Binaifer Nowrojee, human rights lawyer and president of the Open Society Foundations (OSF). Credit: OSF

By Joyce Chimbi
BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 13 2025 (IPS)

Binaifer Nowrojee, a human rights lawyer and the president of the Open Society Foundations (OSF), has lauded the Brazilian government “for significant steps taken to breathe life into the climate commitments.”

A distinguished human rights advocate with over three decades of experience navigating politically sensitive operating environments to drive meaningful change, she particularly noted that events at the Conference of the Parties (COP) run differently and as they should when held in a country with a democracy as compared to those without democratic governance.

Speaking to IPS at COP30, the United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place in Belém, Brazil, from 10 to 21 November 2025, Nowrojee said the venue is “a strong statement in support of the indigenous and Afro-descendant people who continue to struggle to control their environment or live their lives to their full potential. Their inclusion and participation sends the right message.”

OSF, the world’s largest private funder working to promote human rights, equity, and justice, works around the world, addressing various complex and most pressing issues such as the intersection between climate change, justice, equity and human rights while at the same time leveraging emerging and existing opportunities to rebuild economies, revitalise democracies and improve livelihoods.

She spoke extensively of the changing world order, stressing that even in these uncertain times, opportunities abound. While the absence of the US and particularly representatives of the President Donald Trump administration from COP30 is symbolic, Nowrojee says this move presents a real opportunity for the global South to regroup and chart a more inclusive path forward.

So far, she believes “the global South is stepping up, as they are now able to speak more freely and not water down their commitments to reach a compromise climate agreement. There is now a real possibility for countries in the global South to emerge with new ideas.”

Nowrojee said these new ideas include rethinking the intersection between climate change, environmental protection and human rights, because environmental and land defenders are the most targeted globally among all rights defenders. More than 146 land and environmental defenders were killed or disappeared globally in 2024 defending their land, communities, and the environment.

Leadership doesn't have to come from government; it can come from anywhere.
The Latin America region experienced the majority of these attacks, with Colombia being the country with the most killings for the third year in a row. Indigenous people are disproportionately affected, representing nearly a third of lethal attacks despite being only 6 percent of the global population.

Against this backdrop, Nowrojee says the OSF is “very pleased that there is now a treaty called the Escazú Agreement, which commits Latin American governments to protecting human rights defenders, reinforces their commitment to climate, and ensures that information is given to their publics.”

She noted that the Escazú Agreement is a regional treaty in Latin America and the Caribbean that guarantees the right to environmental information, public participation in environmental decision-making, and access to justice in environmental matters. It is the first and only treaty of its kind, and it also includes special provisions for the protection of environmental human rights defenders and vulnerable groups.

OSF supports the Escazú Agreement by funding initiatives that strengthen its implementation, promote environmental rights, and protect environmental defenders in Latin America and the Caribbean. At COP30, the organization has already announced a major USD 19.5 million commitment to advance environmental justice and support a fair and sustainable economy in Latin America.

Meanwhile, Nowrojee is optimistic that the climate negotiations are moving in the right direction. Stressing that this “climate change crisis offers us a real chance to bring a new vision, one that’s rooted in fairness, dignity and harmony with nature. The global community here has the ability and opportunity to balance people, profit, and planet in a way that has not been achieved in the past.”

On the current and fragmented world order and increasingly nationalistic governments, she says, “we are living through a moment in the world where the structures and ways of doing things that we have had since the end of the Second World War are beginning to crumble. We’ve taken them as far as they can go.”

But the present is not a moment to fold hands and fret—instead, she sees these changes as providing opportunities to rebuild and “for people with moral imagination to step forward to envision and deliver a new and different world where all human beings can thrive. And so, we are no longer living in a unipolar world where the United States is the preeminent force.”

“We’re not even living in a G7 world. We are now living in a world that is a G20 world, where Africa will now have the highest population as a continent and where young people are coming forward and imagining a new world order that truly embraces principles of human rights and dignity. Notably, even young people who’ve never even lived in a democracy are now calling for it. You see it in Kenya, Senegal, Bangladesh and Nepal.”

While the road to rebuilding can be laden with uncertainties, challenges and pitfalls, Nowrojee is hopeful that the global community is up to the task. She advocates finding inspirational leaders and notes that people in every corner of the world are beginning to rise to the challenge. “We’re seeing young people organizing differently within their movements. This, in my opinion, is a real sign of inspiration.”

“Leadership doesn’t have to come from government; it can come from anywhere. And I also see emerging new arrangements such as the coming together of the BRICS countries, which is a group of major emerging economies with 11 member countries. The fact that it’s South Africa that brings a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice and Qatar negotiating and mediating various conflicts means we are now entering a new world. We’re seeing countries doing things that they wouldn’t have done 20 years ago.”

On the place of philanthropy in these uncharted waters, she says “philanthropy is a small part of the globe, and it’s a place and space where new ideas can be catalyzed and risks taken that would otherwise be impossible to take. Philanthropy is really about trying new ideas, new ways of thinking and acting, and maybe even failing, but if these ideas succeed, they then become examples of what could be done.”

On multilateralism or cooperation among many nations, she says the multilateralism structures are not crumbling, “only that, having been built after the Second World War, they are now in some ways frayed at the edges. They’re not performing the same way that they did, but I also see a multipolar world emerging, where different countries are beginning to cooperate and coordinate with each other.”

“I see a lot of imagination in different regions and also across regions. Latin America is taking major steps towards a new world. I see the Vatican with its Jubilee 2025 and attempts to rethink debt forgiveness and the unequal debt burden that countries carry. So, I see signs of change in different places and like-minded people who have the same values coming together to chart a new path towards a new world.”

In this new world, Nowrojee envisions climate justice as “a win-win for communities at the front line who are living in places and efforts to expand their participation in decision-making around how their natural resources are used.  Justice also means ensuring that the excluded or those at the edges become part and parcel of the democratic discussions, and ultimately this helps improve livelihoods and people’s well-being across the board.”

“Equally important is that we protect the planet, because if we are going to live on this planet, we are going to need to take significant and sustainable steps to address the damage that we, the human race, have done to this planet.”

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Alexander Soros accepts the European Civil Rights Prize of the Sinti and Roma on behalf of his father, George. Credit: Gorden Welters

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Oct 27 2025 (IPS)

Billionaire philanthropist George Soros has been awarded the European Civil Rights Prize of the Sinti and Roma for his decades of work supporting Roma rights.

Through sustained philanthropic efforts, Soros, who founded the Open Society Foundations (OSF), has supported projects across the continent advancing the rights, dignity, and empowerment of Roma—Europe’s largest ethnic minority.

His son Alexander, who is chair of the board of directors of the OSF, accepted the prize, which was established in memory of Holocaust survivors and pioneers of the Roma civil rights movement, Oskar and Vinzenz Rose, in Berlin on October 23, on his father’s behalf.

He said, “My father’s partnership with Roma communities has always been grounded in a deep belief in justice, dignity, and self-determination. This prize is a powerful recognition of that shared journey—and a call to continue the fight against prejudice and exclusion.”

Soros’s philanthropy has supported Roma-led organizations to confront discrimination, expand access to education and justice, improve early childhood development and healthcare, and amplify Roma voices in public life.

Among some of the most significant projects have been the creation of the European Roma Rights Centre, the Roma Education Fund (REF), and the Decade of Roma Inclusion, which collectively helped more than 150,000 Roma students attend school, challenged segregation before the European Court of Human Rights, and elevated Roma voices in public discourse.

Meanwhile, the 2024 launch of the Roma Foundation for Europe (RFE)—an independent, Roma-led institution established with a 100 million EUR pledge from the Open Society Foundations—was a key moment in support for Roma across the continent.

Speaking after the prize was awarded, those involved in some of these institutions highlighted not just how these projects have changed the lives of Roma individuals and advanced Roma rights more widely, but also the impact Soros and his work have had on Roma communities in Europe.

“Over the past two decades, REF has supported thousands of young Roma across 16 countries to complete higher education and build successful professional careers,” Ciprian Necula, Executive President of the REF, told IPS.

“Today, there are Roma doctors, engineers, teachers, lawyers, IT specialists, economists, social workers, journalists, and artists whose professional journeys began with REF’s support. Our most meaningful contribution has been creating genuine pathways to education and employment, proving that talent exists in every community when access and opportunity are fair.

“The work of George Soros has been extremely important to Roma communities. No other individual or institution has supported Roma communities with such consistency and vision. His contribution went far beyond financial support; he helped us build institutions, nurture leadership, and develop long-term strategic perspectives.

“His legacy is one of trust, solidarity, and shared responsibility, a reminder that real progress happens when marginalized communities are not only supported but empowered to lead their own change.”

Zeljko Jovanovic, RFE President, told IPS, “Without the Open Society Foundations, the Roma movement as we know it simply wouldn’t exist.”

“George Soros put Roma issues on Europe’s agenda and helped build the first networks of activists, researchers and policymakers working together for change. Over time, his support helped cultivate a generation of Roma professionals and advocates able to design and run their own initiatives. That legacy made today’s Roma-led institutions possible, including the Roma Foundation for Europe,” he said.

“The Roma Foundation for Europe is the most important step in building a Roma-led institution on a European scale in decades. It builds on the long tradition of support for Roma civil society that started with the Open Society Foundations but takes it further—focusing on leadership, education, economic participation, culture and political voice. There’s been a strong sense of ownership and hope [among Roma towards the Foundation]. Many Roma see the Foundation as something long overdue—a space where Roma lead, set the agenda and work with others as equals. It’s not just another organization that speaks about Roma but one that gives structure, power and voice to Roma-led ideas, from business and education to culture and politics,” he added.

Soros has said that he would be donating the 15,000 EUR endowment that comes with the award to the Roma Education Fund.

Necula said the money would be used to expand the Fund’s digital education program.

“This initiative will give Roma children and youth access to technology, digital skills training, and new learning opportunities. In essence, we will turn vision into action, transforming education into opportunity for our children. By investing in digital education now, we ensure that no child is left behind in the transformation shaping our economies and communities,” he said.

In comments after being awarded the prize, Soros spoke of his long-standing relationship with the Roma and highlighted the continued discrimination they face.

“The Roma have endured centuries of discrimination and marginalization, rooted in a long history of violence—from the Holocaust to forced sterilization, child removals, and evictions. These injustices continue to resurface, as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic and, more recently, when Roma fleeing the war in Ukraine faced barriers to shelter and aid,” he said.

“I’ve always believed that open societies must protect the rights of all people—especially those who are excluded. Working alongside Roma leaders and communities has been one of the most meaningful parts of my life’s work,” he added.

Meanwhile, Alexander has pledged to continue his father’s fight for Roma rights, equality, and support for communities’ empowerment.

“As a child, I accompanied my parents on visits across Europe to meet Roma leaders and their families. Those experiences left a lasting impression on me and shaped my own commitment to human rights. Today, as chair of the Open Society Foundations, I am proud to carry forward this vital work and stand alongside Roma communities in their pursuit of equal rights and freedom. The discrimination that Roma experience is a threat to all of Europe. None of us is free until we are all free,” he said.

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Young boy sitting on a wall outside 'Way Home', a UNICEF-assisted shelter providing food, accommodation, literacy trainings and HIV/AIDS-awareness lessons to street children in Odessa, Ukraine. Because of unsafe sex and injecting drug use, street adolescents are one of the groups most at risk of contracting HIV. Credit: UNICEF/G. Pirozzi

By Pavol Stracansky
KIEV, Dec 9 2014 (IPS)

Marginalised communities and civil society groups helping them are warning of a “tragedy” in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) as international funding for HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis (TB) programmes in the regions is cut back.

The EECA is home to the world’s only growing HIV/AIDS epidemic and is the single most-affected region by the spread of multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB). For years, HIV/AIDS and TB programmes in many of its countries have been heavily, or exclusively, reliant on funding from theGlobal Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria.

But this year has seen the Global Fund move to a new financing model based on national income statistics, under which funding in many EECA countries has already been – or will soon be – heavily cut.“This [reduction in Global Fund financing] could lead to tragedy because governments are not yet ready to take on the responsibility for addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic. I would like decision-makers to understand that this is not just [about] epidemiological statistics but that our lives and health are at stake” – Viktoria Lintsova of the Eurasian Network of People Who Use Drugs (ENPUD)

Some of those likely to be most heavily affected by the cuts say that the reduction in Global Fund financing is putting essential HIV/AIDS and TB services, and with it lives, at risk.

Viktoria Lintsova of the Eurasian Network of People Who Use Drugs (ENPUD) told IPS: “This could lead to tragedy because governments are not yet ready to take on the responsibility for addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic. I would like decision-makers to understand that this is not just [about] epidemiological statistics but that our lives and health are at stake.”

At the heart of their concerns are worries over funding for not just medical treatment for existing patients but prevention and other services for at risk and marginalised communities.

Injection drug use has been identified as the main driver of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the EECA but HIV/AIDS is also being increasingly spread among men who have sex with men and sex workers – groups which are heavily marginalised because of political and societal attitudes to homosexuality and women.

TB, an equally severe health problem in the EECA, is closely linked to the HIV/AIDS epidemic because co-infection rates are often high.

Throughout the region, prevention and harm reduction services for marginalised groups are provided by civil society groups which rely almost exclusively on international funding.

Sveta McGill, health advocacy officer at international advocacy NGO Results UK, told IPS that the withdrawal of Global Fund funding could see many sick people slip under the health care radar.

She said: “It is affecting services provided by NGOs covering at-risk groups. These ‘low threshold entry’ services, while not necessarily medical interventions, are crucial to keep people from risk groups coming to centres where they get referred to medical institutions to get treatment and can access medical services as well.

“Often, they would not feel comfortable going straight to state health care institutions, and closing down these venues would mean that less people would be referred to state health care institutions.”

Critics point to rising HIV/AIDS infections in Romania in recent years as a sign of what could happen in other EECA countries when the Global Fund cuts back its financing.

The Global Fund ended financing for programmes in the country in 2010. According to data from the Romanian government, since then there has been a dramatic rise in HIV infections among people who use drugs: in 2013, about 30 percent of new HIV cases were linked to injection drug use compared with just three percent in 2010.

Under the Global Fund’s New Financing Model (NFM), the major change is a reduction in financing to middle income countries. Many EECA countries are now classified as middle income and critics say that while the organisation’s goal of looking to prioritise use of finite resources is sensible, national income data does not always accurately reflect the ability of people to access health care services, nor whether a country has the funds for an adequate disease response.

They point to studies showing disease burdens shifting from low income countries to middle income states, and poverty being greatest in middle income countries. Also, most people living with HIV live in middle income countries.

But some have also dismissed as naive the notion that, as the Global Fund wants, national governments will automatically fill the gap in funding left as the Global Fund cuts back its financing.

Many point to the situation in Ukraine as an example highlighting the problems of the NFM.

According to a report from the Open Society Foundations, Global Fund spending on HIV will drop by more than 50 percent for Ukraine between 2014 and 2015. This includes reductions in unit cost spending for people who use drugs by 37 percent, for sex workers by 24 percent and for men who have sex with men by 50 percent.

Meanwhile, the national HIV prevention budget was slashed by 71 percent in 2014 amid political and economic upheaval.

Lintsova, who lives in central Ukraine, told IPS of the problems drug users are currently facing.

She said that not only are there shortages of the right drugs to treat TB in some parts of the country, but that very few drug users have access to them. Places on opiate substitution treatment (OST) programmes are very limited and waiting times to join them long, sometimes fatally so.

“I know two people who died waiting to get on an OST programme,” she told IPS. “And there are other problems like a lack of needle exchange centres in rural areas, in fact a lack of any harm reduction services in small towns, which leads to high rates of HIV in those places.”

She added that without proper funding, the situation would not improve. “The only solution to these problems is financing,” she said.

But other stakeholders have also privately raised fears that a greater government role in fields such as drug procurement could see authorities looking to save money and procuring larger quantities of cheaper TB drugs of worse quality. Meanwhile, local legislation also makes procurement tenders long and difficult, leading, some health care experts predict, to governments running out of stocks of some essential medicines.

It is unclear how governments will deal with the reduction of Global Fund financing. The transition from Global Fund to domestic funding, although widely announced and anticipated, is not going smoothly in all countries.

Many are often unclear when the Global Fund will actually leave because no straightforward timing plan has been set. There are also specific problems in individual states. In Ukraine, in particular, domestic TB funding has been severely affected by the military conflict, struggling economy and currency fluctuation.

Late last month, these growing fears prompted 24 prominent NGOs in the region to send an open letter to the Global Fund warning of their ‘grave concerns’ over the allocation of funding in the region and calling for it to work with local groups and affected communities.

They specifically asked it to look at each country individually, rather than adopt a “one size fits all” approach.

The Global Fund declined to respond when contacted by IPS.

However, drug users who spoke to IPS said there was little hope of an improvement in the region’s HIV/AIDS and TB epidemics if the Global Fund fails to heed NGOs’ warnings.

Lintsova told IPS: “A lack of reaction to our calls could lead to problems accessing prevention and treatment programmes and a deepening of the EECA’s HIV/AIDS and TB epidemics.”

(Edited by Phil Harris)