and development finance institutions — the partnerships needed to mobilise SDG financing. Abolishing those posts removes that standing. At the ECOSOC OAS in June 2026, delegations spanning the G77, the African Group, AOSIS, India, Germany, Indonesia, Pakistan, Canada, the United States, and the Republic of Korea called explicitly for “strengthening capacities in strategic planning, economic analysis, SDG financing, data, digitalization, communications, climate and resilience.” The recalibration moves in the opposite direction, weeks after that mandate was given.

• The current moment is the wrong time to reduce analytical capacity. Countries face compounding pressures: COVID-19 structural aftereffects, Russia-Ukraine trade and energy disruptions, US-Iran escalation, and a fragmenting multilateral trading system. At the ECOSOC OAS, USG Li Junhua (DESA) noted ODA fell a record 23% in 2025 and the SDG financing gap stands above USD 4 trillion. Agency analytical capacity is simultaneously contracting: UNDP has abolished its economist programme for Africa and budgets and staffing have been cut across multiple entities. As agency footprints shrink, the RCO economist is often the only independent macroeconomic analyst the RC and host government can draw on.

• The Standard RCO category is a coordination label, not an economic complexity assessment. Across the 101 Standard RCO countries, analytical complexity does not track income category. DESA, UNCTAD, and the regional commissions have all cautioned against using GDP per capita as a proxy for development support needs. Applying that filter to determine where independent economic analysis is necessary is inconsistent with the UN’s own guidance.

• Adding senior headquarters posts while cutting country capacity contradicts a direct General Assembly mandate. The recalibration creates new D2 posts at headquarters and increases regional staffing. In December 2025, paragraph 16 of GA resolution A/C.5/80/L.4 requested the Secretary-General to include proposals “with the aim to reduce or reclassify the overall number of USG, ASG, D-2 and D-1 posts markedly” under UN80. Adding D2 posts at headquarters while abolishing and nationalising field posts moves in the opposite direction. Norway at the ECOSOC OAS stated this is “not the time to weaken” the RC system. Member States including AOSIS, Pakistan, Nepal, Indonesia, Canada, and Switzerland also questioned “whether expertise-on-demand can substitute for sustained presence.” It cannot. Cross-country policy and financing work requires continuity, institutional memory, and relationships — not episodic inputs from a regional hub.

• The recalibration contradicts UN 2.0 priorities and discards a recent investment in talent. Under UN 2.0, the Secretary-General prioritised data-driven decision-making — a competency assessed in recruiting these positions — and called for international staff mobility across headquarters, regional bodies, and the field. The RCO economist role was one of the few routes enabling that rotation. Converting posts to national roles closes it off. Several colleagues joined within the past 12 to 18 months on the basis of a clear signal that country-level analytical capacity was being strengthened. Reversing course without explanation wastes the investment and will deter future talent.

2. The analytical basis for this decision does not hold

The recalibration of 130 RCOs has been summarised on a single slide with four columns — no within-category differentiation, no country-specific analysis, no assessment of capacity lost in any specific setting. The UN80 Staff Support Policy Framework (OHR/PG/2025/4, June 2025) requires that “decision-makers must provide reasons for any administrative decisions, supported by facts.” No such reasons have been provided. Income-based categories — which the UN’s own analytical bodies warn against using as a proxy for development complexity — are the primary basis for determining where independent economic analysis is needed.

3. Process concerns

• RCs were not meaningfully consulted. Engagement happened shortly before public rollout, not during the design phase. Earlier discussions reportedly included giving RCs discretion over the economist profile in their office. That option was dropped without explanation, in direct tension with the principle that country team configurations should reflect RC judgment.

• No written rationale has been provided. The town hall did not explain why economist positions are being nationalised or downgraded, why income categories are the organising variable, or how any of this improves efficiency or advances UN 2.0. Without a written rationale, staff and Member States are being asked to accept a significant structural change on trust.

• The process does not meet the Organisation’s own standards for staff consultation. Staff Regulation 8.1(a) requires “effective participation of the staff in identifying, examining and resolving issues relating to staff welfare, including conditions of work.” OHR/PG/2025/4 commits management to engage through the Staff Management Committee “on a regular and timely basis regarding proposals that will impact staff.” Staff learned of this recalibration at a town hall after the configuration was designed. Whatever engagement occurred with staff representatives fell short of these requirements — and staff at large had no involvement at all.

• The pace of implementation risks bypassing Member State oversight. ACABQ and the Fifth Committee will consider RC system funding in autumn 2026. DCO’s extrabudgetary discretion means restructuring can proceed before that review. Rushing this through before a new Secretary-General is named makes the situation harder to revisit.

4. What we are asking for

• A written rationale — including the evidence base, efficiency gains claimed, and an honest account of what analytical capacity is lost.

• Genuine RC consultation before any finalisation on the economist profile appropriate for each country context. RC discretion should be the default, not the exception.

• Structured Staff Council engagement before the configuration is operationalised, consistent with Staff Regulation 8.1 and Staff Rule 8.1(h).

• Reconsideration of the blanket approach, with scope for RCs to retain or request an international economist where conditions warrant — an option reportedly still under discussion before this proposal was finalised.

• An assessment of the HR costs — relocations, repatriations, terminations — given the RC system’s current financial constraints.

Mohammed Chiraz Baly is a staff representative and former General Secretary of the CCISUA staff union federation. He is also a data analyst at UNCTAD focusing on investment financing in developing countries.

IPS UN Bureau

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Roberto Savio, left, and Giuliano Rizzi, right, co-authors of Manuale per il Cittadino Globale (The Global Citizen Handbook), a 19-chapter guide that invites readers to understand, reflect on and respond to today’s interconnected global challenges—from inequality and climate change to artificial intelligence, migration, democracy and peace. Image: INPS Japan

By Katsuhiro Asagiri
ROME, Jul 1 2026 (IPS)

When Roberto Savio begins talking about The Global Citizen Handbook, he does not begin with the book itself.

He begins with today’s young people.

Dr. Roberto Savio

That observation forms the starting point of a book that is less about globalization than about citizenship itself.

Co-authored with educator Giuliano Rizzi, The Global Citizen Handbook argues that humanity’s greatest challenge today is not simply climate change, war, inequality or artificial intelligence. It is our growing inability to understand how these crises are connected.

For Savio, the contrast between generations illustrates this transformation.

A new generation faces a world shaped by interconnected crises—from climate change and conflict to inequality and artificial intelligence—raising profound questions about the future of global citizenship. Credit: AI-generated illustration. Image: INPS Japan

Those who emerged from the devastation of the Second World War inherited ruined cities but also a profound belief that reconstruction would create a better future. The creation of the United Nations symbolized that optimism.

By the 1990s, another generation entered adulthood expecting that industrialization, technological progress and expanding economies would provide stable employment, home ownership and a secure future.

Young people today inherit something very different.

Climate disruption, widening inequality, geopolitical rivalry, financial instability, demographic decline, armed conflict and artificial intelligence converge to create unprecedented uncertainty.

Yet, Savio argues, objective uncertainty tells only part of the story.

There is also a crisis of understanding.

Every day, people are exposed to an endless stream of information about climate change, migration, democracy, finance, war and artificial intelligence.

Never before has humanity had access to so much information.

Never before has it been so difficult to understand how that information fits together.

“Ordinary citizens are not encyclopedias,” Savio says.

An endless stream of disconnected information can make today’s global crises appear overwhelming. The Global Citizen Handbook argues that understanding the connections between them is the first step toward informed citizenship. Image:INPS Japan

Daily news encourages people to see isolated events rather than interconnected processes.

Climate change appears separate from migration.

Migration appears separate from inequality.

Artificial intelligence is discussed independently from democracy.

Reality becomes fragmented.

As those connections disappear from public understanding, many people begin to feel that the world has become too complex to comprehend—or to influence.

For Savio, this is one of the defining democratic challenges of the digital age.

Citizens cannot participate meaningfully in public life if they cannot understand the forces shaping it.

Roberto Savio（Right)

Rather than producing another reference book filled with statistics and expert analysis, Savio and Rizzi chose a different approach.

“Our purpose was never simply to explain global problems,” Savio said.

“We wanted to create a handbook that encourages readers to stop, reflect and ask themselves questions.”

Each chapter combines documented evidence with examples of communities that have successfully addressed similar challenges.

Instead of ending with conclusions, every chapter ends with questions.

Facts become understanding.

Judgment becomes participation.

A visual reflection of The Global Citizen Handbook: the promise and perils of artificial intelligence and digital technology, set alongside the authors’ call for active, informed global citizenship grounded in human dignity, shared responsibility and hope. Image: INPS Japan

It is not simply a book about the world.

It is a guide to becoming an informed citizen within it.

For Savio, The Global Citizen Handbook is not a departure from his life’s work.

It is its natural continuation.

Credit: INPS Japan

He wanted to broaden international journalism by bringing global attention to voices and experiences that rarely reached the world’s headlines.

That philosophy became widely known as “Giving Voice to the Voiceless.”

Yet for Savio, journalism should do more than report distant events.

It should help people understand why those events matter to their own lives.

During our conversation, Savio reflected on another chapter of that journey.

Katsuhiro Asagiri(Left) and Roberto Savio(Right)

In 2009, IPS and Soka Gakkai International (SGI) launched an international media partnership dedicated to fostering global citizens committed to a world free of nuclear weapons.

Since then, INPS Japan has served as the Japanese hub of that collaboration, publishing multilingual reporting and developing a growing knowledge platform connecting nuclear disarmament, sustainable development, human rights, climate change and other global challenges.

From the Annual report 2010 with Messages from Dr. Roberto Savio and Dr, Daisaku Ikeda commenting on the launch of media collabolation between IPS and SGI which started in April 2009.

Looking back on the origins of the partnership, Savio immediately recalled the message contributed by Dr. Daisaku Ikeda, third president of Soka Gakkai, to the first annual compilation published in 2010.

“It remains as relevant today as it was then,” Savio said.

In his message, Dr. Ikeda wrote:

“Herein lies the importance of education, in the broadest sense of the word. When people are empowered with accurate knowledge, they naturally understand the actions they need to take. Exchanging views among those close to us, they can learn together and search for the best and most effective forms of action.”

Dr. Ikeda continued:

“The media have an especially important role to play in this educational process. By making objective information widely available and offering analysis from a range of standpoints, the media can bring into sharper focus the nature of issues and the actions to be taken to resolve them.”

Reflecting on the IPS–SGI partnership, Dr. Ikeda added:

“IPS has taken as its special mission the work of ‘giving a voice to the voiceless.’ Soka Gakkai International is dedicated, from a civil society perspective, to building a culture of peace. It is a great joy to be able to collaborate with IPS in this project to provide a forum for dialogue to explore the meaning of solutions to this most critical of issues.”

Savio said he remains deeply encouraged that the vision shared by Dr. Ikeda more than fifteen years ago continues to flourish.

He also recalled his own message written for the same publication, expressing the hope that the INPS Japan – SGI multilingual media platform would become a “base camp” on the climb toward what he described as “sanguine optimism.”

Roberto Savio (far left), then Deputy Director at the World Political Forum (WPF), founded by former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev(2nd from left), welcomes an SGI delegation led by Hiromasa Ikeda (center) to a 2009 international conference on nuclear abolition. The meeting marked the beginning of the long-standing media partnership between Inter Press Service (IPS) and Soka Gakkai International (SGI). Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri / INPS Japan.

Looking back today, Savio said he is delighted to see that the collaboration between IPS, INPS Japan and SGI has continued to grow.

For him, it represents far more than a successful media partnership.

It demonstrates how independent journalism, education and dialogue can work together to cultivate informed and responsible global citizens.

More than fifteen years after those messages were written, The Global Citizen Handbook can be read as a continuation of the same conversation—one that seeks to cultivate citizens capable of understanding an increasingly interconnected world and acting responsibly within it.

Global citizenship, Savio argues, does not mean abandoning one’s country or culture.

It means recognizing that our responsibilities no longer end at national borders.

Our choices, our consumption, our politics and our values increasingly affect people we may never meet.

Understanding those connections is where citizenship begins.

Artificial intelligence offers unprecedented opportunities to advance education, health care and access to knowledge, but its benefits depend on democratic governance, ethical stewardship and informed global citizenship. Image: INPS Japan

For more than sixty years, Roberto Savio has argued that journalism should do more than report events.

It should help people understand the forces shaping their lives.

Through The Global Citizen Handbook, he extends that mission beyond journalism into education.

Understanding, however, is not the final destination.

It is the beginning of citizenship.

In an interconnected world, the future will depend not only on better governments or better technologies, but on better informed citizens who recognize that responsibility no longer ends at national borders.

That is the invitation Roberto Savio extends through The Global Citizen Handbook.

And perhaps, in an age of fragmentation and uncertainty, it is the invitation our time needs most.

SDGs for All media project cover page. Credit: INPS Japan

Roberto Savio – the compass of OtherNews – is a journalist, communication expert, political commentator, activist for social and climate justice and advocate of global governance. In 1964, he founded Inter Press Service (IPS), of which he was Director-General for many years. He is Deputy Director of the Scientific Council of the New Policy Forum (formerly the World Policy Forum), founded by Mikhail Gorbachev and also a member of the International Committee of the World Social Forum (WSF).

Note: This article is brought to you by IPS Noram in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with ECOSOC.

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Excerpt:

The report - Military Escalation in the Middle East: Cushioning the Global Shock – reveals that low- and middle-income countries have partially protected their populations from soaring oil prices through fossil fuel subsidies, price caps, tax rebates and demand-management measures. Credit: UNDP

By UN Development Programme
NEW YORK, Jul 1 2026 (IPS)

Developing countries’ efforts to tackle the ongoing effects of conflict in the Middle East carry a high price that leaves little room for critical investments in education, health and other development priorities, according to a new report by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) released today.

The report – Military Escalation in the Middle East: Cushioning the Global Shock – reveals that low- and middle-income countries have partially protected their populations from soaring oil prices through fossil fuel subsidies, price caps, tax rebates and demand-management measures.

Fossil fuel subsidies, which had been on a downward trend globally, are on track to reach US$1.1 trillion in 2026 – US$ 410 billion more than in 2025, assuming the current average oil price settles at US$88.6 per barrel.

This projection climbs to as much as US$1.43 trillion in a ‘severe’ scenario where oil prices climb to an average of US$110 per barrel.

The UNDP report warns that while fossil fuel subsidies provide temporary relief, they ultimately undermine climate and development goals, locking countries into high-carbon pathways and limiting future investment.

“The global spillover of the Middle East conflict is profound and potentially long-lasting. Developing countries, many already struggling with debt, have temporarily managed to protect people from the worst of the energy shock,” said UNDP Administrator Alexander De Croo. “These countries are doing everything they can, but there is a hidden cost. To deal with today’s crisis, governments are postponing tomorrow’s investments. Money that should be building schools, hospitals, and clean energy systems is being used simply to keep economies afloat. Without international support, these countries won’t escape the shock. They are absorbing it at the expense of future growth.”

Close to half of the world’s poorest countries are already either ‘in’ or at ‘high risk’ of debt distress, and debt continues to crowd out development spending at an increasing rate, according to the report.

This year, it is estimated that the median developing economy will spend 9.53 percent of total government revenue on interest payments alone – double the share of a decade ago and the highest level seen in 25 years.

Averaged over the three-year period 2024 to 2026, 55 developing economies are estimated to pay more than 10 percent of revenue in interest payments, compared to 32 countries a decade ago.

“No country should have to sacrifice its future development to manage a crisis it did not create,” said De Croo. “First, we must unlock multilateral liquidity in ways that are easy to access for low and middle-income countries. Second, we must accelerate investment in renewable energy. Every clean energy investment reduces exposure to future shocks. The crisis has made one thing clear: energy security and the energy transition are no longer separate agendas. They are one and the same.”

The report is being launched in the context of the Hamburg Sustainability Conference (HSC) taking place this week. The HSC is an annual high-level meeting that aims to foster new partnerships and collective action by global policymakers, private sector leaders, academia experts, and civil society representatives. The annual event is a joint initiative of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and the Michael Otto Foundation.

Full report
The full report is available online at https://www.undp.org/publications/military-escalation-middle-east-cushioning-global-shock

IPS UN Bureau

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Excerpt:

The UN Peacebuilding Commission Celebrates 20 Years of UN Peacebuilding Architecture. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 1 2026 (IPS)

From June 22 to 26, the United Nations (UN) commemorated its first annual Peacebuilding Week, marking the 20th anniversary of the UN Peacebuilding Commission’s inaugural session. Featuring discussions among world leaders, policymakers, civil society, and advocates, the event explored how collaboration among governments, international organizations, and the private sector can enhance the visibility and effectiveness of peacebuilding efforts worldwide.

The goals of the Peacebuilding Week are particularly critical today, as increasing geopolitical tensions fracture international cooperation and severe financing shortfalls deplete resources, hindering relief efforts for civilians trapped in conflict. Despite a historic surge in active armed conflicts worldwide recorded over the past two years, peacebuilding and relief funding suffered a severe 40 percent decline between 2024 and 2025, leaving millions of people around the globe in a state of extreme insecurity.

“Peace does not occur automatically. It is built through persistent diplomacy, collective action and political will,” said Annalena Baerbock, President of the UN General Assembly. “Wars that never happen because of peacebuilding, conflict-prevention or sustainable-development efforts rarely make headlines. Yet, like everything else, peacebuilding is only possible when properly resourced.”

On June 26, the Peacebuilding Impact Hub—part of the Peacebuilding and Peace Support Office (PBPSO) within the UN Departments of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and Peace Operations (DPPA-DPO)—launched its inaugural Peacebuilding Overview, titled Investing in Peace When the World Pays for War. This report analyzes data gathered from governments, civil society, scholars, and UN field operations across numerous, diverse contexts.

By addressing the root causes of conflict and encouraging the implementation of digital technologies—alongside active participation from youth and the private sector—the report aims to forge new paths for peacebuilding that are resilient, inclusive, and globally supported. Aiming to identify structural gaps in data sharing that prevent vital information from being shared internationally and from being fully utilized by policymakers and the public, the report was launched alongside a side event titled Building Peace in a Changing World.

At the event, Paul Fargues, one of the report’s authors and a Political Affairs Officer for the UN Department for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA), told reporters that the world is currently at a “crossroads, where conflict is on the rise, good governance is declining, and civic space is shrinking.” He noted that this is compounded by severe budget cuts and disproportionate investment in military expenditure rather than civilian protection and prevention efforts, making humanitarian relief operations increasingly difficult.

According to the report, over the last two decades, the world has invested only one dollar in peacebuilding efforts for every 100 dollars spent on military expenditure. Fargues added that the world’s most vulnerable populations are projected to suffer the most, particularly in dire contexts where aid constitutes more than 60 percent of all external funding and acts as a vital lifeline. Additionally, the DDPA found that roughly two-thirds of the countries whose economies are most dependent on UN aid are also the ones most adversely affected by the funding cuts.

Fargues argued that some of the central obstacles in advancing peacebuilding efforts today are the persistent structural gaps in the dissemination of evidence and data, which is critically underdeveloped when compared to the development and humanitarian sectors.

“Peacebuilding has no underlying framework to create shared data practices, to generate insights at the global level to enhance evidence-based decision-making, or simply to communicate its value to broader non-technical audiences,” Fargues said. “Peacebuilders and those who support them must do a better job at measuring, proving, and communicating this. Given the incredibly challenging contexts, producing more robust data and evidence of impact is a bare minimum.”

Katherina Ahrendts, the Director-General for Global Order, United Nations and Humanitarian Assistance of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany, stated that although the case for investing in protection and prevention efforts is clear, political and financial contributions lag significantly behind. According to figures from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), for every dollar invested in preventive macroeconomic policies, up to 103 dollars could be generated in returns. DPPA also estimated that with adequate investment in prevention and protection measures, humanitarian needs could be reduced by approximately USD 3.6 billion annually.

Despite these potential gains, the economic case for peacebuilding efforts has not sufficiently influenced global investment priorities.“We are indeed at a critical moment when violent conflict is increasing while budgets are under strain and multilateralism as a whole is increasingly challenged,” said Ahrendts. “From a domestic policy standpoint, we need a much stronger business case, more compelling narratives, and better evidence. We need to showcase that peacebuilding is a smart, strategic, and cost-effective instrument that prevents much higher costs later on.”

“This means framing peacebuilding not only as a moral imperative, but as a matter of security, stability, mutual interests and sound investments. In particular, we need to make clear that peacebuilding and investment are an integral component of an effective security strategy,” she added.

Ana Escobar, the UN Representative for Peace Direct, an organization that empowers local peacebuilding efforts and supports community-driven approaches, remarked that peacebuilding must be grounded in a community-based approach and tailored to match the specific needs of vulnerable communities. Peace Direct defines meaningful impact as seeing communities become safer and more resilient long after external support has ceased.

Rather than implementing a pre-established peacebuilding agenda, Peace Direct works with local peacebuilders and community leaders to define what success looks like to them and identify the changes that they want to see. “That means asking different questions,” Escobar said. “Are communities resolving disputes without violence, and how do we measure that? Do women, youth, and marginalized groups have greater influence in decision-making? Is trust increasing between communities and institutions?”

“Peacebuilding is most effective when power, resources, and evidence flow in the same direction, towards the communities that live with conflict every day…. For local peacebuilders, prevention means that children go to school instead of joining armed groups, farmers return to their lands, markets reopen, women move safely, families remain together. Those are the returns communities measure every day,” added Escobar.

Dr. Cedric De Coning, a Senior Researcher in the Peace, Conflict and Development Research Group at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), underscored the importance of adaptive peacebuilding. This approach calls for the continuous monitoring of data and updating of peacebuilding measures, acknowledging that a community’s dynamics are constantly shifting. Rather than framing peacebuilding as a rigid structure being “built”, Dr. De Coning argues that it is more of a continuous process that is “nurtured”.

“What adaptive peacebuilding says is that we cannot know that beforehand; it has to emerge from people affected by conflict or people in societies struggling to achieve peace themselves,” said Dr. De Coning.

“As peacebuilders, we have to accompany these societies, and we have to learn together with them constantly and adapt our understanding of what it is that we can support. But we should be careful not to measure peace as something that only makes sense for donor-funded projects…. Peace is something much broader, and we need to measure that broader social transformation: how societies are experiencing peace, how they are living the things they look at, is what we need to look at rather than measuring projects to please donors.”

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India’s new education policy asks a great deal of its teachers. The National Education Policy of 2020 and its NISHTHA (National Initiative for School Heads’ and Teachers’ Holistic Advancement) training scheme, want teachers to be more than deliverers of syllabus. They are to be empowered professionals, agents of change who shape the future of children and, the policy says, of the nation itself. It is a generous and welcome ambition.

Vani S. Kulkarni

For two decades, the dominant approach to teacher quality in India, as in much of the world, has run in the opposite direction. It judges teachers by individual performance and accountability, by what they deliver and how their classrooms score. Under that logic, a teacher’s agency quietly shrinks until it means doing well what someone else has already decided. The teacher becomes an executor of other people’s choices. This is the very habit NISHTHA hopes to break, and it will not break easily, because a system built to measure compliance tends to produce it.

The real question, then, is not whether we wish teachers to have agency because we do. It is where agency actually comes from.

I spent a year, between 2023 and 2025, looking for an answer in an unlikely place: a small, non-governmental teacher-preparation programme in Gurugram, north India called I Am A Teacher (IAAT), which has spent a decade training teachers in a humanistic tradition that cuts against the accountability grain. What I found there was a claim that sounds almost too soft to matter, until you watch what it does. Agency, in this programme’s account, does not begin with autonomy handed down from above. It begins with self-knowledge. A teacher who has examined her own assumptions, her own fears and habits of judgment, is a teacher who can finally exercise judgment of her own.

That self-knowledge expressed itself, in the teachers I met, in three widening circles.

The first was the classroom. Teachers spoke of designing their own curricula and lesson plans, and of sharing in decisions about assessment, as the very substance of their professional dignity. To be handed instructions to execute, one teacher said, is to have your voice taken away. And teacher autonomy, several insisted, is not for the teacher’s sake alone. When a teacher can read her own classroom and meet children where they are, the children begin to experience an agency of their own, becoming creative and imaginative rather than merely obedient.

The second circle was the inner life of the student. These teachers refused to see their work as the transmission of knowledge and content alone. A child’s social and emotional wellbeing, one told me, matters as much as the subject on the board. They understood it as part of their agency to steady a struggling child, inside the classroom and beyond it, on the conviction that learning and wellbeing cannot be pulled apart.

The third and widest circle was the world the school is embedded in. The most striking thing about these teachers was that their sense of agency did not stop at the classroom door. They spoke about how political and economic forces shape what gets taught and what gets funded, and about the inequality that public education is meant to counter and too often deepens. Education can never be equal, one teacher said plainly, naming the way wealth sorts children into schools and teachers into salaries. Some met that knowledge not with resignation but with initiative, volunteering in underserved areas or starting small independent learning centres of their own. That is agency in its fullest sense, a teacher who sees the system she is part of and acts to make it fairer.

A training module alone can produce none of this, and that is exactly the point. The NEP is right that teachers should be agents of change. But agency is not a permission a policy grants. It is a capacity, and capacities have to be formed, through self-reflection, mentoring, time, and the experience of being trusted to decide. These are precisely the things an accountability-driven system finds hardest to fund, because they do not show up on a dashboard, and their results appear years later, in a classroom run by someone who knows her own mind.

A teacher who has been told only what to do can comply. A teacher who has come to know herself can decide. India’s classrooms, and the children in them, need far more of the second kind. No policy can issue that teacher by order. But a country that understood where her/his agency begins could choose, at last, to help make her/his.

If NISHTHA is to be more than a circular, its success will be measured on the ground, in whether teachers actually come to exercise the agency the policy promises them. And one concrete step is within reach now. The country need not invent this formation from nothing. Small programmes such as IAAT, quietly and against the current, already practise it and have done so for years. Recognising them, learning from them, and resourcing them would cost little and teach a great deal.

Vani S. Kulkarni is a sociologist affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, and has held research and teaching appointments at Harvard and Yale universities. Her research navigates the intricate crossroads of Global Health, Education, Race and Caste, Gender, Sociology of Trust, Development, and Democracy.

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A protester holds up a placard thar reads ‘Resist, don’t compromise’ at a mass march held under the slogan ‘The people are hungry, the prisons are full’ through popular neighborhoods in Tunis, Tunisia, on 16 May 2026. Credit: Chedly Ben Ibrahim/NurPhoto via AFP

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Jul 1 2026 (IPS)

In May, Tunisian lawyer and journalist Sonia Dahmani was handed her second conviction of the year. Her latest sentence, a two-year jail term, came in reaction to her criticism of poor prison conditions. She previously received an 18-month sentence for calling out the government’s anti-migrant policies. Dahmani faces five more charges under a 2022 cybercrime law that criminalises the spreading of what it calls ‘false information’.

Dahmani is one of many victims of President Kais Saied, who continues to steer Tunisia in an ever more repressive direction. Saied won a free and fair election in 2019, but in 2021 he removed the prime minister and parliament, ruling by decree instead. The following year, he rewrote the constitution to give himself near-absolute power, approved in a low-turnout referendum held after key opposing voices had been jailed. When he won his second term in 2024, credible opponents had been criminalised and barred from running. It’s all a long way from the democracy that sprang into life after the 2011 Jasmine Revolution.

Growing criminalisation

Saied’s repression operates behind a facade of legality, with the criminal justice system serving as a tool of presidential control. In 2022, Saied sacked judges who disagreed with him and gave himself the power to control judicial appointments. Courts now do his bidding and jail opponents. At least nine staff of civil society organisations have received prison sentences so far this year.

Journalists Borhen Bssais and Mourad Zeghidi received three-and-a-half-year sentences on trumped-up money laundering and tax evasion charges in January. In 2025, 37 journalists, lawyers, opposition politicians and other dissidents were found guilty of terrorism and plotting to destabilise Tunisia. Following a mass trial, some were given decades-long jail terms. A November 2025 appeal court hearing that defendants weren’t allowed to attend upheld almost all convictions and increased some sentences.

The latest phase of the crackdown is targeting anti-racism campaigners. Since 2023, Saied has deployed the populist strategy of attacking Black African migrants to distract from the economic problems he’s failed to address. He’s repeatedly accused migrants of being responsible for crime and disorder, fuelling violence against them from security forces and the public.

Saied has branded organisations that stand up for migrants’ rights as traitors and foreign agents. Vilification prepares the ground for incarceration. In March, Saadia Mosbah, president of Mnemty, a Tunisian association that fights against racism, received a staggering eight-year sentence on bogus illicit enrichment and money laundering charges. Five of her colleagues were convicted alongside her.

Mnemty faces the threat of being closed down, part of an assault on associational freedoms that has seen dozens of other civil society organisations suspended. Hundreds more could face the same treatment. In 2024, courts ordered the closure of the Tunisian Council for Refugees. Last November, two of its leaders, Mustapha Djemali and Abderrazek Krimi, received two-year sentences for offences under a 1975 law on passports and travel documents.

No one appears to be beyond the state’s reach. In March, a judge ordered the pretrial detention of seven people on money laundering charges for their involvement in the first Global Sumud Flotilla, which last October attempted to take humanitarian aid to Gaza’s besieged population. Meanwhile being one of the organisations that won the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize offered no protection for the Tunisian League for Human Rights. The group was slapped with a one-month suspension in April.

For civil society organisations, suspension marks the start of a process that can lead to dissolution. Civil society organisations also face asset freezes, lawsuits and tax investigations. The combination of criminalisation, legal harassment and top-down vilification results in a pervasive chilling effect.

Judges that don’t do Saied’s bidding are also at risk. Anas Hmedi, President of the Association of Tunisian Magistrates, has been subjected to criminal proceedings since 2022, with a summons on fresh charges issued in January.

Europe says little

Tunisians continue to protest. Hundreds marched in the capital, Tunis, on 6 June to demand media freedoms and the release of political prisoners. Protesters in May also called out Saied’s failure to address the economic crisis. But they need international support.

Last October, Saber Ben Chouchane was handed a death sentence for criticising Saied on Facebook. Authorities interpreted his posts as constituting crimes of attempting to change the form of government, insulting the president and spreading false information. But this time the repression backfired. The severity of the sentence caused such an international outcry that Saied was forced to pardon and release him. This shows that international criticism can make a difference.

The European Parliament spoke up last November, passing a resolution calling for the release of political prisoners and the repeal of the false information provisions. But such gestures have limits, as shown by Saied’s dismissal of the resolution as ‘blatant interference’.

Resistance to autocratisation takes more than words, but the EU isn’t acting. It’s in a weak position towards Saied because it pays the Tunisian government to help prevent migrants crossing into Europe, and in April 2025, it classified Tunisia as a safe country of origin. This means it believes migrants can be deported there on the basis that they won’t be at risk of persecution, a claim that rings hollow for the many from civil society now in jail.

EU policies have contributed to the rising number of migrants in Tunisia, since people can make it there but no further. This makes them a ready target for Saied’s scapegoating. The EU must acknowledge its responsibility and change course. It must recognise that migrants’ rights in Tunisia aren’t being protected and that, in the current situation, only civil society can do that. In its dealings with Tunisia, it must insist that civil society freedoms are respected and people are free both to defend migrants’ rights and criticise the government’s decisions. Continuing silence will make it complicit in the consolidation of a dictatorship.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

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Tehran, Iran before the conflict began. Credit: Unsplash/Mohammad Takhsh

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 1 2026 (IPS)

The on-again, off-again US-Iran peace negotiations, which have been disparaged by Israeli leaders, have resulted in a rare rift between the US and Israel, a Middle East ally which has had America’s unwavering “iron clad” support since its creation in 1948.

The cracks were visible – all the way from Tel Aviv to Washington DC. But is this for real or just a passing family squabble?

US Vice President J.D. Vance, who has been leading the negotiations in Geneva, lambasted the Israelis last week for their very personal attack on President Donald Trump.

“Donald Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time, and he happens to be the head of state of the world’s superpower,” he said, speaking to reporters at the White House.

Vance said ” two thirds of the weapons that protected Israel were American-made and paid for by US tax dollars.”

“If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that i have anywhere left in the entire world,” he warned.

Dr Ramzy Baroud, Palestinian author and editor of the Palestine Chronicle, told Inter Press Service “while Vice President J.D. Vance’s comments may suggest that there is some divergence between the United States and Israel, we should be cautious not to read too much into them or assume that they signal a fundamental shift in US policy”.

First, this is not the first time that criticism of Israel has emerged from a US administration, even from officials widely regarded as strong supporters of Israel, he pointed out. Similar disagreements have surfaced before without leading to any meaningful change in American policy.

Second, there have been credible reports indicating that, during the Biden administration, the appearance of tension between President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu was often overstated and did not reflect the reality of continued US support for the genocide in Gaza.

Despite public disagreements, American military, financial, and diplomatic backing remained largely unchanged, he said.

Similarly, recent attempts to portray a rift between President Trump and Netanyahu—whether genuine or exaggerated—have so far had little impact on US support for Israel.

In fact, only days after Vice President Vance’s remarks, the United States carried out another strike against Iran, in line with objectives long advocated by the Netanyahu government, said Dr Baroud.

At the same time, Washington is actively advancing a broader scheme in Lebanon aimed at achieving politically what Israel failed to achieve militarily: weakening the Resistance, restructuring Lebanon’s political and security landscape in Israel’s favor, all while continuing to ignore the ongoing genocide in Gaza, declared Dr Baroud..

Meanwhile, according to a Fact Sheet from the US State Department “steadfast support for Israel’s security has been a cornerstone of American foreign policy for every U.S. Administration since the presidency of Harry S. Truman”.

“Since Israel’s founding in 1948, the United States has provided Israel with over $130 billion in bilateral assistance focused on addressing new and complex security threats, bridging Israel’s capability gaps through security assistance and cooperation, increasing interoperability through joint exercises, and helping Israel maintain its Qualitative Military Edge (QME).”

This assistance has helped transform the Israel Defense Forces into one of the world’s most capable, effective militaries and turned the Israeli military industry and technology sector into one of the largest exporters of military capabilities worldwide.

Since 1983, the United States and Israel have met regularly via the Joint Political-Military Group (JPMG) to promote shared policies, address common threats and concerns, and identify new areas for security cooperation.

The 48th JPMG, held in October 2022 reaffirmed the ironclad strategic partnership between the United States and Israel, underscoring a mutual commitment to advance collaboration in support of regional security and reinforce the historic achievements of recent normalization under the Abraham Accords.

Israel is the leading global recipient of Title 22 U.S. security assistance under the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program. This has been formalized by a 10-year (2019-2028) Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). Consistent with the MOU, the United States annually provides $3.3 billion in FMF and $500 million for cooperative programs for missile defense.

Since Elaborating further, FY 2009, the United States has provided Israel with $3.4 billion in funding for missile defense, including $1.3 billion for Iron Dome support starting in FY 2011. Through FMF, the United States provides Israel with access to some of the most advanced military equipment in the world, including the F-35 Lightning.

Israel is also eligible for Cash Flow Financing and is authorized to use its annual FMF allocation to procure defense articles, services, and training through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) system, Direct Commercial Contract agreements – which are FMF-funded Direct Commercial Sales procurements – and through Off Shore Procurement (OSP). Via OSP the current MOU allows Israel to spend a portion of its FMF on Israeli-origin rather than U.S.-origin defense articles. This was 25 percent in FY 2019 but is set to phase-out and decrease to zero in FY 2028.

Elaborating further, Dr Baroud said It is important to note any signs of disagreement between Washington and Tel Aviv. However, political rhetoric is ultimately meaningless unless it is accompanied by tangible changes on the ground.

Israel remains the largest recipient of US military and financial assistance anywhere in the world, even as it carries out the genocide in Gaza.

As long as this fundamental equation remains unchanged, any supposed disagreements or personal feuds between the two governments amount to little more than empty words, he declared.

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A UN Peacebuilding Week Event held in Egypt’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, New York. Credit: Maximilian Malawista

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 30 2026 (IPS)

As the United Nations held its first-ever Peacebuilding Week (June 22-26), UN officials and developmental partners gathered at Egypt’s Permanent Mission on June 23 to hold a dialogue on the main question that emerged from the 2025 Peacebuilding Architecture Review (PBAR): “How can global commitments to peacebuilding translate into tangible results on the ground?”

This event, hosted by Egypt at the sidelines of Peacebuilding Week, titled “Strengthening National Peace Infrastructures in Africa: Lessons Learned and the Way Forward,” brought together representatives from African governments and regional organizations, as well as members of the UN system, to discuss how nationally-owned institutions can mitigate and prevent conflict, manage effects and sustain peace long after such situations have ended.

To open the event, Egypt’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ihab Moustafa Awad Moustafa, emphasized that the 2025 PBAR negotiations repeatedly asserted a fundamental concern: ensuring that policy discussions in New York produce measurable impact on the ground, whether in Africa or in any other peacekeeping sites.

“One of the clearest answers that emerged during those discussions was the need to strengthen national capacities and institutions,” Moustafa said. “We are serious about peacebuilding, sustaining peace, and primarily prevention. We must invest in national peace infrastructure.”

The PBAR, which was adopted in November of 2025, reaffirmed that nationally led and nationally owned endeavors remain at the core of sustainable peace. The PBAR actively calls on Member States, regional organizations, development partners, international financial institutions, and the UN system to strengthen the institutions capable of preventing conflict, fostering social cohesion, and managing risk.

Throughout the discussion, speakers agreed that contemporary conflicts are rooted in security threats but also pointed to institutional fragility, governance deficits, and declining trust of public institutions between citizens as an additional threat.

Brian James Williams, Chief of the Peacebuilding Fund at the Peacebuilding and Peace Support Office (PBPSO), explained that the review provides a clear mandate for the international community to follow nationally identified priorities.

“Prevention and sustaining peace need stronger national capacities, stronger institutions and better alignment of international support behind those national priorities,” Williams said.

Williams detailed the UN Peacebuilding Fund’s increasingly important role in helping governments operationalize existing national mechanisms, rather than creating new parallel structures. Williams cited examples such as support for peace and reconciliation committees in Chad and local peacebuilding mechanisms in the Central African Republic.

“These committees bring together administrative authorities, traditional and religious leaders, women, young, and marginalized groups,” Williams said, relaying the efforts to connect national peace architectures with local institutions and provincial actors.

Participants of the dialogue repeatedly emphasized that national ownership must extend beyond central governments. Effective peace infrastructures require civil society organizations; participation of local authorities, women, youth, religious leaders, and representatives of the community; and capability of identifying tensions or risks before they can escalate into violence.

Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations, Ibrahim F. Jimoh, highlighted his country’s model to strengthen peacebuilding through institutions such as the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution and through reintegration, demobilization, disarmament, and reconciliation programs tailored to specific local conditions.

“Such infrastructures provide the framework through which countries can anticipate risks, address grievances, and support recovery,” Jimoh said. “Their effectiveness depends on inclusive participation, institutional resilience, and strong national ownership.”

Sierra Leone, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and The Gambia also shared examples where local mediation structures, national peace councils, reconciliation commissions, and traditional institutions of justice have contributed to conflict prevention and social cohesion.

Jacqueline Seck, Chief of Staff, Office of the Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA), pointed to Ghana’s Peace Council as an example of nationally owned institutions providing trusted platforms to have dialogue, mediation, and electoral conflict prevention. Similarly, in The Gambia and Sierra Leone, the role of dedicated peace institutions in helping support post-conflict reconciliation and manage political tensions was discussed.

Among the major challenges, financing emerged as a recurring topic throughout the duration of the dialogue. While the catalytic role of the Peacebuilding Fund was praised by the speakers, many emphasized that sustained peace ultimately requires a long-term political commitment to peace as well as continuous domestic investment.

Williams warned that developing institutions often takes a lot of time and is a gradual process.

“Institutions take time to develop,” he said. “Results often require support at a certain scale, across the country, and across different parts of an institution to make meaningful impact.”

Throughout the discussion, participants pointed to a broader shift in peacebuilding strategy, from responding to crises after violence has already erupted to investing in preventative institutions designed to address risks before conflict happens.

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On the night of 29 June 1976, just before midnight, I stood among my fellow Seychellois at the heart of a moment that would change our history forever.

James Alix Michel

The air was heavy with expectation, pride, and a certain quiet anxiety: we were stepping into the unknown.

That night was emotional for me in a very personal way. After the new president had delivered his address, the president of my party – who would become Prime Minister at Independence – took the podium. At the end of his speech, he recited a poem I had written for our newspaper, entitled “Il est Minuit” – “It is midnight”. Hearing my own words spoken at that exact moment, when one era was ending and another beginning, was unforgettable. It felt as if the poem had become part of the birth certificate of our nation.

Fifty years later, as Seychelles celebrates its golden jubilee of Independence, I look back not only as a witness of that first midnight, but as someone who has walked alongside the country through many of its trials and transformations: from minister, to vice president, to president, and now as an advocate for the Blue Economy and for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) on the global stage.

From struggle to nationhood:

The struggle for Independence was our first great challenge. As a small colony in the Indian Ocean, it could have been easy to remain permanently on the periphery of history. Instead, the Seychellois chose to take responsibility for their own destiny. The transition from colonial rule to self government forged a strong sense of identity and duty. It taught us that freedom is not a one time event, but a continuous effort.

In the years after Independence, Seychelles experimented with different political paths, including one party rule and later a return to multi party democracy. These choices were often contentious, but they were part of our process of political maturation. As institutions evolved and multi party politics took root, we learned the value of dialogue, compromise and the rule of law. A young state was becoming a more confident republic.

2008: A turning point born of crisis:

One of the most defining moments in my own journey came in 2008. By then I was president, and Seychelles was facing a deep economic crisis. The global financial turmoil, combined with soaring oil and food prices, had almost exhausted our foreign reserves. The rupee was heavily overvalued, deficits were spiralling, and eventually the country missed a payment on its external debt.

In such moments, leadership is tested in very practical ways. On 31 October 2008, I took the decision to launch a comprehensive macroeconomic reform programme, supported by the International Monetary Fund. We floated the rupee, restructured the national debt, and imposed strict fiscal discipline. These were not popular measures; they required real sacrifice from the Seychellois people.

Yet that programme became a turning point. It stabilised our economy, restored credibility, and moved Seychelles towards a more modern, private sector led market system.

Looking back, I consider those reforms one of the most important achievements of my leadership. Without that foundation, many of the subsequent steps we took – in education, innovation and environmental policy – would have been far more difficult, if not impossible.

Pirates at sea, pressure on land:

Just as those economic reforms were taking root, a new and very different threat emerged. Somali pirates, heavily armed, began operating deep inside our Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), hijacking local vessels, taking Seychellois fishermen hostage and frightening away cruise ships and fishing fleets. Our two main economic pillars – tourism and tuna fishing – were suddenly at risk.

For a small island state with 1.3 million square kilometres of ocean, this was an existential security challenge. We knew we could not police such a vast space alone. We therefore mounted an intense diplomatic effort to convince regional and global partners that securing the Western Indian Ocean was in everyone’s interest. Seychelles became a hub for anti piracy operations; our Coast Guard cooperated closely with foreign navies; and we adapted our domestic laws to prosecute and imprison pirates.

These were difficult years, but they showed that a small nation, if it acts with courage and clarity, can punch above its weight. We helped to restore security to our waters and protect the livelihoods of our people.

Meanwhile, a quieter but more permanent threat was taking shape: climate change. Coral bleaching, coastal erosion and rising sea levels were affecting our islands directly. Seychelles was facing an environmental crisis it had done little to create, while international climate finance for SIDS was still limited and slow.

From vulnerability to vision: the Blue Economy:

It was in this context that the idea of the Blue Economy began to crystallise. For years, I had been convinced that our future would be decided not only on land, but in the ocean that surrounds us. Seychelles has a small landmass but a vast maritime zone. If we could rethink the ocean as a space for sustainable development – not just for exploitation – we could turn vulnerability into opportunity.

When I began advocating publicly for the Blue Economy, there was scepticism at home and abroad. Some considered it too abstract, others thought it was merely a new label for old ideas. But we persisted in giving the concept substance: through marine spatial planning, through the designation of large marine protected areas, and through innovative mechanisms such as the debt for nature swap we concluded in 2014 with the Paris Club and The Nature Conservancy.

That agreement restructured part of our national debt in exchange for robust commitments to ocean conservation. It helped to fund protection for 30% of our waters and became a model for other countries. Seychelles, once seen only as a vulnerable small island state, was now recognised as a pioneer of the Blue Economy and of nature based solutions.

Investing in people

Economic and environmental reforms are only part of the story. I have always believed that the most important investment a country can make is in its people. That is why I supported the creation of the University of Seychelles, at a time when some argued that our nation was too small to have its own university. The aim was simple: to give Seychellois youth the chance to pursue tertiary education at home and build their future on their own soil.

We complemented this with initiatives like the Young Leaders Programme, designed to prepare promising young Seychellois for positions of responsibility, including through postgraduate studies.

For me, these efforts are as central to our Independence story as any economic reform or diplomatic achievement. Independence is not only about sovereignty; it is about giving every generation the tools to shape its own destiny.

Looking ahead: Seychelles in 2076:

Today, as Seychelles celebrates 50 years of Independence, I am often asked what I see when I look ahead to the next half century. My vision is of a nation that has completed the journey from perceived vulnerability to respected ocean leadership: a country that manages its maritime space wisely, that uses its natural resources sustainably, and that shares its experience with other island and coastal states.

But my greatest pride is not in the policies we have already put in place. It lies in the potential I see in our people, especially our young people. They are better educated, more connected and more globally aware than my generation was in 1976. If they remain united, keep faith with our values and dare to innovate, I believe the Seychelles of tomorrow can be even more remarkable than the Seychelles of today.

At midnight on that first Independence Day, the poem “Il est Minuit” captured a sense of ending and beginning. Fifty years on, I feel we are once again at such a threshold. The first chapter of an independent Seychelles has been written. The next will be authored by a new generation.

My hope is that they will write it with courage, imagination and love for these islands and the ocean that surrounds them.

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CIVICUS discusses Ghana’s anti-LGBTQI+ law with Leila Lariba, Executive Director of One Love Sisters Ghana, a community-driven organisation that advances human rights, social inclusion and wellbeing for Muslim LGBTQI+ people in Ghana.

On 29 May, Ghana’s parliament approved the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, which imposes prison terms of up to three years for people who identify as LGBTQI+ and three to five years for anyone deemed to promote, sponsor or support LGBTQI+ activities. With it, Ghana joins a growing group of West African states, including Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Senegal, that have recently passed anti-LGBTQI+ laws.

What does the new bill do, and how different is it from the version parliament approved in 2024?

Parliament approved the new anti-LGBTQI+ bill on 29 May and it now awaits President John Dramani Mahama’s signature. The bill criminalises LGBTQI+ people and anyone perceived to support, advocate for or provide services to them. It reaches far beyond identity and relationships into the freedoms of association, education, expression, healthcare and human rights advocacy. I have worked directly with LGBTQI+ communities across Ghana for years and I see this not as a legal document but as a tool that legitimises discrimination.

The version parliament approved in 2024, which former president Nana Akufo-Addo left office without signing, was already one of the continent’s most restrictive. The new text keeps most of its harmful provisions. It comes at a moment when LGBTQI+ people already face heightened fear, insecurity and stigma, and it makes simply existing, seeking support or speaking about human rights a potential crime.

Why is the bill being pushed now, and who’s behind it?

The bill is being pushed by anti-rights groups that have increasingly turned LGBTQI+ people into a political target. As many Ghanaians struggle with economic hardship, unemployment and governance concerns, public attention is being redirected towards a small and already excluded community.

Behind it stands a coalition of political figures, conservative religious groups and traditional leaders who frame LGBTQI+ rights as a threat to culture and family values. This narrative ignores Ghana’s long history of diversity and the fact that LGBTQI+ people belong to every family, community and faith group in the country and the world.

Do you expect President Dramani to sign the bill, and what would the consequences be?

It’s uncertain whether President Dramani will sign. But the damage is already done. The prolonged public debate has fuelled fear, encouraged discrimination and left many people feeling less safe. Even before it becomes law, the bill has emboldened hostility.

At One Love Sisters Ghana, we have documented rising reports of blackmail, evictions, family rejection, mental health crises, online harassment and workplace discrimination. People are now afraid to seek healthcare, legal help and psychosocial support in case they are exposed or targeted. When fear becomes institutionalised, people stop seeking help precisely when they need it most.

The law would threaten fundamental rights and deepen the stigma, isolation and vulnerability of people who already face daily barriers. As a queer Muslim activist, I know what it means to navigate many layers of exclusion. Many LGBTQI+ people are balancing identity, faith, family and safety. This law would make that even harder.

The impact would reach beyond individual people. Community organisations, healthcare providers, human rights defenders and support networks would also face risk, making it harder for vulnerable people to reach essential services and protection.

How are LGBTQI+ groups, including your organisation, responding?

Ghana’s LGBTQI+ communities are remarkably resilient. Across the country, people are supporting one another, sharing information, strengthening their safety and keeping community ties alive.

At One Love Sisters Ghana, we focus on community care, protection and wellbeing. We have tightened safety and security measures, expanded psychosocial support, documented rights violations and kept referring people in crisis to the help they need.

We work closely with activists, community leaders, health professionals, lawyers and regional partners to track developments and keep people informed and supported. Through our national support systems, we keep hearing from people worried about their safety, livelihoods and future.

We also hold on to hope. Our communities have survived hard times before, and we keep building solidarity, caring for one another and advocating for dignity and human rights.

What further restrictions could follow, and what support do you need to prevent them?

Our greatest fear is that this law lays the groundwork for broader restrictions on civil society, free expression and human rights work. Organisations could face tighter scrutiny, activists greater risk and excluded groups even harder access to services.

To prevent further harm, we need sustained support from national, regional and international allies for community safety initiatives, emergency response, legal assistance, mental health services and the protection of human rights defenders.

International solidarity should be led by local communities and grounded in human rights. Allies should amplify local voices, back grassroots organisations and keep advocating for fundamental freedoms.

This is bigger than LGBTQI+ rights. It’s about the kind of society we want to be. Respect for human rights can’t be selective. When the rights of one group are restricted, it creates a precedent that can affect everyone.

As a queer Muslim feminist and human rights defender, I believe that dignity, freedom and safety belong to all people. The conversations happening today will shape the future of our democracy. I hope Ghana chooses compassion over fear, inclusion over exclusion and human dignity over discrimination.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

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Gender rights: rollback and resistance CIVICUS | State of Civil Society Report 2026
Senegal: ‘The new law criminalises not only LGBTQI+ people but also anyone offering support’ CIVICUS Lens | Anonymous interview 21.May.2026
Ghana: ‘The anti-LGBTQI+ law enshrines prejudice and discrimination and perpetuates inequalities’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Solomon Atsuvia | 01.May.2024

Picture alliance / Anadolu | Magdalena Chodownik Source: International Politics and Society, Berlin

By Sandra Weiss
MEXICO CITY, Jun 29 2026 (IPS)

Ever since the Berlin Wall fell 37 years ago and the communist Eastern Bloc collapsed, Cuba has been debating economic reforms to its socialist system. Essentially, the discussion always revolves around the same issues: less state planning, more personal responsibility. In other words, a strong dose of capitalism as an antidote to inefficient and corrupt state bureaucracy.

Little has happened since then. Phases of liberalisation and opening up have been followed by phases of tightening and control. Time and again, hardliners within the party, the military and the bureaucracy have put the brakes on. The reason — the reforms fuelled inequality and resentment towards the newly wealthy privileged class. Underlying this was, above all, the fear of losing power and control, and of infiltration by the class enemy, or, in the Cuban interpretation, US imperialism.

Throwing money down a bottomless pit

Suddenly, things moved very quickly. Last week, the parliament – which had been convened in haste and with a rather incomplete quorum, as many MPs were unable to travel to Havana due to the petrol shortage – passed a 176-point reform programme which observers have described as ‘historic’ given its far-reaching implications. In the process, some of the ‘sacred cows’ of the socialist state economy are being brought down. For instance, there will be no more blanket subsidies in the future, instead, support will be targeted solely at the socially disadvantaged. This spells the end of the ‘Libreta’, the state food ration card that has granted the population access to virtually free food and hygiene products for over half a century, even though, in the face of the economic crisis, it had recently become little more than a piece of waste paper.

The second taboo to be broken is decentralisation. From now on, state-owned enterprises and provinces are to be less dependent on the central government in Havana and will be allowed to make their own decisions on staffing and wages. The absurd extremes to which this centralisation had led were captured by directors Juan Carlos Tabio and Tomás Gutiérrez Alea in their 1995 classic Guantanamera, in which a corpse had to be transported from Santiago de Cuba to Havana for burial – that is, all the way across the island, in a battle against bureaucracy.

Cuban exiles are permitted to invest directly on the island.

Private companies are finally to be permitted to operate in the agricultural sector; until now, only cooperatives had been authorised. Agriculture on the Caribbean island, once renowned for its sugar production, is now almost completely in ruins: millions of hectares of arable land lie fallow due to a lack of machinery, fertilisers, technology and labour. Cuba imports the majority of its food. Much of this comes from China, Turkey or Arab countries, but also from the neighbouring US – despite the embargoes. Private investment is now also permitted in the energy sector. The reforms will also allow individuals to own more than one private company in the future.

However, the liberalisation also targets trade, foreign investment and integration into the global economy. For example, private banks and financial institutions are to be authorised to operate in the microcredit sector. Numerous restrictions on foreign exchange transactions are being lifted. Consequently, businesses and private individuals may now open and operate foreign exchange accounts without prior authorisation. Foreign firms are permitted to select their own staff and are no longer required to go through state employment agencies. Furthermore, they are no longer obliged to enter into joint venture agreements with the state. Cuban exiles are permitted to invest directly on the island. This is intended to attract foreign investors and fresh capital.

Months ago, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had already stated that political reforms and a change in the leadership were needed – but Havana categorically rejects this.

Almost all of these reforms have been under discussion for years. Even Vietnam and China have repeatedly urged the Cuban leadership to move in this direction, because, despite their historical ties, geopolitical interests and ideological affinities, they were tired of throwing money down a bottomless pit. Fifteen years ago, whilst the island was still receiving oil in abundance from its brother nation Venezuela and the then US President Barack Obama was reaching out to the island, the circumstances would have been ideal for such a transformation.

Now, beneath the sword of Damocles of the oil embargo and the threat of US intervention, it is actually already too late: the coffers are empty, legitimacy among the population has been squandered, and the reforms can only take effect if the US plays its part, lifts its sanctions against Cuba and supports the country’s integration into the global economy. However, that is out of the question at present. The US government holds the upper hand geopolitically and wants more. Months ago, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had already stated that political reforms and a change in the leadership were needed – but Havana categorically rejects this.

The potential of democratization

The Speaker of the Cuban Parliament, José Luis Toledo, made it clear when the package was passed that ‘the reforms do not mean abandoning the state’s social role’. Washington’s reaction was correspondingly cool: the US State Department described the economic reforms as modest, too late and ‘superficial smoke signals’. This is a typical strategy to create the illusion of change, only to quickly reverse the reforms as soon as the regime’s control is threatened.

The strategies of either side are clear. Cuba is playing for time and hoping that Trump will lose the mid-term elections in the autumn, thereby losing his interest in Cuba and the backing for his stranglehold tactics. Washington will probably let Havana continue to squirm for the time being and wait to see whether words are followed by deeds – and how quickly. Meanwhile, political pressure is likely to continue to mount during the secret talks. Military intervention is not yet off the table either. This game of poker is ultimately about one thing: who dictates the terms for Cuba’s transformation.

The EU has, in fact, sidelined itself when it comes to Cuba.

So far, the Cuban people have had little say in the matter. Although protests against power cuts, water shortages and food shortages are a daily occurrence, they are swiftly and brutally suppressed. Unlike in Venezuela, there is no organised opposition on the island with charismatic leaders, a clearly defined political programme and broad support. This currently plays into the hands of the ruling elite. But this need not remain the case in the long term, especially if the reforms take hold and more and more people become independent of the state.

Transition processes in Eastern Europe have shown that civil society actors (and, unfortunately, organised crime too) know how to capitalise on the turmoil of such periods of upheaval. However, this could lead to all sorts of outcomes: permanent instability, a mafia-style oligarchic regime, or democratic structures. For the latter to emerge, however, the process – and above all the regime in Havana – would require discreet international support; at present, this seems conceivable only through countries such as Mexico and Brazil, with the backing of the UN or the Vatican.

Neither Latin America as a whole nor the EU currently has any relevant supranational structures with appropriate leaders. Quite the contrary. The EU has, in fact, sidelined itself when it comes to Cuba. Firstly, Trump’s sanctions forced most European companies to abandon their investments in and business dealings with Cuba, without Brussels doing anything to oppose this. And a few days ago, the European Parliament – with a majority of right-wing and conservative MEPs – called for sanctions against Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel and for an end to cooperation with Cuba – in other words, entirely in line with Trump’s thinking and spirit, without so much as a hint of independent ideas to defend European interests. Another small step towards geopolitical and geo-economic irrelevance.

Sandra Weiss is a political scientist and a former diplomat. A freelance journalist, Sandra writes articles about Latin America for several German newspapers, among others Die Zeit and Die Welt.

Source: International Politics and Society, published by the Global and European Policy Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin.

Excerpt:

With elections likely to be held in August, the young people in Haiti are moving ahead, creating opportunities in music and digitalization and agricultural cooperatives, which are reinventing food self-sufficiency. Credit: Shutterstock

By Xavier Michon
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Jun 29 2026 (IPS)

There is a question that is never asked plainly enough in reports on Haiti: why, despite decades of analysis, billions in international aid, and an abundance of national strategies, does the potential of Haitian youth remain so consistently underutilized? This report, The Silent Transformation, is an attempt at an honest answer.

And that answer begins with an admission: for too long, we have viewed this generation as a problem to manage rather than a solution to mobilize.

Haiti is one of the youngest countries in the Western Hemisphere. More than one in two Haitians is under the age of 25. This reality should be at the heart of every policy decision, every investment strategy, every dialogue with international partners. It is not yet. And it is precisely to change this that this report exists.

We are at a turning point unlike any in the country’s recent history. For the first time since 2016, general elections are on the horizon. What may appear as an institutional milestone is, in fact, a deeply human one: an entire generation is preparing to vote for the first time. Citizens who were between 8 and 17 years old during the last general election. Since then, they have built businesses, lived through an earthquake, a pandemic, a presidential assassination and an unprecedented security crisis—and at no point during all of this were they consulted about the future of their own country.

Ten years without elections. Ten years of shaping their own lives without their institutions recognizing them as full actors. This paradox lies at the heart of this report.

Because this generation has not waited for permission to begin its transformation. It has done so on its own, in adversity, with whatever tools were within reach. And this is where the central thesis of this document lies: Haitian youth are not waiting for development. They are already producing it.

Mannitòks are inventing fintech without waiting for banks to modernize. Agricultural cooperatives are reinventing food self-sufficiency in secure areas. Coding clubs in Cap-Haïtien and Carrefour are training the next generation of developers without formal computer science schools. Designers in Pétion-Ville, musicians exporting kompa and Kreyòl rap to global platforms, DJs connecting Port-au-Prince to the diaspora, and artisans in Noailles are sustaining a cultural economy still absent from official economic radars.

These are not isolated success stories. They are signs of a structural transformation unfolding before our eyes—quietly, because we have not yet learned how to see it with the right tools.

This report is an attempt to develop those tools. It documents, analyzes, and recommends. But it also does something rarer in development literature: it shifts the perspective. It starts from the creative genius of Haitian youth and works upward toward public policy, rather than moving from policy down to beneficiaries.

This inversion is not rhetorical—it is methodological. And it changes what we see.

What it reveals is demanding for all of us. It shows that the main barrier to youth development in Haiti is not a lack of potential, but a lack of recognition of that potential. It shows that the most effective policies will not be those designed for young people, but those designed with them. And it shows, finally, that the international community—including UNDP—must embrace a new kind of humility: sometimes, to support means to step back, to remove obstacles rather than impose solutions.

UNDP supports these dynamics: we promote digital skills, access to finance and innovation ecosystems. Our initiatives—from supporting Fab Labs to advancing regulatory reforms—aim to create an environment in which youth-led enterprises can thrive. But we also know that our most valuable role is the one we build on the ground, alongside those who are already taking action. This report calls on us to listen as much as we act.

I warmly thank Group Croissance and CEDEL Haiti, whose field expertise and unwavering commitment have shaped every page of this document. Above all, I thank the young Haitians who shared their experiences, their vision and their clarity—because this is their report before it is ours.

To them, I want to say this: your determination is not only your strength—it is, objectively, the most valuable resource Haiti possesses. The upcoming election will be your first meeting with the ballot box. It will not be your last. And if this report helps ensure that this moment lives up to what you have already built without itin adversity, without permission, with unwavering ambition, then it will have achieved its essential purpose.

None of this happens in isolation. Canada has been a trusted partner in Haiti’s development journey, and its continued support for initiatives that invest in people, ideas and long-term possibilities reflects exactly the kind of partnership Haiti needs. To the Government of Canada and Global Affairs Canada: thank you. Your commitment to a Haiti defined by its potential—not only its challenges—helps make initiatives like this one possible.

The path ahead requires courage, collaboration and clear-eyed reflection on what has not worked—but above all, renewed faith in what is possible. Because while the past teaches us caution, it is the future this generation is already shaping that must guide our choices.

Let us take this path together—by letting you show the way.

XAVIER MICHON IS Resident Representative, UNDP Haiti

Source: UNDP

IPS UN Bureau

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Excerpt:

Exactly 15 years ago today rinderpest, or “cattle plague", was declared eradicated. Credit: Wolfgang Hasselmann/Unsplash

By Armin Wiesler
BRUSSELS, Belgium, Jun 27 2026 (IPS)

Animal disease is no longer a distant concern for farmers and veterinarians alone. It is increasingly visible in household budgets: global egg prices surged more than 60% during recent bird flu outbreaks. In South Africa, foot-and-mouth disease pushed beef prices up by 34%. These are not isolated fluctuations in price. They are reminders that when prevention falls short, families, farmers and food systems all pay the price.

Exactly 15 years ago today, the world proved there is another way. On June 28, 2011, the United Nations (UN) declared rinderpest, or “cattle plague,” eradicated. It remains the only animal disease ever wiped from the planet. For centuries, the virus had killed millions of livestock animals, devastated herds and triggered famines across continents.

The eradication campaign succeeded because science, logistics and political commitment all came together. A global prevention effort was supported by surveillance, international coordination, and an effective, heat-stable vaccine that could reach remote, tropical areas without the need for refrigeration. This turned an ancient threat into a preventable one – and then into a disease of the past.

The lesson was not only scientific. It was economic. According to estimates by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, rinderpest control cost around $610 million while the annual benefits for Africa alone amounted to $1 billion. In other words, prevention did not just save animals. It protected livelihoods, strengthened food security and paid for itself many times over.

Yet, in the past 15 years, the world has not applied that lesson more broadly or consistently enough. When outbreaks occur, the response still too often defaults to emergency measures such as culling, movement restrictions and trade disruption. Rather than rapid deployment of preventive tools like surveillance, biosecurity measures, vaccination and close international cooperation.

Lumpy skin disease is a current case in point: diagnostics, biosecurity practices and effective vaccines exist, yet many countries struggle to use them quickly enough to stop spread and limit damage. The barriers are structural. International trade rules with potential economic risk impact decision-making, even when it is a necessity. Countries may face an impossible choice: protect their animals and farmers or protect access to export markets. The result is a system that remains perpetually reactive.

Meanwhile, these diseases continue to spread. Lumpy skin disease and peste des petits ruminants (PPR) reached new regions for the first time last year, disrupting trade, harming rural communities and undermining food security. For the more than one billion people who rely on livestock for food, income and livelihoods, these are not abstract events. They have a real economic and social impact.

That is why the rinderpest eradication anniversary should be more than a moment of reflection. It should be a reminder that prevention only works when it is planned before the next emergency, not improvised during it. National preparedness remains essential, but diseases respect no borders. No country can fully control animal health threats alone.

Global collaboration is needed to improve surveillance, align incentives for vaccination, and remove the trade and policy barriers that discourage prevention. This is the role initiatives such as the World Organisation for Animal Health’s PREVENT Forum can play: bringing governments, international organizations and the private sector together to help remove the barriers that individual countries cannot on their own.

But collaboration must move beyond discussion. It should lead to practical changes: stronger investment in surveillance and diagnostics, clearer pathways for the use and recognition of vaccination, and faster access to these tools during outbreaks. The goal should not be to respond better to every crisis. It should be to prevent more crises from happening.

The past three years alone have brought outbreaks of avian influenza, bluetongue virus, foot-and-mouth disease and Newcastle disease across continents. We do not yet know which animal disease will cause the next major shock, or where it will emerge.

But rinderpest proved that the world knows how to act when science, political will and global coordination are aligned. The question is not whether prevention is possible. The question is whether we will choose to make it a priority before the next crisis strikes.

Dr Armin Wiesler is President of HealthforAnimals

IPS UN Bureau

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AI job exposure and risk of human jobs lost to AI. Image generated by IA

By Isabel Ortiz and Bill Shoulder
NEW YORK, Jun 26 2026 (IPS)

Artificial intelligence (AI) promises remarkable gains in productivity, science, medicine and education. But it is also poised to wipe out millions of jobs, hollow out the middle class, and drain the tax revenues that pay for hospitals, schools and pensions. The process has already begun, and the time to act is running out.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that AI will affect almost 40% of jobs worldwide. In advanced economies, around 60% of jobs are exposed and as many as one in three (33%) human jobs are at high risk of being replaced by AI. In emerging markets, about 40% are exposed, with roughly one in four (24%) at high displacement risk; and in low-income countries, an estimated 26%, with close to one in five (18%) human jobs lost to AI.

Isabel Ortiz

New jobs will appear but, according to the IMF, far more are likely to vanish. The effects spread beyond the workers who lose their jobs. Wages fall, insecure work multiplies, and bargaining power collapses once employers can credibly threaten to swap workers for AI. More income flows to those who own the technology and to a handful of dominant firms, while the share reaching ordinary employees and workers shrinks.

Middle-class households are the economy’s main consumers. If their incomes fall, shops and small businesses sell less, investment slows, and closures rise. The economy can then slip into a low-growth trap of weak demand, low wages and chronic underemployment.

Falling tax revenues weaken the welfare state
The pressure then moves to public finances. Much of governments’ funding depends on the middle class: income taxes, consumption taxes and social security contributions. If wage income falls and stable employment shrinks, public revenues shrink with it. At the same time, more people need unemployment support, retraining, healthcare and income assistance. Governments then face the fiscal vise of lower revenue and higher need, a risk highlighted in the IMF’s 2026 analysis of AI, labor markets and public policy.

Bill Shoulder

Public services and democracy come under strain
History suggests what often comes next: austerity policies. Governments under pressure raise consumption taxes, increase user fees, tighten eligibility rules and cut public spending. When revenues weaken, education, health, care services and social protection are often treated as budget lines to be “rationalized,” even though they are human rights and indispensable public services that hold societies together. The result is a two-tier world: quality private services for the wealthy few and failing public provision for everyone else.

Economic insecurity erodes democratic trust. If people feel that work no longer provides stability, that public institutions no longer protect them, and that the gains from technology flow upward to a small elite, resentment grows. Polarization intensifies. Scapegoating becomes easier, as does the appeal of surveillance, manipulation and more authoritarian forms of control, especially when AI itself can be used to shape information and public debate.

The future is ours to shape
None of this is inevitable. As Nobel laureates Acemoglu and Johnson argue, the impact of AI depends far less on the technology than on the political and economic choices we make about how to use it. Governments can tax the windfall profits and concentrated power AI creates. With these funds, they can protect demand and guarantee income security through the transition. Governments can and should expand public services and social security as fundamental human rights. States should also give workers and citizens a real say in how AI is deployed, and regulate AI to strengthen democracy, prevent disinformation and surveillance from eroding civic trust before it is damaged beyond repair.

AI is already transforming society. The decisive question is whether democracies can ensure that its enormous gains are shared widely enough to foster prosperity for all, preserving the social contract on which stable, dignified societies depend. That choice is still ours, but not for much longer.

Isabel Ortiz, Director, Global Social Justice, was Director at the International Labor Organization (ILO) and UNICEF, and a senior official at the UN and the Asian Development Bank.

Bill Shoulder is an AI software engineer and a researcher, with a background in artificial intelligence and international project management.

IPS UN Bureau

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Credit: Jaime Saldarriaga/AFP

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Jun 26 2026 (IPS)

On 21 June Colombians made their choice. By the narrowest of margins, Abelardo de la Espriella, a far-right criminal lawyer who’s never held elected office, became president-elect. Climate activists, human rights defenders, Indigenous communities and peace advocates have the most to lose from the incoming government’s agenda.

The election results follow the logic of a decade of deepening polarisation. Since the 2016 Peace Accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia began a contested and incomplete transition away from armed conflict, Colombian society has divided into two mutually hostile blocs. The election further revealed that no middle ground remains between them. The mainstream right is gone, its candidate receiving a humiliating 6.3 per cent of the first-round vote, and a new right, harsher and less constrained by institutional norms, has taken its place.

Peace agreement in trouble

Nothing divided the two runoff candidates more starkly than the 2016 Peace Accord. Iván Cepeda, the candidate backed by outgoing leftist President Gustavo Petro, is a long-time human rights advocate and senator, and chairs the Senate’s Peace and Post-Conflict Commission. He ran on a ‘comprehensive peace’ platform focused on addressing the structural roots of violence, including land access, inequality and the absence of state services in rural areas.

In contrast, De la Espriella said there would be no peace process under his watch, proposing instead to resume aerial bombardment of armed groups and reinstate herbicide fumigation of coca crops, a practice with well-documented environmental and public health consequences.

According to figures from Colombia’s Ombudsman’s Office, the six-decade conflict caused over 1.1 million killings and more than 200,000 enforced disappearances, while over nine million were forcibly displaced. That record, and the significant progress made since 2016, will now be judged expendable by a government that regards the accords as illegitimate.

For the communities living in territories where armed groups overlap with extractive industries, this is no abstract policy debate. Human rights organisations have warned that a return to a full military offensive will be devastating for civilian populations, particularly the environmental defenders and Indigenous communities who already face lethal threats. Colombia is the world’s deadliest country for environmental and land rights defenders. It’s likely about to get worse.

Cutting the human rights lifeline

De la Espriella also proposes to part ways with the international human rights architecture that has provided Colombia’s victims with a path to justice. On the campaign trail, he announced his intention to withdraw from ‘useless’ international organisations including the UN and the Organization of American States, and denounced the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights as ‘a farce’ that has served only to ‘support the left and persecute our security forces’.

In Colombia’s conflict-ridden territories where Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities continue to experience massacres and displacement, international monitoring bodies are often the only source of independent verification that violence is happening. The American Convention on Human Rights, which Colombia ratified in 1973, is embedded in the country’s constitutional framework, shaping the interpretation of fundamental rights across the legal system.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has hundreds of cases involving Colombia. In December 2024, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found the state responsible for the 1995 enforced disappearance of two human rights defenders. Their families waited almost three decades for closure, and only got it because they turned to the regional system when domestic institutions failed them. Now that route could be closed.

What the results mean

Colombia’s change of direction could have global repercussions. Just weeks before the election, Colombia hosted the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, bringing together 57 states alongside civil society and scientists frustrated by the repeated failure of UN climate summits to deliver binding commitments on fossil fuel phase-out. Under Petro, renewable energy grew from two per cent to around 16 per cent of the energy mix, and Colombia issued no new contracts for fossil fuel exploration.

That era ends when de la Espriella takes office on 7 August. He frames fossil fuel expansion as a fiscal imperative and calls for the immediate legalisation of fracking, currently banned by judicial moratorium. Since the country includes significant parts of the Amazon rainforest, the climate impacts won’t be limited to Colombia.

Ultimately, De la Espriella did not win for his positions on peace, climate or human rights. He won on security and the promise of order. Calling himself ‘The Tiger’, he modelled his campaign on the populist template of Argentina’s President Javier Milei and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, vowing to shrink the state, build megaprisons and combat corruption with tools normally reserved for organised crime. The movement he founded, Defenders of the Homeland, carried Donald Trump’s public backing. The combination proved effective in a country exhausted by decades of violence where many are deeply sceptical of the left’s ability to deliver safety.

The far-right candidate converted legitimate grievances about insecurity into a mandate to dismantle the peace process, reverse climate commitments and withdraw from the international human rights architecture. The consequences will be felt most acutely by those his campaign never meant to speak to.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Head of Research and Analysis, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report. She is also a Professor of Comparative Politics at Universidad ORT Uruguay.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

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Credit: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/IMF Photo

By Chie Aoyagi, Maurizio Leonardi, Athene Laws and Hamza Mighri
WASHINGTON DC, Jun 26 2026 (IPS)

For decades, official development assistance has been a central pillar of financing in sub-Saharan Africa. That pillar is now weakening—quickly and broadly.

In 2025, bilateral aid to the region fell sharply, with early estimates pointing to cuts of about 26 percent in a single year. Multilateral support is also under pressure, with major institutions projecting sizeable budget reductions. More cuts may follow as donors reset priorities in a shifting geopolitical environment.

As we explain in chapter 2 of the IMF’s recent Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa, this is not a routine fluctuation. It is hitting countries that have limited room to adjust and few alternative sources of financing.

Why aid matters

Sub-Saharan Africa had the highest aid dependency globally in 2024. On average, aid accounted for 3 percent of GDP at the regional level. But that average hid sharp differences. In low-income countries and fragile states, aid often reached the equivalent of 6 percent of GDP or more, and in some cases far higher.

Over half of that aid was used to finance essential services such as health, education, and humanitarian assistance. And because development partners and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) often deliver services directly to people in need, aid cuts can also curtail the very systems that people rely on. Effective responses to crises such as the Ebola emergency in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, the high and rising needs of people forcibly displaced by conflict, and the ongoing drought in the Horn of Africa rely heavily on the health and humanitarian infrastructure that aid has consistently helped to build.

A different reality

Aid flows have always fluctuated. But this episode stands apart.

The recent cuts are large and broadly simultaneous across countries. They are driven by donor decisions rather than changes in recipient economies. And they come at a time when traditional buffers are weaker: multilateral institutions and NGOs, which have often cushioned past declines, are themselves facing funding constraints. While non-traditional donors, such as China and the Gulf States, have grown their aid presence in the region, the magnitudes are not able to cover the reduction in traditional donors.

The cuts are also difficult to manage because they follow six years of successive shocks—including the pandemic, tighter global financial conditions, and food and energy crises—that have already eroded fiscal space.

Tough trade-offs

Governments now face difficult choices. Many have limited fiscal space, rising debt, and low reserves.

IMF-administered surveys covering 28 African countries suggest four broad policy responses:

o Some governments are not replacing lost aid, allowing programs to lapse. This limits immediate fiscal strain but carries high social costs.
o Many are reprioritizing spending, often cutting public investment—easier politically, but damaging to future growth.
o Others are borrowing more, including domestically, increasing debt risks.
o Some are stepping up revenue mobilization, though results take time.

Each option comes with trade-offs. Replacing lost aid can protect services and growth, but at the cost of wider deficits and external imbalances. Not replacing it stabilizes budgets and protects debt sustainability, but risks lasting damage to human capital and development.

There are no easy choices.

How to respond

The policy challenge is to manage the adjustment while preserving core development gains. Three priorities stand out.

First, protect and target high-impact aid.
With resources scarce, allocation matters more. Aid should be directed toward the countries and sectors where it has the greatest effect—especially low-income countries and fragile states, and essential humanitarian needs. Stronger coordination can reduce fragmentation and avoid duplication.

Second, broaden the financing toolkit.
Grant financing will remain essential, particularly in humanitarian contexts. But other instruments can play a larger role. Blended finance—using public funds to mobilize private investment—can help expand financing for infrastructure, energy, and agriculture. It is not a substitute for aid: it is harder to scale, more complex, and can add to debt if poorly designed. Managing these trade-offs will be critical.

Third, strengthen domestic capacity.
With aid less predictable, resilience increasingly depends on domestic institutions. This means mobilizing more revenue, improving spending efficiency, and strengthening policy design and service delivery. Aid has often provided both funding and implementation; replacing that capacity will take time and sustained investment.

A turning point

The shift that began in 2025 is unlikely to be temporary. It reflects a broader reconfiguration of development finance, shaped by tighter donor budgets and changing priorities.

The implications will vary by country, depending on exposure, initial buffers, and policy choices. But the direction is clear: reliance on external aid will become more uncertain, and domestic policy will matter more.

The immediate task is to manage the decline in aid without backsliding on the significant human development achievements of the past decades. The longer-term challenge is to adapt to a world where aid is less abundant and less predictable. How countries navigate both will shape growth and development outcomes for years to come.

Chie Aoyagi, Maurizio Leonardi, and Athene Laws are economists in the IMF’s African Department, where Hamza Mighri is a research analyst.

IPS UN Bureau

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Smallholder farmers in Africa and Asia are likely to still be reeling from the fuel and fertilizer crisis caused by conflict in the Middle East when what forecasters expect to be a “super” El Niño arrives later this year.

Appolinaire Djikeng

Consensus is increasingly clear that tackling climate change to avert such crises is a legal duty under international law. Bringing down emissions requires both short-term and long-term action. And yet one of the most effective levers available — sustainable livestock farming — receives just 1 to 2 per cent of climate finance dedicated to agriculture. That is a vanishingly small share for a sector that, in many low- and middle-income countries, accounts for as much as 80 per cent of agricultural GDP.

This funding gap matters because livestock offer something relatively rare in climate policy: the chance to cut emissions fast while also building resilience. Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over the short term, which means reducing it delivers quicker climate benefits.

Cattle and other livestock are among the primary sources of methane emissions. But crucially, both direct and indirect methane emissions from livestock production are often higher than necessary because of the same factors that hold back productivity. Poor animal health, low quality feed and nutrition, and climate stress all undermine production and increase both direct emissions and emission intensity. Tackling these fundamental factors solves both challenges.

In Ethiopia, for example, poor animal health has been found to increase livestock emissions by 50 per cent while also resulting in lower meat, milk and egg yields. Parasites and other vector-borne diseases increase the methane produced in animals’ guts while stunting growth and development.

Simply by applying existing tools to improve animal health, such as vaccines, drugs that kill parasites and good nutrition, research suggests that emissions could be conservatively reduced by at least 15 per cent per unit of output. The same interventions also increase productivity and improve livelihoods.

New research is also uncovering new opportunities to reduce methane from livestock while also boosting productivity and resilience.

Scientists from CGIAR research centres and partners have analysed nearly 300 forage samples and found that varieties of African clover, cowpea and lablab could reduce methane emissions by up to 90 per cent. These plants contain compounds that alter the microbes in cows’ stomachs and block the process that generates methane.

Testing is now under way to identify varieties that could be grown as low-methane feed, which not only helps reduce emissions but also supports local seed systems.

Restoring rangelands adds another layer: it helps improve forage availability to support better animal nutrition, lower methane emissions and build stronger ecosystems. Last year, for example, participatory rangeland management (PRM) was strengthened across 340,000 hectares in Ethiopia and 50,000 hectares in Tanzania, improving rangeland health and supporting livestock production.

Many more solutions exist to improve livestock sustainability for short-term and long-term gains, including those developed by the Livestock and Climate Solutions Hub. But despite growing evidence of impact from livestock interventions, climate finance continues to flow elsewhere, away from the agricultural systems that hundreds of millions of people depend on most directly.

In a post-aid world, directing more climate finance towards sustainable livestock farming in low- and middle-income countries is an investment in global stability.

Investing in more sustainable livestock production has a ripple effect that improves food security, livelihoods, and economic growth and contributes to greater stability and resilience in the face of shocks like the “super” El Niño.

Climate vulnerability is costly. Building resilience through the primary sectors of low- and middle-income countries is an insurance against future crises.

Prof. Appolinaire Djikeng is Director General of the International Livestock Research Institute

IPS UN Bureau

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Leadership of the Global South has gradually declined since the 1980s. Many hope BRICS+ will fill the vacuum, but its purpose and membership suggest such hopes may be misplaced. A repurposed Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) offers the best way forward.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

In 1964, developing countries formed the G77 caucus and created the UN Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD) within the UN system.

In 1974, the UN General Assembly called for a New International Economic Order (NIEO) after President Nixon ended the 1944 Bretton Woods international monetary system in 1971.

In 1979, the US Fed responded to Western stagflation by sharply raising interest rates. This triggered fiscal and sovereign debt crises in Latin America and Africa, forcing many to seek IMF emergency funds to cope.

Meanwhile, the Thatcher-Reagan-inspired counter-revolution against Keynesian and development economics led to ‘neoliberal’ Washington Consensus policy reforms, deepening economic contraction.

At New York’s Plaza Hotel, the US got its G7 caucus of the world’s 7 largest allied economies to address its overvalued dollar by requiring the currencies of Japan and Germany to appreciate sharply.

Nurina Malek

With its legitimacy at stake following the East Asian, Russian, and other financial crises of 1997-99, G7 finance ministers agreed in 1999 to create a more inclusive G20 grouping of finance ministers of the world’s 20 largest economies.

Soon after the 2008 global (actually Western) financial crisis began, the first G20 leaders’ summit convened in the White House in November 2008.

Making BRICS
‘BRICs’ was coined in late 2001 by then-Goldman Sachs Global Economic Research head Jim O’Neill, referring to Brazil, Russia, India, and China.

Ostensibly to include Africa, the BRICs invited South Africa to join, creating BRICS as a coalition of the five more independent large ‘emerging market’ economies.

Also serving as a caucus within the G20, BRICS has tried to improve international monetary and financial relations. It has since admitted more nations into an expanded BRICS+ with two tiers of affiliation.

To be sure, neither BRICS nor BRICS+ was ever intended to represent the even more diverse interests of the entire Global South. Understandably, it serves its ‘financially significant’ developing economy members.

BRICS and the South
The BRICS promise a world less dominated by the rich and powerful nations of the Global North, mainly in the West.

The world has been dominated by the US since the end of WW2, and especially after the first Cold War. Despite occasional dissent, the US’s European NATO allies seem happy playing second fiddle.

Many developing countries have long felt that existing arrangements do not serve their best interests. The BRICS seem to offer some ‘voice’ and alternative bases for international economic cooperation.

BRICS has undoubtedly strengthened the Global South’s voice and developed new arrangements to support developing country interests, especially to finance development.

The BRICS have also advocated on specific international issues for the Global South. All five BRICS countries have also led developing-country groupings on specific issues with varying degrees of success.

Unsurprisingly, many developing countries appreciate the BRICS role in such matters, with some choosing to publicly align with and even affiliate with it.

However, the BRICS expansion into BRICS+ is unlikely to resolve many problems faced by developing nations due to international power asymmetries and imbalances.

Potential and problems
The diversity of the Global South complicates any grouping’s claim to represent it.

BRICS+ brings together countries with very different political and economic systems, priorities and aspirations, including development goals and interests.

This diversity enhances BRICS’ broad appeal but also makes it difficult to ensure it becomes an effective platform consistently advocating all developing nations’ interests.

This challenge becomes more apparent when the interests and ambitions of weaker developing countries are compared with those of the major BRICS+ powers.

Many vulnerable nations are preoccupied with food security, structural change, deindustrialisation, environmental sustainability, planetary heating, and financialization.

Meanwhile, BRICS members seek to pursue their own strategic interests, garner finance and investments, boost their exports and increase their influence internationally.

Such objectives are not inherently contradictory, but rarely fully aligned. This makes it more difficult to pursue shared interests, advocate collectively, and sustain cooperation.

BRICS+ membership by invitation also limits its effective accountability to the Global South. It is unrealistic to expect BRICS+ to consistently advocate for the full range of concerns of all developing countries, especially the poorest and least influential.

The Global South should undoubtedly try to benefit from the economic weight and voice of BRICS+. But it can best advance its shared interests with its own voice and organised strength via a revived NAM, repurposed for peace, development and justice.

IPS UN Bureau

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As of now, geopolitics overtook trade policy uncertainty as the primary concern for countries. Credit: Unsplash / Sajimon Sahadevan

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 25 2026 (IPS)

Amidst increased geopolitical tensions, the risk of volatile energy markets, trade corridors, and regional stability in the Middle East has garnered more attention than trade policy in terms of its power to alter the global economy, according to new findings from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

In their report on trade and development, “Global Economy Faces a Geopolitical Challenge”, UNCTAD says that a protracted escalation “raises the likelihood of deeper disruptions in global trade and finance, potentially, foreshadowing a cascading crisis”.

Credit: UN Conference on Trade and Development (Trade and Development Foresights 2026)

Daily crude oil prices in the Middle East since the beginning of the conflict have risen from around USD 60-70, to a fluctuating rate between a high of over USD 110-. With oil prices surging more than 60 percent, and gas doubling in price, many markets have been left in an inflating scenario as higher energy prices increase macroeconomic pressure and overall slow and contract the economy.

The increase per barrel is largely due to a constriction of supply, where most Gulf economies can barely output oil due to a lack of transport ability through the strait of Hormuz. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) records a spike in the price of Brent crude rising over USD 100 per barrel and remaining at elevated levels, with European gas also jumping roughly “60 percent amid disruptions to LNG exports”.

The numbers are impacted by an estimated loss of capacity of 10 million barrels per day of oil and “about 500 million cubic meters per day of natural gas”. This is roughly 10 percent of global oil production, and roughly 5 percent of global natural gas production for every single day.

The IMF records the following:

Daily Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz (in number of vessels) between 26 February and 6 April 2026. Credit: IMF

Oil being an inelastic good means that consumers won’t be able to curb their spending. Rather, they have to pay more for as long as the conflict lasts as fuels are needed for many essential routine tasks, from driving your car, to taking your vitamins, to growing your food, and having your Amazon packages shipped.

In their April 2026 Regional Economic Outlook Update for the Middle East and Central Asia, the IMF details that a continued conflict will likely for every 10 percent rise in the average oil price lead to a loss of about 0.5 percent of GDP and an inflation increase of around 1 percent in Gulf economies, ultimately affecting global markets heavily.

As the report notes, “Longer trade disruptions or greater damage to oil production capacity raises the possibility of higher and more sustained oil prices and a larger risk premium than is currently embedded in oil futures prices”.

However, for developing countries higher energy prices hit a lot harder to consumers in developing countries, which in this case don’t have the same money to spare. The IMF warns that “Low-income countries and other fragile and conflict-affected states in the MENAP region are especially vulnerable to higher energy, fertilizer, and food prices”.

Due to the conflict, estimates stand that vulnerable economies, mostly least developed countries (16.1 billion) and small island developing states (4.3 billion), could incur a USD 20 billion a year increase in spending, representing a huge composition of their GDP expenditure.

Among least-developed nations, Mauritania is recorded to have their bill increase by 7.3 percent, The Gambia 6.3 percent, Burkina Faso 5.0 percent, Liberia and Zambia 4.3 percent, with 17 other least developed countries also estimating to increase their spending by at least 0.5 percent in terms of GDP points.

Similarly for small-island developing states, Vanuatu is recorded to have an increase of 5.8 percent, Maldives 5.2 percent, Tonga 4.4 percent, Mauritius 4.2 percent, and Fiji 3.2 percent, with 18 other small developing states recording an increase of at least 0.6%.

UNCTAD also expects this conflict to take away capital investment into developing nations, as these assets are perceived as riskier. The UNCTAD report states that “the start of the Middle East conflict triggered a sell-off of developing countries’ assets, with equity markets of emerging markets sliding by more than 12 per cent between 28 February and 29 March.” Likely such effects will trigger a compacting of issues, contributing to an economic downturn that could take years to recover from depending on the length of the conflict.

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Clarke A survivor of sexual violence covers her face with her hands in a camp for displaced people in Tawila, North Darfur. Credit: UNOCHA/Giles

By Mariya Salim
DELHI, India, Jun 25 2026 (IPS)

Three years ago, during a mission to the Central African Republic from United Nations Headquarters, I met a woman whose story has remained with me ever since. She had survived rape during the conflict. Yet what stayed with her most was not only the violence she had suffered, but the stigma that followed it. When she returned home, her family refused to take her back. In a society where survivors of sexual violence are too often burdened with shame that rightfully belongs to perpetrators, she found herself isolated and struggling to rebuild her life. In that moment, it became painfully clear that for survivors, the violence does not end when the assault ends, it continues through stigma, exclusion, and the resulting silence for most.

Conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) does not end when the act itself ends. Its consequences ripple through families, communities, and generations and that is precisely why more needs to be done to not just address it but prevent it from happening in the first place.

As the world marked the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict on 19 June, (The day marks the adoption of Security Council Resolution 1820 (2008), which condemned sexual violence in conflict and recognized its impact on peace and security), I found myself reflecting on the many survivors whose stories I have encountered throughout my career. I witnessed firsthand the devastating and enduring impact of these crimes, sometimes documenting and analysing the many cases sent to us by colleagues on the field and sometimes while interacting with the survivors first hand. At a moment when wars dominate global headlines, from Gaza and Ukraine to Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo, ignoring CRSV means ignoring one of war’s most enduring and devastating consequences.

Today, the issue is more urgent than ever. Civilians continue to bear the heaviest burden of conflict, and among the most devastating consequences of conflict is sexual violence. According to the United Nations Secretary-General’s 2026 Report on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence, nearly 9,800 cases were verified globally in 2025, more than double the number documented the previous year. Yet even these alarming figures represent only a fraction of the actual scale of violations, given the barriers to reporting, including stigma, insecurity, fear of retaliation, and limited access to services. “The figures contained in this report should be understood not as the full picture, but as an indication of a much broader pattern of violations that remain largely unseen and underreported.” said Special Representative to the Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten.

From Sudan and South Sudan to Haiti, Ukraine, and Myanmar, recent UN reporting shows that conflict-related sexual violence continues to affect communities across the globe, reminding us that it remains one of the most enduring and devastating consequences of armed conflict.

CRSV is not an inevitable consequence of war; it is often a deliberate act used to terrorize communities, assert power, and deepen divisions. Its impact extends well beyond the immediate violation. For many survivors, the trauma is compounded by stigma, rejection from family members, exclusion from community life, loss of livelihoods, interrupted education, and limited access to justice and support services. The consequences can endure long after the conflict itself has faded from public attention.

In South Sudan, I documented stories of women and adolescent girls who had survived gang rape while collecting firewood, water or travelling to markets. I listened to survivors who feared reporting violations because they worried about being ostracized by their communities and feared retaliation by their attackers who ranged from soldiers to armed militia. I encountered families struggling to support children born out of rape while facing stigma and economic hardship.

Although women and girls bear the overwhelming burden of conflict-related sexual violence, my work also exposed me to the experiences of men and boys who had endured similar violations. Many carried their trauma in silence, reluctant to come forward because of stigma, fear, and societal expectations surrounding masculinity. As a result, their experiences are frequently overlooked, even as they grapple with profound physical and psychological consequences.

In conflict zones such as South Sudan, local civil society organisations continue to play a critical role in supporting survivors despite significant resource and safety constraints. These organisations often serve as the first and sometimes only point of contact for survivors seeking assistance. They provide psychosocial support, referrals to healthcare, legal aid, community awareness programmes, and safe spaces for healing. Yet the scale of need far exceeds available resources.

As Rev. John Ngbapia Bakiri, Executive Director of Rural Development Action Aid (RDAA), explains:

“The biggest challenge we face in dealing with Survivors of CRSV in South Sudan is the limited scope and resources of the intervention relative to the scale of need. Many CRSV Survivors remain unreached, several highly affected communities excluded, and the specific needs of children born out of rape are not fully integrated into the response. These children continue to face stigma, protection risks, and limited access to essential services, compounding the vulnerability of survivor households.”

Addressing conflict-related sexual violence therefore requires moving beyond emergency response and looking at prevention with a survivor centred approach. It requires sustained investment in healthcare, psychosocial support, education, livelihoods, legal assistance, awareness building and social reintegration. It requires supporting local organisations that remain embedded within communities long after international attention has shifted elsewhere. It also involves very importantly engaging with the government including the implementation of national action plans, criminalization of conflict-related sexual violence in domestic legislation, and meaningful accountability for perpetrators regardless of rank or affiliation.

Despite decades of advocacy and normative progress, accountability remains elusive in many contexts. Survivors continue to face significant barriers in accessing justice and perpetrators often operating with impunity is common. With peace processes and political negotiations frequently overlooking the experiences and priorities of survivors, funding for survivor-centred services remains inadequate despite growing needs. At a time when violence and instability are rising across the world, we can no longer afford to relegate conflict-related sexual violence to the margins of policy and peacebuilding efforts. Its consequences are profound and enduring, leaving scars not only on survivors but also on the communities and societies struggling to rebuild in its aftermath.

The International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict offers an important moment for reflection. But remembrance alone is not enough. What survivors deserve is justice, protection, meaningful support, and genuine participation in shaping the policies and responses that affect them with a seat at the decision making table. Their stories are not simply testimonies of suffering, they are calls to action.

Mariya Salim is co-founder of Zariya. She is a Human Rights activist and an international SGBV expert currently based in Delhi India. She has served as a Women Protection Adviser with the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), and was part of the United Nations team working on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence at UN Headquarters in New York.

IPS UN Bureau

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June 27-28 is the 16th Social Business Day, observed in Savar (Dhaka) Bangladesh. In June 2024 at the Western Sydney University’s graduation ceremony where I was conferred Emeritus Professor status, I urged the new business graduates to:

• purge the world of the… obnoxious Friedmanite idea that is destroying our planet and tearing our communities apart;
• look instead to the “Social Business Model” of Bangladesh’s Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus; and
• work on the right side of history; stand up for justice and liberation; spread the “moral violence” for peace; and put people and the planet before profit.

Anis Chowdhury

In his 1970 article for The New York Times, Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman wrote, “the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits”. He further argued, “There are no ‘social’ values, no ‘social’ responsibilities in any sense other than the shared values and responsibilities of individuals. Society is a collection of individuals and of the various groups they voluntarily form”.

This Friedmanite world view has been at the core of the neo-liberal counter revolution led by Ronald Reagan and Margarette Thatcher in the 1980s. In his inaugural speech, Reagan famously declared, “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem”, and ushered in an era driven by unrestrained individual pursuits of profit.

Promoting unrestrained individualism, Thatcher questioned, “who is society?” Then she dismissed, “There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families…”.

“Greed” became the all-consuming passion at the height of unrestrained individual pursuit of profit as captured famously in the 1987 movie, Wall Street. The lead character, Gordon Gekko (played by Michael Douglas) addressing the shareholders said:

“The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed – for lack of a better word – is good.
Greed is right.
Greed works.
Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
Greed, in all of its forms – greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge – has marked the upward surge of mankind”.

Has it?

Has greed, in all forms, marked the upward surge of mankind?

Yes, global income and wealth increased manifold since the 1980s; but so did global inequality. The wealth and income gaps between the wealthiest and the poorest have widened. The richest 1.5% own almost 48% of the world’s wealth, according to the UBS Global Wealth Report 2025, while the poorest 40% own only 0.5%.

The World Inequality Report 2026 reveals an even starker wealth gap. The wealthiest 0.001%, comprising around 56,000 multi-millionaires, now hold three times more wealth than the bottom half of the world population. Their share has grown steadily from 3.7% in 1995 to 6.1% in 2025. According to the UBS Global Wealth Report 2025, as of 2023, the world’s 26 richest billionaires owned a shocking US$2.872 trillion in wealth, which is greater than many nations’ total goods and services (GDP).

Cheerleaders of unrestrained greed may dismiss these facts and say “so what? Global abject poverty has also declined”. In fact, economist and historian Deirdre McCloskey, the author of Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economists Can’t Explain the Modern World, floated the idea of “Great Enrichment” asserting that real per capita incomes in the developed world have surged by a factor of 10 to 30 (or roughly 2,900%) since 1800. She argues this historic explosion of wealth fundamentally benefited the poor and working classes. For her, the concerns about inequality are a result of insatiable envy.

Some others have described the phenomenon of rising inequality amidst the wealth boom as “inclusive” because the process has lifted millions from abject poverty. According to them, rapid globalization has given rise to a new global wealth middle class. They see this as progress!

They also decry “the perception that billionaires make money for themselves at the expense of the wider population”, and attribute billionaires’ fortunes to successful investments, while highlight philanthropy and patronage of the arts, culture and sports by billionaires.

But the cheerleaders ignore billionaires’ tax evasion and tax avoidance, and the fact that societies should not rely on the generosity of the rich.

The cheerleaders are also climate deniers. They ignore the overwhelming scientific evidence linking rising inequality and the climate crisis. The world’s wealthiest 10% has caused two thirds of global warming since 1990, according to a new study published in Nature. It also reports that the top 1% of the wealthiest individuals globally contributed 26 times the global average to increases in monthly 1-in-100-year heat extremes globally and 17 times more to Amazon droughts.

It’s time for change

It is time for a paradigm shift from profit to people and the planet. Social business, a concept first introduced by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus, offers a path forward. In his 2009 book, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism, Professor Yunus defines a social business as “A business:

• Created and designed to address social problems
• A non-loss, non-dividend company, i.e.
1. It is financially self-sustainable and
2. Profits realised by the business are reinvested in the business itself (or used to start other social businesses), with the aim of increasing social impact, for example expanding the company’s reach, improving the products or services or subsidising the social mission.”

In short, a social business is oriented to social value creation. It is designed to address specific social or environmental problems such as hunger, poverty, unemployment, pollution, and climate adaptation and mitigation. In many ways, it is a hybrid between a traditional business and a non-profit organisation. Like a traditional business, a social business generates revenue and is financially self-sufficient rather than relying on philanthropy. However, like a non-profit organisation, the primary goal of a social business is NOT profit, but social or environmental impacts.

But, not a magic bullet

Social business is not a panacea for all evils or social-environmental problems. More fundamentally, systemic or structural social and environmental issues should not be treated as market opportunities. The framing of social problems as technical or managerial issues that can be solved with “business” solutions can obscure underlying structural causes like systemic discrimination and power imbalances which must be addressed through deep reforms, backed by political will.

There also is a risk of “impact-washing”, much like “greenwashing”. That is, weak regulatory standards can allow companies to cherry-pick metrics, exaggerate their societal benefits, or use their social status as “moral licensing” to justify otherwise dubious business practices.

Therefore, the “euphoria” of celebration must not distract us from the urgent need to develop proper monitoring and accountability frameworks for social business so that “greed” does not infest it.

Anis Chowdhury, Emeritus Professor, Western Sydney University (Australia). He held senior UN positions in Bangkok and New York and served as Special Assistant to the Chief Advisor for Finance (with the status and rank of State Minister) in the Professor Yunus-led Interim Government. Anis has written extensively on macroeconomic issues, sustainable development, international financial architecture and political economy. E-mail: anis.z.chowdhury@gmail.com; a.chowdhury@westernsydney.edu.au

IPS UN Bureau

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CIVICUS speaks about the climate impacts of the 2026 World Cup with Frank Huisingh, founder of Fossil Free Football, a fan-led group that campaigns to end fossil fuel sponsorship in football and make the game more sustainable.

Frank Huisingh

What makes this the most polluting World Cup ever?

The 2026 World Cup is probably the most polluting event humanity has ever staged. It is bigger than any edition before it, with 48 teams and 104 matches played across 16 host cities in Canada, Mexico and the USA.

In past tournaments, much of the pollution came from building stadiums. Qatar built its venues almost from scratch in 2022, and Saudi Arabia will pour enormous amounts of concrete into constructing new stadiums for 2034. This World Cup can at least rely on existing infrastructure. Instead, the main driver of pollution is travel. The host cities are so far apart that the only way to get between most matches is by plane, and fans are effectively forced to fly to follow their team.

Another factor is that the tournament is a giant billboard for polluters. Its sponsors include airlines such as American Airlines and Qatar Airways, carmakers like Hyundai-Kia, and Bank of America, a major financier of fossil fuels. This advertising adds significant emissions, because advertising drives up consumption.

The most concerning announcement of all was that Aramco, the Saudi state oil company and the world’s biggest oil producer, would become the World Cup’s biggest sponsor. Fossil fuel advertising works differently from the rest. It is not really about selling us our next product, since we don’t make those choices consciously, but about building influence and soft power. Aramco is using the largest platform on earth to spread its message.

This soft power matters. At the COP climate talks, Saudi Arabia is widely regarded as the worst blocker of climate action, rivalled only by Russia and now the USA. That unpopularity is exactly why it builds soft power elsewhere, by sponsoring huge events like this or fronting ads with figures such as former player Rio Ferdinand and former Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger, which will be highly visible throughout the tournament.

What’s the impact of extreme heat?

Because of climate change, summer football is now threatened by extreme temperatures it was never designed for, and FIFA has not adapted.

Fans may spend the whole day outside and then sit in the sun inside the stadium, which is dangerous for anyone, young or old. FIFA is doing little to help them stay hydrated. If anything, it is making things worse, having recently announced that people will no longer be allowed to bring their own reusable bottles into stadiums. A basic precaution would be to guarantee that fans can refill their bottles whenever they need to.

For players it can be just as serious. Teams will try to prepare for the heat, but the first reports are already coming in of players left exhausted by it in the USA. And the three-minute cooling breaks FIFA has introduced, which will be applied in every match regardless of conditions, are too short to bring players’ body temperature down or let them rehydrate properly. Experts say they should last at least six minutes.

We worked with a group of over 20 medical, climate and sports-science experts on an open letter warning that FIFA’s heat standards are genuinely dangerous, even impossible to justify. The way to measure how the body actually experiences heat is the ‘wet bulb globe temperature’, which combines air temperature, humidity, sun radiation and wind speed.

The experts, in line with the players’ union, say measures should begin at 26°C wet bulb and matches should be postponed at 28°C. Yet FIFA only takes any precaution at 32°C, and even then, postponing a match is not mandatory. That threshold is extreme. A 32°C wet bulb reading can correspond to 45°C in dry air or 35°C in high humidity, conditions in which no one should be playing sports outside at all.

So FIFA is promoting the causes of the crisis, exposing players to extreme heat and then failing to protect them. It could do so much better.

How does all of this sit with FIFA’s climate commitments?

In 2021, FIFA signed up to United Nations commitments to cut its emissions by 50 per cent by 2030 and reach net zero by 2040. It was a moment when the climate movement had real momentum and every organisation felt it had to put something down. But since then, the strategy has done little more than sit on paper, while FIFA has moved in the opposite direction.

Net zero by 2040 is a fantasy. The world won’t be net zero by then, so a travel-dependent tournament certainly won’t be either. The 50 per cent target, by contrast, is difficult but achievable. It could be reached by hosting the tournament in a smaller territory, using existing stadiums, encouraging fans to use public transport and prioritising local supporters rather than relying so heavily on international travel. International fans should absolutely be there – they are part of the experience – but it is also wonderful when the World Cup comes to town and local fans get the chance to attend.

Yet FIFA has taken no steps towards this target. Since signing up, its tournaments have only become more polluting. Politically and economically, FIFA has placed itself on the side of the fossil fuel industry and petrostates, not on the side of everyone else on the planet.

What can fans and civil society do?

Fossil Free Football is a tiny organisation, but we make as much noise as we can to hold FIFA accountable and force it to answer questions, which you can already see happening in the media. But we need many more players and fans alongside us.

Football can only survive if people can still go outside and play. So, if you love the game and care about its future, the first thing to do is speak up. Men’s football is often seen as conservative, but if you ask fans anywhere, they are as worried about the climate crisis as everyone else. That is why even talking about it with friends can make a difference, and it is where civil society activism begins.

From there, fans can call on their football associations and local clubs to act on climate. That might mean challenging a polluting sponsor, putting solar panels and a battery at the clubhouse or serving more plant-based food.

The same pressure is already working at the city level. A growing number of cities are banning fossil fuel advertising, much as we once did with tobacco when its impact on health became impossible to ignore. Amsterdam and Edinburgh have done it, and it can be replicated almost anywhere. Now football must do the same.

What lies ahead for the next World Cups?

I hope this tournament will be a wake-up call, and I fear the extreme heat and its toll on players may be what forces FIFA to change course. This summer might open the debate about moving the World Cup to winter, something that until now has only happened for Qatar.

The next event is the 2027 Women’s World Cup in Brazil, which Aramco is also set to sponsor. Tellingly, far more female players than male players have spoken out against the deal. We are campaigning to get it dropped before the tournament. It would be a shame for a country like Brazil, which has lately played a fairly positive role on climate, to host a tournament sponsored by the biggest polluter.

The 2030 World Cup will be hot too, with the tournament taking place mainly in Morocco, Portugal and Spain and with three opening matches in South America. Southern Europe and Northern Africa in summer are no place to play football. Meanwhile, stadium construction in Morocco is already drawing protests from locals and its emissions will be huge.

As for the 2034 World Cup in Saudi Arabia, eight years is a long time, especially as we are in the middle of a fossil fuel energy crisis driven by the war Israel and the USA are waging on Iran. Many Saudi infrastructure projects are already being scaled back, and the country and the world economy could look very different by then.

The risk, though, is that nothing changes politically at FIFA and the tournament goes ahead in Saudi Arabia, almost certainly in winter. That would mean yet another World Cup driving enormous emissions from construction, in a country that already imports a staggering share of the world’s concrete.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

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A lab technician conducts an HIV screening test at a medical centre in Hayatabad in the Peshawar district of Pakistan. Credit: WHO/Asad Zaidi

By Winnie Byanyima
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 24 2026 (IPS)

I am honoured to address this High-Level Meeting. I thank very much the President of the General Assembly for her leadership, our Co-Facilitators, and all the Member States for the extraordinary effort that brought us here now.

I also pay special tribute to the communities that have carried the AIDS response on their shoulders for four decades. These are people living with HIV; women and girls; gay men and other men who have sex with men; transgender people; people who inject drugs; sex workers. I also salute health workers; scientists; philanthropists; and development partners. Millions are alive because of your courage and brilliant contributions.

Twenty-five years ago, world leaders gathered in this hall for the first-ever United Nations General Assembly Special Session on a health crisis.

At the height of the pandemic, they made a promise: that AIDS would be stopped; that treatment and prevention would be accessible to all people in all countries; that funding would be mobilized to enable every country to fight the disease; that communities would lead; and that the United Nations would coordinate a global, multisectoral response unseen before.

As AIDS deaths peaked, my friend Diana, in my country Uganda, widowed by the virus, called me in tears. She said “I am ill. I may die. Please take care of my three children.” I kept my promise to her that day. Today those children are thriving adults — a lawyer, an accountant, an administrator.

Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS

Millions kept that promise. Communities, governments, scientists, health workers and companies kept the promise. That is the global AIDS response. And what progress we have made. Of 40 million people living with HIV today, 32.1 million are now on treatment, living long and healthy lives.

But let us not confuse progress with success. Nearly 9 million people are still not on treatment, and last year there were 1.2 million people who were newly infected. This is our last High-Level Meeting before the 2030 promise to end AIDS as a public health threat. We are just four years away. And the opportunity is extraordinary. Breathtaking science like long-acting medicines can now protect people from HIV with just two injections a year — it is not a vaccine, but it is the closest we have come. Research could yet give us a cure. Ending AIDS is possible.

Yet we meet at a perilous moment.

Multilateralism is at its weakest in a generation, and two threats are poised to reverse all our gains: the collapse in development financing, and the rollback of human rights, gender equality and civic space.

According to the OECD, development finance fell 23% in 2025 — the sharpest drop on record — HIV programmes in high-burden, low-income countries were hit hard. Our new UNAIDS data released last week show fragility. HIV testing has fallen 22% in high-burden settings, meaning people do not know their status and the virus continues to spread. Funding for condoms has been cut by more than 90% in some places. Prevention is being dismantled at the very moment we should be scaling innovations like new long-acting medicines.

Evidence also shows that countries that protect rights achieve stronger HIV outcomes. Yet we are seeing a dangerous rollback of the rights of those at highest risk — women and girls, gay men, trans people, people who inject drugs, sex workers. For the first time since UNAIDS began tracking, criminalisation is rising: over the past 10 to 15 years the trend has been of decriminalization. Last year two more countries criminalised same-sex relationships, and one increased penalties in 2026. These laws undermine services and allow HIV to spread. The shrinking of civic space is disabling community-led organizations that have proven the most effective in delivering services to people living with and affected by HIV. One study across 47 countries found community services to those most in need cut by 50 to 85%.

And yet Excellencies we can still seize the opportunity to stop this pandemic.

I stand here on behalf of UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. We were created in a moment of crisis — it is in our DNA to operate in crisis.

And here is what gives me hope.

52 countries have committed to increasing domestic financing since the rapid cuts. Regional initiatives — the Accra Reset led by President Mahama of Ghana, the African Union Roadmap, the Alliance for the Elimination of HIV in the Americas — are building health sovereignty. Financing agencies—the Global Fund, called for in this hall by Kofi Annan; the US bilateral programme—have secured new funding even in times of challenge. And we call for more.

Brazil’s G20 initiative is advancing regional production of medicines. And everywhere, communities refuse to give up and die —they continue to deliver services and defend one another under attack.

Governments of the world: are we going to keep the promise?

Five UN resolutions before now have driven progress up to here. The global AIDS response is perhaps the greatest, most successful story of multilateralism in forty years. Surely we can find a way to build on that success.

This Political Declaration is our chance to build on 25 years of commitment and point the way to 2030, and actually show multilateralism can deliver. We cannot fail, because we know what we must do:

• Commit to multilateralism, and to the shared targets before you.
• Sustain international financing, as countries mobilise their own resources.
• Protect the rights of people living with HIV to reach lifesaving services.
• Free the space, and let communities lead for their people
• Spur the science, so that innovations reach everyone in need as fast as possible

If we do these things, we can end AIDS.

Excellencies, when we walk out of this hall, let us look 40 million people living with HIV around the world in the eye and say: we kept our promise.

IPS UN Bureau

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