Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 10 2025 (IPS)

Faced with a severe liquidity crisis and a hostile Trump administration, the UN continues to merge some of its multiple agencies, and move them out of New York, relocating to Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Perhaps the first two agencies to be merged will be UN Women (created in 2010) and the UN Population Fund (created in 1967), with some staffers moved to Bonn and others to Nairobi.

And the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) may be next in line bound to Nairobi.

The UN is also considering several potential mergers primarily to reduce costs and improve effectiveness, including merging the UN AIDS agency (UNAIDS) into the World Health Organization (WHO), consolidating the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) with the UN Development Programme (UNDP), and restructuring the Department of Peace Operations (DPO) and Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA).

“Externally, there has been enthusiastic reception of members of the UN family like UN-Women (but also UNFPA and UNICEF) relocating global functions to Nairobi and Bonn,” according to a UN report.

The new locations may also include Bangkok, Doha, Dubai and Istanbul.

Addressing the 80th UN General Assembly sessions last month, the President of Turkiye Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered Istanbul as a new relocation site describing the Turkish city as “an excellent UN hub”.

The UN’s cash crisis, prompting mergers and relocations, has been triggered by $2.8 billion in unpaid U.S. dues, both for regular and peacekeeping budgets. And, as of last week, only 139 out of 193 countries have paid their dues in full, with 54 countries in arrears.

Asked for an update on the move to Nairobi, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters October 3, the UN complex in Nairobi is growing.

“The last time I was there, there was construction. It’s been expanding for some time. I think a number of agencies are already looking at moving. A lot of it will also depend on the budget, and decisions by Member States”.

Asked about the offer of Istanbul, he said, the relocation of posts from a number of more traditional UN headquarter cities to others is something that is being looked at, something that has already happened.

“Istanbul is already home to a number of regional hubs for various UN organizations. So, it is something we’re continuously evaluating.”

Kul Gautam. a former Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF and Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, told IPS UNICEF has launched its own “Future Focus Initiative” to increase the organization’s agility, efficiency, and effectiveness in response to declining funding.

The initiative includes significant budget cuts at headquarters and regional offices, staff relocation to lower-cost locations, and the consolidation of some regional offices.

As part of this exercise, he said, UNICEF’s core budget at Headquarters and Regional Offices will be cut by 25%, and about 70% of Headquarters staff will be relocated to lower-cost duty stations like Bangkok, Nairobi, and perhaps even Doha, Dubai, and Istanbul that are closer to most UNICEF field offices.

“Such redeployment of staff can help streamline operations and reduce operating costs”.

A major original mission of many specialized UN agencies, funds, and programmes, Gautam pointed out, was to provide specialized technical expertise that was not readily available in developing countries.

“Considering that many developing countries now have highly skilled professionals (many of whom migrate to high-income countries in search of better prospects), UN offices should seriously consider employing more national professionals in developing countries at considerably lower emoluments than very high-cost expatriates from the Global North”.

Decades ago, he recalled, UNICEF pioneered the practice of employing a fairly large number of national professionals in its country offices.

“All UN agencies should now consider emulating UNICEF’s example, and UNICEF itself should expand this practice, while retaining the basic international nature of the organization”, said Gautam, author of ‘Global Citizen from Gulmi: My Journey from the Hills of Nepal to the Halls of United Nations’.

While bureaucracies and vested interests of staff in the Secretariat of various organizations are partly responsible for the proliferation of the mandates and overly complex and convoluted reports, Member States need to restrain their demands and appetite for unduly detailed and unnecessarily frequent reports.

With the advent of AI, there is an opportunity now to consolidate and shorten these reports drastically.

Gautam said: “Even the frequency of Board meetings is excessive. Currently, UNDP, UNICEF, UNFPA, UN Women, and WFP Boards meet three times each year. Cutting those Board meetings to twice a year would save many resources without compromising on the accountability of the agencies.”

Speaking of mergers, Dr Purnima Mane, former Deputy Executive Director (Programme) and UN Assistant-Secretary-General (ASG) at the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), told IPS it is not surprising that under the UN 80 restructuring plan, the UN is considering some major measures like merging some of its agencies like UNFPA and UN Women and moving some of their staff out of New York to other countries.

Streamlining might temporarily resolve the current liquidity crisis and the move away from New York would demonstrate moving towards decentralization – both laudable goals. However, in the current scenario these appear like short term steps mainly to cut costs without evidence of how they fit into an altered strategic vision for the UN, she said.

“How these steps are part of a bigger strategic approach to make the UN more effective in what it wishes to achieve is unclear. Cutbacks and mergers can provide short term relief but they also can obviously create problems of their own, such as losing out on the gains made over the years in the areas of work of these agencies and programs, all of which are critical to development.”

This will jeopardize the impact of the work of the programs and endanger the achievement of many critical global goals, said Dr Mane, former President and CEO of Pathfinder International.

In the case of merging UNFPA with UN Women, she pointed out, the argument has been made that merging the mandates of advancing gender equality as a whole, with strengthening reproductive health and rights of women, could in fact benefit women.

In theory this sounds great but the reality of the context and history of women’s issues calls that assumption into question.

In a political context in which Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) issues are deeply contested and even opposed by some Member States, UNFPA’s work on those issues could be greatly diluted through the merger.

Prior commitments made by countries especially to SRHR risk receiving lower priority, in favor of some more politically acceptable though important areas that UN Women focuses on, such as women’s economic empowerment.

Also, a merger does not guarantee that the new merged organization would get anywhere close to the equivalent of what UNFPA and UN Women currently receive in resources, she warned.

The merger could result in deep cuts to resources assigned to gender issues overall, thereby depriving countries of the needed support on these issues, at a cost that ignores the laudable reasons why these agencies and programs were created as separate entities.

This is definitely a wake-up call to the two agencies to develop more strategic and effective ways to streamline and coordinate their work in ways that do not slow the progress made on issues that are central to gender equality and women, while also working on decentralizing their programs but the planned solution of merger is likely to be severely damaging for women and their status.

Speaking in an unofficial and personal capacity, Shihana Mohamed, a founding member and Coordinator of the United Nations Asia Network for Diversity and Inclusion (UN-ANDI), told IPS: UN Women was established to be a force multiplier—mainstreaming women’s rights across peace building, development, and human rights.

Yet today, she pointed out, it faces chronic underfunding, limited political influence, and a shrinking mandate.

“As a gender equality advocate, I fear that the potential merger of UN Women with UNFPA under the UN80 reform agenda could further dilute the UN Women’s distinct mandate”.

“If the merger is rushed or imposed from the top, decades of institutional knowledge, technical expertise, and trusted partnerships— built separately by UN Women and UNFPA—could be lost.”

It also risks sidelining UN Women’s policy leadership, weakening its accountability role, and shifting resources from structural change to service delivery. In short, it could turn a transformative agenda into a technocratic one, she argued.

Any restructuring must preserve UN Women’s distinct mandate. Member States must increase core funding for UN Women and support its integration across all UN agencies. Political backing must match rhetorical support, she said.

“The creation of UN Women was the culmination of years of negotiations among Member States and advocacy by the global women’s movement. Thus, the UN80 Task Force and other reform bodies must engage openly with all stakeholders”.

“ I also emphasize the need for meaningful consultation with feminist movements before making structural changes as they are the watchdogs and visionaries of global gender justice.

Decisions affecting UN Women’s future must be transparent, inclusive, and grounded in human rights—not just cost-efficiency,” said Mohamed, a US Public Voices Fellow with the OPED Project and Equality Now on Advancing the Rights of Women and Girls.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By External Source
Oct 9 2025 (IPS-Partners)

 
Mohamed M. Malick Fall was appointed as the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Nigeria in February 2024. He has more than 20 years of experience in the development, humanitarian and peacebuilding fields. Prior to his appointment, he served as the UNICEF Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, where he provided oversight and guidance to 21 UNICEF Countries Offices, including on the formulation and implementation of the Country Programme Documents, the UN Reform process, and the engagement with the Regional and Economic Commission and African Union and the private sector.

Furthermore, Mr. Fall has led the response to multiple and complex crises with massive humanitarian needs and high security challenges, and managed the strategic review of the country documents, research and knowledge-management-related activities, ensuring that the results are used to inform programmes and policies.

Before that, he served as UNICEF Representative in Nigeria (2016–2019), Central African Republic (2014–2016) and Mongolia (2012–2014), as the Senior Education Adviser in Haiti (2010–2012), and as Chief of Education in Indonesia (2006–2010) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2003–2006). He was also temporarily assigned as Education Officer (2001–2003).

Mohamed M. Malick Fall has a Master’s degree in Demography from Université de Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne in France and a B.A. Degree in History (Licence d’Histoire) from Université de Dakar in Sénégal.

ECW: Today, there are 18.3 million children out of school in Nigeria. How can relevant organizations – UN agencies, civil society organizations and ECW – work better together with national/state/local governments to get these girls and boys into safe and protective learning environments?

Mohamed M. Malick Fall: Given the scale of the number of children that are out of school, building partnerships (as well as strengthening existing partnerships) at national, state and local level is one of the ways to support out-of-school children (OOSC) to get back to school or into alternative learning pathways. No single actor can address this challenge alone – it requires collective leadership, resources and innovation to address this profound challenge. Together with the Ministry of Education, UN agencies, civil society organizations, and religious and faith-based leaders, ECW must align their support with national education priorities. This way, interventions do not create parallel systems but instead strengthen and reinforce existing education structures.

Strengthening collaboration and leveraging resources is essential to achieving a clearly communicated goal of reducing the number of OOSC. The learning environment must be safe and conducive to encourage attendance and learning. Hence, ensuring that the learning environment is free from all forms of abuse and violence, providing inclusive classrooms for learners with disabilities, and equipping teachers with requisite skills and knowledge to support learners as need arises. The UN with ECW has demonstrated this through a Multi-Year Resilience Programme – which has brought together different INGOs and local NGOs, under the leadership of the three state governments, Borno, Adamawa and Yobe (BAY). This partnership resulted in about 200,000 children benefiting from various interventions. In addition, over 130,000 children in the BAY states will benefit from ECW-supported interventions. ECW, through its First Emergency Response, is also supporting over 100,000 boys and girls in insecurity prone areas of Northwest Nigeria to continue accessing formal and non-formal education in safe spaces. ECW’s approach of working through the cluster strengthens coordination, encourages government ownership and leadership and avoids duplication of efforts.

Aligning with the government’s plans for education is also key to sustainability of actions in addressing OOSC. The Nigerian Government’s Education Renewal initiative prioritizes the issue of OOSC in its agenda and continues to call on actors to collectively harmonize strategies and resources to answering these key questions ‘Who are they?’, ‘Where are they?’ and ‘Why are they OOSC?’

Additionally, at the national level, the UN continues to engage with the Federal Ministry of Education and its agencies such as the Universal Basic Education Commission, National Commission for Almajiri and Out-of-School Children with the aim of 1) keeping the issue of OOSC on the agenda of the government, 2) supporting development of policies and strategies for addressing the needs of OOSC, 3) implementing actions to ensure enrolment, retention and completion for learners, and 4) mobilizing and allocating resources for states in addressing these issues.

Finally, predictable and flexible funding is essential in Nigeria’s highly unpredictable context, where families are displaced multiple times. Donor support through ECW and other mechanisms is critical – not only to meet urgent needs but also to build resilience so education systems are protected during future crises.

ECW: Over your career, you have worked in some of the world’s most severe crisis contexts, including Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Indonesia (Banda Aceh post-tsunami) and Nigeria. Why should donors, the private sector and national governments invest in education as a building block for sustainable development?

Mohamed M. Malick Fall: When communities are destabilized by conflict, education is often the first service disrupted and the last to be restored. Yet, it is the one investment that gives children and youth the tools to rebuild their lives and societies. In my experiences in the conflict-affected and post-disaster countries in which I have served, education provides protection, keeping children safe from recruitment into armed groups, exploitation and harmful practices, and provides post-trauma recovery.

Having worked in countries that experienced the worst disasters of the past decades (for example, the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, each with over 200,000 lives claimed, millions displaced and massive destruction of infrastructure), I witnessed how education services were vital in bringing back normalcy to people’s lives and providing children with the psychosocial support they needed to recover from being separated from or having lost their parents and/or families. This is why I always carry the conviction that education in emergencies is a life-saving intervention, beyond the role it plays in immediate response as well as longer-term recovery.

Investing in education is not charity; it is a smart, long-term investment. Every dollar spent on education in conflict-affected countries is a critical contribution to building long-term human capital and resilience. Take Nigeria, for example: the country has a rapidly growing youth population, and if these young people are left without education and skills, it will create a crisis for the future.

However, if they are educated, they will be empowered to make informed health choices now and in the future, thereby leading to reduced maternal and child mortality, improved nutrition and stronger resilience against diseases. It is also important to mention that today’s socioeconomic progress is mostly based on people’s skills and knowledge, as shown by countries that have taken the lead on innovations such as new technology, artificial intelligence, etc. Therefore, in my view, in fragile contexts, education is not optional, but rather it is the foundation for recovery, peacebuilding, social cohesion and sustainable development.

It is the bridge between immediate humanitarian response and long-term stability. Without it, sustainable development simply cannot be achieved. Thanks to the generosity of donors, ECW has not only mobilized much-needed resources but also demonstrated that education response must begin at the very onset of a crisis.

ECW: As we embrace the Pact for the Future, Grand Bargain Agreements and the UN80 Initiative, how can we streamline efficiencies and activate local networks to deliver life-saving foundational education supports across the globe and make good on the promise of education for all as outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development?

Mohamed M. Malick Fall: The objectives of these initiatives revolves around a similar theme – how nations can better align their resources to reach more, especially marginalized, conflict- and disaster-affected populations, and utilize local resources.

Partnership is key – where countries have found what works to better their foundational education, these proven approaches and interventions should be scaled up and with appropriate cultural context, establishing and building on the existing government structures, communities, local CSOs and NGOs (including youth organizations). The CSOs are closest to the grassroots; they can touch and reach many communities. We must shift from centralized delivery models to locally led solutions. The localization model is gaining real momentum within the humanitarian architecture. In Nigeria, for example, the Nigeria Humanitarian Fund allocates pooled funds directly to national NGOs, enabling them to deliver faster, more efficiently and in closer partnership with those on the frontlines. This approach is showing promising results. With continued investment in strengthening their institutional and technical capacities, national NGOs can take greater ownership of the response, ensuring that interventions are not only timely but also more sustainable and rooted in local realities.

The other example that remains indelible in my mind is from my tenure in the Central African Republic at the peak of the crisis there. At a time when many teachers had to flee from their positions due to religious and/or ethnic affiliation, many parents stepped in to replace them, serving as “maîtres-parents” (parent-teachers) and ensuring that children continued to receive education. The UN provided them with essential support such as basic training, teaching and learning materials. This is, to me, a great example of community engagement that maintained a sector as vital as education during one of the worst crises the country had ever experienced. The home-based schools that I saw in Afghanistan, created to provide education to girls whose right to education was denied by the Taliban, are another memory of community efforts to sustain education in the face of the strongest religious and cultural barriers.

When we go together, we achieve more. In this time of cuts to aid funding, we must align resources and avoid duplication of initiatives – so we can get more returns for every dollar invested. The availability of quality education data can help countries design and allocate resources to where it is most needed. The Federal Ministry of Education is investing a lot in the Nigeria Education Data Initiative – a government-led effort to centralize and modernize education data across all levels in Nigeria. This will help to align interventions to where it is needed most, design fit-for-purpose interventions and avoid duplication of efforts by the intervening agencies/partners.

Today, new technology offers unprecedented opportunities to accelerate both access and quality of education while, at the same time, reducing its cost. Teaching and learning can be done through low-cost tech solutions to reach maximum learners, as demonstrated during lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. Distance learning using new technology helped to avoid a lost generation. The acceleration of the Sustainable Development Goals related to education should make maximum use of the opportunities offered by new technology.

We can build a resilient local ecosystem that can support education for all children. By streamlining financing, empowering local networks and embedding education in crisis response, we can turn commitments under the Pact for the Future, the Grand Bargain and the UN80 Initiative into concrete action – making education not just a promise, but a guarantee for every child, everywhere, as envisioned in the 2030 Agenda.

ECW: Why is investing in girls’ education – especially for vulnerable girls on the frontlines of conflict, climate change, forced displacement and other protracted crises – so important?

Mohamed M. Malick Fall: Investing in girls’ education – especially for vulnerable girls living on the frontlines of conflict, climate change, forced displacement and protracted crises – is not only a moral imperative, but also a strategic investment in the country’s recovery, stability, resilience and long-term development.

There is global evidence on why it’s important to invest in girls’ education, with benefits including improved income for the girls, breaking down of the cycle of poverty, low maternal and child mortality rates, and shifts in social norms. Nigeria has made strides in improving the enrolment and retention of girls in schools. In conflict and protracted crisis regions, girls are reported to be at risk of sexual exploitation, gender-based violence and early and forced marriage. Investing in education for girls will reduce their vulnerability and provide an opportunity to contribute to development and build their confidence to make informed decisions about their lives and future. The UN and its partners are ensuring that girls who have been forced into child marriage and teenage motherhood (i.e. due to socio-cultural or economic barriers) have an opportunity to enrol in school and break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy. We have collaborated with the Federal Ministry of Education to develop national guidelines for the facilitation of re-entry of pregnant and married adolescent girls into school.

UNESCO estimates that child marriage would drop by 64% if all girls completed secondary education. Primary completion rate is around 73% for both boys and girls, according to the National Bureau of Statistics and UNICEF. Disparities in completion rates are shown at junior secondary school level with 69% for boys and 67% for girls; at senior secondary school, the completion rates are 57% for boys and 51% for girls. For example, the Girls’ Education Programme led by the UN brought back over 1.5 million girls in basic education and supported their retention programme. This initiative strengthened community efforts to enrol girls in school, encouraged completion and transition, and built resilience. As of July 2025, the capacity of over 290,000 girls in Kano, Jigawa and Sokoto was strengthened through Girls for Girls clubs that empowered communities to speak out around issues of gender-based violence and school safety concerns, according to UNICEF.

The UN in Nigeria is also supporting the Federal Ministry of Education to build the capacity of teachers across states to deliver Education for Health and Wellbeing to learners in Nigerian schools. Since 2020, over 3 million learners (boys and girls, especially in humanitarian settings) have been empowered with factual sexual and reproductive health information, and the required life skills to build their agency to be resilient and set goals towards becoming respectable adults.

ECW: We all know that ‘readers are leaders’ and that reading skills are key to every child’s education. What are three books that have most influenced you personally and/or professionally?

Mohamed M. Malick Fall: “L’enfant noir” by Camara Laye (The Black Child); “L’aventure ambigue” by Cheikh Hamidou Kane (The Ambiguous Adventure); “The Audacity of Hope” by Barack Obama.

The first book is about a child growing up in Africa who is very close to his mother and whose upbringing was supported by the extended family. This book touched me because it highlights the importance of the mother-child relationship in the development of a child’s character and how this is defining in determining how successful a child will be.

The second book is about a Senegalese child growing up in a context of interaction between Africans and Western culture. This book helped me to navigate and find the right balance between these two cultures growing up in post-independence Senegal, and studying in both my own country and in France.

The third book helped to strengthen my leadership, mainly working in a context of hardship and extreme human suffering, where hope remains a major factor in helping communities to recover from conflict and get back on their feet.

 

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Dr. Luthando Dziba, Executive Secretary, IPBES in conversation with IPS. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Oct 9 2025 (IPS)

Global biodiversity is disappearing at breakneck speed and, in the process, threatening the future of humanity. The loss is not a future threat but a present crisis that Dr. Luthando Dziba, the new Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), believes can be tackled with science-based policy action.

Dziba assumes his role at a pivotal moment. A landmark IPBES report, launched last December, had a stark warning: biodiversity decline is galloping, whipped by humanity’s disconnect from and dominance of nature, coupled with the inequitable concentration of power and wealth.

So, how does he envision IPBES turning the tide?

“IPBES is not a new platform,” Dziba explained. “It has built a strong tradition of co-producing knowledge with member states. We are now launching our second global biodiversity assessment, alongside critical work on monitoring and spatial planning. This isn’t just about producing reports; it’s about creating a social process for change.”

The “social process” is key to IPBES’s model. Member governments prioritize key biodiversity challenges that IPBES should focus on in its research and participate in the design of the assessments. Through continuous reviews and a collaborative scoping process, there is an integration between science and policy.

Prior to his appointment at IPBES, Dziba had a strong history of working in biodiversity in his native South Africa as well as internationally. He joined the South African National Parks (SANParks) in July 2017 as the Managing Executive for Conservation Services, which oversees Scientific Services, Veterinary Services, Conservation Planning and Cultural Heritage.

Biodiversity loss is accelerating and threatening global food security. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

Before joining SANParks, Luthando managed the ecosystem services research area at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), leading a team of more than 50 researchers on biodiversity, ecosystem services, coastal systems, and earth observation.

Dziba has served as the co-chair of the Africa Regional Ecosystem Assessment, commissioned by IPBES and published in 2018. He has been an advisor to South Africa’s delegations at the IPBES plenaries, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Combating Science Skepticism

Beyond the well-documented drivers of biodiversity loss—pollution, unplanned development, and unsustainable consumption—Dziba identifies a greater emerging threat: the credibility of science itself.

“A growing challenge that we are going to have to confront is the question around the credibility of the science that underpins the work of IPBES,” Dziba told IPS in an exclusive interview. “We want to ensure that we continue to produce credible work, policy-relevant work but not policy-prescriptive work, which allows governments to take the knowledge and information that we produce to make policy-relevant decisions.”

Dziba, a veteran conservationist and thought leader, says IPBES has excelled in providing groundbreaking science assessment reports that have informed policy and decision-making on biodiversity conservation.

Established in 2012, IPBES unites over 145 member governments in providing independent, science-based assessments on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Its mission is to deliver credible knowledge that informs policymakers and drives sustainable action.

Dziba identifies key threats, including unchecked human population growth, unplanned development, pollution, and consumption patterns to biodiversity. A critical challenge is maintaining the credibility of scientific work while producing policy-relevant—not policy-prescriptive—knowledge to empower governments to make informed decisions.

The First IPBES Global Assessment of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, launched in 2020, highlighted the need to integrate biodiversity considerations in global decision-making in all sectors because effective biodiversity conservation needed a multifaceted approach. The assessment noted alarming rates of habitat loss, particularly in tropical forests and coral reefs, and stressed that the overarching causes of biodiversity loss are closely linked to human resource use.

An IPBES report, Assessment Report on Invasive Alien Species and their Control, found that more than 37,000 alien species have been introduced by many human activities to regions and biomes around the world. The report found that the global economic cost of invasive alien species exceeded USD 423 billion annually in 2019, with costs having at least quadrupled every decade since 1970.

The solution to global biodiversity loss, Dziba argued, is in transformative, “nexus” approaches that look at issues holistically.

“We need to take a nexus approach and not just tinker at the edges when we are facing problems but rather look at transformative ways of pushing meaningful solutions that bring about change,” he told IPS. “We believe that we will be able to shift towards issues that have an impact not just at a local scale but at a wider scale that are positive for biodiversity and the people.”

When asked how IPBES plans to affect global policy as biodiversity continues to decline, Dziba pointed out that they are currently working on assessments that improve understanding and monitoring related to global biodiversity plans.

“We co-produce knowledge with member states and experts, ensuring our assessments respond directly to policy needs,” he explained.

He stressed IPBES’s agility in tackling emerging challenges, pointing to expert analyses during the COVID pandemic of the links between biodiversity and pandemics, as well as integrating climate change considerations.

Only transformative solutions can reverse biodiversity loss and benefit people globally,” Dziba notes.

Yet there are promising models. He points to a compelling case from rural Senegal, where the scourge of bilharzia was tackled not just as a health issue but through a biodiversity lens. By addressing the pollution and invasive species that allowed the parasitic worms to thrive and using the cleared invasives for livestock feed, communities saw a 32 percent reduction of infection in children and improved livelihoods.

Africa’s conservation successes, such as saving the white rhino and protecting primate habitats through innovative community-based strategies, exemplify effective conservation shaped by combining science and local knowledge.

Dziba emphasizes IPBES’s unique collaborative process: governments engage actively from the outset in designing and reviewing assessments alongside experts, integrating both scientific and indigenous knowledge.

Weaving Local Wisdom

A cornerstone of IPBES’s credibility has been its pioneering effort to embed scientific knowledge with local and indigenous knowledge.

“We make a very deliberative effort to integrate indigenous and local knowledge right from the start,” Dziba said. The platform appoints knowledge holders as experts, holds dialogues, and has a specific taskforce to guide the process. This ensures that the assessments reflect an understanding of how ecosystems function and impact the communities.

Balancing economic development with biodiversity protection is a persistent challenge. While not a policymaker itself, IPBES supports governments by synthesizing evidence on sustainable management and conservation of ecosystems.

Looking ahead to enhancing global collaboration, Dziba said he is committed to strengthening partnerships with UN agencies and conventions such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). These alliances are key to embedding IPBES’s scientific advice into international policy and action.

For Dziba, success during his tenure means delivering timely, high-quality assessments that decisively shape the post-2030 global biodiversity agenda. He also prioritizes securing IPBES’s financial sustainability through innovative funding, including engaging the private sector and philanthropic foundations—a critical strategy amid global economic uncertainty.

“It’s going to take more than just publishing an assessment,” he conceded. “It’s going to take an intentional strategy. Engaging businesses and philanthropies is not just about funding; it’s about recognizing the deep links between biodiversity and sustainable development.”

His ultimate goal is to ensure that when policymakers are asked about what they are doing to protect biodiversity, the answers are informed by the best possible science.

Dziba believes that, with the planet in peril, bridging science and policy is a lifeline to stop biodiversity loss and secure a sustainable future.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Credit: Ramil Sitdikov/Reuters via Gallo Images

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Oct 9 2025 (IPS)

Democracy was the winner and Russia the loser in Moldova’s 28 September election. The incumbent pro-Europe Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) won a parliamentary majority on just over half of the vote, while support for a pro-Russia coalition collapsed to a record low. The result came in the face of Russia’s most intense attempt yet to influence an election, with a propaganda and disinformation operation allegedly orchestrated by Ilan Shor, a disgraced Moldovan oligarch who fled to Russia to escape jail time for his role in a massive fraud.

Moldova, a landlocked country with a population of under 2.4 million, rarely commands headlines. But its location, sandwiched between EU member Romania and war-torn Ukraine, makes it prime territory for an ongoing tussle over the future of former communist states.

Since 2009, every Moldovan prime minister has been committed to European integration, and Moldova formally applied to join the EU following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As support for pro-Russia parties has declined at the ballot box, Russia has increasingly turned to covert influence operations, with Shor the reported lynchpin.

Shor is believed to have been a key figure in Moldova’s biggest scandal: in November 2014, around US$1 billion was fraudulently transferred from three banks in fake loans. The banks went bankrupt, forcing the government to provide a bailout equivalent to one eighth of GDP.

Shor, chair of one of the banks, was accused of being among the masterminds. In 2017, he was convicted of money laundering, fraud and breach of trust and sentenced to seven and a half years in jail. But in 2019, while under house arrest pending appeal, he fled the country, first to Israel and then Russia, where he now has citizenship. Shor’s only hope of returning without going to jail is a pro-Russia government, and he’s able to use his riches to promote his cause.

Shor was accused of paying people to take part in protests triggered by high energy prices when Russia used gas supplies as a weapon, slashing them in the winter of 2022-2023. Ahead of the 2024 presidential election and a referendum on the EU, he promised to pay people to register for his campaign to oppose the referendum or publish anti-EU posts; the government said he’d paid close to US$16 million to 130,000 people, sharing instructions on how spread disinformation on the messaging app Telegram. The 2024 campaign was awash with disinformation, including deepfake videos and false claims about President Maia Sandu. Fake social media accounts proliferated, opposing the EU and Sandu and promoting pro-Russia views.

The 2025 campaign saw a further intensification of these influence efforts. A secret network, again coordinated via Telegram, offered to pay people for posting pro-Russia propaganda and anti-PAS disinformation on Facebook and TikTok, and to help carry out selective polling that would overstate pro-Russia support, potentially as part of a plan to dispute the results should they be close. A BBC investigation found links between this network, Shor and one of his organisations, Evrazia, with money sent via a Russian state-owned bank used by its defence ministry.

The network ran online training sessions on how to use ChatGPT to produce social media posts, including those making ludicrous claims that Sandu is involved in child trafficking and the EU would force people to change sexual orientation. At least 90 TikTok accounts receiving over 23 million views since the start of the year were involved. The investigation found no comparable disinformation campaign in support of PAS.

Russia also evidently tried to target Moldova’s million-strong diaspora, who tend to favour pro-EU parties. People in diaspora communities were offered cash, evidently from Russian sources, to serve as election observers, with large bonuses for providing any evidence of fraud. This seemed to be an attempt to promote doubt about the integrity of the diaspora vote.

The influence campaign extended to the Orthodox Church: last year, Moldovan clergy were treated to an all-expenses-paid trip to holy sites in Russia, then promised money if they took to social media to warn their followers about the dangers of EU integration. They duly established over 90 Telegram channels pushing out almost identical content positioning the EU as a threat to traditional family values.

A few days before the vote, Moldovan authorities detained 74 people suspected of planning post-election violence. Authorities claimed they’d travelled to Serbia, under the guise of an Orthodox pilgrimage, to be trained in how to resist security forces, break through cordons and use weapons. On election day, officials reported attempted cyberattacks and bomb scares at polling stations in Moldova and abroad.

Challenges ahead

Moldova’s democratic institutions have survived a crucial test, repaying efforts to strengthen the country’s defences against Russian interference made since the 2024 votes. But the struggle for Moldova’s future is far from over. As it moves closer to the EU, Russia isn’t simply going to walk away. Even dirtier tricks may come.

Meanwhile the government faces many other problems. In one of Europe’s poorest countries, people are struggling with the high cost of living. Public services have come under strain as Moldova hosts proportionately more Ukrainian refugees than anywhere else. Corruption concerns haven’t been adequately addressed. Many young people are seeking better lives abroad.

In combating future Russian influence attempts, the government faces the challenge of striking the right balance on regulating social media and political financing, strengthening its intelligence services and building stronger social media literacy and awareness of disinformation. It will need help from EU countries, as it will to further modernise its energy infrastructure, including through more investments in renewable energy to disarm one of Russia’s most potent tools.

Moldova’s hopes of EU membership will rest on its progress in addressing these challenges. Even then, as the experience of Hungary shows, becoming an EU member doesn’t guarantee protection against the dangers of authoritarianism. But there’s no hope for democracy and human rights should Moldova fall under Russia’s grip.

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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Credit: UN Web TV

By Gina Romero
BOGOTA, Colombia, Oct 9 2025 (IPS)

The collapse of aid architecture is one of the greatest dangers for civic space. This shift is not accidental but systemic, reflecting deliberate policy choices – not only by the US but accelerated by its decisions- that prioritize security agendas over human rights and solidarity.

Aid cuts, securitization, and geopolitical rivalries have led to the defunding of grassroots organizations, especially those led by women, LGBTQI groups, and marginalized communities. As a result, associations that once filled critical gaps are disappearing. These dynamics as existential because without resources, protections, and solidarity, civil society cannot survive—let alone flourish.

This is the center of my more recent report, that will be presented at the UN General Assembly on October 16th.

Civil society’s weakening has direct consequences for human rights protection and democratic participation. Without independent associations, accountability mechanisms collapse, and corruption flourishes. The report highlights that marginalized groups are disproportionately affected, as grassroots organizations are often their only safety net. The dismantling of solidarity also jeopardizes progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

For example, women’s organizations that once advanced gender equality and access to reproductive health are closing. LGBTQI associations providing health services face funding cuts. Environmental defenders, crucial in climate justice, are left exposed.

Thus, the report warns that the rollback of aid and civic freedoms undermines not only democracy but also global commitments to equality and sustainability.

The report makes a call for urgent action to rebuild international solidarity and redesign the architecture of aid in ways that strengthen rather than weaken civic space. The vision is for a people-centered, rights-based, and sustainable system of cooperation. Key elements include:

Guaranteeing equitable access to resources: ensuring groups with high vulnerabilities, have direct and fair access to funding. Includes aid models that channels resources to local civil society, avoiding intermediaries, and simplified bureaucratic procedures.

Repealing restrictive laws and counter-terrorism measures: ending the misuse of security frameworks—such as counter-terrorism and anti-money laundering— and repealing laws that stigmatize NGOs as “foreign agents” or limit their ability to operate freely.

Ensuring meaningful participation of civil society: in multilateral decision-making, as equal partners shaping priorities, including global financing mechanisms and SDG implementation frameworks.

Aligning aid with human rights and civic space protection: Condition aid and credits on compliance with obligations to protect freedoms and rights and promote long-term, flexible funding instead of short-term project-based support.

Protecting digital freedoms and resisting securitization: Safeguarding the use of technologies, including spyware and facial recognition technologies, for association and assembly while preventing its misuse for surveillance and repression.

Reimagining solidarity: Shifting from a charity-based approach to one of global justice and shared responsibility; supporting civil society is not an act of benevolence but a legal and moral obligation under international human rights law.

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Excerpt:

Gina Romero is UN Special Rapporteur for the rights to freedom of assembly and of association.

Dr Gitinji Gitahi, Amref Group CEO speaking at an event at UNGA80. Credit: Friday Phiri

By Friday Phiri
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 9 2025 (IPS)

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN’s body on climate science, has over the years, repeatedly and steadily reported on the science of global warming leading to the changing climate with visible impacts.

IPCC Assessment Reports, particularly the Sixth Assessment chapter on health and well-being (AR6, 2021–2022), highlight an increased burden of climate-sensitive diseases, rising demand for emergency and preventive care, and health system disruptions as some of the direct impacts of climate change on primary health care.

Hope and Despair at UNGA80

On the sidelines of the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA80) in New York, during NY Climate Week, the health sector, as they have done recently, showed up to highlight these climate-health realities for global leaders.

As the UN Secretary-General convened over 120 heads of state and ministers at the UN Climate Summit, where over 100 countries pledged to update their national climate commitments ahead of COP30 in Belém, Brazil, the health sector followed keenly and pointed out the importance of health inclusion in climate action plans, popularly known as the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)’s Paris Agreement.

However, this positive mood was dampened by one of the world’s major emitters, the United States’ absence on the list of progress. Reason? President Donald Trump does not believe in the concept of Climate Change.

And he reminded the global community of his opinion during his address to UNGA, when he continued on his anti-climate change trajectory, referring to climate change as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.”

But as they did in President Trump’s first term when his administration actively rolled back climate regulations, including pulling the US from the Paris Agreement, climate campaigners have yet again responded with defiance.

Africa’s Call for Equity and Justice

Women advocates participated in a Climate Action event during UNGA80. Credit: Friday Phiri

“Such statements are scientifically false and morally indefensible. For millions of Africans, climate change is not a debate. It is a daily reality. When powerful leaders mock the climate emergency, they undermine the global solidarity urgently needed to save lives and livelihoods,” commented Mithika Mwenda, Executive Director of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance.

Amref Health Africa’s Group Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Githinji Gitahi, echoed this urgency, noting that communities across Africa don’t need science to be convinced about the climate crisis, as it is their daily lived reality.  Referencing the Lusaka Agenda, which calls for aligning global health financing with country priorities, and the Belem Action Plan Summary Version, which outlines concrete adaptation actions for health resilience, Gitahi outlined Africa’s concrete policy asks—integrating health into NDCs, prioritizing climate-health financing, and ensuring equity in negotiations and climate action.

“It is unfortunate that countries that contribute a paltry 4 percent of global emissions are asked to do more,” said Gitahi. “It is for this reason that at Amref, we place equity and justice at the core of our programming. Communities most affected—women, children, youth, pastoralists, and those in informal settlements—not only require support to adapt but are also best positioned to shape meaningful solutions. We cannot afford to get sidetracked and dwell on climate science, which is clear as day.”

In fact, for communities in Africa, they don’t need science to be convinced about the climate crisis—it is their daily reality. They don’t have to wait for meetings and discussions like this one to decide on their fate. But even as they adapt using their means, our asks are clear: strengthening primary health care through climate-resilient infrastructure, early-warning systems, surveillance, and community-centered adaptation solutions.

A panel discussion on Africa’s Primary Healthcare equity at UNGA80. Credit: Friday Phiri

The key to all these objectives lies in integrating health in climate plans to not only unlock financing but also support integrated implementation of climate action, particularly for health-determining sectors such as agriculture and water, among others, that have a direct bearing on health outcomes.”

Health sector’s call for strong leadership on the climate crisis

Multilateralism continues to be under serious pressure, and President Trump’s tirade on climate change exemplified the continued geopoliticking and outright mistrust in global processes.

“We want to raise the ambition, because we are in a crisis. We need leaders to be in crisis mode about the science that is guiding us. It’s guiding us on health, but somehow, leaders are ignoring the science,” said Mary Robinson, Former President of Ireland, pointing out that leaders hold the key to rebuilding multilateralism and galvanizing investment and action for the interconnected pressing threats overwhelming the health sector.

And in keeping with the leadership, on the sidelines of UNGA80, stakeholders took time to highlight the importance of women leadership for climate action, in view of gender-differentiated impacts of climate change.

“It is generally agreed that climate impacts are gender-differentiated. Women and girls often bear higher risks from climate change impacts—yet they remain on the sidelines in key discussions and policy decisions,” said Desta Lakew, Amref Health Africa Group Director for Partnerships and External Affairs.

Speaking at a roundtable co-organized with Women in Global Health and Pathfinder International, Lakew called for deliberate efforts to let women take the lead. “It is time we let women lead, as their active participation leads to interventions that reach the people most affected and therefore deliver stronger resilience for communities.”

Brazil Takes the Lead

Despite the noted gloomy picture resulting from climate denialism and dwindling multilateral trust, the health sector is determined to ensure climate and health are not left behind. And Brazil, the COP30 Presidency Designate, is already supporting the agenda.

Through the Belem Climate and Health Action Plan, which is set to be tabled at COP30, Brazil has outlined adaptation solutions, encompassing health surveillance, technological innovation, and the strengthening of multi-sectoral policies, to build climate-resilient health systems. It proposes a global collective effort for health and seeks the voluntary adoption by UNFCCC Parties and the endorsement of civil society and non-state actors.

“Don’t tell me there’s no hope at all; together we stand, divided we fall,” said Mariângela Batista Galvão Simão, Secretary of Health and Environmental Surveillance at Brazil’s Ministry of Health. “Discussions can’t start with financing. You need to have a solid plan and the Belem Climate and Health Action Plan will bring together health and climate agendas in Belem, including surveillance and monitoring as the first line of action.”

In the words of Dr. Agnes Kalibata, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, “For every family that goes to bed hungry, for every child deprived of nutrition… the pace of global climate action remains painfully inadequate. This inequity is not only a moral failing; it is a direct threat to global security and stability.”

Therefore, as the global community heads to COP30, Africa is calling for health inclusion in NDCs for evidence policy and implementation, financing for climate-resilient primary health care in the context of adaptation support rooted in equity and historical responsibility as enshrined in the UNFCCC, and community-centered solutions with women and youth taking the lead.

 

Note: The author is the Climate and Health Advocacy Lead at Amref Health Africa.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Children in Bangladesh riding a boat through a flooded river to attend school. Bangladesh is one of the most climate-sensitive regions in the world. Credit: UNICEF/Suman Paul Himu

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 8 2025 (IPS)

In recent years, international climate financing has declined sharply, leaving billions of people in developing nations increasingly vulnerable to natural disasters and unable to adapt effectively. With major cuts in foreign aid, these communities are expected to face the brunt of the climate crisis, while wealthier nations continue to reap economic benefits.

A new report from Oxfam and CARE Climate Justice Center, Climate Finance Shadow Report 2025: Analyzing Progress on Climate Finance Under the Paris Agreement, showcases the significant gaps in climate financing for developing countries in the Global South, and the far-reaching implications for climate resilience and global preparedness.

This comes ahead of the 30th United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference (COP30), in which world leaders, diplomats, and civil society groups will converge in Belém, Brazil, from November 10–21, to discuss strategies to strengthen global cooperation, advance inclusive and sustainable development, and accelerate efforts to address the climate crisis. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) states that there will be a major focus on allocating public funds for mitigation and adaptation efforts in developing countries, aiming to mobilize at least USD 300 billion annually by 2035 for developing countries and a yearly USD 1.3 trillion over the same period.

In the report, CARE and Oxfam found that developing countries are paying disproportionately high disbursements to wealthy nations in exchange for comparatively modest climate finance loans—spending about seven dollars for every five dollars they receive in return. This, compounded with “the most vicious foreign aid cuts since the 1960s”, shows a nearly 9 percent drop in climate funding in 2024, which is projected to drop by a further 9-17 percent in 2025.

“Rich countries are failing on climate finance and they have nothing like a plan to live up to their commitments to increase support. In fact, many wealthy countries are gutting aid, leaving the poorest to pay the price, sometimes with their lives” said John Norbo, Senior Climate Advisor at CARE Denmark. “COP30 must deliver justice, not another round of empty promises.”

As of 2022, developed nations reported pledging approximately USD 116 billion in climate funding for developing countries. However, the actual amount delivered is less than one-third of the pledged total — estimated at only USD 28–35 billion. Nearly 70 percent of this funding came in the form of loans, often issued at standard rates of interest without concessions. As a result, wealthy nations are driving developing countries deeper into debt, despite these nations contributing the least to the climate crisis and lacking the resources to manage its impacts.

It is estimated that developing countries are indebted by approximately USD 3.3 trillion. In 2022, developing countries received roughly USD 62 billion in climate loans, which is projected to produce over USD 88 billion for wealthy countries, yielding a 42 percent profit for creditors. The countries issuing the highest concessional loans in climate financing were France, Japan, Italy, Spain, and Germany.

“Rich countries are treating the climate crisis as a business opportunity, not a moral obligation,” said Oxfam’s Climate Policy Lead, Nafkote Dabi. “They are lending money to the very people they have historically harmed, trapping vulnerable nations in a cycle of debt. This is a form of crisis profiteering.”

Despite wealthy nations issuing high loans to developing countries, Least Developed Countries (LDCs) received only 19.5 percent of the total public climate funding over 2021-2022, while Small Island Developing States (SIDs) received roughly 2.9 percent. Only 33 percent of this funding went toward climate adaptation, a “critically underfunded” measure according to Oxfam, as the majority of creditors favor investing in mitigation efforts that deliver faster financial returns. Additionally, only 3 percent of this funding went to gender equality efforts, despite women and girls being disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis.

The report also underscores the dire impacts of the misallocation of climate financing and funding cuts, as vulnerable communities in particularly climate-sensitive environments find themselves with far fewer resources to adapt to natural disasters.

In 2024, communities in the Horn of Africa were ravaged by brutal cycles of droughts and flooding, which displaced millions of civilians and pushed tens of millions into food insecurity. In Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, massive floods caused over 180 civilian deaths, displaced 600,000 people, and the resulting damage led to billions of dollars in losses. According to figures from UNICEF, around 35 million children in Bangladesh experienced school disruptions in 2024 due to heatwaves, cyclones, and floods, posing serious risks to their long-term development. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warns that global temperatures are on course to rise to a “catastrophic” 3°C by the end of the century, with extreme weather events expected to intensify further.

Ahead of the COP30 conference, Oxfam has urged wealthy nations to honor their climate finance commitments, including the delivery of the full USD 600 billion pledged for the 2020–2025 period, aligning with the UN’s target of mobilizing USD 300 billion annually. The organization also called for a substantial increase in global funding for climate adaptation and loss management, alongside the implementation of higher taxes on the wealthiest individuals and fossil fuel companies—which could generate an estimated USD 400 billion per year. Additionally, Oxfam emphasized the need for developed countries to stop deepening the debt of climate-vulnerable nations by expanding the share of grants and highly concessional financing instead of standard loans.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Oxfam and CARE Climate Justice Centre argue that wealthy nations are profiteering through climate finance loans. Credit: CARE Climate Justice Center

By Oxfam and CARE Climate Justice Center
THE HAGUE, Netherlands , Oct 8 2025 (IPS)

New research by Oxfam and the CARE Climate Justice Centre finds developing countries are now paying more back to wealthy nations for climate finance loans than they receive—for every USD 5 they receive, they are paying USD 7 back, and 65 percent of funding is delivered in the form of loans.

This form of crisis profiteering by rich countries is worsening debt burdens and hindering climate action. Compounding this failure, deep cuts to foreign aid threaten to slash climate finance further, betraying the world’s poorest communities, who are facing the brunt of escalating climate disasters.

Some key findings of the report:

• • Rich countries claim to have mobilized USD 116 billion in climate finance in 2022, but the true value is only around USD 28–35 billion, less than a third of the pledged amount.
  • Nearly two-thirds of climate finance was made as loans, often at standard rates of interest without concessions. As a result, climate finance is adding more each year to developing countries’ debt, which now stands at USD 3.3 trillion. Countries like France, Japan, and Italy are among the worst culprits.
  • Least Developed Countries got only 19.5 percent and Small Island Developing States 2.9 percent of total public climate finance over 2021-2022 and half of that was in the form of loans they have to repay.
  • Developed nations are profiting from these loans, with repayments outstripping disbursements. In 2022, developing countries received USD 62 billion in climate loans. We estimate these loans to lead to repayments of up to USD 88 billion, resulting in a 42 percent ‘profit’ for creditors.
  • Only 3 percent of finance is specifically aimed at enhancing gender equality, despite the climate crisis disproportionately impacting women and girls.

“Rich countries are treating the climate crisis as a business opportunity, not a moral obligation,” said Oxfam’s Climate Policy Lead, Nafkote Dabi. “They are lending money to the very people they have historically harmed, trapping vulnerable nations in a cycle of debt. This is a form of crisis profiteering.”

This failure is occurring as rich countries are conducting the most vicious foreign aid cuts since the 1960s. Data by the OECD shows a 9 percent drop in 2024, with 2025 projections signaling a further 9–17% cut.

As the impacts of fossil fuel-fueled climate disasters intensify—displacing millions of people in the Horn of Africa, battering 13 million more in the Philippines, and flooding 600,000 people in Brazil in 2024 alone—communities in low-income countries are left with fewer resources to adapt to the rapidly changing climate.

“Rich countries are failing on climate finance and they have nothing like a plan to live up to their commitments to increase support. In fact, many wealthy countries are gutting aid, leaving the poorest to pay the price, sometimes with their lives,” said John Norbo, Senior Climate Advisor at CARE Denmark. “COP30 must deliver justice, not another round of empty promises.”

Adaptation funding is also critically underfunded, receiving only 33 percent of climate finance, as investors favor mitigation projects with more immediate financial returns.

Ahead of COP30, Oxfam and CARE are calling on rich countries to:

Live up to climate finance commitments: Provide the full USD 600 billion for 2020–2025 and clearly outline how they plan to scale up to the agreed USD 300 billion annually, and lead on the USD 1.3 trillion Baku to Belém roadmap.

• • Stop crisis profiteering: Drastically increase the share of grants and highly concessional finance to prevent further indebting the world’s most climate-vulnerable communities.
  • Multiply adaptation finance: Commit to at least triple adaptation finance by 2030, using the COP26 goal to double adaptation financing by 2025 as a baseline.
  • Provide finance for loss and damage: The global Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage must be adequately capitalized. Victims of climate change must not continue to be ignored.
  • Mobilize new sources of finance: Raise funds by taxing the super-rich, which in OECD countries alone can raise 1.2 trillion a year, and the excess profit of fossil fuel companies globally, which could raise 400 billion per year annually.

You can read the full report here.

The CARE Climate Justice Center (CJC) leads and coordinates the integration of climate justice and resilience across CARE International’s development and humanitarian work. The CJC is an initiative powered by CARE Denmark, CARE France, CARE Germany, CARE Netherlands, and CARE International UK.

Results of a global survey by Oxfam International and Greenpeace show 8 out of 10 people support paying for public services and climate action through taxing the super-rich.

The research was conducted by first-party data company Dynata in May-June 2025, in Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Kenya, Italy, India, Mexico, the Philippines, South Africa, Spain, the UK and the US.

The survey had approximately 1 200 respondents per country, with a margin of error of +-2.83%. Together, these countries represent close to half the world’s population.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Excerpt:

Nearly two-thirds of climate finance was made as loans, often at standard rates of interest without concessions, research by Oxfam and CARE Climate Justice Centre has found.

A COP action agenda is not only for those who negotiate agreements but also for those, such as the indigenous people and local communities, essential for putting them into practice. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Oct 8 2025 (IPS)

Once a year, the COP presidency or the role held by the Minister of Environment from the host government at a Conference of the Parties (COP) meeting, sets out on an ambitious, year-long journey in hopes of delivering the climate deal of a lifetime.

A deal that could stop and reverse the negative shifts in temperatures and weather patterns, such as intense flooding and prolonged drought, currently wreaking havoc all over the world, leading to loss of life, damage and destruction to property and a real threat of whole territories being wiped off the map.

Over the years, climate action or initiatives and measures to stop or at least reduce this loss and damage, has expanded, with companies setting out to reduce and ultimately end emission of harmful gases into the atmosphere, cities launching local measures to better cope with climate change, and indigenous communities restoring damaged ecosystems.

But these and many other replicable solutions are ongoing in isolation in every corner of the world. The COP30 presidency, now in the hands of Brazil, is working jointly with the UN Climate High-Level Champions team to ensure that in all matters climate, the right hand will, at all times and in real time, know what the left is doing.

A first in the history of COP, they have jointly developed and launched the Granary of Solutions, a platform that features concrete actions and instructive case studies designed to drive progress for people, the climate, and the global economy. The platform showcases a wide range of initiatives already driving change in various corners of the world. While many of the links are not yet populated, the aim is to provide an easily searchable database of climate fixes.

From weather information systems co-created with local communities to private-sector innovations in marine biofuels for cleaner shipping to subnational government actions that combine conservation, restoration, and sustainable production, these examples will showcase practical solutions delivering real-world results for people on the frontlines of climate change.

In other words, it is a showroom of successful climate action or initiatives and measures taken by individuals, communities, companies and governments to address climate change and its devastating impacts. Built on hundreds of initiatives and coalitions launched since COP21 in Paris, the granary brings together existing solutions and is open to the new contributions of best practices.

The granary is informed by the mantra that action leads to more action and that the more people learn about high-impact solutions to climate change, the more likely they are to do the same in their communities. This way, the UN and COP30 presidency believe the global community will accelerate and scale up solutions and impact in line with the Global Stocktake and the goals of the Paris agreement, adopted during COP21.

The global stocktake is a UN report card released after a periodic review of the world’s collective progress towards the goals of the Paris Agreement. The first report card was completed during COP28 in 2023, after a global inventory of ongoing measures to meet the climate crisis demand as outlined in the Paris Agreement.

The agreement has 196 Parties, comprising 195 countries plus the European Union. It is a legally binding international treaty adopted within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) with the goal of limiting global warming.

UNFCCC is the multilateral, involving many parties, environmental agreement adopted in 1992 to prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system. It is the parent agreement for other key international climate agreements, such as the Paris Agreement, that primarily seek to ensure global average temperatures do not rise above pre-industrial levels.

This agreement is critical, as it changed how climate change is discussed and addressed by shifting from a top-bottom approach and opening the door for cities, regions, investors, businesses and civil society to contribute more directly as opposed to just governments. It is within this context that many different actors can contribute to the granary of solutions and help close the gaps identified in the 2023 UN’s global stocktake.

Home to real, replicable solutions that are already delivering impact, the granary of solutions is meant to be a trusted source to speed up global climate action. Only practical climate actions that align with the global stocktake and the Paris Agreement are included.

Experience of the past decade has shown that while the UNFCCC has broadened participation and resulted in significant progress in achieving global climate goals, it has not led to stronger coordination, clearer delivery, and more consistent support to boost action all over the world. The granary will connect efforts across countries and sectors.

It will also be the springboard for the COP30 action agenda. Since COP21, when the Paris Agreement was reached, every COP has established an agenda or a set of issues on the table for negotiation in line with the Paris Agreement and the overall UNFCCC goal.

It is this agenda of negotiations that then produces the annual COP agreement adopted by all the countries party to the Paris Agreement and is valid as international law. Importantly, the Action Agenda also engages actors who do not negotiate agreements, yet are essential for putting them into practice.

Drawing from the first global stocktake and the granary of solutions, the COP30 action agenda is a comprehensive framework or unified plan to mobilize all actors around new and existing initiatives designed to meet the climate crisis demands in the next five years. The next UN global stocktake will be implemented in 2028, as the process is designed to occur every five years.

Against this backdrop, the COP30 agenda is organized around six key areas: transitioning energy, industry, and transport; stewarding forests, oceans, and biodiversity; transforming agriculture and food systems; building resilience for cities, infrastructure, and water; and fostering human and social development.

Other issues, such as finance, technology, and capacity building, are considered cross-cutting. In all, objectives range from tripling renewable energy capacity and halting deforestation to achieving universal access to clean cooking and ensuring safe, sustainable and equitable water systems.

Through these six key areas, the COP30 agenda speaks directly to the first Global Stocktake by translating its findings into concrete solutions such as providing finance, technology and capacity building to undertake the climate actions or initiatives that can reduce or prevent climate change to hasten the implementation of the objectives of the Paris Agreement and the overall goals of the UNFCCC.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Note: This explainer is published with the support of Open Society Foundations.

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Excerpt:

Since COP21 in Paris, thousands of climate solutions by communities, businesses, cities, regions, and financial institutions have been developed in pursuit of the goals of the Paris Agreement. Now COP 30’s searchable database and platform, the Granary of Solutions, should make these accessible to all.

Addressing the urban food insecurity crisis will require vision, coordinated actions and strategies, and sustained commitment from city governments, academia, the private sector, and NGOs. Credit: Shutterstock

By Esther Ngumbi
URBANA, Illinois, US, Oct 7 2025 (IPS)

Millions of people in the United States and around the world continue to face food insecurity, meaning they cannot access safe and nutritious food necessary for living their fullest lives, and they often do not know where their next meal will come from. According to Feeding America, 47 million people in the United States are food insecure. Worldwide, 673 million people experience food insecurity.

Traditionally, efforts to address food insecurity have focused on populations in rural and suburban areas; however, recent census data and statistics show that more people now live in urban areas. According to the 2020 U.S. census, 80% of the U.S. population resides in urban areas, and this is expected to rise to 89% by 2050. Similarly, a United Nations report states that over half of the world’s population lives in urban areas, and this proportion is projected to grow to 70 percent by 2050.

As city populations continue to grow and urban food insecurity remains a persistent and urgent issue, reimagining urban and peri-urban spaces as centers of food-growing innovation is no longer optional; it is essential

Unsurprisingly, a groundbreaking 2024 report by the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition showed that more than 75 percent of the world’s food-insecure population lives in urban and peri-urban areas, depending on markets for their food instead of growing it themselves.

Therefore, it is becoming increasingly important to broaden initiatives focused on addressing food insecurity to include populations in urban and peri-urban areas. Several interconnected strategies can be put into action to accomplish this.

Food insecurity in urban communities can be tackled through various strategies.

First, efforts to expand urban agriculture through community gardens, rooftop farms, container gardens, and other innovative urban farming methods that transform unused spaces and farmlands into productive food-growing areas should be supported.

Investing in food production near urban cities provides several benefits, including shortening supply chains, reducing dependence on imports, improving nutrition, and strengthening local resilience against climate-related shocks and disruptions in the food system.

Second, there is a need to improve food distribution within urban communities. Even when food is plentiful and easy to access, unequal distribution and access can still cause urban hunger.

Therefore, it remains essential to invest in mobile markets, expand cold storage facilities, and explore innovative and creative ways to deliver food to vulnerable households and communities. Doing so will help close this gap and ensure that food reaches those who need it most.

Third, there is a need to support and promote investments and policies that aim to build sustainable and inclusive urban food systems. Therefore, city councils and governments should intentionally incorporate food security goals into their planning.

These goals can include allocating land for local food production, establishing formal city food policy councils, and addressing unequal access to affordable and healthy food for all residents in urban areas.

The good news is that several cities across the United States have embraced this shift. For example, Seattle’s initiative was established under the city’s local food program to create a strong and resilient food system. Similar efforts have been carried out in other U.S. cities, including Detroit, Minneapolis, Austin, and Chicago.

Complementing these efforts is the need to strengthen social protection programs and safety nets for vulnerable populations living in cities. These include initiatives like school feeding programs, food vouchers, and other innovative nutrition and food assistance projects.

These initiatives can also incorporate education and awareness campaigns to promote healthy eating, reduce food waste, and motivate urban community members to engage in local food-growing activities.

As city populations continue to grow and urban food insecurity remains a persistent and urgent issue, reimagining urban and peri-urban spaces as centers of food-growing innovation is no longer optional; it is essential.

Addressing the urban food insecurity crisis will require vision, coordinated actions and strategies, and sustained commitment from city governments, academia, the private sector, and NGOs.

By investing in inclusive, evolving food systems and empowering communities to shape their food futures, our cities can transform from hunger hotspots into vibrant, nourished communities where all residents have access to healthy, affordable, and nutritious food. The time to act is now.

Esther Ngumbi, PhD is Assistant Professor, Department of Entomology, African American Studies Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Headlines reflecting the release of Belarusian political prisoners. Graphic: IPS

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Oct 7 2025 (IPS)

As Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko continues to pardon political prisoners in an apparently increasingly successful attempt to improve diplomatic relations with the US, rights groups have warned the international community must not let itself be ‘tricked’ into thinking repressions in the country are easing.

Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus for more than 30 years, last month (SEP) ordered the release of more than 75 prisoners, the majority of them political prisoners, after negotiations with US officials.

But critics have said while the release of any prisoners is welcome, it should not be taken as a sign that the persecution of the regime’s opponents is about to stop, and they point out that people are being jailed for their politics in Belarus at a faster rate than any are being released.

“While it is good that prisoners have been released, they should never have been in prison in the first place. There is a risk now that the attention of the international community will be diverted from the continuing repressions in the country. People are still in prison, and still being imprisoned, for exercising their human rights. While Lukashenko is releasing people, he is at the same time arresting more – it’s like a revolving door,” Maria Guryeva, Senior Campaigner at Amnesty International, told IPS.

The warnings follow the release on September 11 of 52 prisoners—the majority of whom were political prisoners—and the freeing on September 16 of a further 25 prisoners from Belarusian jails.

This came after direct negotiations with US officials and in return for an easing of sanctions on Belarus’s national airline, Belavia.

The releases were also followed by confirmation from US officials involved in the negotiations that US President Donald Trump had told Lukashenko that Washington wants to reopen its embassy in Minsk. Trump also spoke to Lukashenko on the phone earlier in the summer and has reportedly even suggested that a meeting between the two could take place in the near future.

Political experts say that much closer ties between Washington and Minsk, not to mention an easing of sanctions, would be a major PR coup for Lukashenko. It could also be attractive to President Donald Trump, as it would underscore his own touted credentials as a master conciliator and a defender of human rights who can free political prisoners.

Rights activists, though, fear that seeing such political gains from his actions will only embolden Lukashenko to use prisoners as “bargaining chips” to extract further political concessions in the future.

“It seems like this is a new tactic [by the Belarusian regime] to use political prisoners as bargaining chips, [and] it seems to be working in that Belarus is getting political favors for releasing prisoners. As long as the regime sees it can use them as bargaining chips, this policy will continue,” Anastasiia Kroupe, Assistant Researcher, Europe and Central Asia, at Human Rights Watch, told IPS.

Activists argue that ultimately, any concessions by the US, or other western nations, to the regime will do nothing to improve the dire situation with human rights violations in Belarus, especially given that there remain so many political prisoners in Belarusian jails—the rights group Viasna said that as of September 18 there were 1,184 political prisoners in Belarus—that Lukashenko could release when it is expedient.

They also point out that in some cases the individual releases in September were barely even pardons as such, given that many who were freed were just months or even weeks away from the end of their sentences anyway. The prisoners were, once ‘free,’ also forcibly deported from the country—one, opposition politician Mikalai Statkevich, refused to leave Belarus after being freed and was soon after re-arrested—to neighboring Lithuania.

“The fact that these prisoners were forcibly exiled is a further form of reprisal against them… for some it is a continuation of their punishment,” said Kroupe.

Belarusian rights activists told IPS that the mood among those who had been released was mixed.

While some were glad to be free, others were angry.

“A number of those released are extremely frustrated. Some had literally just a month left to serve and were planning to continue living in Belarus. They had almost fully served their, albeit unjustly imposed, sentences, but instead of freedom, they were punished once again,” Enira Bronitskaya, an activist with the Belarusian rights group Human Constanta, whose activities include helping exiled Belarusians, told IPS.

“They were thrown out of their country; many had their passports taken away (torn up), effectively stripped of their citizenship (deprived of documents, expelled from the country, with no intention from the state of their citizenship to provide any support). These actions are unlawful. People have been deprived of everything they had in Belarus, from property to the possibility of visiting the graves of their relatives who died while they were in prison,” she added.

Others among the Belarusian community in exile told IPS there were concerns the releases could actually be used as a distraction from an even more intense crackdown on dissent.

“In our community, some are hopeful that the releases are a sign of successful negotiations, but the majority, me included, does not find the news particularly positive. Of course it is a great relief for the people released and their relatives, but we are expecting an intensification of repressions,” Maryna Morozova*, who left Belarus for Poland soon after Lukashenko launched a massive crackdown on dissent following disputed elections in 2020, told IPS.

Just days after the 52 prisoners were released, a Belarusian court sentenced prominent independent journalist Ihar Ilyash to four years in prison on charges of extremism over articles and commentaries critical of Lukashenko.

The Belarusian Association of Journalists said the verdict was a sign that the authorities had no intention of softening their clampdown on independent media, pointing out that at least 27 journalists are currently behind bars in the country.

Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya told international media after the September releases that “the regime’s repressions are continuing despite Trump’s pleas.”

Viasna pointed out that just on the same day the 52 prisoners were released, it had recognized eight new political prisoners.

Activists who spoke to IPS said it seemed likely that, given the apparent success of the prisoner releases in easing, to some extent, Belarus’s international isolation and sanctions, more prisoners could be freed in the near future.

“Of course we expect more releases. Lukashenko’s been doing it for many years—he did it in 2010 and 2015 when political prisoners were released. Lukashenko has a lot of experience in this ‘market,’” Nataliia Satsunkevich, an interim board member at Viasna, told IPS. “Generally, we can see that his policy [of using prisoner releases to get political concessions] works. There are goals he is trying to achieve [by using it],” she added.

Meanwhile, campaigners are urging governments to put human rights, and not politics, at the center of any future negotiations on prisoner releases.

“Every effort should be taken to free political prisoners but there needs to be a clear signal that human rights abuses are not being forgotten about and that no one is being tricked into thinking the repressions are over,” said Kroupe.

“Lukashenko is treating political prisoners like political currency, like hostages. Governments should stop this trade-off and force Lukashenko to comply with human rights law and put pressure on him to unconditionally release all political prisoners,” added Guryeva.

*NAME HAS BEEN CHANGED FOR SECURITY REASONS

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By CIVICUS
Oct 7 2025 (IPS)

 
CIVICUS discusses recent protests that led to a change of government in Nepal with Dikpal Khatri Chhetri, co-founder of Youth in Federal Discourse (YFD). YFD is a youth-led organisation that advocates for democracy, civic engagement and young people’s empowerment.

Dikpal Khatri Chhetri

In September, Nepal’s government blocked 26 social media platforms, sparking mass protests led by people from Generation Z. Police responded with live ammunition, rubber bullets teargas and water cannons, killing over 70 people. Despite the swift lifting of the social media ban, protests continued in anger at the killings and corruption concerns. Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak resigned, and an interim government has taken over, with a new election scheduled within six months.

What triggered the protests?

When the government asked social media companies to register and they failed to comply, it blocked 26 platforms, including Discord, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Signal, WhatsApp, X/Twitter and YouTube. A similar situation happened in 2023, when TikTok was banned and later reinstated once the company registered.

The government said the goal was to create a legal point of contact for content moderation and ensure platforms complied with national regulations. For them, the ban was just a matter of enforcing rules. But people saw it differently, and for Gen Z this was an attempt to silence them. Young people don’t just use social media for entertainment; it’s also where they discuss politics, expose corruption and organise themselves. By banning these platforms, the government was cutting them off from one of the few spaces where they felt they could hold leaders accountable.

However, the ban was the final factor after years of frustration with corruption, lack of accountability and a political elite that seems out of touch with ordinary people. Young people see politicians’ children living in luxury while they struggle to get by. On TikTok, this anger became visible in the ‘NepoKids’ trend that exposed the privileges of political families and tied them directly to corruption.

That’s why the response was so strong and immediate. What began as anger over a restriction on freedom of expression grew into a nationwide call for transparency, accountability and an end to the culture of corruption. Protests became a way for young people who refuse to accept the status quo to show their voices can’t be silenced.

How did the government react to the protests?

Instead of dialogue, the government chose repression. Police used rubber bullets, teargas and water cannon to try to disperse crowds. In many places they also fired live ammunition. By the end of the first day, 19 people had been killed.

The use of live ammunition against unarmed protesters is a serious violation of human rights. Authorities claimed protesters had entered restricted zones around key government buildings, including Parliament House, and argued this justified their response. But evidence tells a different story: footage and post-mortem reports show many of the victims were shot in the head, indicating an intent to inflict severe harm rather than simply disperse crowds. Police also failed to fully use non-lethal methods before turning to live bullets.

Rather than containing the protests, this violence further fuelled public anger. Protests, now focused on corruption and the killings, continued even after the government lifted the social media ban. Many realised the government was both corrupt and willing to kill its own people to stay in power. In response, authorities imposed strict curfews in big cities.

The political fallout was immediate. Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak resigned the next day, taking responsibility for the bloodshed. Within a day, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli also stepped down. An interim government led by former Chief Justice Sushila Karki took over, parliament was dissolved and a new election is scheduled to take place in the next six months.

What changes do protesters demand and what comes next?

We are demanding systemic change. Corruption has spread through every level of government and we are tired of politicians who have ruled for decades without improving our lives. While they grow richer, everyday people face unemployment, rising living costs and no real opportunities. We refuse to accept this any longer.

We want a government that works transparently and efficiently, free from bribery, favouritism and political interference. Leaders must understand that sovereignty belongs to the people and their duty is to serve citizens, not themselves.

We need more than just some small reforms. Nepal needs serious discussions about holding to the essence of its constitution, finding ways to amend it when dissatisfaction occurs instead of uprooting it entirely. Its implementation has to be strengthened to truly include diverse voices, reflect our history and be able to respond to future challenges. We are calling for new, younger and more competent leaders who can break the cycle of past failures.

The upcoming election will be a crucial test. Gen Z must turn out in numbers, articulate clear demands to the wider public and ensure the changes we strive for in the streets are carried into parliament.

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SEE ALSO
Nepal: Anti-corruption protests force political change despite violent crackdown CIVICUS Monitor 23.Sep.2025
Nepal: ‘The Social Network Bill is part of a broader strategy to tighten control over digital communication’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Dikshya Khadgi 28.Feb.2025
Nepal: ‘The TikTok ban signals efforts to control the digital space in the name of national sovereignty’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Anisha 11.Dec.2023

 

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More women must have a role in shaping peace agreements, security reforms and post-conflict recovery plans, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council October 6. Credit: UN News

By Sima Bahous
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 7 2025 (IPS)

We meet on the eve of the twenty-fifth anniversary of UN Security Council resolution 1325—a milestone born of the multilateral system’s conviction that peace is more robust, security more enduring, when women are at the table.

Yet the record of the last 25 years is mixed: bold, admirable commitments have been followed too often by weak implementation and chronic under-investment. Today, 676 million women and girls live within reach of deadly conflict, the highest [number] since the 1990s.

It is lamentable, then, that we see today rising military spending and renewed pushback against gender equality and multilateralism. These threaten the very foundations of global peace and security.

This anniversary must be more than a commemoration. Women and girls who live amidst conflict deserve more than commemoration. It must instead be a moment to refocus, recommit, and ensure that the next 25 years deliver much more than the last.

A belief in the core principles of resolution 1325 is shared by women and men everywhere. Whether through our work at country level, including in conflicts, or in the recent Member State commitments for the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, we know that our women, peace and security agenda, our conviction for equality, enjoys the support of an overwhelming majority of women and men, and also of Member States.

Even in Afghanistan, UN Women’s ongoing monitoring shows that 92 per cent of Afghans, men and women both, think that girls must be able to attend secondary education. It is also striking that a majority of Afghan women say they remain hopeful that they will one day achieve their aspirations.

This, despite everything they endure under Taliban oppression. Their hope is not an idle wish, and it is more than a coping mechanism. It is a political statement. A conviction. An inspiration.

As we meet to discuss the women, peace and security agenda, the painful situation in the Middle East, especially for women and girls, remains on our minds and in our hearts. Two years into the devastating Gaza war, amid the killing, the pain and the loss, a glimmer of hope emerges.

I join the Secretary-General in welcoming the positive responses to President Donald Trump’s proposal to end the Gaza war, to implement an immediate and lasting ceasefire to secure the unconditional release of all hostages, and to ensure unhindered humanitarian access.

We hope that this will lead to a just and lasting peace for Palestinians and Israelis alike, where all women and girls live with dignity, security, and opportunity.

The trends documented in the Secretary-General’s report should alarm us. It is understandable that some might conclude that the rise and normalization of misogyny currently poisoning our politics and fuelling conflict is unstoppable. It is not. Those who oppose equality do not own the future, we do.

The reality is that globally, suffering and displacement will likely rise in the face of seemingly intractable conflicts and growing instability. And it is a painful fact that we must be prepared for the situation to become worse before it becomes better for women and girls.

This will continue to be exacerbated by short-sighted funding cuts that already undermine education opportunities for Afghan girls; curtail life-saving medical attention for tens of thousands of survivors of rape and sexual violence in Sudan, Haiti and beyond; shutter health clinics across conflict zones; limit access to food for malnourished and starving mothers and their children in Gaza, Mali, Somalia and elsewhere; and fundamentally will erode the chance for peace.

Yet despite the horrors of wars and conflicts, women continue to build peace.

• Women are reducing community violence in Abyei and the Central African Republic, and mobilizing for peace in Yemen, in Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

• In Haiti, women have managed to achieve near parity in the new provisional electoral council and increased the quota for women in the draft constitution.

• In Chad, women’s representation in the National Assembly has doubled.

• In Syria, the interim Constitution ratified this March mandates the Government to guarantee the social, economic, and political rights of women, and protect them from all forms of oppression, injustice, and violence.

• In Ukraine, women have achieved the codification into law of gender-responsive budgeting, including across national relief efforts.

Whether mediating, brokering access to services, driving reconstruction, and more, women’s leadership is the face of resilience—a force for peace.

The Secretary-General has just spoken to UN Women’s recent survey findings, which highlight how current financing trends are endangering the viability and safety of women-led organizations in conflict-affected countries.

We believe there is no alternative but to change course and to invest significantly in women’s organizations on the frontlines of conflict.

The last 25 years have seen an emphasis on investing in transnational security and international legal institutions. This has not been matched by attention to investing in national capacities and social movements.

And while attention to the women, peace and security agenda has been focused in global capitals and in major cities of conflict-affected countries, it must also become localized and reach the remote areas that are worst affected and where it makes the biggest difference. This is true for information, funding, policy implementation, services, and more.

Recent years have seen a much-needed increased level of attention to conflict-related sexual violence than ever before. We have taken huge strides in ending the silence, chipping away at the impunity that emboldens and enables perpetrators.

These efforts must be redoubled, giving greater attention to reproductive violence, gender-based persecution in accountability initiatives, and a more comprehensive understanding of atrocities disproportionately affecting women and girls in conflict.

In the next 25 years of the critical women, peace and security agenda, it is crucial that we see funding earmarked, robust quotas implemented, clear instructions and mandates, and accountability measures in place that make failures visible and have consequences.

So, allow me to leave you with five calls to action that need full attention in the coming years:

• First: Affirmative action to ensure women take their rightful place at the peace-making table and consistent support to them as peacekeepers, peacebuilders, and human rights defenders. This must become a hardwired feature of the way we conduct the business of peace.

• Second: Measure the impact of this agenda by the number of women that participate directly in peace and security processes, and by the relief women receive in the form of justice, reparations, services, or asylum.

• Third: End violence against women and girls, address emerging forms of technology-facilitated gender-based violence, and challenge harmful narratives both online and offline.

• Fourth: End impunity for atrocities and crimes against women and girls, respect and uphold international law, silence the guns, and ensure peace is always in the ascendency.

• Fifth: Embed the women, peace and security agenda ever-deeper in the hearts and minds of ordinary people, particularly young people, both boys and girls. It is they who will determine the future of our ambitions, ambitions that must ultimately become theirs too.

Above all, the coming few years should see Security Council resolution 1325 implemented fully, across all contexts.

When women lead, peace follows. We made a promise to them 25 years ago. It is past time to deliver.

This article is based on remarks by UN Under-Secretary General and UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous at the Security Council meeting on “Women and peace and security” on 6 October 2025.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

Sima Bahous is UN Under Secretary-General and Executive Director UN Women

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and K Kuhaneetha Bai
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Oct 7 2025 (IPS)

The World Bank’s 1981 Berg Report provided the blueprint for structural adjustment, including economic liberalisation in Africa. Urging trade liberalisation, it promised growth from its supposed comparative advantage in agriculture.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Berg promises
Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Plan for Action by Professor Elliot Berg blamed government interventions for blocking post-colonial African economic progress.

Removing ‘distortions’ caused by marketing boards and other state interventions and institutions was supposed to unleash export-led growth for Sub-Saharan African (SSA) producers.

However, despite the supposed comparative advantage and trade preferences, African agricultural exports have not grown significantly due to protection by wealthy nations.

By the turn of the century, Africa’s share of worldwide non-oil exports had declined to less than half of what it was in the early 1980s.

African agricultural output and export capacities have been undermined by decades of low investment, economic stagnation and neglect.

Significant public spending cuts accelerated the deterioration of existing infrastructure (roads, water supply, etc.), undermining potential ‘supply responses’.

K Kuhaneetha Bai

However, high growth in East and South Asian economies boosted SSA mineral exports, often mined by foreign firms from the most significant economies in Asia.

Even the primary commodity price collapse from 2014 did not prevent Africa’s share of world exports from increasing.

Promises, promises
The 1994 Marrakech declaration, concluding the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations, created the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 1995.

The new Doha Development Round of trade negotiations began in 2001, following the dramatic walkout by African trade ministers at the WTO Seattle ministerial conference in 1999.

The Public Health Exception to the WTO’s onerous new intellectual property rules alleviated this concern but was ignored during the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.

Developing countries were projected to gain US$16 billion in the most likely scenario, according to a 2005 World Bank study led by Kym Anderson, which estimated the likely effects of a Doha Round trade agreement.

However, various studies estimating the welfare effects of multilateral agricultural trade liberalisation – including Anderson et al. – suggest significant net losses, not gains, for SSA.

Gains from agricultural trade liberalisation would largely accrue to existing major agricultural exporters – mainly from the Cairns Group – not SSA.

Nevertheless, the World Bank and others continued to insist that trade liberalisation would benefit all developing countries, including SSA, although most studies indicated otherwise.

WTO trade rules have reduced the policy space for developing countries – especially in industrial, trade, or investment policy – although some claim that room for industrial policy remains.

African governments were told that a Doha Round deal would reduce agricultural subsidies, import tariffs and non-tariff barriers by rich nations, especially in Europe.

But the neglect of both physical and economic infrastructure over two decades of structural adjustment programmes left little effective capacity to respond to new export opportunities.

Worse still, trade liberalisation of manufactured goods also undermined nascent African industrialisation.

African market access to rich, mainly European, markets was secured through negotiated preferential agreements, rather than trade liberalisation. Hence, further multilateral trade liberalisation would erode these modest gains.

Additionally, most African governments – particularly those of poorer economies with limited government capacities – were unable to replace lost tariff revenues with new taxes.

African losses foretold
What was Africa expected to gain from a Doha Round deal?

Thandika Mkandawire warned the WTO trade regime would make Africa worse off, especially without preferential treatment from the European Union under the Lomé Convention.

Anderson et al. claimed SSA would gain substantially as “farm employment, the real value of agricultural output and exports, the real returns to farm land and unskilled labor, and real net farm incomes would all rise substantially in capital scarce SSA countries with a move to free merchandise trade”.

To be sure, the modest gains from trade liberalisation would be ‘one-time’ improvements projected by the models used.

Anderson et al. claimed that SSA, excluding South Africa, would gain US$3.5 billion, compared to roughly US$550 billion worldwide.

These projected gains of less than one per cent of its 2007 output were nonetheless much more than the tenth of one per cent for all developing countries!

World Bank structural adjustment programmes undermined the limited competitiveness of African smallholder agriculture. However, their projections ignored the reasons why African food agriculture declined after the 1970s.

Meanwhile, the agricultural exports of wealthy nations have benefited from higher production subsidies, which more than offset lower export subsidies. However, reducing agricultural subsidies would likely lead to higher prices of imported food.

Uneven effects
Uneven and partial trade liberalisation and subsidy reduction will have mixed implications. These effects vary with national conditions, including food imports and share of consumer spending.

Earlier estimates for all developing countries obscured the likely impacts of trade liberalisation on Africa. The one-time welfare improvement for SSA, excluding most of Southern Africa, would be three-fifths of one per cent by 2015!

With deindustrialisation accelerated by structural adjustment, Sandra Polaski estimated that SSA, excluding South Africa, would lose US$122 billion from Doha Round trade liberalisation.

Although former World Bank economists agreed the lost decades were due to Bank structural adjustment programmes, these were reimposed a decade ago.

SSA, excluding South Africa, would lose US$106 billion to agricultural trade liberalisation. Poor infrastructure, export capacities and competitiveness in both SSA industry and agriculture were responsible.

Most of the poorest and least developed SSA countries were likely to be worse off in all ‘realistic’ Doha Round outcome scenarios.

With more realistic model assumptions – e.g., allowing for unemployment – Lance Taylor and Rudiger von Arnim found SSA would not gain, on balance, from trade liberalisation.

Mainstream international trade theory cannot justify trade liberalisation for SSA. Worse, ‘new trade theories’ and evolutionary studies of technological development suggest trade liberalisation would permanently slow growth.

Export growth?
As economic growth typically precedes export expansion, trade can foster a virtuous circle but cannot trigger it.

Specifically, a weak investment-export nexus hinders export expansion and diversification, as rapid resource reallocation is unlikely without high investment and sustained growth.

Citing the World Bank, Mkandawire noted Africa’s export collapse in the 1980s and 1990s meant “a staggering annual income loss of US$68 billion – or 21 per cent of regional GDP”!

For Dani Rodrik, Africa’s ‘marginalisation’ was not due to its trade performance, although poor by international standards. Gerald Helleiner has emphasised, “Africa’s failures have been developmental, not export failure per se”.

With its geography and income, Africa probably trades as much as can be expected. Indeed, “Africa overtrades compared with other developing regions in the sense that its trade is higher than would be expected from the various determinants of bilateral trade”!

Vulnerable Africa
The Doha Round of WTO negotiations effectively ended over a decade ago as the backlash in wealthy nations – against globalisation and its consequences – gained momentum.

Meanwhile, trade liberalisation – as part of structural adjustment programmes – deepened SSA deindustrialisation and food insecurity.

With Africa unevenly integrated by economic globalisation, most of the continent exports little to the USA, making it less of a target of Trump’s tariffs.

Nevertheless, trade liberalisation has made developing economies more vulnerable to and unprotected from the recent weaponisation of tariffs and other economic measures.

Last month’s expiration of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) prompted some African leaders to scramble for an extension.

US AGOA imports in 2023 totalled US$10 billion, accounting for high shares of some countries’ exports. Tariff imposition will exacerbate problems due to AGOA’s demise.

Meanwhile, there have been great expectations for the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Still, regional trade integration may not be very beneficial, as SSA exports are more competitive than complementary.

K. Kuhaneetha Bai studied at the University of Malaya and does policy research at Khazanah Research Institute.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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• Imperialism, Globalisation and Its Discontents*
• Open Veins of Africa Bleeding Heavily
• Africa Struggles with Neo-Colonialism
• Weaponizing Free Trade Agreements
• Trade Liberalization for Development?
• Agricultural Trade Liberalization Undermined Food Security

Image: The White House 29.9.25 / Wiki Commons

By Ramesh Thakur
Oct 6 2025 (IPS)

Back in January last year, my Toda Policy Brief 182 was published with the title “Israel and Gaza: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”. On 29 September this year, President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a joint press conference to announce a peace plan for Gaza. The plan’s title could well have been “Gaza: Today, Tomorrow and the Day After”. Trump’s yearning for the Nobel Peace Prize is no secret, possibly out of Obama-envy. If the bold and audacious 20-point Gaza plan succeeds, he will surely deserve the award. For it entails the end of Hamas as a governing force in Gaza and a security threat to Israel, gives Arabs the stability they seek in the region, promises a terror-free future for Israel and keeps alive the dream of a Palestinian state. That said, however, potholes, there be a few on the pathway to Middle East peace.

First, the good news

Any viable peace plan must deliver on three core challenges: an immediate ceasefire that brings an end to the killings and a release of all Israeli hostages still in captivity, dead or alive (today); the removal of Hamas as a military, political and institutional force from Gaza and its replacement with a credible governance structure for the strip to oversee its reconstruction (the agenda for tomorrow); and appropriate provisions, backed by credible guarantees, to prevent the return of terror to Israel (the promise of the day after).

The plan calls for the withdrawal of Israeli forces to an agreed line, the immediate cessation of hostilities and freeze on battle lines once all parties have agreed to the plan; the return of all hostages to Israel within 72 hours of the latter’s acceptance of the agreement; the release of 2,000 Palestinian prisoners by Israel (points 3–5).

The second part (tomorrow) is covered in points 6–16. After the exchange of hostages and prisoners, Hamas members who give up their arms and surrender will be granted amnesty and, if they wish, be given safe passage to third countries. They will play no role in Gaza’s governance. Aid deliveries into Gaza will resume and distributed without interference from any party. Gaza will be governed by a transitional, technocratic and apolitical committee of qualified Palestinians and international experts. An international high-level Peace Board will “set the framework”, “handle the funding for the redevelopment of Gaza”, and “create modern and efficient governance” to the “best international standards”. Trump will draw up an economic development plan. No one will be forced to leave Gaza. Israel will neither occupy nor annex Gaza. Instead, its forces will withdraw to agreed lines and on a timetable tied to Hamas’s demilitarisation. The US, Arab countries and other international partners will provide a temporary International Stabilisation Force to deploy immediately in Gaza.

The third and final element is addressed in points 1, 9, 14, 19 and 20. They envision Gaza as “a deradicalised terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbours”; a guarantee from Arab regional partners that Hamas and its factions will comply with the provisions and New Gaza will not pose a threat to its people or to neighbours; and, possibly as the most critical trigger to a direct US involvement if the agreement is violated, the new “Board of Peace” to be set up “will be headed and chaired” by Trump himself. As Gaza redevelops and the Palestinian Authority implements the necessary reforms, a “credible pathway” to realise the aspirations of the Palestinians for self-determination and statehood will emerge. The US will establish a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians “for peaceful and prosperous co-existence”.

Now, the rest of the news

There are thus a lot of moving parts and the plan will work only if everything that can go right, does go right. Usually this is an overly optimistic basis for any peace plan.

To start with, Israel gets almost all its demands and conditions met on hostage release, Hamas disarmament and its removal as a military and political power, and a security buffer zone in Gaza. Its own withdrawal will be phased on Hamas’s compliance. Hamas, not so much. Hostages have been its most powerful leverage over Israel. Mass civilian casualties and humanitarian suffering have been its most potent weapon in the campaign of global delegitimisation of Israel. The few credible opinion polls show Hamas to be the runaway choice in the West Bank and, especially, Gaza. Trump has threatened to give Israel the green light to finish the job if Hamas rejects his plan. For an ideology that welcomes martyrdom for shahids, they might choose to die on their feet rather than survive on their knees on Israeli sufferance.

Conversely, the deal might be torpedoed by the more hawkish partners in Netanyahu’s governing coalition who demand a permanent security presence in Gaza, annexation of the West Bank, no release of the worst of the Palestinian prisoners and no amnesty for the killers of 7 October. Of course, it’s possible that opposition parties that want an end to the war could step in to keep Netanyahu afloat.

Third, both Hamas and Israel might feel compelled to accept the plan in order to escape the wrath of the infamously short-tempered US president. But both have a long history of sabotaging the implementation of agreements reached, arguing endlessly over the finer details and implementation implications of the agreement’s clauses, pointing fingers at each other, and so on. The region has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Fourth, to believe that the Palestinian Authority, with a president who is into the third decade of his four-year elected term, will quickly transform into a corruption-free model of competence and effective governance is a triumph of hope over experience.

Fifth, Arab governments were brought on board with Trump’s very public rejection of Israel’s agenda to annex the West Bank. When Israel attacked targets on its soil, Qatar discovered the limits of playing all sides in hosting the Hamas leadership and a big US military base while also acting as a mediator in the Israel-Palestine conflict. This helped concentrate its mind to seal the deal. But how long will the Arab regimes be able to resist their attachment to the Palestinian cause?

Finally, Tony Blair’s presence on the Peace Board as an eminence grise is a kick in the teeth of international idealism. He is thoroughly discredited for his role in the 2003 Iraq war. Putting “Tony Blair” and “Middle East peace” alongside each other in any plan for the region has as much chance of peaceful coexistence as Hamas and a Netanyahu government in Gaza and Israel. We can only conclude that Trump lacks awareness of just how globally toxic the Blair brand is.

Related articles:
The return of the ugly American
Donald Trump: Self-proclaimed peacemaker lacking fortune and expertise
Donald Trump’s overwhelming force/surrender style of negotiation and governing

Ramesh Thakur, a former UN assistant secretary-general, is emeritus professor at the Australian National University and Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. He is a former Senior Research Fellow at the Toda Peace Institute and editor of The nuclear ban treaty: a transformational reframing of the global nuclear order.

This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished from the original with their permission.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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A drill monkey in an electric enclosure at the ranch. Credit: Promise Eze/IPS

By Promise Eze
BOKI, Nigeria, Oct 2 2025 (IPS)

For the past 23 years, Gabriel Oshie has started his mornings at Drill Ranch in the Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary, Boki, Cross River state, southern Nigeria.

At sunrise, he walks through an electric enclosure at the ranch, giving bananas and other fruits to the over 200 endangered drill monkeys he watches over.

Drill monkeys are among the world’s rarest primates, known for their brightly coloured faces and short tails. They live in large groups led by a dominant male and are found only in parts of Nigeria, southwestern Cameroon and Bioko Island in Equatorial Guinea.

However, their numbers have fallen sharply due to deforestation, hunting and the illegal wildlife trade. The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates fewer than 4,000 remain in the wild.

“Wildlife is the beauty of nature,” Oshie said, explaining what motivated him to work at the ranch. “When you see the drill monkeys, the forests, and other animals, you can’t help but appreciate their beauty. But it’s sad that people are destroying wildlife despite its importance.”

Gabriel Oshie has been working at the ranch for the past 23 years. Credit: Promise Eze/IPS

Wildlife Crime

Wildlife crime is the fourth most profitable illegal trade globally, worth billions of dollars each year. Nigeria has become a key hub, with porous borders and weak enforcement enabling traffickers to move ivory, pangolin scales and other endangered species.

Authorities have tried to curb the trade by shutting bushmeat markets and seizing smuggled wildlife. In July, officials announced the country’s largest wildlife-trafficking bust, intercepting more than 1,600 birds bound for Kuwait at Lagos International Airport.

But experts warn these efforts could fail if weak conservation laws, poor enforcement, limited public awareness and the lack of arrests or convictions persist.

“The state of biodiversity in Nigeria is in serious crisis,” said Rita Uwaka, Interim Administrator for Environmental Rights Action. “Much of our forested landscape has been depleted due to industrial plantations expansion, leading to significant loss of plant and animal species with devastating impacts on people and climate. We are also seeing concession agreements awarded to large-scale agro-commodities companies contributing to increased biodiversity loss. They arrive with promises of development, but vast forested areas, family farms, and ancestral lands are handed over to them amidst social, environmental, and gender impacts. In the process, they cut down forests that should serve as vital hubs for ecological conservation.

“The biggest drivers of biodiversity loss in Nigeria are in the agro-commodity sector, where large tracts of forest and wildlife sanctuaries are allocated to corporations at the expense of local communities, especially women and vulnerable groups who suffer differentiated impacts when forests and biodiversity are destroyed,” she added.

Preserving the drills

Two American conservationists, Liza Gadsby and Peter Jenkins, founded Drill Ranch in 1991 through their non-profit group Pandrillus. Now home to over 600 drills, it is the world’s most successful breeding project for the species.

En route to Botswana with only a tourist visa, Gadsby and Jenkins arrived in Nigeria where they learned of a gorilla conservation project in Boki. There, they discovered not only gorillas but also drill monkeys, thought before the 1980s to be nearly extinct outside Cameroon.

“Less was known about drills at the time, and they were more endangered than gorillas across Africa. Of course, the local people knew they were there all along, but the international community had only recently rediscovered them. So, we became quite interested in them,” Gadsby explained to IPS.

For over three years, their tourist journey took a different turn as they travelled across southeastern Nigeria and southwestern Cameroon, gathering information and persuading locals to surrender captive drills.

They established a sanctuary in Calabar, the capital of Cross River state, later expanding it into a natural habitat in Boki. They worked closely with 18 Boki communities, each contributing rangers who were often former hunters, to patrol the forests and deter poaching. Their efforts paid off, with locals surrendering as many as 90 drills to the project.

Today, the ranch houses both captive-bred and wild-born drills, each with a name and tattoo number. Alongside the drills, it cares for 27 chimpanzees, a soft-shell turtle and 29 African grey parrots seized from traffickers in 2021. In 2024, 25 parrots were released back into the wild.

The presence of Pandrillus in Boki, one of Nigeria’s largest green canopies, helped drive conservation gains in the area. In 2000, after a decade of lobbying, part of the forest reserve, where the ranch is located, was declared a wildlife Sanctuary by the government.

“We had been lobbying for over ten years, proposing that a portion of the forest reserve be upgraded to wildlife sanctuary status,” Gadsby said.

Bleak Future?

Rehabilitating drills into the wild is the main goal of the project, but rapid deforestation in Boki and Cross River is making this increasingly difficult, said ranch manager Zach Schwenneker.

With the thriving cocoa trade in the region, many people turn to farming for a living, often cutting down forests, including protected areas, for cultivation and exposing drills and other animals in the ranch to poachers.

Government support is also dwindling. Pandrillus once received monthly subventions to care for the animals, but the suspension of this funding has hindered conservation efforts. Today, the ranch relies largely on international aid and individual donations.

Uwaka told IPS that Nigeria’s National Biodiversity Strategic Action Plan would have effectively addressed these issues, but she argues that “The problem lies in enforcement. While the laws look impressive on paper, they are often ineffective in practice due to weak monitoring systems. Even where such systems exist, they are insufficient to ensure compliance. Policies should be put in place not to encourage poaching, and there should be strong regulatory frameworks to curb deforestation.”

For Oshie at the ranch, the project can only succeed if people value wildlife and biodiversity and no longer feel the need to hunt drills.

“But I’m here because I want to protect nature. If we are not here, logging activities could take over, destroying the trees and harming the animals,” he said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Kathmandu’s Singha Durbar in flames

By Jan Lundius
ROME, Oct 2 2025 (IPS)

In the Global South, where people under the age of 18 comprise more than 50 percent of the population, youth activism is increasing rapidly. Youngsters are more agile and volatile than older people, less restrained by family, prestige and work. However, many suffer from marginalisation, lack of employment, and poverty. Furthermore, insecurity and limited life experience make young people an easy target for manipulating and unscrupulous politicians, criminal networks, and religious fanatics.

Students and young citizens come together by using social media to make their presence felt and mount protests in public spaces. The role of new media technologies as an organising tool has led besieged authorities to ban online platforms, though imposed restrictions have rather than contain protests accelerated them.

Rebellious youth generally belong to the Gen Z, which refers to “digital native”, the first generation fully immersed in a digital world, with constant access to internet and social media. An upbringing that has shaped their world view, making them independent, pragmatic and focused on social impact.

South Asia has recently experienced massive protest movements involving crowds of young people. In July 2022, after an economic collapse in Sri Lanka, a rebellion forced its president to flee the country. In July 2024, upheavals ended the long rule of Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh, and in September this year, violent protests in Nepal forced Prime Minister Khadga Oli’s government to resign.

Even though specific incidents triggered these upheavals, they were all due to long-term, shared grievances evolving from stark wealth gaps, rampant nepotism, and unlimited corruption. Above all, youngsters protested against members of powerful dynasties, favouring a wealthy and discredited political elite.

Sri Lankans were in 2022 faced with a galloping inflation, daily blackouts, as well as shortages of fuel, domestic gas, food, medicines, and essential imports. Amid massive desperation, huge crowds of mostly young people did on 25 March take to the streets under the slogan Aragalya, Struggle.

Political power had by then become embedded within the Rajapaksa dynasty. From 2005 to 2022, two brothers – Mahinda and Gotabaya Rajapaksa, had alternately shared the presidency and prime minister post, while another brother headed their political party; a fourth was speaker of the parliament, and other relatives occupied influential political positions.

While Gotabaya Rajapaksa served as defence minister, he was credited with ending the twenty-six-year-long civil war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. After churches and luxury hotels in April 2019 had been targeted by ISIS-related suicide bombers, killing 270 people, Mahinda and Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who at the time were in opposition, accused the current government of leniency. When Gotabaya ran for the presidency the same year, he based his campaign on his record as a militant leader, embracing a Sinhalese-Buddhist nationalism inspired by his brother Mahinda’s ethno-nationalist rhetoric, favouring the Buddhist establishment. Gotabaya was elected with an overwhelming majority and six ministries were then headed by members of the Rajapaksa clan.

Most Aragalaya protesters considered their personal hardships to be a result of the mismanagement and corruption of the Rajapaksa-led government. They demanded that the president be deposed and a thorough “system change” brought about. After appointing an astute insider, Ranil Wickremesinghe, as acting president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled to Singapore. Wickremesinghe’s government refused to hold elections and persistently portrayed Aragalaya as a chaotic movement, captured by militants, fascists, and terrorists.

Several Aragalaya supporters were wary of being used by partisan or militant groups, particularly those with leftist ideologies which had a long history of organizing protests and strikes. One exception could have been the leftist National People’s Power (NPP), established in 2019. The 2024 elections, which Wickremesinghe had been forced to accept, was won by a NPP coalition lead by Anura Dissanayake.

So far, Dissanayake and his NPP coalition have not introduced any radical political or economic changes. They have largely continued the Wickremesinghe government’s economic and foreign policies, raising questions about the extent to which the NPP coalition is willing, or able, to depart from established governance patterns and deliver the systemic change that has been promised. Deep set divisions and ethnic-religious tensions continue to harass the nation and NPP is apparently trying to tread lightly to avoid stirring up any violent disaccord.

The same could be said about Bangladesh, where an interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus seems to be cautious not to cause any antagonistic violence. Yunus’ group of personal supporters and experts presides over a nation with a chilling rise in mob violence and political discord; women are often being targeted, as well as there are reports of attacks on religious minorities.

The formerly dictatorial, but secular and highly corrupt political party, the Awami League, has been banned and democratic elections are promised by the interim government in February 2026. Some are optimistic about democratic elections, described by Yunus as becoming the most “beautiful elections ever”. However, others are unsure if elections will actually be held within a political scenario where violence is a common-day affair.

In Bangladesh, it was a quota system for jobs that forced youngsters into the streets. It was mainly students who led the protests. Student politics had for several years been ferocious, especially since religious and political fractions used them as a mobilising force. Violent feuds within educational institutes had killed many and seriously hampered the academic atmosphere.

Student anger became unified through a common resentment of reserved positions in the Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS), a cherished field of government service. The reserved positions were destined to “freedom fighters, i.e. veterans from the 1971 liberation war, as well as their children and grandchildren. Protests erupted in full force on 1 July after the Supreme Court in June 2024 had reinstated a 30 percent quota reserved for veteran descendants, generally interpreted as an intent by the governing party to favour its traditional supporters.

Bangladesh became a sovereign nation in December 1971, after a war against Pakistan, which was supported by India. Sheik Mujibur Rahman was until his assassination in 1975 president and prime minister. Following further turmoil with counter coups, General Ziaur Rahman eventually took over as president; he was in May 1981 assassinated in yet another coup. Ziaur Rahman’s widow, Begum Khaleda Zia, served from 1991 to 1996 as the second female prime minster in the Muslim world (after the Pakistani Benazir Bhutto) and again between 2001 and 2006, when Bangladesh, according to the Corruption Perceptions Index was listed as the most corrupt country in the world. Following the end of her government’s term, a military-backed caretaker government charged Khaleda Zia and her two sons with corruption and in 2018 she was sentenced to 17 years in prison.

Sheikh Hasinah, daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was prime minister between 1996 and 2001, and again from 2009 to 2024, following several controversial elections. Her tenure as prime minister was marked by economic mismanagement, rampant corruption, leading to a rising foreign debt, increased inflation, youth unemployment, banking irregularities and an enormous wealth gap. The Financial Times reported that more than an estimated USD 200 billion was allegedly plundered from Bangladesh during Sheikh Hasinah’s time as prime minister, with a lot of these money ending up in countries such as the UK.

As the case had been in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, several members of the Nepalese political elite considered themselves as privileged and not accountable, while favouring family members and supporters to syphon wealth from overprized building endeavours.

Khadga Prassad Oli, a communist who began his political career as “spokesman for the oppressed”, seemed to be unaware of the anger accumulating around him within a nation where some two thousand men and women daily left to look for livelihoods in other countries (remittances from Nepalis working abroad constitute a third of the country’s GDP). Of those who stayed behind, more than 80 percent work in the informal sector, while youth unemployment in the formal sector is more than 20 percent.

On 4 September this year, the government ordered authorities to block 26 social media platforms, including Facebook, X, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Reddit, Signal and Snapchat, for not complying with a deadline to register with the country’s ministry of communication. The measure was explained as a means to tackle fake news, hate speech, and online fraud.

By then, youngsters had with increasing anger accessed platforms where politicians’ children posted photos of their opulent existence, awash with designer clothes, luxury holidays, and lavish parties. The close down of all media platforms, except the Chinese TikTok, further inflamed the resentment of Nepalese youth.

Soon Kathmandu was burning – Singha Durbar, i.e. Nepal’s administrative headquarters; the health ministry; the parliament building; the Supreme Court; the presidential palace; the prime minister’s residence, offices of the governing communist party, and the Kathmandu Hilton, were all set ablaze.

Nepal, the oldest sovereign, and until 2008 only Hindu state in South Asia, was for 250 years, under a strict caste system, ruled by the Shah dynasty. After internal power struggles and murders within the “Royal House of Gorkha” the monarchy was abolished and it was only in 1990 that it had ceded partial power to political parties. After that, a series of failing civilian governments gave in 1996 rise to a “Maoist” insurgency, which took sixteen thousand lives.

The leader of that rebellion, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, was in 2008 elected prime minister. However, he and his erstwhile revolutionaries proved incapable of improving Nepalese living standards and soon indulged themselves in corruption. After the September Gen Z-led upheaval a caretaker Prime Minister has been appointed. Sushila Karki, has a good record after being Nepal’s first female Chief Justice, between 2016 and 2017.

While new leaders seem to have emerged in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal, the general public is now asking itself if these recently arrived politicians will be more prudent, corruption free and restrained in controversial actions, than their predecessors.

Much of the outcome depends on the “big brother” in the area – The Republic of India, where millions of migrant workers from Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka reside and work. Indian democracy has, with all its shortcomings, been characterized by a collective political discourse in which concerns of a diversity of all Indians could find a space. However, under prime minister Modi we now witness the rise of Hindu nationalism, rooted in homogeneity and exclusion, questioning who really belongs in the Hindutva community, while marginalizing those who don’t, among them migrants, Muslims, and many others. A dangerous polarization that could worsen the situation in neighbouring countries, particularly considering the huge number of their emigrants being present in a country prone to discriminate against them, as well as forcing them back to a tumultuous situation in their countries of origin.

This is part 1 of an analysis of the connection between youth movements and political change, part 2 will analyse how youth-led revolutions have changed political scenarios globally.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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This two-storeyed residential building was one of 12 structures demolished by Israeli authorities in Area C of Al Judeira village, in Jerusalem governorate, citing the lack of Israeli-issued building permits, which are almost impossible for Palestinians to obtain. Credit: community via UNOCHA

By the Norwegian Refugee Council
OSLO, Norway, Oct 2 2025 (IPS)

In less than nine months, Israel has demolished more Palestinian homes and structures in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, over building permits than in the whole of last year.

By 30 September, Israeli authorities had demolished 1,288 structures over building permits, nearly five a day, including 138 funded by international aid. More than 1,400 Palestinians were displaced and nearly 38,000 affected through the loss of livelihood, agricultural and water and sanitation infrastructure.

This marks a 39 per cent increase in demolitions over building permits compared with the same period last year, when 929 structures were torn down due to lack of permits. Israeli authorities demolished a total of 1,281 structures over building permits in 2024.

“Families are being stripped of homes, water and livelihoods in a calculated effort to drive them from their land and make way for settlements,” said Angelita Caredda, NRC’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa. “This is not accidental destruction. It is a deliberate policy of dispossession.”

The demolitions are rooted in a planning system that denies Palestinians the right to build in Area C, which covers more than 60 per cent of the West Bank and remains under full Israeli control. Palestinians must apply for permits that are almost never granted.

Since October 2023, 282 applications have been submitted. Not a single one was approved.

Israel has also carried out 37 punitive demolitions this year, matching the record set in 2023. These demolitions involve destroying or sealing the homes of Palestinians accused of attacks against Israelis. The practice punishes entire families and constitutes collective punishment, prohibited under international law.

At the same time, Israeli military operations in Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarm refugee camps have left destruction not captured in official demolition figures. The UN reports at least 245 buildings destroyed and 157 severely damaged, with nearly 32,000 refugees displaced. With limited access to the camps, the real toll is likely far higher.

These developments come a year after the UN General Assembly endorsed the July 2024 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which found Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful and said it must end as rapidly as possible.

In its 18 September 2024 resolution, the Assembly gave Israel 12 months to withdraw and called on states not to recognise annexation, not to aid violations, and to act together to end them. That period has now lapsed, yet Israel has only tightened its grip.

“Instead of ending its occupation, Israel is entrenching it and accelerating its annexation agenda,” Caredda said. “Over 150 states have recognised Palestine, yet the land that state needs to survive is disappearing. Governments must urgently act to protect Palestinians from the relentless erosion of their rights.”

• Between 1 January and 30 September 2025, Israeli authorities demolished 1,288 Palestinian structures in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, for lack of permits. This is an average of 4.7 demolitions per day. In the same period in 2024, 929 structures were demolished for lack of permits, an average of 3.4 per day. The demolitions in 2025 have displaced 1,414 people and affected 38,017 others (OCHA).

• Israeli authorities demolished 1,281 structures citing lack of permits in 2024. (OCHA).

• Since October 2023, 282 applications have been submitted. None have been approved. (Israel Planning Council)

• Between 2016 and 2021, Palestinians in Area C submitted 2,550 requests for building permits. Only 24 were approved, less than one per cent (Bimkom).

• Between 1 January and 30 September 2025, Israeli authorities carried out 37 punitive demolitions of homes belonging to Palestinians accused of attacks against Israelis. This equals the record number set in 2023 (OCHA).

• Israeli authorities have denied humanitarian monitors access to Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarm refugee camps in the northern West Bank, where widespread destruction has occurred during military operations. A UNOSAT satellite assessment recorded at least 245 buildings destroyed, 157 severely damaged, and 750 moderately damaged.

• In 2024, Israeli authorities demolished 452 Palestinian structures during military operations (OCHA).

• Between 1 January and 30 September 2025, the UN verified the destruction of 1,384 Palestinian structures by Israeli authorities in total (OCHA).

• In 2024, Israeli authorities and forces demolished 1,768 structures across the West Bank (OCHA).

• At least 31,919 Palestine refugees have been displaced from Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarm camps, based on self-registration by affected families. The real number is likely higher, reflecting displacement on a scale beyond what has been verified (UN).

• Area C comprises more than 60 per cent of the West Bank and remains under full Israeli control.

• Under the Oslo II Interim Agreement, powers in Area C were meant to be gradually transferred to Palestinian jurisdiction within 18 months of the inauguration of the Palestinian Council in 1996. Nearly three decades later, Area C remains under Israeli control.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, addresses the high-level conference of the General Assembly on the situation of Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elías

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 1 2025 (IPS)

On September 30, the United Nations (UN) convened a high-level meeting on the situation of Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar shortly following the end of the 80th session of the General Assembly (UNGA80). The conference was an opportunity to draw global attention once more to the Rohingya refugee situation with dialogue from UN officials, world representatives and civil society organizations.

Since the 2017 military crackdown on the rights and citizenship of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, over one million refugees have fled to Bangladesh, most settling in Cox’s Bazar which became the world’s largest refugee camp. Despite repeated repatriation efforts by the Bangladeshi government, ongoing insecurity in Myanmar makes a safe return impossible, with refugees still at risk of persecution and discrimination.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres noted that Rohingya Muslims and minorities face widespread insecurity and discrimination, especially in Rakhine State. “Minorities in Myanmar have endured decades of exclusion, abuse and violence,” Chef de Cabinet Courtenay Rattray said, delivering Guterres’ statement on his behalf. “The Rohingya have been stripped of their right to citizenship, targeted by hate speech, terrorized with deadly force and destruction, confined to displacement camps in Myanmar, with severely limited freedom of movement and little access to education and health services.”

Rattray added that minorities are routinely subjected to forced displacement, conscription, aerial attacks, and extrajudicial killings. Sexual and gender-based violence remain pervasive, with women and girls facing heightened risks of trafficking, child marriage, and other forms of exploitation.

With humanitarian aid budgets shrinking and conflict escalating in Myanmar, delegates discussed mechanisms to ensure the protection of Rohingya refugees and minorities, as well as strategies to facilitate a safe and dignified return home. Many speakers urged for increased accountability measures, in hopes of addressing the root causes of insecurity in Myanmar and ending the cycle of impunity.

“To create a conducive environment for repatriation, first and foremost we must end this military dictatorship and its atrocities against civilians, and we all need to double every effort to build trust and unity among us,” said Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun, Permanent Representative of Myanmar to the UN. “Resolving the situation of Rohingya Muslims and Other Minorities in Myanmar will not be possible unless we address the root cause. We can yield results only by acting together to end the military dictatorship, its unlawful coup, and its culture of impunity.”

Numerous member state and civil society representatives also emphasized the need for stronger accountability measures, warning of significant risks to regional stability. Stavros Lambrinidis, Ambassador of the European Union (EU) to the UN, noted that tensions have grown considerably between refugees and host communities, with minors often joining armed groups, risking further violence in the region.

“This crisis is not only a Myanmar crisis,” said Nabhit Kapur, the Permanent Observer of the Pan-African Intergovernmental Agency for Water and Sanitation in Africa (WSA) to the UN. “Its implications stretch far beyond borders, affecting regional peace, stability, and trust in the very foundations of multilateralism…The longer uncertainty prevails, the greater the risk of radicalization, human trafficking, and destabilization across the region.”

Several speakers also underscored the urgency of increased funding, particularly for essential services such as food assistance, protection, and education, which are vital in enabling a dignified return to Myanmar. The World Food Programme (WFP) warned that if additional funding is not secured soon, Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh risk falling into acute food insecurity, with monthly food rations potentially being reduced to just USD 6 per person.

Dylan Winder, a representative of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), informed the room about conditions in the Cox’s Bazar settlement, describing the situation as “fragile” and entirely dependent on humanitarian assistance. “Families continue to live in shelters beyond capacity and are exposed to disasters. Protection and security risks are serious and growing. And the hard truth is that shrinking funding is accelerating these risks—threatening food rations, healthcare, including maternal and child health, and water and sanitation services—driving disease, violence, and trafficking, and pushing families toward dangerous coping strategies.”

Bangladesh’s Chief Advisor, Muhammad Yunus, stressed that Bangladesh cannot bear this burden alone as it already faces the challenge of supporting a densely populated nation and cannot “afford to allow employment of Rohingyas inside Bangladesh”. Refugees continue to face severe shortages of resources along with alongside reoccurring security challenges, such as clashes with host communities. “We are forced to bear huge financial, social and environmental costs. Criminal activities, including narco-flows into Bangladesh through Rakhine, threaten our social fabric,” Yunus said.

Speakers also emphasized the need for a comprehensive political framework that guarantees minority rights and citizenship, and fosters inclusion, particularly for women and children—the most vulnerable among the persecuted population.With Rohingya Muslims rendered stateless and largely silenced, many underscored the urgency of ensuring their meaningful representation in decisions that will shape their future.

“The 2021 military coup halted democratic aspirations of Myanmar’s people and the Rohingya’s hopes to participate in shaping Myanmar’s future,” said the Ambassador for International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) to the UN. “The Rohingya crisis is not only a humanitarian and human rights crisis; it is a crisis of democracy and inclusion…Without inclusion, there can be no reconciliation; without democracy, there can be no justice.”

While this conference was meant to center the direct perspectives of Rohingya refugees from the camps, very few of the speakers were refugees or came from the camps. The conference did not include statements from Rohingya refugees currently living in the camps. In previous years, Bangladesh and the UN had sponsored trips for Rohingya refugees to represent themselves in discussions that could shape their own futures. This year, there were none, with Bangladeshi officials citing difficulty in obtaining clearance and security concerns.

“Peace in Myanmar rests on the recognition that the Rohingya are equal members of Burmese society, equally deserving of education, citizenship, human rights and justice,” said the Representative of the Independent Diplomat to the UN. “True action has been lacking. As diplomatic experts and activists have convened in these halls, the Rohingya have remained stateless, displaced, and denied their own fundamental rights. The gap between our stated principles and our collective responsibility has allowed atrocities to continue with impunity and it deepens the suffering of far too many people.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Maung Sawyeddollah, Founder of the Rohingya Students Network, addresses the high-level conference of the General Assembly on the situation of Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elías

By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 1 2025 (IPS)

The international community convened for a high-level meeting at UN Headquarters, this time to mobilize political support for the ongoing issue of the persecution of the Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar.

On Tuesday September 30, representatives from Rohingya advocacy groups, the UN system and member states convened at the General Assembly to address the ongoing challenges facing Rohingya Muslims and the broader context of the political and humanitarian situation in Myanmar.

UN President of the General Assembly Annalena Baerbock remarked that the conference was an opportunity to listen to stakeholders, notably civil society representatives with experience on the ground.

“Rohingya need the support of the international community, not just in words but in action,” she said.

Baerbock added there was an “urgent need for strengthened international solidarity and increased support,” and to make efforts to reach a political solution with unequivocal participation from the Rohingyas.

“The violence, the extreme deprivation and the massive violations of human rights have fueled a crisis of grave international concern. The international community must honor its responsibilities and act. We stand in solidarity with the Rohingya and all the people of Myanmar in their hour of greatest need,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

In the eight years since over 750,000 Rohingyas fled persecution and crossed the border into Bangladesh, the international community has had to deal with one of the most intense refugee situations in living memory. Attendees at the conference spoke on addressing the root causes that led to this protracted crisis—systematic oppression and persecution at the hands of Myanmar’s authorities and unrest in Rakhine State.

Muhammad Yunus, Chief Adviser of the interim Government of Bangladesh, addresses the high-level conference on the situation of Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias

The military junta’s ascension in 2021 has only led to further unrest and instability in Myanmar and has made the likelihood of safe and sustained return far more precarious. Their persecution has only intensified as the Rohingya communities still residing in Rakhine find themselves caught in the middle of conflicts between the junta and other militant groups, including the Arakan Army.

At the opening of the conference, Rohingya refugee activists remarked that the systemic oppression predates the current crisis. “This is a historic occasion for Myanmar. But it is long overdue. Our people have suffered enough. For ethnic minorities—from Kachin to Rohingya—the suffering has spanned decades,” said Wai Wai Nu, founder and executive director of the Women’s Peace Network.

“It has already been more than eight years since the Rohingya Genocide was exposed. Where is the justice for the Rohingyas?” asked Maung Sawyeddollah, founder of the Rohingya Student Network.

For the United Nations, the Rohingya refugee crisis represents the dramatic impact of funding shortfalls on their humanitarian operations. UN Secretary-General António Guterres once said during his visit to the refugee camps in Bangladesh back in April that “Cox’s Bazar is Ground Zero for the impact of budget cuts”.

Funding cuts to agencies like UNICEF and the World Food Programme (WFP) have undermined their capacity to reach people in need. WFP has warned that their food assistance in the refugee camps will run out in two months unless they receive more funding. Yet as of now, the 2025 Rohingya Refugee Response Plan of USD 934.5 million is only funded at 38 percent.

Volker Türk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, addresses the high-level conference of the General Assembly on the situation of Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias

“The humanitarian response in Bangladesh remains chronically underfunded, including in key areas like food and cooking fuel. The prospects for funding next year are grim. Unless further resources are forthcoming, despite the needs, we will be forced to make more cuts while striving to minimize the risk of losing lives: children dying of malnutrition or people dying at sea as more refugees embark on dangerous boat journeys,” said Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

As the host country of over 1 million refugees since 2017, Bangladesh has borne the brunt of the situation. Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus said that the country faces its own development challenges and systemic issues with crime, poverty and unemployment, and has struggled to support the refugee population even with the help of aid organizations. He made a call to pursue repatriations, the strategy to ensure the safe return of Rohingyas to Rakhine.

“As funding declines, the only peaceful option is to begin their repatriation. This will entail far fewer resources than continuing their international protection. The Rohingya have consistently pronounced their desire to go back home,” said Yunus. “The world cannot keep the Rohingya waiting any longer from returning home.”

Along with the UN, Myanmar and Bangladesh, neighboring and host countries also have a role to play. Regional blocs like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are also crucial  in supporting the Rohingya population as well as leading dialogues with other stakeholders across the region.

“In my engagements with Myanmar stakeholders, I have emphasized that peace in Myanmar will remain elusive until inclusive dialogue between all Myanmar stakeholders takes place,” said Othman Hashim, the special envoy of the ASEAN Chair on Myanmar. “For actions within Myanmar, the crucial first step is stopping the hostilities and violence. Prolonged violence will only exacerbate the misery of the people of Myanmar, Rohingya and other minorities included.”

“Countries hosting refugees need sustained support. Cooperation with UNODC [UN Office of Drugs and Crime], UNHCR, and IOM [International Organization for Migration] must be deepened,” said Sugiono, Indonesia’s foreign minister.

Supporting the Rohingya beyond emergency and humanitarian needs would also require investing resources in education and employment opportunities. Involved parties were encouraged to support resettlement policies that would help communities secure livelihoods in  the long-term, or to extend opportunities for longterm work, like in Thailand where they recently granted long-staying refugees the right to work legally in the country.

“Any initiative for the Rohingya without Rohingya in the camp, from decision making to nation-building is unsustainable and unjust. The UN must mobilize resources to empower Rohingya. We are not only victims; we have the potential to make a difference,” said Sawyeddollah.

As one of the few Rohingya representatives present that had previous lived in the camps in Cox’s Bazaar, Sawyeddollah described the challenges he faced in pursuing higher education when he applied to over 150 universities worldwide but did not get into any of them. He got into New York University with a scholarship, the first Rohingya refugee to attend. He reiterated that universities had the capacity to offer scholarships to Rohingya students, citing the example of the Asian University of Women (AUW) in Chittagong, Bangladesh, where it has been offering scholarships to Rohingya girls since at least 2018.

The conference called for actionable measures that would address several key areas in the Rohingya refugee situation. This includes scaling up funding for humanitarian aid in Bangladesh and Myanmar, and notably, pursuing justice and accountability under international law. Türk and other UN officials reiterated that resolving the instability and political tensions in Myanmar is crucial to resolving the refugee crisis.

Kyaw Moe Tun, Permanent Representative of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar to the UN, blamed the military junta for the country’s current state and called for member states to refuse supporting the junta politically or financially. “We can yield results only by acting together to end the military dictatorship, its unlawful coup, and its culture of impunity. At a time when human rights, justice and humanity are under critical attack, please help in our genuine endeavour to build a federal democratic union that rooted in these very principles.”
IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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