Africa

Edilso Reguera, a researcher at the Center for Research in Applied Science and Advanced Technology (Cicata) of Mexico’s public National Polytechnic Institute, displays an X-ray diffractometer used to study the structure of materials for electric batteries designed to store and recharge energy. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO, May 27 2025 (IPS)

Researcher Edilso Reguera and his team began studying electric battery manufacturing in 2016, but in 2023, they ramped up efforts to develop a lithium-based prototype for motorcycles.

Commissioned by the Mexico City government in 2022, “we developed the battery from scratch. We are the most advanced research group in the country. We tested it on motorcycles, and it works well,” Reguera explained to IPS in his small office. He is an academic at the Center for Research in Applied Science and Advanced Technology Cicata, part of the National Polytechnic Institute, located in the northern part of the capital.

The research began with funding from the city government, and Cicata took charge of designing, producing, and testing the capacitor batteries."We developed the battery from scratch. We are the most advanced research group in the country. We tested it on motorcycles, and it works well." — Edilso Reguera

In the laboratory, where around 40 students and researchers collaborate, staff analyze materials and examine substances using equipment with near-unpronounceable names, collectively worth thousands of dollars.

The Mexican government plans to promote energy storage in renewable plants and electromobility, making projects like Cicata’s crucial.

“A battery is a storage device, so it works well for multiple applications,” said Reguera, who also heads the National Laboratory for Energy Conversion and Storage under the newly created Ministry of Science, Humanities, Technology, and Innovation.

But this vision remains aspirational in Mexico, where only two photovoltaic projects currently include storage systems. While the government has ambitious plans to boost the sector, details remain unclear.

Despite the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) having storage goals since 2004, only two private projects currently have such systems.

One is the Aura Solar III photovoltaic plant, owned by Mexican company Gauss Energía, which has been operating since 2018 in La Paz, the capital of the northwestern state of Baja California Sur. It has a generation capacity of 32 megawatts (MW) and a storage capacity of 10.5 MW.

The other is the La Toba solar park, owned by U.S.-based Invenergy, operational since 2022, also in Baja California Sur, with 35 MW of generation and 20 MW of storage.

This approach allows for savings in energy consumption and costs, as well as backup for the power grid, which is currently under strain due to insufficient generation and maintenance.

Additionally, since wind doesn’t blow constantly and sunlight is only available during the day, renewable energy requires storage capacity to compensate for variability and ensure a stable supply.

Andrés Flores, energy policy director at the non-governmental Iniciativa Climática de México, highlighted the urgency of the issue.

“We are in a high-risk situation, heavily dependent on gas for generation. Due to climate factors, we are already experiencing blackouts,” the expert told IPS.

He explained that Mexico has limited generation capacity and low power reserves, meaning “there is a need to invest in storage to minimize these risks, improve operational flexibility, and integrate more renewables in the near future.”

Flores authored the study Energy Storage in Mexico: Analysis and Policy Proposals, published in January, which identified key challenges, including a 2-gigawatt deficit in operational reserves, limited capacity during peak consumption hours, and concentrated issues during evening and nighttime demand.

The study also found little clarity in energy planning regarding the deployment of storage systems.

The private photovoltaic plant Aura Solar III is one of only two facilities in Mexico equipped with a battery bank for energy storage. Credit: Gauss Energía

Ambitions

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, in office since October, presented the 2024-2030 National Electric Sector Strategy a month later, followed in February by the Plan for Strengthening and Expanding the National Electric System, which are interlinked.

The February plan aims to boost the electricity sector through measures such as adding 574 MW across five photovoltaic plants with capacitor batteries, representing a public investment of US$ 223 million. These plants are expected to come online by 2027.

In the same vein, the Federal Electricity Commission is advancing the bidding for phase II of the Puerto Peñasco photovoltaic plant, located in the namesake town in the northern state of Sonora. This phase will add 300 MW of capacity, backed by 10.3 MW in battery storage. The plant’s first phase (120 MW) has been operational since 2023. Once completed in 2026, the full project will deliver 1,000 MW at a cost of US$1.6 billion.

For Karina Cuentas, a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico’s (UNAM) Center for Nanosciences and Nanotechnology, the lag in energy storage stems from a lack of government support.

“We’re behind because not enough funding is allocated to technological development. We have all the tools to make progress, but it’s very difficult due to a lack of resources. There’s enthusiasm because the plan has been presented, along with the roadmap and scenarios to achieve it,” she told IPS from Ensenada, in the northwestern state of Baja California.

“The optimal storage solution for renewables is batteries,” she emphasized.

As president of the non-governmental Mexican Energy Storage Network—a group of around 200 specialists in the field—Cuentas believes progress will depend on “the rules of the game.”

A regulatory framework for energy storage has been in effect since March, but its implementing regulations may take up to two years to finalize, potentially delaying project development.

Additionally, critics argue that the regulation classifies storage backup as part of power generation itself and imposes restrictive guidelines on its applications.

Mexico has an installed capacity of 89,000 MW, and during the first quarter of this year, nearly 61% of electricity generation depended on fossil gas, followed by conventional thermoelectric (6%), wind (nearly 6%), hydroelectric (4.6%), solar photovoltaic (4.2%), coal-fired (3.3%), nuclear (3.2%), gas turbine (3.1%), and geothermal (1.2%).

Renewable energy sources have an installed capacity of over 33,000 MW but contribute only 21% of the electricity. To the current mix, the government’s plan would add 21,893 MW to the national energy grid, aiming to increase clean energy from the current 22.5% to 37.8%.

The electricity sector has suffered from the fossil fuel dependency of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador administration (2018-2024), who stalled the energy transition—a situation his ally and successor, Sheinbaum, seeks to correct.

The fishing community of San Juanico, in the municipality of Comondú, Baja California Sur, has a hybrid power plant since 1999 combining wind turbines, solar panels, batteries, and a diesel generator for electricity supply. Credit: CFE.

Forgotten Potential 

For over a decade, various studies have highlighted the potential of energy storage systems in this Latin American country, home to 129 million people and the region’s second-largest economy after Brazil.

The Federal Electricity Commission identified at least 169 sites in 2017 with potential for pumped-storage hydropower, but it never invested in this method, which is now difficult to implement due to current drought conditions and insufficient reservoir levels.

Civil society organizations estimate that storage capacity could reach 500 MW for industrial projects and 18 MW for residential photovoltaic systems by 2030.

The government’s National Electric System Development Program for 2024-2038 outlines the deployment of seven gigawatts (GW) of storage systems between in 2024-2028 and eight GW in 2028-2038, but without specifying concrete projects or operational mechanisms.

The International Energy Agency (IEA), which represents major energy consumers, recommends incorporating storage into long-term energy planning and incentivizing its deployment. To this end, it suggests continuing regulatory reviews, implementing policies to promote battery recycling, and adopting measures for the trade of used energy storage systems.

The uncertainty surrounding energy storage progress in Mexico is evident in places like Cicata, where experts have called for stronger support.

“Having domestic technological development brings strength, improves the economy, and creates Mexican industrial companies without relying on foreign technology. Technological development is a matter of national security,” said researcher Reguera.

This year, his priorities include developing a sodium-based battery—safer and cheaper than lithium but with lower energy storage capacity—and securing around three million dollars to build a pilot plant capable of assembling about 500 catalysts daily.

Meanwhile, Cuentas, an energy storage expert, expressed hope that “mechanisms will be put in place to foster technological development in the country. With a more modern grid, variability wouldn’t cause as much disruption—it should withstand renewable energy fluctuations. It’s crucial to have more renewable generation and a strengthened grid.”

Finally, Flores, an energy policy specialist, proposed drafting a dedicated storage program and roadmap.

“There needs to be clarity in their plans. There are complementary options, integrating storage with large-scale traditional and renewable generators. For solar and wind energy, having storage facilities would be ideal,” he suggested.

Many governments use various methods, such as internet censorship, media control and surveillance, to hide the numbers and control the message. These tactics restrict access to information, shape public opinion, and monitor online activity. Credit: Shutterstock

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, May 27 2025 (IPS)

In the past, Shakespeare famously wrote in his play Henry VI that the first step for those seeking power was to “kill off the lawyers”. Today, the first step taken by those seeking power is to hide the numbers and control the message.

Various government leaders have adopted a political strategy that involves suppressing basic data, vital information and the statisticians and scientists who collect, analyze, and disseminate these numbers.

Without access to neutral data, objective information, and technically sound analyses, populations are left ill-informed and unable to express dissent. Censorship is often used to suppress numbers that may contradict the goals of government officials in controlling the message.

To gain power over a society, essential economic, social, health, environmental and demographic data, along with any resulting reports, are being suppressed. This suppression is achieved by failing to collect, analyze, publish, and disseminate objective information on levels and trends.

Without access to neutral data, objective information, and technically sound analyses, populations are left ill-informed and unable to express dissent. Censorship is often used to suppress numbers that may contradict the goals of government officials in controlling the message

Statisticians, scientists and others responsible for collecting and reporting data are being dismissed, threatened or silenced. Knowledge-producing institutions that conduct studies are being defunded and reduced in size.

Many governments use various methods, such as internet censorship, media control and surveillance, to hide the numbers and control the message. These tactics restrict access to information, shape public opinion, and monitor online activity.

The primary strategy of many government leaders today is to hide numbers and control the message. Anything that contradicts their message is labeled as false, fake news, lies or treason, leading to legal action, criminal penalties and imprisonment for dissenters and those who publish what officials deem false news.

In countries like Cuba, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Myanmar, North Korea and Turkmenistan, for example, the media serves as a mouthpiece for government officials. Other countries, including Azerbaijan, Belarus, Cambodia, China, Egypt, Hungary, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Somalia, Venezuela, Vietnam, and Yemen, use harassment, surveillance, and detentions to control the media and the message.

In Russia, key demographic statistics on births, deaths, marriages and divorce have been classified following a decline in birth rates.

For about four decades, the Russian total fertility rate has remained well below the replacement level, estimated at approximately 1.4 births per woman in 2024, and the number of births has declined to record lows.

Detailed population data are no longer being published, leading to a lack of publicly available demographic statistics since March 2025.

Russian officials note that despite their country being the largest in the world, their population is decreasing every year because of their below replacement fertility rates.

After decades of population growth, Russia’s population peaked at nearly 150 million in 1990 and has been largely declining since then.

Russia’s current population of about 144 million is projected to continue declining, reaching about 126 million by the close of the century according to the United Nations medium variant projection. Without migration, however, Russia’s population in 2100 is projected to decline to 88 million, or about 60% of its current size (Figure 1).

 

Source: United Nations.

 

To combat declining birth rates, Russian authorities have restricted access to abortions and contraception. They have implemented measures such as banning what they refer to as “child-free propaganda” and promoting traditional family values. Also, they recently announced a ban on TV series and films where women prioritize their careers over having children.

Similarly, in the United States, government leaders are reducing and silencing agencies that collect, analyze, and report vital information.

The communication platforms of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), for example, have gone silent. Crucial health data have been removed from public access and many of the CDC newsletters have stopped being distributed.

Alerts about disease outbreaks, which were previously sent to health professionals subscribed to the CDC’s Health Alert Network, have not been dispatched since March. Also, US officials have cut funding, dismissed staff, and denied negative data reports.

Although some federal health websites have been restored, others are still down after some numbers were purged. CDC has acknowledged that its website is being changed to comply with the executive orders of the president.

Another agency that has experienced staff firings and funding cuts, which has created a danger for public safety and well-being, is the country’s National Weather Service. Those reductions have impacted the collection of vital data used to make forecasts and the staff who analyze the data to issue critical warnings about hazardous and extreme weather.

To control the message, US government officials have reduced funding, fired and silenced staff, and openly dismissed the consequences of their actions.

Government officials deny any negative data and findings on levels and trends that are reported. They also dismiss anything they don’t enjoy hearing by saying those treasonous scientists, statisticians and others are spreading false rumors. And they often blame previous administrations for issues that they cannot dismiss.

Data on the economic effects of the recently announced US tariffs, including increased prices for consumers and businesses, are also being hidden, denied, downplayed or dismissed.

In contrast to the views of leading economists and many of those in the business community, administration officials deflect legitimate criticisms by saying tariffs will help domestic industries, reduce trade deficits and benefit national security and strategic independence.

Efforts to eliminate administration-declared waste, fraud, and abuse have hindered data collection, analysis and dissemination, laid off or put on leave tens of thousands of federal government employees, led to disruptions in services, and adversely affected research and development at various agencies. Troubling information is hidden from the public, and justifications for policy changes and staff layoffs are often confusing, illogical or simply outright lies.

For example, the numbers on the proposed reductions in government funded services and programs, such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides food benefits to low-income families, coupled with the huge tax benefits to the wealthy are explained away by the use of jingoistic rhetoric, irrelevant issues, political illogic and empty promises.

Also similar to Russia, US government officials wish to raise the country’s low fertility rate, which in 2024 was about 1.6 births per woman. Besides blaming women for the country’s low birth rate, some officials have referred to prominent women without children as “childless cat ladies” and are promoting the return to traditional roles for men and women in American society.

Administration officials are proposing a modest financial incentive of about $5,000 for women to have a baby. Also, a bill proposed by the US House would provide $1,000 to children born between 2025 and 2028 that could be invested on their behalf.

The US population, approximately 342 million in 2025, is continuing to increase in size, after having more than doubled since 1950.

However, again, similar to Russia, the future growth of the US population depends on migration. The US Census Bureau reports that without migration, the country’s population is projected to decline by about a third by the close of the century.

Also, according to the United Nations medium variant projection, the US population is projected to reach approximately 420 million by the end of the century. Without migration, however, the US population in 2100 is projected to decline to 268 million, or approximately 78% of its current size (Figure 2).

 

Source: United Nations.

 

In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Under Article 19 of that Declaration, everyone has the right to seek, receive and impart news and express opinions.

Also, during the past several decades, many countries, especially in Europe, recognized that it was essential to ensure that national statistical systems would be able to produce appropriate data and analyses that adhered to certain professional and scientific standards.

In 1994, the United Nations Statistical Commission adopted the United Nations Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics. Two decades later, the United Nations General Assembly endorsed the Fundamental Principles, stressing the critical role of high-quality official statistical information in analysis and informed policy decision-making and in support of sustainable development, peace and security.

In sum, to promote informed policy decision-making and prevent governments from hiding data and controlling the message, transparency, objectivity and accountability are crucial. These qualities are necessary for holding government officials accountable and ensuring the public is informed with objective, reliable and timely data and analyses.

Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division, and author of many publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Population Levels, Trends, and Differentials”.

 

Conservationists in Kenya’s Aberdare National Park have piloted an artificial intelligence (AI) system designed to detect and deter hyenas—as part of an effort to protect black rhino calves ahead of their reintroduction to the zone. The initiative, led by Rhino Ark Kenya Charitable Trust (Rhino Ark) in collaboration with the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), aims […]

The Secretariat Building at United Nations Headquarters, in New York. Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

By Stephanie Hodge
UNITED NATIONS, May 27 2025 (IPS)

In 1945, with cities in ruins and hope stretched thin, 50 nations gathered in San Francisco and reached for a better world. From the ashes of fascism, genocide, and world war, they forged a charter — a binding declaration that peace, justice, and human dignity must be protected through international cooperation.

The United Nations was born not from idealism, but necessity. It was designed to prevent collapse.

Now, nearly 80 years later, the UN faces a different kind of crisis — a slow erosion of trust, legitimacy, and effectiveness. And yet, the sense of urgency that birthed the UN is absent from the reforms meant to save it.

Last week, Secretary-General António Guterres launched the “UN80 Initiative” — a promise to streamline, restructure, and modernize the institution. The speech was technically sound. It named real problems: fragmentation, inefficiency, and fiscal strain.

But it did not do what this moment demands. Because reform without purpose is choreography, not change. And perhaps more dangerously, it may reinforce the very power asymmetries it claims to redress.

I watched the speech not just as a professional evaluator or former advisor, but as someone who has walked this system — from post-conflict zones to policy tables — for over three decades. I’ve seen the courage of communities and the inertia of agencies. And I know when reform is performance. UN80, as currently framed, risks becoming exactly that.

What Was Said

The Secretary-General laid out three workstreams:

1. A comprehensive review of all mandates assigned to the Secretariat by Member States;
2. Identification of operational efficiencies across departments and entities;
3. Structural reforms — including agency mergers and the formation of thematic clusters.

He stated that this would be a system-wide process, not confined to the Secretariat alone, and emphasized the goal of building a more nimble, coordinated, and responsive UN. He described the UN80 Initiative as a response to geopolitical tensions, technological change, rising conflict, and shrinking resources. And he framed it as an effort to better serve both those who rely on the UN and the taxpayers who fund it.

These are real problems. The system is under stress. But while the administrative diagnosis is clear, the political and strategic roadmap remains vague.

Structure cannot substitute for strategy, and operational tweaks cannot resolve foundational incoherence. Reform must begin with clarity about what the UN is meant to be — and for whom it is accountable.

But What Was Not Said: Strategic Purpose

The most important question — reform for what? — remains unanswered.

What is the United Nations for in the 21st century? Is it a humanitarian responder? A normative engine? A technical platform? A peace broker? A rights defender?

The UN was never intended to be a donor-driven delivery contractor. It was designed to hold the line against war, inequality, and tyranny. But in recent decades, it has been slowly transformed into a service bureaucracy, dependent on earmarked funds, political favors, and private partnerships.

Until the UN reclaims its strategic purpose, structural reform will only mask decay.

Who Holds the Power?

Power in the UN system has shifted — not democratically, but informally:
• The P5 still hold vetoes over global peace and security;
• The G7 and G20 shape global development and finance from outside ECOSOC;
• Vertical funds (GCF, GEF, CIFs) operate in parallel, accountable more to their boards than to global norms;
• Major donors define the agenda through earmarks;
• And key leadership posts are quietly traded by geopolitical bloc.

UN80 is silent on this. But no reform is meaningful without confronting where power actually lives.

The Mirage of Clustering

I remember sitting in a government office in a post-conflict country a few years ago, trying to explain why three different UN agencies had shown up to offer nearly identical support on disaster risk planning. The local official — exhausted, polite — leaned back and asked me, “Is the UN not one family? Why do we get five cousins and no parent?”

This is the illusion that clustering now risks reinforcing. By merging agencies under thematic umbrellas, UN80 suggests that organizational dysfunction can be resolved through coordination and efficiency. But those of us who’ve worked in the field know: coordination without clarity, and structure without trust, rarely delivers.

Clustering is not inherently bad. But it is not a shortcut to legitimacy. Efficiency is not the same as coherence, and coherence is not the same as ownership.

You cannot engineer trust through organigrams. You must earn it through transparency, participation, and shared accountability. If Member States and local actors are not part of shaping how functions are grouped — and more importantly, how they’re governed — then the result is not reform. It’s rearrangement.

Staff know this. Many are not resisting change — they are resisting erasure. Clustering threatens not just jobs, but identities and mandates. It risks eroding technical expertise in favor of managerial simplicity.

True reform would start from the bottom: from countries asking what they need from the UN, and from people asking who speaks for them. Clustering should be a result of that dialogue — not a substitute for it.

Without that grounding, we risk building silos with broader walls and narrower doors — bureaucratic bunkers, not bridges.

History has shown us — from Delivering as One to UNDAF harmonization — that coordination cannot substitute for voice. Clustering, done wrong, will not solve dysfunction. It will make it harder to see.

If political appointments remain untouched, and if integration is led by budget pressure rather than strategic logic, clustering is not innovation. It is consolidation of power — dressed in reformist language.

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And history warns us: Delivering as One, the QCPR, UNDAF harmonization — all promised coordination. Few delivered accountability. Coordination without ownership, and structure without strategy, will not renew the system. It will only harden its fragilities.

The Case of UN DESA

UN DESA is a symbol of the UN’s internal confusion. Created to support ECOSOC, it now functions as a quasi-programmatic actor — duplicating the work of UNDP, UNCTAD, and regional commissions, often without field engagement or operational accountability.

DESA illustrates what happens when reform avoids politics: roles blur, duplication grows, and trust erodes.

Country Ownership: The Loudest Silence

UN80 risks becoming an elite project shaped by donors and technocrats, while the vast majority of Member States — especially those still recovering from colonization, debt, and climate injustice — are left out of the room. That’s not multilateralism. That’s managed decline.

The Global South — those who rely most on UN coordination, human rights mechanisms, and technical neutrality — were absent from this vision.

Where was their voice in designing UN80? Where were SIDS, LDCs, post-conflict governments, or frontline communities? How can reform be legitimate if it is not co-created with those it will affect most?

The Funding Problem

Guterres acknowledged financial stress — but sidestepped the truth:

• UN financing is largely non-core, non-predictable, and donor-controlled;
• Agencies compete for funding rather than coordinate for impact;
• Global funds have more leverage than ECOSOC, and less accountability.

A real reform would propose a new multilateral funding compact — one that aligns with national priorities, funds coordination as a global public good, and dismantles dependency.

Do We Need Another War to Reform the UN?

We are not just facing crisis fatigue. We are watching the slow re-emergence of something more dangerous — the normalization of authoritarianism, xenophobia, and surveillance disguised as security.

Across regions, governments are shrinking civic space, dismissing international norms, and weaponizing fear. The ghosts of fascism are no longer metaphor. They are legislative proposals, detention centers, and unchecked algorithms.

The UN was created to prevent this. But unless it reclaims its moral clarity and structural legitimacy, it will become a bystander to its own irrelevance.

The UN Charter was written during war. The system it birthed was flawed, but urgent, and anchored in a vision that human dignity must be defended beyond borders.

Now we face cascading crises: ecological collapse, democratic backsliding, digital authoritarianism, and the erosion of global norms. Yet reform is treated as an internal budget exercise.

Do we really need another catastrophe to confront the imbalance of voice, power, and purpose in this system?

We already know what needs to change. What we lack is political will, institutional humility, and moral imagination.

Reform for What?

Not for balance sheets. Not for organizational charts.

Reform for justice. Reform for relevance. Reform for a world that will not wait.

Until we define the purpose, no amount of restructuring will restore credibility.

Final Thoughts

UN80, as currently framed, does not challenge the logic that broke the system. It risks becoming the next chapter in a long history of reforms that leave power untouched.

If we want more than managerialism — if we want meaning — we must:

• Declare the UN’s core function in this century;
• End political appointments that corrode leadership integrity;
• Integrate vertical funds under multilateral coordination;
• Restore ECOSOC as the legitimate center of economic governance;
• And above all, center those whom the system was created to serve.

The Charter was a promise. UN80 is a test.

Let us stop pretending reform is neutral. Let us confront the politics, follow the money, and name what we owe the future.

Let us be braver than the moment expects.

This critique is not a dismissal of the UN. It is an insistence that it live up to its founding promise. I write from within — not to tear it down, but to hold it to account.

Stephanie Hodge is an international evaluator and former UN advisor who has worked across 140 countries. She writes on governance, multilateral reform, and climate equity.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Credit: Andreea Campeanu/Reuters via Gallo Images

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, May 27 2025 (IPS)

On 6 December 2024, Romania’s Constitutional Court made an unprecedented decision: with just two days to go before a presidential runoff expected to bring a far-right, Russia-sympathising candidate to power, the court took the extraordinary step of annulling the election due to evidence of massive Russian interference. It was the first time an EU member state has cancelled an election over social media disinformation. It may not be the last.

Romania’s six-month electoral crisis, which finally concluded on 18 May with centrist Nicușor Dan’s runoff victory over far-right nationalist George Simion, offers both a stark warning and a glimmer of hope for democracies worldwide. The crisis began when Călin Georgescu, an obscure far-right candidate who’d consistently polled in single figures, shocked the political establishment by coming first in the November 2024 presidential first round with close to 23 per cent of the vote. A NATO-sceptic and Russia sympathiser, Georgescu benefited from what was later revealed to be a sophisticated disinformation campaign orchestrated by a ‘state actor’ widely understood to be Russia.

The interference wasn’t crude or obvious. Russia had spent years building a meticulously designed disinformation ecosystem, exploiting many Romanians’ deep-seated frustrations with economic hardship, widespread corruption and political stagnation. With over 22 per cent youth unemployment, wages among the EU’s lowest and trust in institutions at historic lows, Romania presented fertile ground for anti-establishment appeals. The timing of the interference was surgical: it was activated at the most politically opportune moment to maximise impact.

What distinguished Romania’s experience from previous Russian interference campaigns in votes from Brexit and Donald Trump’s first victory to elections in nearby Georgia and neighbouring Moldova was that authorities identified and acknowledged the manipulation while the electoral process was still live. Declassified intelligence documents revealed a massive campaign on TikTok, including AI manipulation and bot-driven activity, designed to tilt the election in Georgescu’s favour. Disinformation exploited legitimate grievances to seed elaborate conspiracy theories that portrayed Romania as a victim of EU, NATO and western elites. The European Commission subsequently launched proceedings against TikTok for failing to properly assess and mitigate risks to election integrity.

Both the first-round results and the court’s decision to annul the election triggered protests that laid bare Romania’s deep social divisions. Immediately after the results were announced, thousands of students and young people gathered in Bucharest’s University Square chanting ‘No fascism, no war, no Georgescu!’. When the election was cancelled, Georgescu’s supporters denounced it as a manoeuvre to prevent their victory. Amid intense polarisation, authorities arrested several armed men heading to Bucharest to participate in protests with axes, guns, knives and machetes in their vehicles.

When the rescheduled election took place in May 2025, it delivered another dramatic upset. With Georgescu barred from running, George Simion of the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians emerged as the far-right standard-bearer, winning the first round with almost 41 per cent of the vote. The runoff became a referendum on Romania’s future direction: on whether it would continue its European orientation or pivot towards the regressive, Moscow-friendly stance taken by leaders of countries such as Hungary and Slovakia.

Russia’s disinformation campaign didn’t stop with the election annulment. Instead, it redoubled its efforts to sow distrust and further polarise voters, including through AI-generated smear campaigns against Dan.

Dan’s victory with almost 54 per cent of the vote provided reassurance to Romania’s western partners, but the margin was uncomfortably narrow. More troubling still, Simion refused to accept defeat, challenging the results at the Constitutional Court on unsubstantiated grounds of electoral fraud and alleging ‘foreign interference’ by France, Moldova and ‘others’. When the court quickly threw out his case, Simion called his defeat a coup, echoing dangerous Trump-like rhetoric that is becoming all too common around the world.

Romania’s experience exposes both the resilience and fragility of democracy in the digital era. The institutional response – from the Constitutional Court’s decisive action to civil society’s mobilisation – showed that democratic safeguards can function under extreme pressure. Yet the fact that around 40 per cent of voters backed far-right politicians reveals the depth of public disillusionment.

Many Romanians still feel cheated and denied their say. This sense of grievance provides fertile ground for divisive narratives to take deeper root, while neither the economy nor politics are currently in good enough shape to deliver on people’s rightful expectations.

Romania’s electoral saga serves as a cautionary tale. It points at both the vulnerabilities that can be exploited and the defences that can be mounted. Sophisticated disinformation campaigns can indeed be identified and countered – but only through vigilant institutions, engaged civil society and citizens committed to democratic values. The price of failure isn’t just political crisis but lasting damage to the foundations of democracy.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, 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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Criticism is growing after several top positions go to members of the president's ethnic Yoruba group.

Criticism is growing after several top positions go to members of the president's ethnic Yoruba group.

Education is a humanitarian lifeline for the world’s most vulnerable children. Our investment in their education today is an investment in global security, economic stability and continued growth in the 21st century.

By Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, May 26 2025 (IPS-Partners)

The challenges facing many parts of the African continent today are vast and immense. From the surge in violence in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo to all-out-war in Sudan, years of progress are being obliterated by bombs, killings and other grave violations of international law.

The single best investment we can make in addressing these multiplying humanitarian crises is an investment in the vast potential and talents of Africa’s younger generations. By investing in their education, we empower them to prevent conflicts, end extreme poverty and ensure economic development, peace and stability. Without investing in education as part of this broader vision, none of these imperatives will be materialized.

The returns on investment are significant. As noted by the World Bank, foundational learning has the potential to double the GDP per capita in sub-Saharan Africa by 2050.

Responding to the education funding gap

Many traditional donor countries have dramatically reduced humanitarian aid in the past year, with recent analysis from UNESCO revealing a concerning drop of 14% in global aid to education. Yet, we all want to see a stable and prosperous Africa – a continent that deserves no less.

Still, Africa is falling even further behind. Estimates from UNESCO indicate that, worldwide, there is a US$100 billion funding gap to reach the goal for universal education as outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with US$70 billion of this gap found in sub-Saharan Africa.

Learning poverty is a concerning global trend. Nowhere is this more pressing than across Africa. Around four out of five African children cannot read or understand a simple text by age 10, according to UNESCO, and many struggle with basic numeracy skills.

Compounding challenges like conflict, climate change and forced displacement are derailing development gains and impeding access to life-saving education in humanitarian crises – an investment that is indispensable to achieve peace and economic prosperity. According to the recent global estimates study by Education Cannot Wait (ECW), about half of the world’s 234 million crisis-impacted school-aged children reside in sub-Saharan Africa.

An entire generation is being left behind. “Although 75 million more African children are enrolled in school today compared to 2015, the number of out-of-school children has increased by 13.2 million to over 100 million during the same period,” according to the 2025 Transforming Learning and Skills Development in Africa report.

You cannot have sustainable economic growth without stability. And you cannot achieve stability without education. Africa is a continent on the move, a continent of forced displacement as a consequence of armed and violent conflicts, as well as climate change.

“In 2020, 21 million Africans were living in another African country. Since 1990, the number of African migrants living outside of the region has more than doubled, with the growth in Europe most pronounced. In 2020, most African-born migrants living outside the region were residing in Europe (11 million), Asia (nearly 5 million) and North America (around 3 million),” according to the World Migration Report.

Our collective failure to respond to this pressing education crisis will have dire global consequences.

The situation in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo

Just look at the terrifying situation unravelling in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This region has been plagued by violence for decades, but it’s gotten much, much worse in recent months.

In all, there are an estimated 3.5 million forcibly displaced children in DRC today. Millions risk unimaginable violations of their human rights, including killing, maiming, abduction and forced recruitment into armed groups. There are also unconscionable accounts of sexual violence against girls. In eastern DRC, a child is reported raped every half an hour, according to UNICEF.

How can we tolerate the magnitude and depth of young girls and boys being systematically raped and killed? “More than 79 million girls and women – over 1 in 5 – across sub-Saharan Africa have experienced rape or sexual assault before turning 18,” according to UNICEF. Let’s put that number in perspective. That’s more than the total population of Australia and Spain combined.

For the children living in the midst of this chaos and fear, the options are limited. For girls, it’s a future as a child bride, continued poverty and early pregnancies. For boys, it might look like forced recruitment into terrorist organizations and other armed groups, forced labour or migration. For the world, this means growing forced displacement and migration, deeper and more widespread insecurity across the Global South, unstable markets, unstable populations and unstable futures.

The consequences of the war in Sudan

The situation in Sudan is soul-shattering and must end now. Recent estimates indicate that 30 million people require humanitarian assistance, including 16 million children. More than 12 million people have been displaced inside and outside Sudan since April 2023, straining education systems, budgets and capacity in neighbouring countries.

In all, the conflict and continuing challenges – including forced displacement, climate change, poverty and other factors – have left about 16.5 million children out of school in Sudan.

Education is the solution

As the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises in the United Nations, Education Cannot Wait (ECW) and its strategic partners are making a value proposition to increase humanitarian funding for education in Africa and beyond. In doing so, we contribute to joint programming on education, hence the broader goal of peace, stability and economic development.

There is a strong economic argument to be made. Africa is the youngest, fastest growing continent on earth – 6 out of 10 people are under the age of 25.

Within all that youth and energy lies opportunity. According to the World Bank, there is a 10% increase in hourly earnings for every extra year of schooling.

At the same time, taken at a macro-economic level, the opportunity costs are unprecedented. “This generation of students now risks losing a combined total of US$21 trillion in lifetime earnings in present value, or the equivalent of 17% of today’s global GDP – a sharp rise from the 2021 estimate of a US$17 trillion loss.”

The returns on investment in sub-Saharan Africa may be even more substantial, with some analyses indicating that every US$1 invested in tripling pre-primary education enrolment can generate up to US$33 in returns.

A lasting legacy

Education – as a transformative, immediate, life-saving and long-term investment –breaks cycles of poverty, displacement and conflict. Only then can we achieve peace, stability and economic development.

Deep inside us, we all agree that we can do better as a global community. We all know, instinctively, that the world would be a better place if we reduced global military spending – topping US$2.7 trillion – and instead invested in education, health, governance, infrastructure and livelihoods. We do know that we can be creative and turn vision into practical results. All it takes is investing just 0.02% (US$600 million) of this into education – and similar amounts into other sectors – which, together, provide the transformational power to build stability, spread peace and generate significant economic returns. This is not just logic. This is a legacy worth living.

 

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Excerpt:

Africa Day Statement by Education Cannot Wait Executive Director Yasmine Sherif

Chat GPT is one of the most widely used generative AI systems in the world, estimated to have nearly 400 million active weekly users. Credit: Sanket Mishra/Pexels

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, May 26 2025 (IPS)

While generative artificial intelligence (AI) has increased efficiency and output across numerous industries. However, labour organizations have expressed concern over AI’s ability to radically transform jobs around the world.

Generative AI has been designed to mimic human cognitive functions and has the ability to process large amounts of data at a time. Unlike job automation from previous decades, generative AI is able to facilitate decision-making processes, reshaping a variety of industries. Even jobs in creative fields, which were historically believed to be immune from automation, are now under direct threat from the emergence of generative AI tools.

On May 20, the International Labour Organization (ILO) released a comprehensive study which details the impacts that generative AI usage has on jobs worldwide. Expanding on figures from 2023’s edition, this year’s report uses “more refined” data collection tools for analyzing the impact of generative AI on employment shares, including both human studies and AI systems, covering nearly 30,000 tasks .

The report, titled Generative AI and Jobs: A Refined Global Index of Occupational Exposure, seeks to analyze rates of job transformation worldwide as a result of generative AI integration and help policymakers prepare for risks in job security and economy. Additionally, ILO urges employers and industries to consider ways to use generative AI tools to maximize productivity and job satisfaction.

“By combining human insight, expert review, and generative AI models, we’ve created a replicable method that helps countries assess risk and respond with precision,” said ILO Senior Researcher and lead author of the study Pawel Gmyrek.

“It’s easy to get lost in the AI hype. What we need is clarity and context. This tool helps countries across the world assess potential exposure and prepare their labour markets for a fairer digital future,” said Janine Berg, the Senior Economist at the ILO.

A major objective of the 2025 report was to distinguish between job augmentation and automation. It states that human labour will likely be a part of job markets for the foreseeable future. Workers are far more likely to have their responsibilities changed as generative AI adopts their duties with higher rates of efficiency.

“Currently, the main risk from generative AI is not the ‘end of work’, but rather the rapid and uncontrolled transformation of certain occupations,” Gymrek tolf IPS. “…The real challenge is to manage this transformation in a way that ensures job quality and prevents a widening of social, gender, and income inequalities.”

However, this year’s edition states that roughly one in four workers worldwide are at risk of automation due to generative AI, marking a significant increase from the 2023 edition. Additionally, higher-income countries are estimated to be at a higher risk of widespread automation.

It has also been found that workers in clerical fields are most commonly exposed to automation. Many of the responsibilities of these jobs, such as filing paperwork, scheduling appointments, answering phone calls, and managing records, can be facilitated much more efficiently by AI systems. In fields where technology already plays a key role, such as media, software and finance, AI is also effecting change.

“While most jobs still need human input, how much a job changes also depends on how digital it already is. Software development, for example, is already closely tied to AI and digital tools, so it may evolve further with GenAI. But jobs like administrative support in small offices, where digital tools are used less often, could face bigger disruptions – either because individual tasks get replaced by GenAI, or because entirely new tools are introduced that automate the whole workflow,” said Gmyrek.

Other office jobs such as media developers and software specialists have been greatly impacted, showing higher averages in terms of automation. This has been attributed to the increase of functional capability that generative AI systems have developed in the past two years. AI systems have improved in terms of media processing power and decision-making, allowing them to handle a much broader range of tasks than ever before.

Despite this, the report shows that in clerical fields, there are certain responsibilities that can only be handled by humans. The report underscores that as technological advancements develop and impact global industries, new roles are expected to emerge.

On the other hand, it is believed that specialized positions such as jobs in maintenance, installation, repair, construction, food production, and personal care, face the lowest average risks of AI exposure. According to figures from the North Carolina Department of Commerce, Labor, & Economic Analysis Division (LEAD), occupations involving physical labor have much lower average exposure scores than clerical positions. Generative AI is less effective in industry-specific roles making the full extent of its impacts on these fields unknown.

According to the ILO report, nearly all countries are at equal risk of job augmentation from the rise of generative AI, indicating that the world has the ability to harness the increased efficiency from AI in a beneficial way that doesn’t harm workers. However, higher-income countries on average show the highest average rates of exposure to AI automation, with around 5.5 percent risk. Lower-income countries are only at a 0.4 percent risk.

Automation as a result of generative AI usage generally affects women at significantly higher rates than men. This gender disparity is attributed to the fact that women tend to work in high-exposure jobs more commonly than men. ILO estimates that high-exposure jobs compose approximately 9.6 percent of female jobs, compared to 3.5 percent among men.

Despite these disparities, it is imperative that policymakers and corporations around the world remain dedicated to facilitating a smooth and fair transition, one that harnesses the new advancements in efficiency and values human labour. Furthermore, ILO emphasizes the importance of social protections for workers as human labour is indispensable for situations that require specialized practice, ethical considerations, and creativity. They warn that without these considerations, and if efforts are not made for the workforce to evolve with generative AI and integrate new tasks, then even partial automation could lead to a decline in overall job demand in the fields with high exposure to AI automation.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Climate change impacts, are already placing a considerable strain on the Maldives' natural freshwater sources, like groundwater and rainwater. Credit: Shutterstock

By Robbie Newton
GENEVA, May 26 2025 (IPS)

Every year, thousands of couples choose to spend their honeymoon in the Maldives. Tucked in the Indian Ocean, this tropical atoll nation consistently ranks among the world’s most desirable destinations for newlyweds.

But beyond the crystal-clear waters and pristine, white-sand beaches, local communities are facing a far harsher reality: a growing water crisis driven by climate change. While tourists sip cocktails in overwater bungalows, some neighboring islands are literally running out of fresh water.

Tourism accounts for more than 20 percent of Maldives’ GDP and is likely to grow, with President Mohamed Muizzu recently visiting the United Kingdom to promote a new “Visit Maldives” campaign. But the boom in tourism belies the looming existential crisis facing this South Asian nation.

Climate-financing countries have an obligation under the Paris Agreement, the international treaty on climate change,  to provide “continuous and enhanced” financial support and technical assistance to small island nations, like the Maldives, that bear the brunt of a global climate crisis

Scattered across 1,192 islands and 26 atolls, the Maldives is the world’s lowest lying country. The majority of its islands are less than half a meter above sea-level and scientists warn that at the current rate of climate change, large swathes of the Maldives archipelago could become uninhabitable by 2050.

An even more immediate threat is the lack of access to clean, safe, and affordable water. Climate change impacts, such as saline intrusion, sea-level rise, and drought, are already placing a considerable strain on natural freshwater sources, like groundwater and rainwater.

While resort islands and urban centers – like the capital, Malé – benefit from desalination, imported bottled water, and more sophisticated water infrastructure, many remote islands face shortages as rainwater tanks are drying up and groundwater is becoming increasingly saline and contaminated.

The Maldives’ tourism secret to success could well be its 1978 “one island, one resort” policy, offering a unique sense of exclusivity and privacy to its 130 resort islands. However, that image sold to tourists is world’s away from the lived reality of many Maldivians. It has meant that the honeymooner or social media influencer can remain blissfully unaware of the water crisis that may be playing out on a neighboring non-resort island.

A recent Human Rights Watch report focusing on two islands affected by water shortages, Kanditheem and Nolhivaranfaru, found that despite government efforts to address water shortages, many marginalized communities still face significant barriers to accessing clean, safe, and affordable water.

On both islands, the Maldivian government recently initiated water projects, supported by climate funding, to introduce Integrated Water Resource Management systems, combining desalination, rainwater harvesting, and groundwater recharge to diversify the islands’ water sources.

While they look good on paper, these projects have suffered from systemic faults that have exacerbated inequalities in accessing water in the Maldives. Issues include inadequate consultations with affected communities, poor government monitoring, and elevated water bills for users. Islanders on Nolhivaranfaru said that many of the houses that were meant to be covered by the project lacked water connections for over two years after the project was initiated.

This caused islanders to continue relying on groundwater, even though they said it was “foul-smelling” and believed it to be contaminated. In Kanditheem, the water system, which should have been completed over two and half years ago, still lacks a functioning water testing lab despite it being a regulatory requirement.

Having historically relied on rainwater and groundwater, which were largely free, islanders are now forced to incur an additional financial burden – in a context where they’re already very stretched.

Agricultural workers are particularly affected. A farmer on Kanditheem said that if the groundwater becomes too saline, they won’t be able to afford to pay for desalinated water for irrigation and would lose their livelihoods.

The remote outer islands in the Maldives have higher poverty rates than the more populated islands like Malé and Addu. In addition, communities living on these islands are often not adequately consulted about key decision-making processes, including surrounding development projects on their own islands.

The result is that infrastructure projects like these often suffer from chronic shortcomings and risk widening existing inequities within the country, instead of narrowing them.

The climate crisis is not a distant reality to island communities in the Maldives – it’s an everyday struggle, which requires the support of the international community. Climate-financing countries have an obligation under the Paris Agreement, the international treaty on climate change,  to provide “continuous and enhanced” financial support and technical assistance to small island nations, like the Maldives, that bear the brunt of a global climate crisis.

High-income governments should also create the conditions globally for the Maldives and similarly situated countries to have the fiscal space to raise resources to fund climate adaptation measures like water projects.

At the same time, the Maldives government has an obligation under international and domestic law to provide access to water for all its people. To do this effectively, it should ensure that its climate adaptation efforts protect the rights of those most affected by the climate crisis, including by addressing systemic problems that have led to inequities in Maldivians’ access to water.

Robbie Newton is a senior Asia coordinator at Human Rights Watch.

 

 

Poster shared by the Nevada Immigrant Coalition on Instagram warns that ICE agents may operate in plain clothes and be mistaken for other law enforcement.

By Peter Costantini
SEATTLE. US, May 26 2025 (IPS)

On May 21, I was in the Seattle immigration court accompanying a young mother from a South American country who was applying for asylum to a routine hearing. Local media had reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had arrested several people there the previous day.

Immigration courts have long seemed to be relatively safe places where immigrants were unlikely to be arrested, because they were already in the immigration legal system. [EOIR] [ICE]

While we were waiting, a group of four Haitians with a four-month-old baby sat down across from us. When I heard them speaking Kreyol and French, I introduced myself as someone who had lived in Haiti. We chatted briefly about their country and the immigration situation here, and smiled at the baby. Then they were called into court before us, and when they emerged, they seemed unperturbed by whatever was the outcome of their hearing.

This infernal Catch-22 is showing immigrants who have escaped from dangerous places that they have mistakenly entrusted their hopes to yet another gratuitously cruel police state for migrants. It is falsely branding all of them as criminals and dumping them into a rent-a-gulag of private for-profit prisons

However, when they walked out of the waiting room, they were surrounded by a group of burly men in Northwest-style outdoor wear and ball caps who proved to be agents of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations. The officers wore nothing that identified them as ICE or police, and I did not see them display any badges or warrants. They operated quietly, apparently trying not to attract public attention. They did not arrest the baby and its father, but took the mother and the two other men.

The arrestees looked stricken but did not resist, and I don’t believe the police handcuffed them. The father was left holding the baby in a basket, stunned and unbelieving. Further down the hall, another group of officers arrested a man who spoke to them in Spanish, asking them not to arrest him and crying. They put handcuffs and leg shackles on him and wrestled him onto an elevator.

This brought the young woman I was accompanying and myself to tears, as it was designed to do. Fortunately, though, her case was not dismissed. She was granted a future court hearing and was not detained by ICE.

As they were designed to do, the arrests left other witnesses, many with children, fearing that they could be next. Remember, this is not a court where people had to go because they were accused of crimes; they were there to make their cases for asylum or other protections, or to change their address. They were following authorized paths of immigration.

Staff from the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, a Seattle non-profit law office, circulated through the Federal Building explaining the new situation: the courts are now dismissing some immigrants’ cases at the request of the government. This might seem like a good thing for the immigrants, but it’s not: without an active case, most of these immigrants have no immigration status.

They are now vulnerable to being grabbed by ICE and placed in expedited removal, a form of rapid deportation without recourse to a judge. This provides la migra, as they are known in Spanish, with a new, unforeseen way to terrorize immigrants. [NWIRP]

The strategy of the Trump administration for immigrants with pending cases requesting authorized statuses such as asylum seems to be to deploy a variety of ways of questionable legality to summarily reject and remove them, or to make life so miserable here that the immigrants “self-deport”.

National and international media have reported similar arrests of immigrants after dismissing their cases across the country. [Anguiano & Singh 5/22/2025] As CBS News pointed out, expedited removal can be used to summarily deport immigrants “who entered the U.S. with the government’s permission at legal entry points”.

So it could possibly be applied to the nearly one million immigrants who entered the U.S. using a cell-phone app introduced by the Biden administration, which allowed them to enter with authorization. [Montoya-Galvez & Cavazos 5/23/2025] Hundreds of thousands who entered under the auspices of other government programs may also be at risk.

This is not an immigration policy; it is the business end of an ethnic cleansing policy. It dovetails nicely with the long-term imperative of white sado-nationalists such as Trump’s Make America Great Again movement to try to reverse what they call “The Great Replacement” of white U.S.-born citizens by immigrants of color from Latin America, Africa and Asia.

As historian Mae Ngai of Columbia University told me in an interview, “I think there’s too many brown people in this country for [the Trump administration’s] tastes — that’s what it all comes down to.” [Costantini 1/16/2019]

The Department of Homeland Security has introduced other new operations to threaten immigrants as well. In Nashville, Tennessee, the state Highway Patrol is reportedly running joint operations with ICE officers on the streets of immigrant neighborhoods.

According to New York Times columnist Margaret Renkle, ICE has been throwing “a wide, seemingly race-based net” to catch people who might appear to be immigrants with flurries of traffic stops for minor infractions by the state patrol. These stops allow ICE to check the immigration status of large numbers of local residents and detain some of them. [Renkl 5/22/2025]

Nashville is a city with a two-thirds Democratic electorate in a heavily Republican state. State Senator Jeff Yarbro told Renkle: “They were basically pulling someone new over every two minutes. That’s not a ‘public safety operation.’” And Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell commented: “What’s clear today is that people who do not share our values of safety and community have the authority to cause deep community harm.”

On top of other forms of arbitrary deprivation of immigrants’ rights, these new attacks are destroying any sense of safety for people who are trying to follow the rules. They already seem to be resulting in more fearful immigrants skipping appointments, and then being subject to even more certain arrest and removal.

This infernal Catch-22 is showing immigrants who have escaped from dangerous places that they have mistakenly entrusted their hopes to yet another gratuitously cruel police state for migrants. It is falsely branding all of them as criminals and dumping them into a rent-a-gulag of private for-profit prisons. More detainees will likely be rendered to El Salvador, Libya, South Sudan, and other human-rights-free zones and held without due process or habeas corpus.

The Statue of Liberty wept.

* * *

Notes

For the past 40 years, I have volunteered with immigrants. Since the first Trump administration, I have accompanied them to court and other official appointments. Accompaniment is organized by local immigrant justice and human rights groups, and usually entails working with attorneys (which I am not) to support and inform immigrants, and interpreting between English and their languages (in my case, Spanish and French).

Immigration courts are run by the Executive Office for Immigration Review in the Department of Justice. They are administrative courts and not part of the judiciary branch. [EOIR]

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is the police agency within the Department of Homeland Security that enforces immigration laws in the interior of the country, while Customs and Border Protection (which includes the Border Patrol) handles enforcement from the border up to 100 miles inland. [ICE]

 

References

Dani Anguiano & Maanvi Singh. “Ice arrests at immigration courts across the US stirring panic: ‘It’s terrifying’”. London: The Guardian, May 22, 2025.
https://theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/22/ice-arrests-immigration-courts

Peter Costantini. “Manufacturing illegality: An Interview with Mae Ngai”. Foreign Policy In Focus, January 16, 2019.
https://fpif.org/manufacturing-illegality-an-interview-with-mae-ngai

Legal Information Institute. “habeas corpus”. Cornell Law School, no date
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/habeas_corpus

Camilo Montoya-Galvez & Nidia Cavazos. “ICE ending migrants’ court cases in order to arrest and move to deport them”. CBS News, May 23, 2025.
https://cbsnews.com/news/ice-ending-migrants-court-cases-arrest-move-to-deport-them

Margaret Renkl. “The ICE Raids in Nashville Aren’t About Public Safety”. New York Times, May 22, 2025.
https://nytimes.com/2025/05/22/opinion/ice-raids-nashville-immigrants.html

A brutal military onslaught by Israel since October 2023 has destroyed hospitals, homes, food, water, and sanitation in the Palestinian territory of Gaza, with an estimated death toll of more than 53,000 people. Credit: Hosny Salah

By Catherine Wilson
LONDON, May 26 2025 (IPS)

Israel’s ongoing war of annihilation in Gaza has wiped out hospitals, schools, homes, water, and food, reducing the Palestinian territory to a wasteland and leaving a death toll of more than 53,000 people. But an equally lethal campaign has been unleashed against the foundations of Palestinian society and identity.

The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has targeted libraries, repositories, and institutions of Palestinian culture and heritage in a mission to eradicate the history, literary accomplishments, and political and social existence of Palestine as a place and people.

“The losses in Gaza are vast, incalculable, as we are still in the throes of a genocidal war that has already destroyed 70 percent of the Gaza Strip and killed or maimed 10 percent of its embattled population,” Raja Khalidi, Co-Administrator of the Khalidi Library, an Arab public library founded by the Khalidi family in East Jerusalem more than a century ago, told IPS. “So has the Israeli war machine in Gaza and the West Bank wrought indiscriminate destruction that threatens erasure of Palestinian written, architectural, and archaeological cultural heritage.”

In a recent report on the destruction of libraries, archives, and museums in Gaza since the conflict erupted in 2023, the solidarity organization Librarians and Archivists with Palestine (LAP) stated that “the destruction of cultural heritage in Gaza impoverishes the collective identity of the Palestinian people, irrevocably denies them their history, and violates their sovereignty.”

“The greatest loss remains the normalization of the daily massacres of Gazans, including children. Every Palestinian life is a record, a history. The Zionist war machine realises this and the targeting of children, in particular, is an attempt at destroying the future narrative of Palestine,” Ahmad Almallah, a Palestinian poet who grew up in Bethlehem and now lives in Philadelphia in the United States, told IPS.

Palestinian children live their lives under Israeli siege in Gaza, December 2024. Credit: Hosny Salah

Bordered by Israel to the east and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Gaza comprises 365 square kilometers of land that is home to about 2.1 million Muslim and Christian Palestinians who have lived under siege for more than half a century. Many Palestinians fled to Gaza following Israeli dispossession of their villages and homes during the Al-Nakba, or the ‘Catastrophe,’ in 1948. Then the territory was part of Egypt. Israel subsequently seized Gaza during the Six-Day War of 1967 until 1993, when the Oslo Accords made way for it to be administered by the Palestinian Authority.

The Islamic resistance organization, Hamas, then took power in 2005. Its launching of a raid and attack within Israel in October 2023, which resulted in the death of 1,200 Israelis with 251 taken hostage, triggered the current Gaza war. Since then, the IDF has sustained a relentless military onslaught leading to the obliteration of every facility for human habitation in Gaza and the escalation of a humanitarian crisis due to lack of food, water, shelter, and medical services.

While a ceasefire began on 19 January, disputes between Israel and Hamas about progress in hostage and prisoner exchanges led to the ceasefire fracturing on 18 March. The IDF resumed its offensive with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu further threatening to annex parts of Gaza.

This month UNESCO reported that Israel had destroyed 107 important cultural sites in the Palestinian enclave, including historic buildings, mosques, churches, and museums. And last year, LAP detailed the damage and destruction of 22 libraries and archives, including Gaza’s Central Archives, which contained valuable documentation of the enclave’s 150-year history. The Diana Tamari Sabbagh Library, which held tens of thousands of books, was also destroyed, as was the Omari Mosque and Library, which was built in the 7th century and held a major collection of rare books dating to the 14th century. Four university libraries in Gaza also suffered damage, including the Al-Quds Open University Library and the Jawaharlal Nehru Library of Gaza’s Al-Azhar University. Historical records destroyed in Gaza include those that proved Palestinian land and property ownership.

“Several years ago, the occupation destroyed the National Library in Gaza, razing its towering structure to the ground. With its destruction, the dream of creating a repository for both ancient and modern Palestinian works was obliterated. The site that once promised to preserve a rich cultural heritage became little more than a platform for displaying political party flags and leaders’ portraits,” Palestinian novelist Yousri al-Ghoul wrote in January.

The Omari Mosque in Gaza, portrayed in 2022, before its destruction by an Israeli attack in December 2023. Credit: Dan Palraz

The current conflict continues attempts to erase Palestinian history and identity that began during the Al-Nakba when Palestinian homes and their contents were looted and destroyed.

“As a child of the first intifada in Palestine, even words, the raw material for books, were very dangerous toys to play with. The Israeli occupation banned using the word ‘Palestine,’ and children and teenagers caught inscribing the word on a wall were either shot dead or arrested and subjected to torture. But that didn’t stop Palestinians from writing the word and piling on it poems, literature, and personal and natural history,” Almallah said.

Together with this loss, Palestinian writers, intellectuals, artists, and journalists have been killed, putting in jeopardy the continuity of knowledge and culture within society and its transmission to the next generation. Those who have lost their lives since 2023 include the writer Abdul Karim Hashash, who has written many books on Palestinian poetry and culture, and Doaa Al-Masri, Librarian at Gaza’s Edward Said Library.

In 2016 the International Criminal Court identified the desecration of a people’s cultural heritage as a war crime in a case about Islamist attacks on UNESCO-protected monuments in Timbuktu in Mali. Subsequently, in 1954, the Hague Convention, an international treaty stipulating the protection of cultural property in armed conflicts, was established and has now been signed by 136 countries.

More recently, South Africa included allegations of cultural dispossession in the case it launched in 2023 of genocide by Israel in Gaza in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). It will likely take the court years to reach a ruling. But in January last year, it issued initial orders to Israel to prevent and punish acts and public incitement to commit genocide by its military, an order that Israel continues to ignore.

“The international community has failed Palestinians; it has failed Gaza now! It has not done anything to stop the genocide and the massacring of children. I don’t expect they will do anything to save our books. But despite all Zionist attempts to silence them, we are witnessing Palestine becoming part of world heritage; Palestine is now everywhere!” Almallah declared.

In the meantime, there are important institutions in the region taking action to ensure the tactics of erasure will not succeed.  In Jerusalem, the Khalidi Library, which is home to a rich collection of thousands of books and Islamic manuscripts representing an Arab literary heritage over many centuries, is a testament to cultural resilience. It also conducts extensive manuscript conservation, restoration, and digitization work and has been a pillar of vibrant Palestinian scholarship, thought, and writing since the early twentieth century.

Khalidi emphasized that, looking ahead, in any reconstruction plan for post-war Gaza, “the first task will be for competent organizations, such as UNESCO, to launch a proper survey of the destruction of cultural heritage in Gaza… then ensure the future preservation and restoration or digitization of salvaged collections.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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UNOSSC Director Dima Al-Khatib addresses the 21st Session of the High-level Committee on South-South Cooperation last year. UNOSSC serves as the Secretariat of the High-level Committee. Credit: UNTV
 
The 22nd session of the High-level Committee on South-South Cooperation will be convened 27-30 May 2025 to review progress made in implementing the Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries, the New Directions Strategy, the Nairobi outcome document of the High-level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation and the Buenos Aires outcome document of the second High-level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation (BAPA+40).

By Dima Al-Khatib
UNITED NATIONS, May 26 2025 (IPS)

With just five years to 2030, the world stands at a pivotal juncture. The collective promises of our 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all – remain urgent and vital. Yet, progress is uneven, and in many areas, we risk falling short.

Amid this global uncertainty, we must look not only at what is faltering, but also where the rays of hope are shine.

South-South and triangular cooperation brings hope.

Across continents and oceans, developing countries are rising – together. They are innovating, collaborating, and forging new paths toward sustainable development. It is in this context that the 22nd session of the High-level Committee on South-South Cooperation convenes under the theme: “Accelerating the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: South-South Cooperation as a Driver for Transformation.”

This theme is not only timely; it is inspiring. South-South cooperation has emerged as a dynamic force, reshaping the global development landscape and offering new pathways to shared prosperity. It is a testament to the ingenuity, solidarity, and resilience of countries of the Global South – powerful agents of change.

Addressing Shared Challenges Through Collective Action

The world today faces complex, interconnected crises: persistent poverty, widening inequalities, the climate emergency, and the lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, among others. These challenges do not know borders, and no country can tackle them alone. South-South cooperation offers a powerful model for collective action – one that is inclusive, adaptable, and rooted in the lived experiences of developing countries.

A recent example is the African Union’s Peace Fund, which allocated $7 million to support peace initiatives in Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and other countries facing instability.1 This commitment demonstrates how regional organizations of the Global South are mobilizing resources and expertise to address development challenges through solidarity and shared responsibility.

By supporting knowledge sharing and capacity-building activities, among others, the Peace Fund is helping to lay the groundwork for sustainable development and regional stability.

South-South cooperation also thrives in sectoral partnerships. For instance, Brazil and India have collaborated on satellite technology to monitor deforestation and boost agricultural production, while Mexico has invested in food security and job creation programs in Honduras and El Salvador, benefitting over 40,000 people.2 These efforts underscore the diversity and adaptability of South-South solutions.

Leveraging Innovation and Digital Transformation

The digital divide continues to deepen. Over 2.6 billion people – most of them women and girls – remain offline, excluded from education, healthcare, and economic opportunity.

The promise of digital transformation must not become the privilege of the few. This is why South-South cooperation matters now more than ever.

Across the Global South, countries are harnessing digital technologies to leapfrog traditional development barriers. For example, AI is being deployed to strengthen early warning systems for climate resilience in Dominica, to improve crop forecasting with satellite data in Kenya, and to support multilingual education platforms in India.

In Brazil, AI is helping optimize public health responses, while Rwanda is using AI-driven tools to expand financial services to rural communities. When developed and deployed ethically, AI can offer scalable, low-cost solutions tailored to local realities.

UNOSSC’s South-South Galaxy platform is a living repository of such solutions, connecting practitioners and policymakers; and the South-South and Triangular Cooperation Solutions Lab is incubating and scaling up successful initiatives. From mobile banking in East Africa to e-governance initiatives in Asia, digital transformation is expanding opportunities and empowering communities.

Science, technology, and innovation (STI) are great equalizers – if we ensure equitable access. Artificial Intelligence holds enormous potential to transform development: optimizing crop yields, predicting disease outbreaks, advancing renewable energy. But it also brings real risks – of deepening inequality, displacing jobs, and eroding trust.

To ensure AI and frontier technologies serve people and planet, we must shape them with inclusive governance, ethical foresight, and robust international cooperation.

South-South and triangular partnerships are critical to this effort. By pooling resources, knowledge, and talent, countries in the Global South can leapfrog outdated systems and build resilient, inclusive digital economies. The Havana Declaration, adopted by the Group of 77 and China, underscored this collective commitment to harnessing STI for sustainable development.

The Transformative Power of South-South Cooperation

South-South cooperation is grounded in mutual respect, solidarity, and partnership. It is about countries with similar challenges and aspirations coming together to find solutions that work in their own contexts. Across the Global South, we see a myriad of homegrown innovations that are making a tangible difference. UNOSSC is proud to mandate trust funds that are scaling up these innovations.

The United Nations Fund for South-South Cooperation stands a beacon of this spirit. Over the past 30 years, 47 government entities have contributed to the Fund. Working in partnership with 45 United Nations entities, projects and initiatives supported by the Fund have reached over 70 countries and benefited people in 155 countries and territories globally — strengthening institutions, building capacity, and fostering lasting cooperation.

For example, thanks to the partnership with the Government of China, under the Global Development Initiative, over 1,000 development practitioners from 100+ countries have been trained in cross-border e-commerce and digitalization.

Since its establishment in 2017, the India-UN Development Partnership Fund has supported more than 75 demand-driven, transformational projects in 56 developing countries, with a strong focus on Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States. Its initiatives range from strengthening climate resilience in Pacific Island nations, to expanding renewable energy in Africa, and supporting pandemic response in the Caribbean.

During the COVID-19 crisis, the India-UN Fund quickly mobilized resources to provide medical supplies and personal protective equipment to 15 countries, demonstrating the speed and responsiveness that South-South cooperation can deliver in times of crisis.

Similarly, the IBSA Fund – a unique partnership among India, Brazil, and South Africa – has supported over 40 projects in more than 35 countries, focusing on poverty reduction, food security, access to clean water, education, and gender equality.

In Haiti, the IBSA Fund supported the construction of community health centers and the establishment of a solid waste management system, directly benefiting thousands of vulnerable people. In Sierra Leone, the Fund contributed to the rehabilitation of agricultural infrastructure, boosting food security and livelihoods in rural communities.

These projects are concrete expressions of solidarity and South-South learning, designed to be replicable and scalable across the developing world.

The Group of 77/Pérez-Guerrero Trust Fund for South-South Cooperation (PGTF), established by the United Nations in 1983, has been instrumental in promoting economic and technical collaboration among developing nations. Over the past four decades, the PGTF has supported over 400 projects benefiting 140+ countries, focusing on areas such as food security, renewable energy, trade, and technology.

For instance, in Uruguay, the PGTF facilitated refurbishment of small hydropower centers, enhancing access to sustainable energy in rural communities. Among others, in Africa, the Fund is supporting projects that strengthen food systems and empower women-led cooperatives.

By providing seed funding and fostering partnerships, the PGTF exemplifies principles of South-South cooperation, promoting shared knowledge and collective self-reliance among nations of the Global South.

The Role of Triangular Cooperation

While South-South cooperation is led and owned by developing countries, it is further strengthened through triangular cooperation – partnerships that bring together countries of the South, traditional donors, and multilateral organizations. These collaborations combine resources, expertise, and networks, amplifying the impact of development efforts.

A recent UNDP publication showcases how these partnerships are delivering results in environmental protection, disaster risk reduction, and gender equality, supporting global transformational shifts aligned to the SDGs.3

A notable example – with the support of the Republic of Korea – the UNOSSC PLINK initiative, focused on the Water-Energy-Food Nexus, is supporting vulnerable communities in the Lower Mekong Basin (Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Viet Nam) to co-create and scale sustainable solutions to the compounding effects of climate change, unsustainable agriculture, and rapid urbanization. Such partnerships demonstrate the value of combining South-South leadership with global expertise.

To further institutionalize and expand the reach of such collaborations, UNOSSC has established a Triangular Cooperation Window under the United Nations Fund for South-South Cooperation (UNFSSC). Launched as a dedicated facility, the Triangular Cooperation Window is mobilizing resources, knowledge, and expertise from a wide range of stakeholders-including governments, UN entities, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, and private sector partners. Partnership to the Window has been provided by Colombia, Morocco, Portugal, and Spain.

A Call to Action

As we gather for the 22nd session of the High-level Committee on South-South Cooperation, and prepare for the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development, I urge all development partners and stakeholders to invest in the transformative potential of South-South and triangular cooperation.

Let us draw inspiration from the successes of the Global South and commit to sharing knowledge, building capacity, and mobilizing resources for sustainable development. Let us ensure that the voices and experiences of developing countries are at the heart of global decision-making.

1 Report of the Secretary-General on Measures taken by United Nations organizations to implement decision 21/1 of the High-level Committee on South-South Cooperation through support for South-South and triangular cooperation to accelerate the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development SSC/22/2
2 UNCTAD helps countries measure South-South cooperation
3 Strengthening South-South and Triangular Cooperation for People and Planet

Dima Al-Khatib is the Director of the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation. She took up her duties as Director of UNOSSC on 1 March 2023. She is a Sustainable Development Professional bringing more than 25 years of leadership and management experience in several duty stations to her role. Prior to joining UNOSSC, Ms. Al-Khatib served as the UNDP Resident Representative in the Republic of Moldova. Prior to that, she held several positions including that of Programme and Policy Coordinator at the UNDP Regional Hub in Amman, UNDP Deputy Resident Representative in Kuwait, and UNDP Deputy Country Director in Libya.

Ms. Al-Khatib holds a Diplome d’Etudes Approfondies (DEA) in Environmental Health from the Lebanese University and France University of Bordeaux II, and a Bachelor of Science and a Teaching Diploma in Environmental Health from the American University of Beirut. Dima Al-Khatib tweets at @dimaalkhatib

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Robinson Crusoe Island, Chile in the Juan Fernandez Archipelago is home to a community of about 1,000 people who depend on the island’s natural resources. Credit: Jose Cabello/Island Conservation

By Penny Becker, Stuart Sandin and Wes Sechrest
SEATTLE, Washington / SAN DIEGO, California / AUSTIN, Texas , May 26 2025 (IPS)

As the world confronts escalating climate impacts, biodiversity loss, and ocean degradation, islands stand as critical test cases—not just as sites of vulnerability, but as living laboratories of resilience, restoration, and innovation. Too often, they are framed as victims of global circumstances, awaiting salvation from external forces.

But they have long been proving grounds for ecological restoration, climate adaptation, and scalable conservation solutions that both draw from and help protect Indigenous and local knowledge, cultural practices, and local economies of island communities.

From the Republic of Seychelles’ pioneering blue bonds, which finance marine protection in the Westen Indian Ocean, to New Zealand’s ambitious Predator Free 2050 initiative restoring native bird populations and ecosystems, to the Galapagos Islands improving livelihoods and rewilding species on the brink of extinction, islands have time and again demonstrated that large-scale ecological recovery is both possible and rapid.

Mona Island, Puerto Rico is one of the most ecologically and culturally important islands in the archipelago. Credit: Tommy Hall/Island Conservation

Their contained ecosystems allow for swift, measurable results, making them ideal places to refine and implement nature-based strategies that can be expanded globally.

The interconnectedness of islands and oceans is deeply understood by Indigenous communities, whose knowledge systems have emphasized this direct relationship for centuries. Holistic island restoration directly benefits ocean health, as terrestrial ecosystems play a vital role in nutrient cycling that support marine biodiversity and ecosystems – for instance, seabirds return nutrients to land from marine environments of hundreds or even thousands of miles away.

Removing human-introduced, damaging invasive species from islands, for instance, dramatically improves native wildlife populations, bolsters coral reef health, and enhances local food security.

That’s why Island Conservation, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, and Re:wild came together to found the Island-Ocean Connection Challenge (IOCC) in 2022. We launched this initiative to learn from and partner with Indigenous Peoples and local communities, whose wisdom bridges the gap between island, coastal, and marine ecosystem management, recognizing the profound link between terrestrial and ocean restoration.

By collaborating with island communities, their governments, NGOs, scientists, and funders, we aim to holistically restore 40 globally significant island-ocean ecosystems from ridge-to-reef by 2030. Twenty island-ocean ecosystems, from Palau to New Zealand to France and more, have already joined the challenge. And, to date, fifty IOCC partners have pledged to help advance this global vision and island restoration portfolio.

The IOCC’s work is based on the irrefutable evidence of impact we gathered from projects across the globe. Consider these success stories: on Palmyra Atoll (in the Pacific’s Northern Line Islands), removing invasive predatory rats led to a 5,000 percent increase in native trees, which strengthened surrounding coral reef ecosystems that now host more Manta Rays.

On Loosiep Island in the Federated States of Micronesia, restoration interventions improved traditional agriculture practices, reducing reliance on imported food. And in French Polynesia, the Critically Endangered Polynesian Storm-petrel has returned to nest on Kamaka Island for the first time in 100 years—less than two years after ecosystem restoration efforts began.

Around the world, these revitalized habitats capture more carbon, provide more storm resilience, and protect unique endemic plant communities, support healthier local fisheries, and enrich marine ecosystems. These restored islands demonstrate the power of nature’s resilience when native species are once again given the chance to thrive and rewild their ecosystems.

These wins are more than just community conservation and environmental victories—they’re stories of hope: tangible solutions to the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and ocean degradation. Studies have shown that restored islands can capture millions of metric tons of carbon, resist coastal erosion, bolster food security for local communities, nurture up to fifty percent more fish, and grow coral reefs up to four times faster.

These successes on islands are scalable; the discrete geographic scale of islands allows for systematic restoration efforts with impacts that reach far beyond their shores.

For those who care about ocean health, investing in terrestrial restoration is critical. The fate of marine ecosystems is tied to the health of island environments and vice-versa. For those who care about island communities and nature, investing in adjacent ocean ecosystem restorations is also undebatable. Ignoring these connections risks overlooking one of the most effective levers for ocean and island resiliency. Visible gains for local communities foster greater engagement in ocean protection efforts.

The capacity of large oceanic island states and territories to model solutions for global crises is outsized. By shifting our perspective of islands as hubs of innovation, restoration, and resilience we can truly harness the power of “our sea of islands”, unlocking their full potential—not just to safeguard their own futures, but to inform the recovery and health of our entire planet.

The choice is clear: invest in island-ocean system resilience with local communities now, or lose irreplaceable biodiversity, cultural heritage, and proven solutions to our most pressing global challenges. The world’s island communities are ready to lead. There is no better time than now to step up for islands.

Dr. Penny Becker is CEO, Island Conservation; Dr. Stuart Sandin is Biological Oceanography Professor, Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation, Scripps Institution of Oceanography & Wes Sechrest is CEO, Re:wild

IPS UN Bureau

 

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