European Union

The development of new cities has become a defining feature of contemporary global urbanisation. More than 150 new cities are currently in planning worldwide, predominantly in low- and middle-income countries. While new city projects often claim to address pressing urban challenges, many such initiatives fail to achieve their stated urban development goals. A significant number of new city developments, for example, remain underpopulated or entirely abandoned. Yet despite this mixed record, over 40 governments continue to promote their construction. In this policy brief, we argue that shadow interests – hidden political economic interests pursued by powerful elites – explain why certain governments continue to promote new city developments even when they fail. New cities can significantly underperform regarding their stated urban development objectives and nevertheless serve hidden political agendas very effectively. Urban failures must therefore not preclude political gains. Three examples illustrate our argument: new town planning in Egypt between the 1970s and 1990s, Masdar City in Abu Dhabi and Forest City in Malaysia. In all three cases, political goals complemented urban development objectives, and some of these political goals were realised even after the projects themselves fell short of their declared urban development goals. We recommend that international development actors, including donor governments, multilateral development banks and bilateral development agencies, exercise particular caution when invited to participate in new city developments. Even though many of these projects claim to tackle pressing urban challenges, their stated urban objectives must not necessarily reflect their underlying political economic motivations. Any technical or financial support ideally builds upon two complementary analyses: first, a political economy analysis of the interests motivating the project, including potential shadow interests; and second, an alternatives analysis comparing the proposed project with more limited and incremental interventions in existing cities. Incorporating such analyses into project approval processes will help discipline public and private investment in urban development and thereby reduce the risk that new city developments serve the interests of political elites rather than the needs of urban residents.

Credit: Shutterstock

By James Alix Michel
VICTORIA, Seychelles, Oct 28 2026 (IPS)

On 21 September 1976, less than three months after independence, Seychelles took its seat in the General Assembly of the United Nations. We became the 145th member of the Organisation. For a young nation of scattered islands in the Indian Ocean, with a small population and no army to speak of, it was far more than a ceremony. It was a promise that, in the family of nations, size would not decide whose voice was heard.

Fifty years later, I still believe in that promise. But I also know that it has never been kept automatically. It has to be renewed by every generation of leaders, and it now faces one of its hardest tests.

On 24 October, the United Nations marked its 81st anniversary. In his final United Nations Day message as Secretary-General, António Guterres reminded the world that the UN is not only an organisation but an idea: that humanity’s future depends on our ability to work together to advance peace, development and human rights.

Those words land at a sobering moment. Wars continue in several regions, often with civilians paying the highest price. The climate crisis is accelerating faster than our responses to it. Inequality is widening within and between nations. New technologies are advancing more quickly than our ability to govern them. And the UN itself is under severe financial strain, while its Security Council is too often paralysed by the very powers entrusted with keeping the peace.

It is in this climate that the Security Council is now deliberating, through its private straw polls, on who should become the tenth Secretary-General when Mr Guterres’s term ends on 31 December. For small island states, it matters more than most people realise.

Why should a small island care so deeply about who leads the United Nations? Because for nations like ours, multilateralism is not a matter of preference. It is a matter of survival.

We will never be the largest economies or the strongest military powers. Our protection has always been the rule of law, the strength of partnership and a seat at the table where every nation, large or small, has one vote. When the rules hold, a nation of just over 100,000 people can stand beside a nation of a billion and be heard. When the rules weaken, the small are the first to be pushed aside.

The UN has given small states some of their greatest achievements. The Law of the Sea gave island nations sovereign rights over vast ocean territories. The Paris Agreement set the aim of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees, a line that small islands fought hard to draw. And in January this year, the High Seas Treaty entered into force, bringing nearly two thirds of the world’s ocean, for too long a lawless frontier, under a framework for conservation and shared benefit. None of these would have been possible without the patient, often frustrating, work of multilateral diplomacy.

Yet I will not pretend the system is working as it should. A Security Council designed for the world of 1945 does not reflect the world of 2026. Africa, home to more than a quarter of the UN’s members, still has no permanent seat. Climate finance promised to vulnerable nations arrives slowly, in complicated forms, and often as loans that deepen debt.

The answer to an imperfect system of cooperation, however, is better cooperation, not less.

So what should the world, and especially its smaller nations, ask of the next Secretary-General?

First, courage. The Secretary-General has no army and a limited budget. The office’s greatest power is moral authority: the willingness to speak plainly to the powerful, to name injustice and to stand with those who have no other platform.

Second, the ability to build bridges. In a world divided between rival blocs, the UN’s leader must be trusted in Washington and Beijing, in Moscow and Brussels, but also in Victoria, Suva and Port Louis. Small states, which cannot afford permanent enemies, understand this better than most.

Third, a commitment to put the climate and the ocean at the centre of global security. For island nations, rising seas, coral collapse and extreme storms are not distant environmental issues. They are threats to our existence. In October, the International Union for Conservation of Nature warned that 96 percent of the world’s shallow-water coral reef ecosystems face an extremely high risk of collapse by 2075. Here in Seychelles, October storms have reminded us how fragile our coastlines and communities are. The next Secretary-General must treat the health of the ocean as the foundation of peace, food security and prosperity, and must ensure that the High Seas Treaty moves quickly from text to action as its first Conference of the Parties approaches.

Fourth, reform that people can feel. That means more than reorganising departments in New York. It must mean a fairer Security Council, a financial architecture that rewards resilience instead of punishing vulnerability, and a UN that delivers on the ground, where families, farmers and fishers live.

There is also a question of history. In 81 years, the United Nations has never been led by a woman. Without favouring any candidate, I believe it is time for the Organisation to show, at its highest level, the equality it rightly asks of its members.

Fifty years ago, Seychelles came to the United Nations as one of its smallest members, full of hope. We came because we believed that the ocean which surrounds us connects us to the world rather than isolating us from it. That belief has not changed.

The next Secretary-General will inherit a divided world and a weary institution. But they will also inherit the most important idea humanity has ever agreed upon: that our future is shared, and that no nation, however small, should face it alone.

Dialogue over division. Cooperation over confrontation. Solidarity over fear. Those words deserve to be more than a message for one day in October. They should be the test of the next ten years.

James Alix Michel is a former President of Seychelles, a Blue Economy pioneer and a champion of ocean protection.

IPS UN Bureau

 

 

 

 

Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2026 - EP

We investigate the impact of regional favoritism on educational attainment in Africa. Using geocoded, individual-level survey data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), we show that men who grew up in areas geographically linked to a national leader attain higher levels of education later in life. In contrast, we observe no beneficial effects of geographical leader connections for women on average; only a subset of women who have additional ethnic ties and are possibly from wealthier families experience such effects. We interpret these results using a discrete choice framework that models decisions regarding whether children continue schooling based on perceived returns to education versus the costs of that education. This framework suggests that preferential educational policies are unlikely to be the primary cause of the higher attainment observed for men and the subset of women mentioned previously. Instead, educational choices appear to respond to expectations of local economic booms in geographically connected regions. Additional evidence, such as regarding the likelihood of skilled employment later in life, supports this interpretation.

Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2026 - EP

Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2026 - EP

Bonn, 23.10.2026.Die Wohnungskrise gewinnt immer mehr an politischer Bedeutung und gehört zu den drängendsten sozialen Fragen unserer Zeit. Im September 2026 feierte Die Linke in Berlin einen deutlichen Wahlsieg, nachdem sie bezahlbaren Wohnraum und die Enteignung von Immobilienkonzernen zum zentralen Wahlkampfthema gemacht hatte. Nur wenige Tage später führte die Zwangsräumung von Maricarmen Abascal in Madrid zu einer Regierungskrise und vorgezogenen Parlamentswahlen. In Südafrika hat eine geplante Änderung des nach dem Ende der Apartheid verabschiedeten Gesetzes gegen Zwangsräumungen in mehreren Großstädten Proteste ausgelöst und dürfte den Ausgang der Kommunalwahlen im November maßgeblich beeinflussen. 

Passend dazu ist der diesjährige Weltstädtetag am 31. Oktober dem Thema „Regeneration der Städte: Angemessener Wohnraum für alle“ gewidmet. Im World Cities Report 2026 bezeichnet das Wohn- und Siedlungsprogramm der Vereinten Nationen UN-Habitat den Zugang zu bezahlbarem und angemessenem Wohnraum als „eine der am schwersten zu bewältigenden und komplexesten globalen Herausforderungen des 21. Jahrhunderts“. Zugleich betont der Bericht, wie entscheidend Wohnraum für das sozioökonomische Wohlergehen, die menschliche Gesundheit, Bildung, Mobilität und soziale Inklusion ist.

Laut UN-Habitat hat die Wohnungskrise ein beispielloses Ausmaß erreicht. Weltweit wenden 44 % der Haushalte mehr als 30 % ihres Einkommens für Wohnen auf. Da Wohnraum in vielen Städten zum Spekulationsobjekt geworden ist – mit politisch begünstigenden Rahmenbedingungen – explodieren die Wohnkosten. Die Folgen dieser Finanzialisierung sind unbezahlbare Mieten, beengte Wohnverhältnisse und zunehmende Obdachlosigkeit. Derzeit haben fast 3,4 Mrd. Menschen keinen Zugang zu adäquatem Wohnraum – so viele wie nie zuvor. Über eine Milliarde Menschen leben in informellen Siedlungen, in baufälligen Unterkünften ohne funktionierende Grundversorgung oder in unsicheren Wohnverhältnissen. UN-Habitat zufolge wurden von 2003 bis 2023 weltweit mindestens 64 Millionen Menschen im Zuge von Stadtentwicklungsprozessen zwangsgeräumt.

Die Wohnungskrise ist ein globales Phänomen, trifft Subsahara-Afrika jedoch besonders hart. Südafrika ist dafür ein typisches Beispiel. Es gehört zu den Ländern mit der weltweit größten Ungleichheit: Rund 86 % des Vermögens entfallen auf die reichsten 10 % der Bevölkerung. Städte, in denen die Regierung unzureichend formalen, bezahlbaren Wohnraum bereitstellt und große Unternehmen und Finanzinstitute zunehmend den Immobilienmarkt dominieren, sind auch heute noch von den räumlichen Ungleichheiten aus der Apartheid geprägt. Knapp 10 Millionen Menschen (etwa 24 % der Stadtbevölkerung Südafrikas) leben in informellen Siedlungen am Stadtrand oder in den Innenstädten, die meisten von ihnen Schwarze, darunter viele Migrant*innen.

Um räumlichen Ungerechtigkeiten entgegenzuwirken, hob die Regierung nach dem Ende der Apartheid die Regelungen gegen Landbesetzungen – welche der nicht-weißen Bevölkerung den Zugang zu den Städten und das Recht auf Ansiedlung verwehrt hatten – durch neue Gesetze auf. Das 1998 verabschiedete Gesetz zur Verhinderung illegaler Räumungen (PIE Act) entkriminalisierte die Besetzung von Grundstücken und verbot Räumungen ohne ordnungsgemäßes Verfahren und alternative Unterbringung. Aktuell bereitet die Regierung jedoch eine Gesetzesnovelle vor, welche die Position von Menschen schwächt, die nach einer Räumung von Obdachlosigkeit bedroht sind, und zugleich die Sanktionen bei Grundstücksbesetzungen ausweitet. Zudem drohen zivilgesellschaftlichen Organisationen Strafen, wenn sie sich mit den betroffenen Gemeinschaften solidarisieren und ihnen rechtlich beistehen, ihnen unterstellend, sie würden zu diesen Besetzungen „anstiften“.

Darin spiegelt sich ein Trend wider, der Wohnungskrise mit Zwangsräumungen und Polizeieinsätzen zu begegnen, anstatt das verfassungsrechtlich verankerte Recht auf Wohnen umzusetzen. Eigentlich garantieren südafrikanische Gesetze den Schutz von Betroffenen und bekennen sich zur Verbesserung informeller Siedlungen, um die Grundversorgung bereitzustellen und sicheren Wohnraum zu schaffen. Diese Vorkehrungen verkommen jedoch zur Farce, da die Regierung geräumten Gemeinschaften alternativen Wohnraum verweigert – es sei denn, sie wird vor Gericht dazu verpflichtet. Mitunter werden Wohneinheiten auch ohne gerichtliche Anordnung abgerissen oder geräumt, um Besetzungen oder die weitere Ausbreitung informeller Siedlungen zu verhindern. Regierungsmitglieder brandmarkten die Bewohner*innen informeller Siedlungen zuletzt als Feinde und machten Migrant*innen ohne Aufenthaltsstatus für das Wachstum dieser Viertel verantwortlich. 

Letztlich geht es um mehr als Wohnraum – in Südafrika wie weltweit. Städtische Regeneration wirft tiefgreifende politische Fragen auf: Wer hat das Recht zu bleiben, dazuzugehören und die Stadt mitzugestalten? Wie kann urbaner sozialer Zusammenhalt und die Inklusion (von Migrant*innen) gestärkt werden? In ihrem neuen Strategieplan betont UN-Habitat die soziale Funktion von Land und Wohnraum für alle – anstatt die eines Luxusgutes für wenige. Wie das Beispiel Südafrika zeigt, reichen solide Gesetze und gute politische Ansätze allein dafür nicht aus. Es braucht auch politischen Willen und die passenden Instrumente für eine rechtebasierte Umsetzung sowie eine wirksame Regulierung. 

Nomzamo Zondo ist Anwältin für Menschenrechte und Direktorin des Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI).

Dr. Eva Dick ist Fachreferentin für städtische Entwicklung in der Abteilung Afrika/Naher Osten bei Misereor und assoziierte Wissenschaftlerin des German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS). 

Dr. Jacqueline Wingens ist Referentin für gerechte Stadtentwicklung bei Misereor und assoziierte Wissenschaftlerin am IDOS.

Weekly schedule of President António Costa, 26 October-1 November 2026.

The press briefing will take place on Tuesday 27 October 2026 at 10:30.

On 23 October 2026, European Council President António Costa travelled to Budapest and delivered a speech to the Hungarian National Assembly on the 70th anniversary of the Hungarian revolution of 1956.

Council adopts its negotiating position on the regulation to create a 28th regime corporate legal framework, EU inc.

EU and Western Balkans leaders will meet in Brussels on 25 November. The Summit will highlight the strategic importance of the relations between the EU and the Western Balkans. The President of the European Council will represent the EU at the summit together with the President of the European Commission.

On 22 October 2026, European Council President António Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen held talks with President of Viet Nam Tô Lâm in Brussels on bilateral cooperation, regional security and global challenges.

President Costa and President von der Leyen received letters of credence from nineteen new Ambassadors to the European Union.

The Council and the Parliament agreed new rules to revitalise the EU’s securitisation market - an integral part of the savings and investments union (SIU) and the ‘One Europe, One Market’ roadmap to boost economic growth.

Statement by the High Representative on behalf of the EU on the ratification of the Libya-Türkiye MoU by Libya’s House of Representatives.

Council agrees negotiating position on proposal for a regulation suspending extended producer responsibility.

Simplification: Council agrees position to streamline EU’s data, privacy and cyber reporting rules.

The Council and the European Parliament reached a provisional agreement on amending the rules on the invalidation of allowances in the market stability reserve, in order to increase long-term market liquidity and predictability within its emission trading system.

Joint statement by the President of the European Council António Costa and the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen.