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Vasárnap (10. 19.) jelentkezett a rendőrségen az a személy, aki pénteken (10. 17.) éjjel elütött Bacsfán egy férfit (†41), majd elhajtott a helyszínről – közölte a Nagyszombati Kerületi Rendőrkapitányság a Facebookon. Az ügyben emberölés és segítségnyújtás elmulasztásának gyanúja miatt indult büntetőeljárás.

Disasters touch everyone but are not felt equally. Women often take longer to rebuild their livelihoods after a crisis and may face additional barriers in accessing the resources to facilitate a quicker recovery. Credit:: UNDP Nigeria

By Raquel Lagunas and Ronald Jackson
NEW YORK, Oct 20 2025 (IPS)

Climate and environmental challenges are hitting harder and more often, reshaping people’s lives around the world. While disasters touch everyone, their impacts are not felt equally. The most marginalized, especially women and girls, are too often the first to suffer and the last to recover.

Social roles, discrimination and economic inequalities amplify the risks women face in times of crisis and undermine communities’ capacity to rebuild their livelihoods. Placing gender equality at the heart of disaster risk reduction (DDR) isn’t only a matter of fairness, but a key to a more resilient future for all.

UNDP is working with partners to translate this vision into action, by advancing equality and inclusion at every stage of disaster risk reduction, from preparedness to response and recovery. Drawing on our experience we see five powerful ways women’s leadership and meaningful participation can strengthen communities’ ability to withstand and recover from future shocks.

Women’s leadership strengthens resilience 

At UNDP, we actively open doors for women to shape decisions and policies at every level, from local committees to national platforms. We draw on their expertise and perspectives while amplifying the leadership and innovation they already bring to building resilience.

By investing in women’s ideas and supporting their initiatives, we help unlock solutions that ripple across communities, strengthening food security, sustaining livelihoods, and driving progress on every front.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Feminist Coalition for Climate Justice, supported by UNDP, has improved working conditions for over 75,000 women, trained 1,500 women officials in energy and climate management, and opened new opportunities for women-led enterprises.

Meanwhile, in Chad, with support from France through the Global Women, Peace and Security initiative, women’s cooperatives have combined climate-smart agriculture, solar irrigation, and early warning systems to reduce flood risks and support recovery, showing how women-led approaches can strengthen risk reduction measures, preparedness, livelihoods and peacebuilding, even in fragile settings.

Unpaid care responsibilities grow during crises, as disasters disrupt schools, health systems and basic services, placing even greater pressure on women. Credit: UNDP Haiti

Resilience relies on care

Resilience depends on care, and women shoulder more than three-quarters of the world’s unpaid caregiving, supporting children, older adults, people with disabilities and entire communities. These responsibilities grow during crises, as disasters disrupt schools, health systems and basic services, placing even greater pressure on women.

Recognizing and prioritizing care in disaster management, through early warning systems, safe spaces, and continuity of essential services, helps protect lives and speeds up recovery for everyone.

UNDP supports countries to integrate care into disaster and climate strategies. In Honduras, Cuba, Belize and Guatemala, a geo-referenced care mapping tool helps to identify gaps in childcare, eldercare and disability-inclusive services. In Honduras, this analysis helped authorities identify ‘care deserts’ in flood- and landslide-prone areas, prioritize safe-space upgrades, and ensure that care continuity is factored into evacuation and rehabilitation plans.

In Ukraine, the ‘Mommy in the Shelter’ initiative transformed a basement into a child-friendly refuge activated during air raids, linking early warning with ongoing maternal and childcare support, even in acute conflicts.

Gender data means better planning and better response

Good planning starts with good data. Without information that is broken down by sex, age, and disability, disaster risk reduction policies can miss the unique needs and strengths of different parts of the community, especially for marginalized groups. High-quality gender disaggregated data helps ensure that strategies are targeted, effective and inclusive.

Last year, UNDP increased sex-disaggregated data and gender analysis in 20 countries affected by crisis. Cuba, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Samoa and Yemen developed early warning systems that strengthen women’s engagement and leadership.

In Ethiopia, disaster risk reduction measures helped women-headed households recover from landslides, while in Armenia, inclusive risk assessments led by women fed directly into local development and recovery plans.

With strong data, broken down by sex, age and disability, disaster risk reduction policies can address the specific needs of different parts of societies, including marginalized groups. Credit: UNDP Türkiye

Institutions equipped with gender capacities are better equipped for resilience

Resilient communities start with resilient institutions. When organizations, from national authorities managing risks, to local risk committees, embed gender considerations into their policy, planning and programming, good intentions turn to real progress, moving from rhetoric to routine.

Guatemala’s national disaster risk management authority set a new standard by earning UNDP’s Gender Equality Seal for Public Institutions. This means gender mandates, data and participation, including for Indigenous women, are woven into local risk management. Stronger institutions like these are better equipped to meet people’s needs and build lasting resilience.

Breaking down barriers, building resilience

Despite real progress, gaps remain. Gender equality is still too often sidelined across disaster, climate, humanitarian and development efforts. Let’s work together to make women’s leadership, care and inclusion central to every plan and policy.

Together, we can:

• Make women’s leadership non-negotiable in DRR decision making and financing. 
• Direct more capital to women’s resilience, including through risk financing, social protection, and support to women-led enterprises. 
• Centre care in preparedness and continuity plans so alerts translate into protection for caregivers, children, older persons and persons with disabilities.
• Strengthen national and local institutional capacities to apply a gender lens to how risks are managed, from efforts to prevent, prepare, respond to and recover from hazardous events. 
•  When these measures are consistently applied, communities everywhere will be better able to face challenges and confidently bounce back.

Raquel Lagunas is Global Director of Gender Equality, UNDP; Ronald Jackson is Head of the Disaster Risk Reduction, Recovery for Building Resilience, UNDP

Source: UN Development Programme (UNDP)

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Tsholofelo Msimango pictured at her home in Brakpan, near Johannesburg. Credit: TB Alliance/Jonathan Torgovnik

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Oct 20 2025 (IPS)

When Tsholofelo Msimango joined a small trial of a new drug regimen for tuberculosis (TB) treatment a decade ago, she had no idea whether the medicines she was about to be given would help her.

But having already spent six months in hospital after developing extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB), the most lethal form of the disease, which at the time was barely curable—three-quarters of people with XDR-TB were thought to die before they even received a diagnosis and only a third of those who got treatment survived—Msimango decided she had little to lose.

“I had my doubts, of course, as to whether it would have any success,” she tells IPS.  “But to be honest, at that point all I could think about was that it might make me better, that I might be able to get out of hospital and go home. I was ready to take that chance. I’m glad I did. That trial saved my life—I am sure of it,” she says.

Msimango, who was 21 at the time, from Brakpan in South Africa, was one of 109 participants in the Nix-TB trial of a new drug regimen that ran across three sites in the country between 2015 and 2017.

Until then, typical treatment for the most severe drug-resistant forms of TB would involve patients taking daily doses of a potent cocktail of pills—dozens in some cases—as well as injections for sometimes as long as two years.

The side effects of such regimens can be horrific—deafness, kidney failure and psychosis have been reported—and there are high rates of treatment drop-out, leading not only to a worsening of the patient’s own condition but also to the further spread of the worst strains of the disease among communities.

The Nix-TB trial tested an all-oral six-month drug regimen, which was a combination of the drugs pretomanid, bedaquiline and linezolid (BPaL).

Its results—the regimen had a 90 percent treatment success rate —werehailed as groundbreaking by experts, and the trial proved to be a landmark moment in the fight against the world’s most deadly infectious disease.

Msimango says that until she joined the trial, she had been taking “lots of pills and having injections.” The latter, she says, had stopped working against the disease and was leaving her legs completely numb.

But not long into the trial, she noticed a change. Before the trial she had struggled to keep weight on because of her illness and treatment.

“It was when I started to gain weight that I began to think that the treatment was working. We had check-ups, including for weight, every week and when I saw myself putting on weight, I knew then that I was getting better,” she says.

By the end of the trial, she says she felt like a different person.

Tests showed she was free of TB.

“Of course I was excited about the fact that I could finally stop taking medicines, and because I was then healthy and free of TB and could live a normal life again, but I was also excited about the fact that I was going to be able to finally leave hospital after a year and go home.

“I had already been in hospital for six months before the trial started, and then another six months for the trial, and it was hard being away from home for a year. The hospital was a long way from where I lived so it was very hard for my mother to come and visit me and bring me things,” she says.

Tsholofelo Msimango and her son at her home in Brakpan, near
Johannesburg. Credit: TB Alliance/Jonathan Torgovnik

But while now healthy and free of TB, the disease has continued to play a large role in Msimango’s life.

She decided she wanted to help others affected by TB. Today she is a TB community advocate and educator and helps to recruit people for medical studies.

“I would recommend to anyone that if they get the chance to take part in a study like the one that I got to take part in, that they should go for it,” she says.

Now a mother to a young boy, she says she speaks to him about what she went through and about TB so that he understands about the disease and the risks it poses.

“I talk to my son about what happened to me, why I was in hospital and why I now work in the TB community. I tell my son and his friends about TB and what can be done to stop its spread and how they can help, for instance, by covering their mouths when they cough,” she says.

“Actually, I tell my story a lot because I hope it might help other people,” she adds.

Another participant in the trial, Bongiswa Mdaka, says the same.

“I talk to people all the time about TB and my experience with it—I’m very open about it. If I see someone has been coughing for more than two weeks, I tell them about the disease and about getting tested and treated as early as possible,” she told IPS.

Speaking from her home in Vereeniging, Gauteng, Mdaka, who was 27 when she started the trial, said that, like Msimango, it changed her life.

“The trial was a lifesaver for me. It not only changed my life but saved it. It gave me a second chance. Ten years ago, before the trial, the situation for people with XDR-TB was not good. I was diagnosed with MDR-TB and when my condition continued to get worse, I was hospitalized. I was in the hospital for three days and they told me that no, I don’t have MDR-TB; I have ZDR-TB, the worst I could have. It was like hearing a death sentence.

Tsholofelo Msimango’s late mother, Zeldah Nkosi. She says her mother was a “pillar of support” during her time when she had TB. Credit: TB Alliance

“So when the people doing the trial came to me, it seemed like a godsend. I had no major expectations—I just hoped that I would get better. Today I am healthy and free of TB. I’m strong. I have a family and a normal life. Life is good,” she said.

Speaking to experts who were involved in the trial, it becomes clear that going into it, no one knew how important it would eventually prove to be in the future of TB treatment.

Dr. Pauline Howell managed the patients during the Nix-TB trial at the Sizwe Tropical Diseases Hospital in Johannesburg, where Msimango was a patient.

“Prior to the Nix trial we knew that treatment was too long, too toxic, worked in less than half of people afflicted with TB, and in those diagnosed with XDR TB (per the pre-2021 definition), only 20 percent were still alive after 5 years. I was still junior in clinical trials in 2015, but it was clear to everyone that knew anything about XDR-TB that replacing the extended treatment, which included at least 6 months of injectables, and all the other drugs (the kitchen sink approach) with just three drugs made us more than a little anxious,” she told IPS.

But like many of the trial’s participants, she saw relatively quickly how well the treatment was working.

“When trial participants started telling newly admitted patients about this trial and brought them to the research site before we had had a chance to speak with them, that was speaking loudly. When certain patients, who had been admitted for over two years, were suddenly starting to respond to TB treatment and culture convert, it was wonderful to celebrate with them, Howell, who is now Clinical Research Site Leader at Sizwe Tropical Disease Hospital, said. “When patients were relocating from the Eastern Cape to Gauteng just to get access to the trial, we knew this was the treatment we’d also want for ourselves and our loved ones.”

“There are definitely a few [trial participants] who may not have survived without this treatment, but for the majority, they were able to get back to their lives faster, potentially cause fewer onward infections and suffer less loneliness and other repercussions of having drug-resistant TB,” she added.

However, while the trial had an immediate effect on its participants, its results, which suggested the enormous potential of the regimen, paved the way for BPaL to revolutionize TB treatment.

“I had no idea that this trial would be the first step towards changing the treatment for drug-resistant tuberculosis worldwide,” Howell said.

“It’s good to remember that although TB is deadly, it is curable, and the side effects of the BPaL/M regimen are common but predictable and manageable. A decade ago, patients put an end to rental agreements for their homes, quit their jobs, told their partners to move on and their families took out funeral policies. These days, patients sit in front of me and say, ‘I have been here for two weeks already! I need to get home and back to my life’. It makes my head spin how much has changed, partially due to the Nix trial,” she added.

In 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) endorsed BPaL with or without another drug, moxifloxacin (M), and BPaL(M) is today the preferred treatment option for drug-resistant TB.

According to data from the TB Alliance, the nonprofit group that developed pretomanid, BPaL and BPaL-based regimens, they treat about 75 percent of the overall number of drug-resistant TB cases treated annually. This number is projected to soon reach 90 percent.

Meanwhile, the group says, the regimens have already saved more than 11,000 lives and USD 100 million for health systems globally and by 2034 are expected to save an additional 192,000 lives and health systems almost USD 1.3 billion.

In some countries classed as having high-burden TB epidemics, they have already altered the TB landscape significantly.

“In South Africa, which adopted the BPaL/M guidelines in Sep 2023, we are seeing a single-digit percentage lost to follow-up for the first time in the history of our TB programme,” she says.

But the regimen’s potential may be in danger of not being fully fulfilled as richer nations cut foreign aid budgets, impacting funding that has traditionally helped support disease and other healthcare programmes in poor countries.

“The eternal challenge with TB is how closely it is tied to lack of access, poverty, substance use, being undomiciled and general lack of funding to overcome these challenges… Unfortunately, as long as there is poverty and lack of access, political will and funding, TB will continue to live side by side with us,” said Howell.

“Some people now can’t get their medications because of these cuts,” said Msimango. “They’re costing people’s lives.”

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

IPS UN Bureau Report

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