Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Workers are patrolling in a wind power plant on Tan Thanh beach, Go Cong city of Viet Nam. Countries in Asia and the Pacific are moving towards green transitions in the wake of higher oil prices. Credit: Unsplash/Thompson Le

By Michał Podolski
BANGKOK, Thailand, Aug 5 2026 (IPS)

Inaction and maintaining the status quo of fossil fuel dependence carry significant costs. The recent closure of the Strait of Hormuz, for instance, caused enormous losses to the global economy, with many Asia-Pacific countries bearing disproportionately larger adverse impacts. Had these economies had a more diversified energy mix, they would have benefited from such resilience under current circumstances.

Green transition, however, comes at a significant cost – investment in environmental sustainability. This investment brings tangible returns and benefits, such as cleaner air, better health, a vibrant natural environment or reduced negative climate impacts. What is the overall balance of these costs and benefits, opportunities seized or lost, innovation, or status quo maintenance?

This overall balance amounts to decisions for a faster or slower shift towards environmental sustainability and green transition. Each carries fiscal, investment and financing consequences with differing socioeconomic outcomes. Overall, because of these countless dimensions, decision-making for green transition is inherently complex. In principle, humanity has never undertaken a green transition before and lacks established blueprints.

ESCAP’s Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2026 sheds light on this challenge. The report identifies decarbonisation pathways that offer lower costs and higher benefits, highlights bottlenecks that inflate expenses, clarifies current priorities, and examines socioeconomic impacts. In short, the Survey 2026 identifies cheaper options with greater impacts.

For instance, in some Asia-Pacific countries, the choices on decarbonisation are relatively straightforward. With limited fossil fuel dependence, low risks of asset stranding and minimal vested interests in coal, oil and gas industries, these economies are advancing renewable energy expansion. They are leapfrogging decarbonisation hurdles and reaping steady benefits from carbon-free energy.

However, economies heavily reliant on fossil fuels are confronting tougher dilemmas. Faster carbon withdrawal brings higher immediate costs, offset only by longer-term benefits. Labour markets face greater pressure from anticipated reskilling and green sector development. These economies face elevated risks and must proceed cautiously. Ultimately, the green transition demands strong and prosperous economies capable of delivering goods and services to build a carbon-free world.

As for labour markets, net employment effects of green transition can be positive overall, yet uneven across countries and sectors. Fossil fuel job losses, potentially abrupt ones, are often concentrated in mineral-rich areas, with knock-on effects on related industries. Historical coal phase-outs without prompt government support reveal prolonged unemployment, youth out-migration, and community decline. Older workers are particularly at risk of exiting the labour force permanently. In contrast, green jobs emerge more gradually, often elsewhere, and require different skills. This mismatch highlights the need for proactive government planning – including funded reskilling and economic diversification – to redeploy skills from declining sectors.

Inflation provides another example of dilemmas faced by policymakers that are or want to pursue green transition. Higher inflation undermines economic activity and complicates transition-oriented policymaking. For instance, green transition policies, such as carbon pricing, can gradually increase prices, and thus inflation. This can raise interest rates, hinder capital-intensive green investments and pose financial stability challenges for central banks. Economies may tolerate modest and stable inflation, but high and volatile inflation will undermine the green transition efforts.

The Survey 2026 also highlights that government interventions like subsidies can be beneficial but can also lock-in suboptimal technologies. Too much of a good thing can be harmful. Government policies should guide objectives and priorities, for example, the need for better and cheaper energy storage, and enable people and enterprises to discover the most effective solutions. Market-friendly policy tools, such as technology-neutral emission limits, clear long-term plans and streamlined permitting, are all important policy adjustments.

“Take the right decisions, allow markets to work in a fair way” was a message on climate action by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres in 2025. The Survey 2026 builds on this, emphasising that market mechanisms can drive decarbonisation by identifying the best opportunities. The report also reinforces the call for “right decisions” to ensure a just and inclusive transition.

There are often easier and harder paths to the same goal. With due regard to diverse national circumstances, Asia-Pacific economies must progressively move to a low-carbon future, while safeguarding socioeconomic well-being of their people. There is no universal set of policies, but there is one clear direction. Although some costs may seem high today, inaction would prove far more expensive. At the end, optimal paths require pragmatic, evidence-based judgement: gradual where necessary, ambitious where feasible, and always mindful of who bears today’s costs versus tomorrow’s benefits.

Michal Podolski is Associate Economic Affairs Officer, ESCAP

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Every summer, before dawn breaks over the Himalayas, Bashir Ahmad leads his horses onto the narrow mountain trail that winds toward the Amarnath cave shrine. For decades, the annual Hindu pilgrimage has been the most important season of the year for his family. The money earned over two months pays for food, school fees, winter […]

Credit IMF Photo/Nicholas Karlin

By Kristalina Georgieva
WASHINGTON DC, Aug 4 2026 (IPS)

My first meeting in Buenos Aires began with an unexpected gift. Economy Minister Luis Caputo presented me with an Argentine national team jersey bearing my name and the number 10—Lionel Messi’s iconic number.

It was a fitting start to my first official visit. When Messi finally lifted the World Cup in Qatar, he was 35 years old—an age when many footballers have already retired. His triumph was the culmination of years of perseverance, setbacks, and relentless dedication. It underscored how great achievements require persistence—and can take longer than expected.

Economic transformation follows a similar path. Restoring stability is difficult. Making it endure is even harder. The greatest rewards come only after years of persistence.

That stuck with me during my visit to Argentina this week. Everywhere I went, I encountered people looking beyond today’s challenges and asking what their country could become over the next decade.

For a country that has spent much of its recent history focused on the next crisis, shifting attention to a longer horizon was, I found, to be the most encouraging sign of all.

Impressive stabilization

Only two and a half years ago, Argentina faced one of the most difficult economic moments in its modern history. The government was running constant deficits. Inflation exceeded 200 percent. The economy was contracting. Poverty had climbed above 50 percent. Families watched the value of their wages and savings fall. Businesses found it difficult to plan beyond the next few weeks.

Today, the picture is markedly different.

Argentina has delivered two consecutive years of primary fiscal surpluses for the first time in 15 years. The economy is growing. Inflation has fallen to around 30 percent. Poverty has declined. The central bank is rebuilding international reserves. Sovereign borrowing costs have fallen.

All three major credit rating agencies have upgraded the country. In addition, more than $45 billion in investment projects have already been approved under Argentina’s large investment incentive framework. The pipeline under development is more than twice that size. These achievements reflect the commitment to stability and determined policy actions by Javier Milei’s administration and, above all, the perseverance of the Argentine people.

From stability to growth and opportunities

Stabilization gives a country back something that isn’t easily measured: time. When families believe prices will remain stable, they start to save instead of simply protecting themselves against inflation. When businesses believe policies will remain predictable, they invest for years rather than months. Banks extend longer-term credit. Governments can focus on improving institutions instead of responding to the next emergency.

In other words, stability extends a country’s time horizon. I know how transformative that can be because I experienced it in my own country.

When Bulgaria suffered hyperinflation and a banking crisis in the 1990s, my mother’s lifetime savings disappeared almost overnight. I kept my own modest savings in dollars, in a tin box hidden in the cupboard. Restoring stability required difficult reforms, stronger institutions, and persistence over many years.

The results did not appear immediately. But because Bulgaria stayed the course, confidence gradually returned. Investment increased. People found work. Living standards improved. Earlier this year, Bulgaria adopted the euro—a milestone that would once have seemed impossible.

The lesson was not simply that stabilization can succeed. It was that its greatest rewards emerge only with time.

That challenge is even greater today. The global economy is becoming more uncertain. Trade patterns are shifting. Geopolitical tensions remain elevated. Artificial intelligence is reshaping industries and labor markets at remarkable speed. Capital is increasingly selective, flowing to countries that combine sound policies with predictable institutions.

In this environment, macroeconomic stability is not merely desirable—it is a prerequisite for attracting investment, creating jobs, and remaining competitive.

Unleashing potential

I saw that opportunity very clearly at the fast-developing Vaca Muerta oil and gas fields, in Neuquén province. That Argentina enjoys world-class natural resources has long been known. Yet Vaca Muerta shows that it also has talented engineers, entrepreneurs, and public and private leaders committed to developing them. And it is doing so at a moment when the world is looking for secure and reliable energy supplies.

Vaca Muerta is only one example of a broader opportunity. Mining investment is accelerating, knowledge-based services export nearly $10 billion annually, and agriculture remains among the world’s most competitive sectors. Beyond its natural resources, Argentina boasts world-class entrepreneurs, strong universities, and exceptional human talent.

The next phase is to ensure that these opportunities spread across the broader economy.

That message came through clearly in my discussions with business leaders. They welcomed the country’s renewed stability and growing investor confidence, while emphasizing the importance of reducing barriers to investment and broadening the recovery across more sectors.

It also came through in two very different conversations.

On my first morning in Buenos Aires, I met Marina, a makeup artist who kindly helped me get ready for the day ahead. She told me she works three jobs and that life remains difficult. Yet she also told me she hopes the country stays the course. Her circumstances have not changed overnight. What’s changing is her confidence that progress can last.

I later met renowned tango dancer Mora Godoy. Beyond her celebrated career, she has built a dance school and offers scholarships to young people who otherwise might never have the chance to learn.

Different stories, different professions—but both reflected the same belief that investing today can create opportunities tomorrow.

I heard that same longer-term perspective from students. Their questions were not about the next six months. They were about artificial intelligence, innovation, leadership, and Argentina’s place in the global economy. They wanted to know how their country could compete—not just next year, but over the coming decades.

Across these conversations with business leaders, workers, and students, I heard a common, encouraging message: Argentina is beginning to look beyond the next crisis to the opportunities ahead.

In the end, success will not be measured only by lower inflation, stronger reserves, or healthier public finances. It will be gauged by whether more businesses invest, small and medium-sized enterprises expand, workers find better jobs and higher wages, and more Argentines see the benefits of economic growth in their daily lives.

The next steps

That same long-term perspective guides the IMF partnership with Argentina.

Our role is to support the policies and institutions that make lasting stability possible. The government’s proposal for a stronger and more independent central bank can help ensure that progress on inflation endures. A durable fiscal responsibility framework, with clear rules and strong institutions, can help future governments preserve today’s hard-won gains. These reforms allow families to plan, businesses to borrow and invest, and governments to look beyond the next crisis.

Argentina’s economic transformation will also take time. The country has laid the foundations for a more stable future. The challenge now is to stay the course—to keep building the institutions, confidence, and opportunities that will allow today’s progress to become lasting prosperity.

Kristalina Georgieva is Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Washington DC.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Aug 4 2026 (IPS)

President Trump has blamed trade liberalisation advocated by globalists for US deindustrialisation. Instead, his own weaponisation of economic policies, instruments and institutions purport to ‘make America great again’ (MAGA).

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Trump 1.0 claimed to do so by ‘reshoring’ industries that had relocated abroad. Trump 2.0 uses more threats to secure investments, markets and other economic advantages for US big business, at the expense of others, including allies and especially the Global South.

While rejecting globalists’ claim that trade liberalisation enhances growth, employment and incomes for all, his own ‘America First’ policies are slowing the world economy, including the US.

Post-war trade policy
The US has dominated international relations and institutions, including multilateral economic governance, since World War Two (WW2). The US Congress rejected the 1948 Havana Charter proposing the International Trade Organisation (ITO).

Selective trade liberalisation was key to the ‘neoliberal’ Washington Consensus, which has been recommended, if not required, by multilateral economic institutions from the 1980s.

Meanwhile, the neoliberal era has been associated with slower, more volatile growth than the post-war Keynesian ‘Golden Age’ of the first quarter-century after WW2.

The West pushed for the World Trade Organization (WTO) to consolidate the international economic order on a neoliberal basis. The 1994 Marrakech Agreement establishing the WTO left little room for development policy initiatives.

For many in the West, neoliberal trade liberalisation ended with the first Trump presidency from 2017. However, the reversal had begun earlier in the 21st century, especially after the 2008-09 global (actually Western) financial crisis.

However, Trump should be acknowledged for brazenly weaponizing international trade and investment instruments against the rest of the world, including US allies.

Hegemony
Free trade advocate Jagdish Bhagwati showed that anything less than trade multilateralism, including plurilateral and bilateral free trade agreements, is sub-optimal and unfair.

Compromises, including those promoted by international financial institutions and the OECD, have, instead, strengthened US and Western hegemony.

Postwar decolonisation of Asia and Africa has seen discontent grow in multilateral institutions, prompting selective Western undermining of multilateralism after the Cold War.

Unable to ensure the WTO’s dispute settlement system consistently protects and advances its interests, the US has paralysed it by blocking key appointments since the Obama presidency.

Collective assertiveness by developing countries in multilateral fora has mitigated some adverse consequences of international economic integration under Western auspices.

Partial and uneven trade liberalisation has constrained Global South industrialisation. Recent deindustrialisation has reduced manufacturing’s share of national output in many developing countries.

Little new manufacturing capacity has developed in Africa beyond some minimal import-substituting and resource-processing activities protected by high transport costs.

Divide and rule
Economic concessions, such as trade preferences, to developing countries have been used to divide the Global South, including the ‘least developed countries’ and ‘small island developing states’, effectively weakening their collective negotiating strength.

Trade liberalisation has also reduced tariff revenue, especially important for the poorest developing countries, where it often accounted for up to half of total tax collected.

Additional taxes, typically from consumption or income, have never compensated for tariff revenue losses due to trade liberalisation. This has undermined their already weak fiscal capacities, often requiring them to borrow even more.

Promoting food agriculture in supposedly ‘land-abundant’ African countries was supposed to make them more food-secure and even export-competitive but there is no evidence this has happened.

Developing nations have long unsuccessfully asked the Global North to eliminate agricultural subsidies, tariffs, and non-tariff import barriers that protect their output.

This would make food production in developing countries more competitive. But rich countries have long insisted that developing countries must first ‘reciprocate’, e.g., by eliminating their manufacturing tariffs.

Structural adjustment has also undermined agricultural infrastructure and smallholder productivity in many developing countries. Meanwhile, lower farm subsidies in Europe have raised many food import prices in the South.

Gains from trade?
Purported gains from trade liberalisation are often either merely theoretical or one-time gains from static understandings of comparative advantage, with no cumulative potential.

Claims of gains from trade liberalisation presume internationally competitive productive and export capacities capable of generating a strong positive supply response.

Such preconditions are unlikely in most developing countries, especially the poorest, and need to be developed, typically by protecting against external market pressures.

Most studies of realistically achievable outcomes of WTO Doha Round negotiations from 2001, including those for the World Bank, projected net losses for most developing economies, except for a few Asian economies.

There is also no robust evidence of trade liberalisation significantly reducing poverty and hunger. Developing countries, especially the poorest ones and those in sub-Saharan Africa, would be worse off.

One may well ask why developing countries have to be bribed with ‘aid for trade’ if it is in their own best interests to commit to trade liberalisation, multilateral or otherwise.

Worse, trade liberalisation has made sustainable development nearly impossible by significantly reducing policy options for aspiring developmental states, especially for trade, industrial, investment and technology policies.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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IInternational experts have reported a uptick of human rights violations committed in Iran, notably arbitrary executions of protestors since January 2026. Credit: Amir Sarabadani/Wikimedia Commons

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 3 2026 (IPS)

Over the past several weeks, the humanitarian landscape in the Middle East has deteriorated significantly, exacerbated by escalating security concerns and serious human rights violations. In late July, the United Nations (UN) highlighted a sharp uptick in hostilities between the United States and Iran, alongside growing concerns over wider regional instability.

On July 30, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned that the “humanitarian consequences of the Middle East escalation are worsening by the day.” The conflict between the United States and Iran has grown increasingly volatile over recent months, with both parties intermittently resuming bombardment following the breakdown of the April ceasefire.

On July 28, Iranian forces attempted a series of ballistic missile attacks targeting U.S. bases in Jordan and vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. This prompted an immediate military response from the U.S. military, with defense officials confirming that it had completed a “heavy wave” of airstrikes targeting numerous bases affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

This recent wave of airstrikes in Iran affected numerous provinces—including Hormozgan, Bushehr, Fars, and Khuzestan—notably impacting the country’s primary oil-producing region. According to the Iranian Ministry of Health, at least 60 civilian deaths and 670 injuries have been recorded over the past month alone. On July 30, a strike in Qeshm in Hormozgan province hit a residential building, killing three civilians, including a two-year-old child.

This conflict has severely disrupted global shipping and oil production, driving a considerable increase in domestic gasoline prices in the U.S. and compounding Iran’s economic collapse. On July 29, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres expressed concern about the risk of a broader regional conflict if effective diplomacy is not established soon.

Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary-General, Farhan Haq, told reporters that current developments are “not positive”, noting that Guterres is hoping for an immediate cessation of hostilities. “The Secretary-General has been worried for some time that if the parties do not return to negotiations, you could have a widening of the conflict, and that seems to be what has been happening in recent hours,” said Haq at a press briefing at the UN Headquarters.

“These are not positive developments, and he wants to make sure that the parties can cease fighting and again return to the diplomatic efforts, including the mediation efforts being pressed forward by Pakistan, Qatar and others…Having more parties involved in the fighting, having the fighting spread to a larger number of countries, all of these are adverse developments and could get us into a much worse situation even than before.”

Following discussions with regional allies, U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters on August 1 that he had halted planned military strikes against Iran as negotiations toward a de-escalation of hostilities are scheduled to pick up on August 3. Contingent on both sides “rapidly” securing a deal, Trump told reporters that these plans include frameworks for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which would allow for the immediate decongestion of stalled global cargo traffic and the resumption of commercial oil shipments.

In response, Iranian officials confirmed that Tehran did not ask the U.S. to halt these strikes, stating that Iran remains “on high alert and ready for any eventuality.” As of August 3, no new negotiations were held between the U.S. and Iran. Esmail Baghaie, the spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry, has said that there are no plans to send an Iranian delegation, nor to receive any delegations, however diplomatic engagement is ongoing.

Although the Strait of Hormuz is currently closed, Jordan and Egypt remain critical lifelines for humanitarian aid deliveries and medical evacuations for struggling Iranian communities.

Furthermore, Iran continues to grapple with a sharp rise in human rights violations recorded over the course of 2026. Since March 19, the Center for Human Rights in Iran recorded the executions of at least 46 civilians on politically motivated charges. Reflecting a considerable surge in the use of the death penalty to repress civilian dissent, at least 23 of those convicted were protestors arrested during the protests in January.

On July 23, the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran urged Iranian authorities to halt all executions and establish frameworks on the use of the death penalty in accordance with international humanitarian law. The Mission condemned the arbitrary executions of two young protestors, 18-year-old Erfan Esfandiari and 23-year-old Mohammad Mohammadi on July 19.

In the wake of these executions, Iranian authorities proceeded to publicly execute protestors Amir Hossein Safari and Abolfazl Sepahi following what Amnesty International described as a “grossly unfair mass trail involving dozens of defendants.” Ten additional Iranian men now face an imminent threat of arbitrary execution over their involvement in the January demonstrations, with the Mission calling for an immediate halt to these executions.

“The Iranian authorities are unleashing a horrifying wave of executions and death sentences to punish and suppress dissent and project an image of strength and absolute control in the wake of the January popular uprising and amid ongoing attacks by US and Israeli forces,” said Heba Morayef, Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

“The muted response from the international community emboldens the Iranian authorities to continue their deadly rampage. UN member states must take urgent coordinated diplomatic action to press the Iranian authorities to halt further executions. They must place Iran’s human rights and impunity crisis high on their agenda, support the creation of an independent international justice mechanism for Iran and urge the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Iran to the International Criminal Court.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Credit: Joseph Barrientos on Unsplash

By James Alix Michel
VICTORIA, Seychelles, Aug 3 2026 (IPS)

Earlier this year, I called publicly for a precautionary pause on deep-sea mining, arguing that it is not a rejection of progress, but a commitment to sound science.

I made that appeal because I believed governments meeting this year at the International Seabed Authority (ISA) would finally choose caution over haste. Watching the results emerge from Kingston, Jamaica, over these past weeks, I must admit to real disappointment.

But I want to be equally clear: disappointment is not defeat, and there is still every reason for hope.

The 31st session of the ISA concluded its work in Kingston with the Council ending two weeks of negotiations on 24 July without adopting the long-debated Mining Code. Unresolved issues, ranging from environmental safeguards and liability to inspection, compliance and benefit-sharing, remain exactly that: unresolved.

Governments including France, Costa Rica, South Africa, Mexico, Germany, Palau and Brazil rightly insisted these gaps must be closed before any commercial mining is contemplated. That the Authority could not bridge them after fifteen years of negotiation tells its own story about how far science and governance still lag behind commercial ambition.

James Alix Michel

What troubles me more is what happened alongside those talks. In the same fortnight, the Council extended by five years the exploration contract of Nauru Ocean Resources Inc., a subsidiary of The Metals Company, even as an inquiry into the contractor’s possible non-compliance with its obligations under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea remained open. This came days after the Seabed Disputes Chamber of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, in Hamburg, ordered the ISA to guarantee the company due process. The optics were unfortunate: an institution meant to safeguard the common heritage of humankind appeared to bend under commercial pressure at the very moment its credibility needed reinforcing.

That pressure has an external source too. The United States, which is not a party to the Law of the Sea Convention and sits outside the ISA altogether, has continued to advance its own unilateral licensing process for the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, the vast Pacific seabed that holds the largest concentration of exploration contracts on Earth. Five applications are already on record, with reports suggesting more may follow. When a single state can simply step outside a multilateral framework and issue permits for a shared global commons, it does not just threaten the ocean floor; it threatens the very idea that humanity can govern anything collectively. That, to me, is Kingston’s deeper failure: not that a code went unfinished, but that the multilateral system protecting our common heritage was tested, and did not hold as firmly as it should.

And yet.

I have spent much of my life in rooms where the odds seemed stacked against the ocean, and I have learned that setbacks in these negotiations are rarely the last word. There is real cause for hope in what else happened in Kingston.

When four deep-sea mining companies sought observer status at the Assembly, dozens of governments pushed back, and the decision was postponed rather than rushed through. Vanuatu brought forward an agenda item on “Ensuring Adequate Scientific Understanding to Support Informed Decision-Making,” precisely the argument I have been making since earlier this year: that we cannot regulate what we do not yet understand. And crucially, the Council did not simply walk away. It agreed a roadmap for further work, inviting states and observers to submit written proposals on the outstanding issues by 1 October 2026. The door to a properly safeguarded process remains open. It has not been slammed shut.

Most encouraging of all is the growing number of nations refusing to be rushed. When I first raised this call earlier this year, more than 40 countries had already backed a moratorium or precautionary pause. Today that number stands at 45, including seven Pacific nations, alongside outright bans by France and by Palau and New Caledonia within their own waters. They are joined by more than 70 companies, 82 financial institutions representing some €24 trillion in assets, and over 900 scientists from more than 70 countries, all saying the same thing: we do not yet know enough to proceed safely.

This is not an anti-mining movement. It is a pro-science movement. Nobody serious is arguing that the world will never need these minerals, or that the seabed must remain untouched forever. What I am arguing, and what the evidence increasingly supports, is that decisions with potentially irreversible consequences for ecosystems we have barely begun to map should not be made under commercial or geopolitical pressure. Scientists directly observed less than a tenth of the size of Belgium’s worth of deep seafloor before these negotiations began. This year’s IUCN Red List found that 62 percent of molluscs known only from hydrothermal vents are now at risk of extinction, many of them identified within the last decade. We are still discovering what we might destroy, and we are only beginning to understand the deep seabed’s role in storing carbon and regulating ocean chemistry.

I say this as someone who has governed a small island nation whose entire future is tied to the health of its ocean. Seychelles did not treat marine protection and economic progress as opposing forces. Through marine spatial planning protecting thirty percent of our waters, and the world’s first sovereign blue bond, we showed precaution can be financed and delivered without halting development. That experience is precisely why I believe a precautionary pause on deep-sea mining is a down payment on progress, not a brake on it.

Small island developing states cannot afford to gamble with the ocean systems that feed us and anchor our economies. I say this with humility: Seychelles has banned deep-sea mining in its own waters under our Marine Spatial Plan, yet is not among the 45 nations formally backing the international moratorium. That gap between what we protect at home and what we champion abroad is one I hope Seychelles, and others like it, will now close.

So my message to fellow leaders, particularly across Africa and the small island states that depend most on healthy oceans, is this:

Kingston’s disappointment is real, but it is not the end of the story. Forty-five nations have already shown that caution and ambition can coexist. I urge every government that has not yet done so, especially those still weighing their position ahead of the October deadline for written proposals, to add its voice to that growing coalition. This is not about obstructing progress; it is about demanding the evidence that ensures whatever progress we make does no lasting harm to the seabed we all share. I also urge regional bodies, from the African Union to Pacific and Caribbean groupings, to adopt common positions, so no single small state stands alone against powerful commercial interests.

The common heritage of humankind deserves patience as much as ambition. Kingston reminded us how much work remains. It also reminded us how many are still willing to do it.

James Alix Michel is the former President of Seychelles (2004-2016), Founder of the James Michel Foundation and the University of Seychelles, and a global advocate for the blue economy, ocean conservation and climate resilience.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Galala city, Egypt, the southern exit to the Suez Canal. Credit: Unsplash/M abnodey

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 3 2026 (IPS)

As the United States and Iran continue to escalate with military strikes across both fronts, the conflict took a new turn with Saudi Arabia becoming militarily involved on July 29, following coordinated airstrikes with U.S. Central Command according to the Saudi Ministry of Defence.

These strikes were carried out under what the Kingdom says was its right to self-defense, recognized under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, with the Saudi armed forces coordinating with U.S. Central Command to target Iranian-backed proxies operating from Iraqi territory, after interception of several UAVs which were attempting to target oil facilities in Eastern and Riyadh regions. The Kingdom reiterated that it does not seek escalation but will respond decisively to any aggression directed against it, according to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

On Saturday, August 1, U.S. President Donald Trump announced on his platform, Truth Social, that Iran and other Middle Eastern Countries have asked the U.S. to “hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to.” Trump added that “This would include the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran’s nuclear threat.” Following this, the U.S. has canceled a planned attack on Iran, but Tehran still has not claimed that these talks are ongoing, let alone any measure of mediation. The cancellation of the planned attack, however, does not mean U.S. military operations have ceased.

On Sunday, August 2, The Saudi Press Agency reported that HRH Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman spoke by phone with U.S. President Trump and “stressed the need to prioritize dialogue to reduce escalation and the importance of making every possible effort to achieve calm that paves the way for diplomatic solutions” in order to preserve both regional and international security. Prior to these latest updates, Washington has maintained that the U.S. and Iran were already engaged in what was described as “very friendly negotiations” following a pause in military strikes. However, Tehran had publicly denied holding direct talks with Washington. According to Axios, Oman is leading the mediation effort, with Qatar, Pakistan and Egypt involved alongside Washington envoys.

Last week on July 30, Saudi Arabia announced a multinational Red Sea maritime defense alliance, seeking the support of over 50 countries and organizations. Thirteen countries other than Saudi Arabia have already signed on, including Türkiye, Pakistan, Egypt, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Nigeria, Jordan, Bangladesh, Yemen, Djibouti and Somalia. Other participating countries have also expressed support and are in the process of completing their internal procedures and approvals to join the declaration.

The declaration remains open to other interested parties. The Gulf states of the United Arab Emirates and Oman have not yet signed, despite having similar security objectives. Representatives from 43 of the 51 countries and organizations invited to join the alliance attended a meeting on Thursday in Riyadh, the headquarters of the operation.

The initiative effectively places Saudi Arabia at the center of multinational maritime security in the Red Sea at a time when U.S. naval resources are increasingly divided between deterring Iran in the Gulf and protecting commercial shipping.

The Saudi Defence Ministry noted that the EU already has a naval protection mission in the Red Sea, with a delegation from the European Union being present at the meeting. Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman also held a meeting with President Trump and Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday, however he reportedly told Washington that the Kingdom was opposed to further escalation of the wider U.S.-Israel war, and its objective is to “defend itself”.

The Kingdom reportedly told Washington that it can manage the situation with the Houthis in Yemen itself, and does not need the U.S. to get involved.

Why is the Red Sea so crucial?

The Red Sea forms part of the maritime corridor leading to the Suez Canal, through which around 15 percent of global maritime trade moves. When security in the Strait cannot be guaranteed, shipping carriers are rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid sailing through an active military zone, where cargo is at risk and war-risk insurance premiums can increase significantly.

Beginning in 2023, Houthi attacks on commercial vessels similarly targeted carriers in the Red Sea, which reduced container tonnage moving through the Suez Canal by 82 percent, and increased booking a voyage on short notice from Shanghai to Europe by 256 percent.

The Houthis demonstrated in that conflict that they did not need to strike every ship in order to create an incentive to avoid the Strait. However, when carriers chose to avoid the Strait, major consequences arose, significantly increasing the cost of every ton of cargo.

Rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope can add roughly 3,000 to 3,500 nautical miles, approximately seven to 10 days in additional sailing time, for a Europe to Singapore voyage. For some routes, consequences are substantially greater. A tanker carrying Saudi crude from Yanbu to Taiwan that avoids the Bab el-Mandeb Strait could extend the voyage from 19 to 48 days, adding roughly USD 2.5 million in cost, according to a Reuters analysis based on Kpler and LSEG data.

All of this is compounded by the severe disruption of the Strait of Hormuz, where on Aug 2, only 19 ships transited in 24 hours, representing only 31 percent of pre-conflict traffic, which has limited deadweight tonnage throughput (DWT) to 3.2 million of the 10.3 million pre-conflict average. However, this is an increase from Friday, August 1, where only 10 transits were recorded in 24 hours, marking only 11.4 percent of transits and 1.2 million DWT compared to pre-conflict levels.

Before the conflict, 25 percent of global seaborne oil trade moved through the Strait, alongside 29 percent of global liquefied natural gas trade, 38 percent of liquefied petroleum gas trade, 19 percent of crude oil trade, 19 percent of refined petroleum products trade, and 13 percent of chemical trade. Together, severe disruption of the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb would simultaneously constrain Gulf energy exports and render the shortest maritime route connecting Asia and Europe increasingly untenable for commercial shipping.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Anti-FGM activists protests outside the National Assembly in Banjul, The Gambia, on 18 March 2024, as lawmakers discuss a bill seeking to lift the ban on FGM. Credit: by Muhamadou Bittaye/AFP

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Aug 3 2026 (IPS)

Last August, a one-month-old girl in The Gambia bled to death after being subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM), a practice that had been illegal in the country since 2015. FGM is a human rights violation, whatever the appeals to faith or tradition made in its defence, but now the Gambian Supreme Court is being asked to strike the country’s ban down. This is the second attempt in two years to make FGM legal again.

Civil society stopped it the first time. When a repeal bill reached the National Assembly in 2024, the Network Against Gender-Based Violence brought survivors to testify, lobbied legislators, ran radio programmes and obtained a ruling from Cairo’s Al-Azhar University saying that FGM is not required under Islam. The bill fell in July 2024.

The ongoing fight in The Gambia is a measure of how fragile advances in the recognition of rights are. FGM is in retreat across most of the countries where it is practised, the result of decades of campaigning by survivors and community organisations. But holding that ground is becoming harder, as the money supporting those campaigns dries up and a resurgent anti-rights movement works to recast FGM as a traditional practice under foreign attack.

A practice in retreat

Over 230 million girls and women alive today have undergone FGM, with an additional four million cut every year. But the direction of travel has changed. A 2024 UNICEF report found that half of the decline in prevalence over the past 30 years has come in the last decade, with rates among adolescent girls halved or cut by 30-plus percentage points in countries including Ethiopia, Kenya and Sierra Leone. Attitudes have shifted too. Around 400 million people in practising countries, two-thirds of the population, now say they want FGM to end.

That change has a clear source. The Joint Programme run by UNICEF and the UN Population Fund found that the sharpest reductions come where communities are supported to deliberate and then commit, publicly and collectively, to abandoning the practice. The UN channels funding and provides coordination, but the dialogues, declarations and door-to-door persuasion are the work of community activists, national organisations and survivor networks. Thanks to these civil society efforts, in 2025 alone, over 7.5 million people took part in community dialogues and over 190,000 religious leaders and community influencers publicly denounced FGM.

The tools that work

Where campaigners have targeted the religious justifications that sustain FGM, results have followed. In 2025, Islamic scholars in Djibouti, Eritrea and Somalia issued a joint ruling saying that nothing in the faith requires FGM. Litigation has proved another powerful tool. In July 2025, the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States found Sierra Leone in breach of its international obligations for failing to criminalise FGM, and said that, when intentionally inflicted, the practice meets the threshold of torture. In India, the Supreme Court has begun hearing whether cutting among the Dawoodi Bohra community should lose constitutional protection as an essential religious practice. And this June, Colombia became the first country in Latin America to ban FGM, driven by Emberá Indigenous women campaigning against a practice carried out in their own community.

Prohibition is now the norm rather than the exception, with Djibouti and Guinea writing bans into their constitutions in 2025. But laws alone don’t necessarily change what happens on the ground, and enforcement remains thin. Arrests and prosecutions rose sharply in 2025, yet there were still only 711 FGM court cases all year. In The Gambia, the fine imposed on the country’s first convicted cutters was paid by a prominent imam, an act that helped galvanise the campaign seeking to repeal the ban.

The movement’s defunding

The tactics that drove three decades of progress are now being starved of funding, with budget cuts falling hardest on the survivor-led and grassroots groups that are most effective but always face the toughest struggles for support. Funding for the Joint Programme fell from US$29.6 million in 2024 to US$16.3 million in 2025. The dismantling of USAID removed the largest single source of civil society funding worldwide, and total US foreign aid halved in a year. The UK, once the biggest funder of FGM prevention, is winding down its flagship programme with no replacement, so it can spend more on weapons.

The economics make no sense, because every dollar invested in prevention brings a tenfold return. The Joint Programme estimates that treating the health consequences of FGM currently costs US$1.4 billion a year. Politics, though, is playing a big part. In global north countries, political shifts are driving the withdrawal of aid, and far-right parties invoke FGM to stigmatise migrant communities while also opposing the gender justice policies that would make a difference. In practising countries, prohibition is increasingly recast as a foreign imposition on culture and faith. What unites these arguments is a shared sleight of hand that treats FGM as a question of cultural identity rather than a violation of fundamental human rights.

Elimination by 2030, the target that states set when they agreed the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, is already out of reach. But the evidence on what works is not in dispute, and it points towards communities and grassroots movements. The question is whether governments that claim to value human rights will keep supporting those delivering progress, or let a generation of girls pay the price of retreat.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Head of Research and Analysis, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report. She is also a Professor of Comparative Politics at Universidad ORT Uruguay.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

 

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Dominica's geothermal power plant. As Caribbean countries seek to reduce their dependence on imported fossil fuels, renewable energy remains a key pillar of the regional resilience agenda advanced by CARICOM leaders. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
GROS ISLET, Saint Lucia , Aug 3 2026 (IPS)

From wars that drive up fuel prices to supply chain disruptions, inflation and increasingly frequent climate disasters, Caribbean leaders say many of the forces shaping the region’s future lie beyond their control.

Their response, however, is not resignation.

Instead, leaders of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the region’s largest economic grouping, are pursuing a strategy built on strengthening the systems they believe they can influence, hoping to make one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable regions more resilient to external shocks. These include food and energy security, transportation, healthcare, artificial intelligence and regional trade.

At their recent summit in Saint Lucia, the leaders argued that CARICOM must be judged less by declarations than by whether regional cooperation improves people’s daily lives.

“Our discussions have been guided by one central objective, ensuring that CARICOM delivers results that people can see and feel in their everyday lives,” CARICOM Chairman and Saint Lucia Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre said as he outlined the meeting’s outcomes.

“Heads of government focused on the issues that matter most to the people of the region.”

Those priorities included the rising cost of living, food security, affordable transportation, disaster resilience and the challenge of building stronger economies in an uncertain global environment.

Leaders acknowledged that inflation in food, fuel, freight and electricity has largely been driven by global conflicts, supply chain disruptions and commodity price shocks, which small island economies have little ability to influence. While several governments have introduced temporary measures to cushion households, they argued that lasting relief will require deeper regional cooperation on transportation, consumer protection and trade.

“We will work together,” said Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, who leads CARICOM’s work on the Caribbean Single Market and Economy. “None of us is omniscient, none of us has all the answers, and none of us are omnipotent as well.”

One of the summit’s most tangible initiatives was renewed work toward an affordable intra-regional ferry service, long viewed as critical to reducing freight costs, improving travel and strengthening food security. Leaders said the proposal would begin with a proof of concept using existing ferry capacity while governments harmonise regulations governing licensing, insurance and vehicle movement across borders.

The initiative complements CARICOM’s “25 by 2025 Plus Five” programme, which aims to reduce the region’s food import bill by expanding agricultural production and strengthening regional supply chains. Leaders argued that producing and transporting more food within the Caribbean would make the region less vulnerable to global disruptions.

Energy security emerged as another defining theme.

Prime Minister Terrance Drew of St Kitts and Nevis said that the Caribbean’s greatest vulnerability is not a lack of energy resources but its continued dependence on imported fossil fuels.

“We don’t have an energy issue,” Drew said. “We have an energy-harnessing issue.”

Pointing to the region’s abundant solar, geothermal, wind and wave resources, Drew said renewable energy offers perhaps the greatest long-term opportunity to stabilise Caribbean economies, reduce electricity costs and improve living standards.

“There’s nothing that can really stabilise our economy, or transform our economy, or deal with this constant up and down, like stabilising our energy sources,” he said.

Recognising that technological change will also reshape the region’s future, CARICOM agreed to establish a regional Blue Ribbon Commission on Artificial Intelligence. Leaders said the commission will develop regional guidance on AI, helping member states capitalise on its benefits while managing risks around jobs, privacy and ethics.

Climate resilience also remained central to the discussions.

Leaders reaffirmed their commitment to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius while continuing to advocate internationally for the special circumstances of Small Island Developing States. They also advanced work on a regional insurance and reinsurance strategy aimed at improving financial protection for governments, businesses and households, as climate-related disasters become more frequent and more costly.

Historical justice remained firmly on the regional agenda. Leaders endorsed renewed efforts to advance CARICOM’s Ten-Point Plan for Reparatory Justice through closer engagement with the African Union, upcoming Commonwealth meetings and other international forums.

The agenda set in Gros Islet, Saint Lucia, has effectively set CARICOM’s agenda for the months ahead. From advancing ferry connectivity and renewable energy to strengthening food security, disaster resilience and artificial intelligence governance, the challenge now is implementation.

For Caribbean citizens, the measure of success will not be the number of declarations adopted but whether regional cooperation delivers tangible improvements in everyday life.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Excerpt:

Unable to influence wars, global fuel prices or supply chain disruptions, Caribbean leaders are focusing on strengthening the systems that will make the region more resilient.

By Daud Khan and Thomas McMahon
ROME / RICCIONE, Italy, Aug 3 2026 (IPS)

For the last few years, Artificial intelligence has been making increasingly intrusive demands for our attention.

It burst onto the scene like a child prodigy, enthralling us with feats of brilliance. With consummate ease, it removed drudgery from our tasks and began helping us achieve our personal and workplace objectives.

Daud Khan

But AI has now grown into an unruly adolescent. It is disrupting how we work and think; it is demanding constant attention; and it is distracting us from other important activities and tasks.

As is the case with adolescents, there have been calls to set rules and regulations on AI, applying appropriate limits on what AI can and cannot do. The aim being to allow us time to deal with its immediate impacts on, for example, the jobs market, on media and communication, and on its military use.

But would government imposed regulations solve the problem? The answer is no for several reasons.

Firstly, there is the siren call of easier access to vast stores of knowledge, top quality writing skills and polished images and infographics. It is hard to resist the temptation to delegate boring tasks to AI, such as drafting emails that respond to routine messages. From there it is a slippery slope towards AI writing our university or job applications, office memos, or manuals and instructional content. However, these are tasks that define who we are and how others perceive us. And this reliance on AI kills creativity, individuality and human relations – there is no longer a turn of phrase or a spelling mistake that makes the message special.

Thomas McMahon

Just ask yourself: would you rather get a handwritten note of appreciation from someone who works for you or who you supervise, where some words are illegible and the paper is smudged; or an email with perfect grammar that you know they are not capable of authoring?

Secondly, AI Psychosis is becoming a pervasive disruptor of social relations. AI models are purposely designed for “engagement farming” – a fancy term for hooking people into an ever-increasing reliance on these services. It achieves this through sycophantic responses that feed one’s ego or anxieties, releasing endorphins and creating a craving for more.

We can now access gratifying, yet wholly synthetic, social interactions at our fingertips via chatbots. Consequently, we risk crafting individualised reality bubbles that are unchecked by the social norms we experience in the real world. Will it become easier and more pleasurable to interact with an intelligent machine to fulfill our need to talk, to discuss books, or for emotional engagement without fear of rejection – at any time of day or night?

Thirdly, if we allow machines to shape our thoughts and emotions, we risk destroying diversity of opinion, crushing creativity and resulting in a unified, monolithic narrative that is controlled by the megacorporations providing these AI services.

Pope Leo XIV expressed this concern in his recent encyclical where he warned of “the idolatry of profit that sacrifices the weak, a uniformity that neutralizes differences, and the pretense that a single language — even a digital one — can translate everything, including the mystery of the person, into data and performance”.

Lastly, it is essential to consider how the mismanagement of AI has the potential to drive a further wedge between rich and poor populations. The Pope cautions us of being misled by “a technology that promises to free us from all weakness, and models of wellbeing that leave behind entire populations”.

Increased focus is being placed on the impact of data centers within local communities, given their inordinate usage of electricity and water and the constant noise pollution these facilities generate. At full capacity, processing a daily 10 billion Gigabytes of data, a 100 MW data center consumes up to 2.4 million KWh of electricity and 2 million litres of water per day – more than a small city.

The human brain can process 74 Gigabytes of data while sipping a tiny 0.3 KWh of electricity (260 calories or 12% of total daily energy intake). Our bodies require a daily ration of 2.5 litres of water to function normally. Contrast this with preparing a 100-word email using ChatGPT, where each prompt-and-response interaction consumes the water in a standard 500 ml bottle. Even from a strictly environmentally-conscious viewpoint, surely it would be better to use our brains for this instead?

However, whatever our concerns, the genie is out of the bottle and there is no going back – we must learn to use AI properly. We need to better understand its limitations and where it delivers greatest impact, given the resources required.

AI should not be seen as a substitute for human expertise but instead complementary to it. Indeed, the more expertise one has in any given field, the more valuable a contribution AI makes. Experts can better formulate more pertinent questions and redirect the conversation should the AI meander off course. Experts also detect errors more easily in what may appear to be perfectly valid responses.

It is essential that we encourage people, particularly our young people, to continue learning and perfecting their chosen crafts, ignoring the wild marketing claims that various professions have been largely solved by AI already. The more knowledge and expertise the younger generation can build, the more judiciously and selectively they can deploy AI in their work and for society’s future benefit.

Daud Khan is a retired UN staff based in Rome. He has degrees in economics from LSE and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar; and a degree in Environmental Management from Imperial College London.

Thomas McMahon is a Data Engineer who specialises in developing bespoke AI systems for UN agencies.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Rohingya refugees cross the Naf River on a makeshift raft while fleeing violence in Myanmar, on their way to Bangladesh. Credit: UNICEF/Mackenzie Knowles-Coursin

By Mohammad Zaman
VANCOUVER B.C., Canada, Aug 3 2026 (IPS)

The Rohingya crisis remains one of the most enduring humanitarian and political failures in South and Southeast Asia. Since the 2017 mass expulsion from Myanmar’s Rakhine State, Bangladesh has hosted more than one million refugees in Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Char, while Myanmar has failed to create conditions for safe return. What began as an emergency response has hardened into protracted displacement marked by statelessness, insecurity, aid dependency, and diplomatic fatigue. Repatriation is repeatedly presented as the preferred durable solution, yet every major attempt has failed because the core political question remains unresolved: the Rohingya cannot safely return to a state that denies them citizenship, protection, and equal belonging.

In 2017, only months after the largest influx, Bangladesh and Myanmar signed a bilateral Memorandum of Arrangement. It promised a time-bound repatriation process, but it was non-binding, weakly enforced, and silent on the guarantees most essential to return: citizenship, freedom of movement, property restitution, and independent monitoring inside Rakhine. Bangladesh, facing demographic, environmental, and political pressure, needed a pathway to reduce the burden of hosting refugees. Myanmar, by contrast, had incentives to delay, control, and symbolically manage the process without addressing the legal and security conditions that caused the exodus.

Three major repatriation efforts since 2017 reveal the same pattern. Attempts in 2018 and 2019 collapsed because refugees refused to return without credible guarantees of safety, citizenship, and dignity. A China-facilitated initiative in 2023 proposed a pilot return of several thousand people and arranged verification visits by Rohingya representatives to Rakhine. It also stalled. Cyclone damage, renewed fighting, and widening armed conflict made even limited returns impractical. More importantly, refugees remained unconvinced. Their reluctance was not resistance to return; it was a rational response to risk. Returning to fenced villages, transit camps, or controlled areas without rights would merely convert exile in Bangladesh into containment in Myanmar.

Dr Mohammad Zaman

These failures expose the central flaw in the repatriation agenda: it has prioritized the movement of people over the creation of a solution. Success cannot be measured by border crossings alone, but by whether returnees can live safely as citizens with restored rights, homes, livelihoods, and community security. For the Rohingya, Myanmar’s 1982 citizenship framework, restrictions on movement, communal segregation, and discriminatory administration remain decisive barriers. The 2021 military coup further weakened prospects for accountability and reform. Since then, Myanmar has fragmented into multiple conflict zones, and Rakhine has become a battlefield involving the military, the Arakan Army, and other armed actors. Bangladesh is therefore no longer dealing only with a reluctant state authority; it must navigate a shifting territorial reality in which non-state actors control or contest areas central to any return.

The political problem is both domestic and regional. Domestically, Myanmar’s state-building project has excluded the Rohingya by portraying them as outsiders rather than citizens. Without recognition of Rohingya identity and legal status, administrative repatriation will remain cosmetic. Regionally, the crisis is shaped by strategic interests. China has mediated because stability in Myanmar affects its investments and influence, but its diplomacy has emphasized state-to-state negotiation more than rights-based accountability. India has balanced humanitarian concern with security and geopolitical interests, while ASEAN has struggled to move beyond cautious consensus and non-interference. Western governments have condemned atrocities and supported accountability efforts, but sanctions and legal cases have not changed conditions on the ground. The result is a fragmented diplomatic landscape in which no actor has combined sufficient leverage, consistency, and political will to compel Myanmar toward a rights-based solution.

Bangladesh’s position is increasingly difficult. Its initial humanitarian generosity has become a long-term national burden. The camps place pressure on land, forests, water, public services, and local labour markets. Security concerns have grown as trafficking, armed activity, and criminal networks exploit a population with limited mobility, education, and livelihood opportunities. Declining humanitarian funding has deepened frustration: reduced food rations, health services, and education increase despair and encourage dangerous onward movement by sea to Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, where conditions are often insecure. Yet Bangladesh’s legitimate burden cannot justify premature repatriation. Any return must be voluntary, safe, rights-based, and dignified.

A critical analysis must also recognize the limits of humanitarianism. Aid keeps people alive, but it cannot resolve statelessness or political exclusion. The international response has often separated relief, justice, and diplomacy into disconnected tracks: humanitarian agencies sustain survival in Bangladesh; lawyers pursue accountability; diplomats negotiate repatriation frameworks; and development actors support host communities. Each track is necessary, but together they have not formed a coherent strategy. The Rohingya have too often been treated as beneficiaries rather than political stakeholders. A durable solution requires their participation in defining return conditions, monitoring mechanisms, citizenship pathways, education policy, and community security arrangements. The newly formed Rohingya Repatriation Committee has to address all of the above in finding a sustainable solution.

The road ahead must be realistic rather than rhetorical. Repatriation should remain the long-term objective, but only when it is safe, voluntary, dignified, and sustainable. This requires verifiable changes inside Rakhine: citizenship or a credible pathway to citizenship, freedom of movement, access to services, restoration or compensation for property, and protection from military, police, and armed-group abuse. Any future framework must include independent international monitoring with meaningful access to return areas. Diplomacy must also adapt to Myanmar’s altered conflict map by engaging relevant actors without legitimizing abuses or abandoning principles. Bangladesh will need pragmatic but principled engagement with the junta, the Arakan Army, regional powers, and international organizations.

Meanwhile, the camps in Bangladesh cannot remain waiting rooms for an indefinitely delayed return. Refugees need education, skills training, legal protection, and limited livelihood opportunities to prevent social deterioration and prepare for eventual reconstruction in Rakhine. These measures should not be framed as local integration against Bangladesh’s wishes, but as human-capital preservation and crisis management. International burden-sharing must become concrete: donors should sustain aid, expand resettlement for vulnerable cases, support host communities, and coordinate pressure on Myanmar. Accountability mechanisms should continue because impunity is one reason repatriation remains unsafe.

Ultimately, the Rohingya repatriation crisis is not a logistical failure but a political one. Buses, refugee lists, reception centres, and pilot projects cannot substitute for rights, security, and recognition. Bangladesh seeks relief, Myanmar seeks control, regional powers seek stability, and donors seek a manageable humanitarian file. The Rohingya seek what repatriation is supposed to mean: return to their homeland as citizens with dignity. Until diplomacy is anchored in that principle, repatriation attempts will continue to produce announcements without arrivals, agreements without trust, and roadmaps without roads. The way forward requires pressure, patience, and a shift from counting potential returnees to building the conditions under which return becomes a restoration of justice rather than an act of desperation.

Dr. Mohammad Zaman is an internationally recognized expert in resettlement and development. He has contributed many op-eds on the Rohingya crisis. Dr. Zaman’s recent edited book (co-editors Robert Anderson and Kawser Ahmed) is titled Rohingya Stories: History and Geopolitics in a Multipolar World (Springer, 2025).

IPS UN Bureau

 

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A container port in Bukit Merah, Singapore. Credit: Unsplash/CHUTTERSNAP

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 31 2026 (IPS)

East Asia and the Pacific’s (EAP) maritime system has powered the region’s rise as the world’s largest trading and manufacturing center, but the infrastructure supporting that system has become increasingly vulnerable.

According to a new World Bank report, EAP will require nearly USD 900 billion in maritime investment through 2040, as aging vessels, growing trade volumes, and the transition towards alternative fuels place pressure on vital shipping networks propping up the region’s rapid economic growth.

Container trade across the region is projected to grow by 3.5 percent to 4 percent annually over the next decade, meaning ports have to build the additional capacity to accommodate approximately 300 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) by 2040. The World Bank estimates that modernizing ports will require USD 180 billion through 2040, while more than USD 280 billion will be needed to replace and upgrade regional and domestic fleets.

Such investment comes as maritime transport remains a major contributor to economic activity across the region. Maritime trade in the region supports up to USD 3.7 trillion in economic activity, moving over 6 billion tons of cargo, approximately half of the entire seaborne cargo trade. For every ton of cargo moved through the region’s ports, approximately USD 155 in overall economic output is generated, alongside USD 75 in direct GDP. A ton of imported steel, for example, can become an input for manufacturers producing automobiles, machinery or construction materials, generating additional economic activity well beyond the initial movement of the cargo through the port.

EAP’s role in global maritime trade is particularly significant when looking at the countries that border the Strait of Malacca, where an estimated 38 percent of global maritime trade passed through in 2023, according to the OECD. More than 100,000 vessels transit the Strait of Malacca annually, making it the busiest maritime chokepoint globally, with more than twice the traffic of the Strait of Hormuz under normal conditions.

In Singapore, merchandise trade–the combined value of goods imported and exported– reached USD 964 billion in 2024, equivalent to approximately 179 percent of the country’s USD 540 billion GDP. Singapore’s ports simultaneously handled approximately 41 million TEUs of container traffic, and processed 295 million tons of seaborne trade, making it the second busiest container port in the world. In neighboring Malaysia, merchandise trade reached approximately USD 631 billion, equivalent to nearly 150 percent of its USD 422 billion GDP, while its ports handled another 28 million TEUs, processing 447 million tons of seaborne trade, with Port Klang, Malaysia’s main port, being the 10th-busiest port in the world. Indonesia processed the greatest volume of the three nations, at 900 million tons.

China demonstrates the scale at which the region’s largest ports are already operating, and how investment in automation and digital infrastructure can increase their capacity. The Port of Shanghai became the first in the world to handle more than 50 million TEUs in 2024, while its newest automated terminals require approximately 70 percent less labor while achieving 30 percent higher productivity. Container vessels spend an average of only 1 to 1.2 days at Chinese ports, compared with the Port of Los Angeles where container vessels spend an average of two days. For reference, six of the top 10 busiest ports in the world are located in China, demonstrating its role in global maritime connectivity.

Beyond the direct costs of port operations, ships can spend up to 9 percent of their time waiting at anchorage. These delays can leave vessels with less time to complete subsequent legs of a voyage, encouraging higher sailing speeds and increasing fuel consumption and operating costs. An IMO-backed study found that optimizing container-ship speeds around expected port arrival times could reduce average fuel consumption by approximately 14 percent per voyage. Greater predictability and faster turnaround can therefore allow ports and vessels to move cargo more efficiently while reducing fuel costs and emissions—an increasingly important advantage as EAP prepares to accommodate an additional 300 million TEUs by 2040.

While premier global ports require significant investments in automation and new technology to increase efficiency and expand potential TEU throughput, smaller ports can achieve substantial results through simpler, less capital-intensive infrastructure improvements.

At the Port of Funafuti in Tuvalu, improvements as basic as paving cargo-handling areas and improving drainage reduced cargo-handling breakdowns by 80 percent and cut average vessel turnaround from seven days to between two and three days. These gains show that the approach to modernizing ports in the region is not uniform. Some ports will require more advanced technology and higher investment while others simply need to revitalize their existing systems, in accordance with the volume of cargo their ports already receive.

Modernizing ports, however, addresses only one side of the region’s maritime infrastructure challenge. The vessels docking at ports are themselves aging. Replacing and upgrading vessels operating within and between economies across EAP will require more than USD 280 billion through 2040. Of that total, approximately USD 150 billion will be needed to renew domestic fleets and another USD 97 billion to replace regional vessels, with dual-fuel capability adding USD 36.5 billion in additional costs.

The investment is not solely about expanding capacity. Significant portions of the region’s fleets are already more than 25 years old, making vessels more expensive to maintain, less fuel efficient and more susceptible to breakdowns and accidents. The World Bank estimates that replacing just 30 percent of domestic vessels by 2035 with ships meeting international standards could cut accident rates in half.

The reliability of these vessels also carries consequences beyond the shipping industry, particularly for the region’s archipelagic economies. In the Philippines, 98 percent of inter-island trade in food, fuel, and other goods depends on domestic shipping. Across Southeast Asia in general, maritime networks are critical to regional food trade, with rice shipments alone supplying more than 60 million people across EAP.

Disruptions caused by aging or unreliable vessels can therefore extend beyond higher costs for shipping companies, affecting the movement and price of essential goods in communities dependent on maritime transport.

Yet the largest individual component of the region’s maritime investment requirement lies not in ports or vessels, but in the fuels that will power them.

Developing supply chains for alternative marine fuels could require approximately USD 433 billion through 2040. Green ammonia alone could require approximately USD 310 billion, followed by USD 81 billion for green methanol and USD 42 billion for renewable liquefied natural gas (LNG).

The scale of the required investment reflects how early the transition remains. More than 99 percent of marine fuel consumed in 2025 was still conventional fuel, while fuel accounts for approximately 40 to 60 percent of vessel operating costs, according to the report.

Transitioning away from those fuels requires more than replacing engines. New fuels must be produced, transported, stored, and ultimately supplied to vessels through new bunkering infrastructure at ports, effectively requiring the development of new maritime energy supply chains alongside the existing system.

The transition also presents a coordination challenge. Shipowners have limited incentive to pay premiums for dual-fuel vessels without confidence that alternative fuels will be widely available, while ports and fuel producers face similar uncertainty about investing in bunkering and production infrastructure without sufficient demand. The World Bank argues that predictable regulation and coordinated investment will be necessary to develop vessels, fuel production and port infrastructure simultaneously.

The nearly USD 900 billion investment requirement ultimately extends across every link of the maritime system. Ports will have to accommodate hundreds of millions of additional containers through a combination of new capacity, automation and basic infrastructure improvements, while aging domestic and regional fleets will require replacement on a massive scale. At the same time, the transition toward alternative fuels will require not only new vessels, but the development of entirely new production, storage, transport and bunkering networks.

Financing this maritime venture through 2040 is not the only challenge. The investment must be coordinated across ports, vessels, and fuel supply chains so that each leg of the network can develop alongside others, matching the volume of cargo that moves through rapidly growing region.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By CIVICUS
Jul 31 2026 (IPS)

 
CIVICUS discusses disinformation campaigns targeting the LGBTQI+ community in Armenia with Hripsime Kizogyan, Executive Director of Pink Armenia, a community-based organisation that defends the human rights of LGBTQI+ people and advocates for policy change.

Hripsime Kizogyan

Ahead of Armenia’s recent parliamentary election, a coordinated online campaign tried to portray Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government as secretly backing the LGBTQI+ community. The campaign spread AI-generated images showing Pashinyan at a Pride event that never happened and falsely claimed Pink Armenia was behind the event, as part of a wider effort to present LGBTQI+ organisations as vehicles for foreign agendas. Campaigns such as these help drive hostility against LGBTQI+ people.

What was the fake Pride campaign about?

In late January, online stories started appearing that claimed that Armenia’s first LGBTQI+ Pride march would take place in the capital, Yerevan, on 7 April, supported by our organisation and personally led by Nikol Pashinyan. The date was no accident, because 7 April is a religious holiday and Mother’s Day in Armenia.

None of it was true. The stories first appeared on a brand-new website that had been created only 11 days earlier. It used an AI-generated image of Pashinyan and disappeared shortly after. But the damage was done. Georgian and Turkish media outlets and dozens of Facebook and Twitter/X accounts had already picked up the story.

The same false campaign came back in April, this time amplified by pro-Kremlin Telegram channels and Russian outlets. It came with two new claims, both equally false: that Pink Armenia helped write same-sex marriage into a supposedly leaked new draft of the Armenian constitution, and that we’re funded by the US Agency for International Development. We denied this publicly, but by then the story had travelled.

The fake Pride story was just one piece of a much bigger campaign against our organisation and, more broadly, against LGBTQI+ people. A fake account impersonating Pink Armenia on Twitter/X managed to buy a verification checkmark before being suspended. Someone also set up a lookalike domain and sent emails in the name of our former president, telling schools that an LGBTQI+ curriculum would be introduced in 2027.

We also know that foreign bloggers were approached and offered paid trips to Yerevan to publicly urge Pashinyan to ‘support Pride’ as a show of solidarity with Europe. Someone pasted images of same-sex couples on walls in Yerevan, then photographed them as ‘evidence’ of activism that wasn’t happening.

What was the campaign trying to achieve?

Whoever was behind the fake Pride campaign wanted two things: to provoke fear and hostility towards LGBTQI+ people and to damage the government and its pro-European course by association. The false claims reinforced a familiar storyline in which European integration will bring the imposition of ‘foreign values’ and LGBTQI+ rights are the leading edge of that imposition.

This rhetoric didn’t come out of nowhere. Across the region, anti-LGBTQI+ discourse is increasingly tied to anti-democratic narratives, attacks on civil society and conspiracy theories that portray human rights organisations as foreign agents and threats to national identity. The same thing happened in Moldova and elsewhere in the region, with LGBTQI+ rights used to split the electorate ahead of a vote.

Although Armenia isn’t like neighbouring countries where anti-LGBTQI+ campaigns are written into state policy, the election showed our community being used when politically convenient. That kind of rhetoric makes the public environment hostile, legitimises discrimination and creates conditions in which hate speech and violence become more socially acceptable.

What has changed, and what hasn’t, for LGBTQI+ rights in Armenia?

Some things have improved. Earlier this year, Pink Armenia was formally included in public advisory councils at the health, internal affairs, justice, and labour and social affairs ministries. This means we can now raise issues directly with them.

But the law hasn’t changed. Armenia still hasn’t recognised same-sex partnerships. There’s no anti-discrimination protection covering sexual orientation and gender identity in most areas of life. When someone is the victim of a hate crime just for being LGBTQI+, that still doesn’t count as an aggravating factor.

Social attitudes are the other barrier. LGBTQI+ people still face discrimination in education, employment, family settings and healthcare. Being open about who you are still carries a risk, so many people hide it or leave Armenia in search of safety.

How is Pink Armenia countering disinformation?

We monitor media and social media systematically, documenting disinformation and hate speech targeting LGBTQI+ people and tracking the politicians and outlets pushing it. This gives us the evidence to respond publicly, take issues to policymakers and, when needed, go to court.

When false claims about us circulate, we answer them directly. We issue public clarifications and work with independent fact-checkers such as the Fact Investigation Platform and Media.am.

On digital security, we report impersonating accounts and fraudulent lookalike domains so they get taken down, and we warn partner institutions such as schools when fake messages go out in our name.

What support does Armenian civil society need?

We need stronger international cooperation to deal with disinformation networks that operate across borders to spread anti-gender narratives. Sharing of advocacy strategies, best practices, digital security expertise and research would strengthen civil society across the region.

We also need long-term support, not just project funding that responds to one crisis at a time. We need funds that are sustainable and flexible enough to keep our services running while we react quickly to disinformation campaigns and security threats.

International partners can do something else too: keep raising discrimination, hate speech and attacks on civil society in their diplomatic conversations with Armenian authorities. Public attention and international scrutiny make it harder to treat these issues as optional.

Ultimately, supporting LGBTQI+ rights in Armenia isn’t only about one community. It’s about defending democratic values, protecting civic space and making sure no group is excluded from human rights because it has become a politically convenient target.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

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SEE ALSO
Armenia: ‘Foreign interference was real and documented, but its impact is hard to measure’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Samvel Martirosyan 16.Jul.2026
Armenia’s westward turn overshadowed by personal rule CIVICUS Lens 18.Jun.2026
Armenia/Azerbaijan: ‘Civil society has an essential role in preparing societies for peace’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Konul De Moor 19.Sep.2025

 

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Images of the Pentagon, Washington DC. Credit: Kevin Doyle / Unsplash

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 31 2026 (IPS)

An age-old axiom in Statistics reads : Figures Cannot Lie, But Liars Can Figure.

And more so, in military conflicts, including the five-month-old US-Iran war, where casualty figures are difficult to track down because of lack of transparency and false accounting.

According to CNN, the Pentagon updated its war casualty database last week, recording more than 140 additionally wounded, and restoring the four soldiers killed due to Iranian strikes amid questions about a lack of transparency over the war’s toll.

The Pentagon drew scrutiny from media outlets and lawmakers last week when the number of US troops killed and wounded decreased in the Defense Casualty Analysis System, or DCAS, as Iranian attacks continued. CNN observed fluctuating casualty totals when monitoring the site on a minute-by-minute basis last week.

Pentagon updates Iran war casualty count to 624, restoring 4 deaths to tally, CNN’s Davis Winkie reports on why casualty numbers decreased & were later revised.

The Iranian government, not surprisingly, hasn’t provided any casualty figures at all.

In a bygone era, the United States reportedly suffered 58,281 military deaths in the Vietnam War and 2,459 military deaths during the war in Afghanistan.

The exact breakdown of total casualties—including deaths and those wounded in action (WIA)—differs significantly between the two conflicts:

Stephen Zunes, a professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco specializing in Middle Eastern politics, told Inter Press Service (IPS) many thousands of Iranians, Lebanese, and others have been killed as a result of the U.S. war on Iran but Americans–as in previous wars–tend to focus on U.S. casualties. Though they have thankfully been limited, the eighteen fatalities and more than 600 wounded–some of them seriously–have become a major focus of war opponents.

Trump has tried to downplay and manipulate these figures by comparing the casualties with other U.S. wars which included significant ground operations, claiming without evidence that the dead soldiers strongly supported the war, and undercounting those wounded by initially only listing those with severe injuries, said Zunes.

More recently, he pointed out, the administration was caught placing those killed and wounded, subsequent to the collapse of the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran, in a separate category than those killed and wounded during the first phase of the war, thereby lessening the overall total.

“Such efforts are only strengthening antiwar sentiment in Washington and elsewhere, adding to the upset by veterans and others over Trump’s draft dodging during the Vietnam War and his insults of those who fought in unpopular conflicts, including war heroes”.

During his 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton, and to a somewhat lesser extent in his 2024 campaign against Kamala Harris, he portrayed himself as the antiwar candidate who opposed Democrats’ “forever wars” and who as a president would “bring our troops home.” As U.S. casualties in the Middle East mount, his credibility will only be eroded further, declared Zunes.

Meanwhile, a group of Democratic Senators sent a letter last week to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth requesting a “comprehensive accounting” about the number of service members wounded or killed.”

The Senators wrote: “First, we wish to honor the service members who have lost their lives in Operation Epic Fury and extend our deepest condolences to their families. We thank all those who continue to serve in harm’s way. Their sacrifice is why we write to express our concern regarding the Department of Defense’s (DoD or the Department) public reporting and statements on U.S. military casualties associated with Operation Epic Fury.

We formally request a comprehensive accounting of the number of service members who have been killed, wounded, or injured in support of the operation. The American people, Congress, service members, and their families are entitled to a full and accurate accounting of the human costs of war. The information currently available to the public suggests that the Department has not consistently provided timely and comprehensive public casualty reporting throughout the conflict.

The Pentagon’s Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS), which the Department has described as being “regularly updated,” has reported inconsistent casualty figures, raising additional questions about the transparency and reliability of the Department’s public reporting and statement.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By Shuli Wong
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 30 2026 (IPS)

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is battling the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record, with United Nations officials warning that hunger is actively undermining efforts to contain the spread.

“Ebola feeds on delay, fear and hunger,” said Carl Skau, acting director of the World Food Programme (WFP) on Wednesday, July 29.

The current outbreak, declared on May 15th and caused by the Bundibugyo species of Ebola, is the third largest outbreak ever recorded, said Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, Executive Director of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Health Emergencies Programme. The outbreak in the DRC is reaching unprecedented levels, Dr. Ihekweazu noted. “Over the last few days, we’ve seen some of the highest numbers of new infections in a single day.”

As of July 29th, the DRC outbreak has reached over 3,200 cases, with the virus spreading to 48 health zones across five provinces in eastern DRC. Unfortunately, WHO’s modeling has indicated that the true scale of the outbreak could be two to four times higher than the reported cases. Furthermore, 80 percent of new cases are coming from unknown chains of transmission, and many newly reported deaths are from people who never reached a health care facility or received care.

Julien Harneis, the UN’s Senior Ebola Coordinator, discussed how a critical driver for Ebola transmission is the fact that people are dying in their communities rather than in the care of a hospital or treatment center.

“Roughly 60 percent of deaths are occurring in the community, at the point when viral load — and risk to caregivers — is highest,” said Mr. Harneis.

WHO officials have mirrored this concern, calling deaths that occur outside of health facilities “the most alarming finding.” While there is no approved treatment for the Bundibugyo species of Ebola, the chances of survival are significantly higher with early supportive care.

On top of the outbreak is a severe hunger crisis that is exacerbating the impact and spread of Ebola. Across eastern DRC, nearly 10 million people are facing crisis- or emergency-level hunger. Ituri, the epicenter of the outbreak, is also the DRC’s most severe hunger hotspot, with 1.9 million people at crisis levels of food insecurity or worse. Mr. Skau emphasized how “food assistance is frontline Ebola containment. It helps families stay home, supports safe isolation, builds trust with communities and keeps health teams moving.”

The WFP has already delivered more than 160,000 hot meals to patients and frontline workers across 17 treatment and isolation centers. Dry food rations have been provided to 23,000 people, including 14,000 under quarantine, and an additional 36,000 people in Ebola-affected zones have been provided general food assistance. While discussing WFP’s work, Mr. Skau stressed how food logistics support is central to containing the outbreak. “You cannot force people to choose between hunger and health,” he said.

However, funding to tackle the interconnected hunger and Ebola crisis remains critically underfunded. WFP needs USD 293.6 million over the next six months to sustain all operations in DRC, including $76 million for the regional Ebola responses and $50 million for food and nutrition assistance.

“$76 million is the ask and that’s frankly just peanuts, if you look at the bigger scheme of things,” said Mr. Skau. Furthermore, while WFP’s logistics have been somewhat funded, the food element has received no funding. Mr. Skau emphasized, “if you want to be effective, you need to have an all rounded response. It’s not only the health response that is needed to be able to contain that.” Mr. Harneis added that in addition to the food assistance needed, the broader $1 billion Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan is only 45 percent funded.

WHO and WFP officials are urging the international community not to lose focus, as Dr. Ihekweazu warned: “now is not the time to drop the ball.” Mr. Harneis and Mr. Skau called for further action and to “scale up the Ebola response, three, four, five times of what we are doing now.”

Mr. Skau linked the urgent funding need to a broader appeal for political attention, describing the DRC as “exhausted from years of conflict, from repeated displacement, from crisis after crisis after crisis.” He argued that ending the outbreak will require more than just medical and food assistance: “We need peace, we need security…for all of this, we need funding…the funding that is coming here is far from enough and we need political attention.” In the weeks ahead, a rapid increase in funding and political will is needed to change the outbreak’s trajectory.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Josephine Sembeyo (in blue) competes during Kenya's World Athletics Under-20 trials in May, where she qualified for the World Athletics Under-20 Championships in Oregon. Credit: Robert Kibet/IPS

By Robert Kibet
OLOITOKTOK, Kenya, Jul 30 2026 (IPS)

Before sunrise each morning, 19-year-old Josephine Sembeyo joins dozens of teenage runners leaving Magnolia Athletics Camp for training beneath the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro.

The quiet morning air is broken only by the rhythm of footsteps along the dusty roads that have shaped generations of Kenyan distance runners.

But for Sembeyo, every kilometre represents far more than preparation for the 2026 World Athletics Under-20 Championships, where she will represent Kenya in the 1,500 metres.

Running has given her a chance she once feared might never come: to complete her education, support her family and make choices about her own future.

“Life hasn’t been easy for us. My father married a second wife and left my mother to raise us on her own. Seeing everything my mother has gone through motivates me every day. I want to succeed in athletics and education so that one day I can support her and my siblings and give them a better life,” Sembeyo says.

Girls from Magnolia Athletics Camp during a daily road training session in Oloitokitok, Kenya. Credit: Robert Kibet/IPS

A Camp Creating New Possibilities

Sembeyo is among 45 girls from pastoralist communities living and training at Magnolia Athletics Camp in Oloitokitok, near Kenya’s border with Tanzania.

The camp provides full scholarships covering education, accommodation, meals, athletics training and safeguarding support.

For many of the girls, athletics is not only about competition. It has become a pathway to education, confidence and opportunities that might otherwise remain out of reach.

The girls’ journey comes as they mark the International Day for Women and Girls of African Descent on July 25, a day that recognises the contributions, resilience and experiences of women and girls of African descent while highlighting the need to address discrimination and inequality.

For girls growing up in marginalised communities, access to education, safe spaces and opportunities can be a powerful tool for breaking cycles of poverty and exclusion.

Coach Andrew Lesuuda says Magnolia was created not only to identify talented runners but also to give girls a safe environment where they can develop academically and personally.

“When we started Magnolia Athletics Camp, our vision was not only to identify talented runners. We wanted to create an environment where girls could discover their potential, stay in school and believe that they can achieve more in life,” Lesuuda says.

“Athletics gives them an opportunity to dream, but education gives them the foundation to build a future beyond sport.”

Sports Against Early Marriage and FGM

Many of the girls joining Magnolia come from communities where opportunities for girls remain limited and where some continue to face risks linked to female genital mutilation (FGM) and child marriage.

According to UNICEF, more than 230 million girls and women alive today have undergone FGM. The United Nations says progress towards ending the practice remains too slow to meet the Sustainable Development Goal target of eliminating FGM and child marriage by 2030.

Kenya outlawed FGM in 2011 and has made progress through legislation and awareness campaigns, but the practice continues in some communities, particularly among sections of pastoralist populations.

The struggles facing girls in vulnerable communities are part of a wider global challenge.

Sarah Hendriks, a UN Women spokesperson, in a recent press conference said no country in the world has achieved full legal equality between women and men, leaving millions of girls exposed to harmful practices and unequal opportunities.

“No country in the world has achieved full legal equality between women and men. More than half of the world’s countries do not actually define rape by law on the basis of consent. Nearly three-quarters — 74% of the world’s countries — still allow child marriage by law, allowing girls to be married as children,” Hendriks said.

At Magnolia, athletics has become a tool for changing that reality by keeping girls in school and giving them opportunities beyond traditional expectations.

A Second Chance Through Running

Before joining Magnolia, Sembeyo feared her education could end early and that she might face an early marriage.

Today, she believes the camp has transformed her future.

“Had it not been for Magnolia Athletics Camp, I believe my life would have been very different. I was at risk of an early and forced marriage, but coming here gave me the chance to stay in school, train and dream about a better future. Today, I’m happy because I know my life has a direction,” she says.

Her daily routine starts before sunrise with training, followed by school and another athletics session in the afternoon before homework in the evening.

“Every morning when I train, I remind myself why I’m doing it. I know every session brings me closer to my dream and gives me another opportunity to change my family’s life,” she says.

When Climate Change Threatens Dreams

Sembeyo is joined at Magnolia by Jeska Lenawatop, a 1,500-metre runner from Lkuroto village in Samburu County, a pastoralist region in northern Kenya.

Before joining the camp, Jeska’s life revolved around helping her family care for goats and sheep, the main source of livelihood for many pastoral households.

But recurring droughts have devastated livestock and deepened economic hardship for communities that depend on animals for survival.

“Before Magnolia, my life was mainly about grazing goats and sheep. With droughts destroying livestock, our family’s main source of income, I had little hope for the future. This camp gave me a chance to stay in school and pursue my dreams,” Jeska says.

Through athletics and education, Jeska now sees a future beyond the challenges facing her community.

Building Confidence Through Education

Another athlete benefiting from Magnolia is Felister Naimutie, a 400 m and 800 m runner from Lolgorian village in Kilgoris.

She says drought and limited opportunities affected many girls growing up in her community.

“Growing up, I saw how drought affected our families and made life difficult. Many girls had few choices beyond pastoral duties and early marriage. Magnolia gave me hope through education and athletics,” Felister says.

For her, the camp represents more than a training facility. It is a place where she can continue learning while pursuing her sporting ambitions.

Beyond the Finish Line

Barnaba Korir, Athletics Kenya’s Youth Development Director, says community-based programmes, such as Magnolia, complement national efforts to identify young talent while ensuring athletes remain in school.

He says sport can build confidence, leadership and opportunities for young people.

At Magnolia, parents, teachers, community leaders and anti-FGM advocates also engage with families to promote girls’ education and challenge harmful practices.

As another training session ends beneath Mount Kilimanjaro, the girls jog back to camp laughing and encouraging one another.

For Sembeyo, the finish line is no longer defined only by medals.

Her selection to represent Kenya at the World Athletics Under-20 Championships has strengthened her belief that athletics can transform not only her life but also those of her family.

“Being selected to represent Kenya at the World Under-20 Championships means everything to me. It’s proof that hard work pays off, and I believe it is opening opportunities that can change my life. I want to make my family proud and show other girls that they should never give up on their dreams,” she says.

One day, she hopes to stand on an international podium wearing Kenya’s colours.

But her greatest ambition goes beyond medals.

“I want girls from communities like mine to know that education and sport can change their lives. If someone believes in you and gives you an opportunity, you can achieve your dreams. My dream is not only to win medals for Kenya but also to make sure my mother and my siblings have a better life,” Sembeyo says.

Perhaps Magnolia’s greatest achievement will not be measured by medals but by the number of girls who leave the camp with education, confidence and the freedom to choose the futures they want.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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An expert panel segment during the Fifty-eighth session of the Economic Commission for Africa Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, held from 28 March to 3 April 2026 in Tangier, Morocco. Credit: UNECA

By United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, Jul 30 2026 (IPS)

Africa’s digital revolution is gathering pace, but the financing needed to sustain it remains uneven, fragmented, and often out of reach.

To bridge this gap, African multilateral financial institutions, policymakers, development partners, and private sector leaders are calling for a more coordinated, innovative, and better-structured financing approach to support Africa’s digital and technological transformation.

That was the central message from policymakers, financiers and development partners who convened on the sidelines of the 58th session of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, held in Morocco in April 2026.

Their conclusion was clear: Africa does not lack capital—it lacks the right kind of capital, deployed in the right way.

From artificial intelligence to digital infrastructure, the continent’s innovation sectors are expanding rapidly. Yet, access to affordable, long-term financing remains a major bottleneck, constraining growth and limiting impact.

Hanan Morsy, UN ECA’s Deputy Executive Secretary and Chief Economist

“Africa’s innovation challenge is not a shortage of ideas,” said Hanan Morsy, UN ECA’s Deputy Executive Secretary and Chief Economist, “It is a shortage of long-term, affordable, and well-structured financing.”

That gap, experts say, is holding back productivity gains, job creation and broader economic transformation.

Capital vs opportunity

Africa’s financial landscape is not devoid of resources. In fact, speakers at the event repeatedly emphasized a paradox: capital exists, but it is not flowing into innovation-driven sectors at the required scale.

According to Haytham Elmaayergi of the African Export-Import Bank, one of the continent’s leading multilateral lenders, the issue lies in the pipeline of viable investments.

“One of Africa’s key challenges is not a lack of capital, but a shortage of bankable projects and stronger institutional collaboration to scale investment,” he said, pointing to weak project preparation and limited institutional coordination as key constraints.

This disconnect is further compounded by high borrowing costs, currency volatility, and insufficient mechanisms to share risk—factors that deter both public and private investment.

For early-stage innovators, the challenge is even more acute. Venture financing remains thin, and traditional lenders are often reluctant to support projects perceived as high-risk.

“In the technology space, risk is harder to structure,” said Adeniran Aderogba, head of the Regional Maritime Development Bank, “we need more creative financing models and dedicated funds to support early-stage innovation.”

Africa’s innovation challenge is not a shortage of ideas. It is a shortage of long-term, affordable, and well-structured financing.

Rethinking how Africa finances innovation

Participants agreed that solving these challenges will require a shift away from traditional financing approaches toward more flexible, blended models.

Blended finance—combining public and private capital, guarantees and technical support—was highlighted as a critical tool to reduce risk and attract investment into emerging sectors. Co-financing arrangements and tailored instruments that reflect the unique risk-return profile of digital investments are also gaining traction.

But financing alone is not enough.

“Technology and innovation go beyond digital,” noted Robert Lisinge of UNECA. “We are talking about a broader ecosystem—including infrastructure, energy, and emerging technologies.”

This broader lens underscores the need for complementary investments in enabling systems: reliable electricity, robust connectivity, and supportive regulatory frameworks. Without these, even well-financed projects struggle to scale.

The role of African institutions

At the center of the conversation was the growing importance of African-led financial institutions in shaping the continent’s development trajectory.

The Alliance of African Multilateral Financial Institutions—also known as the Africa Club—has emerged as a key platform for coordination. Established in 2024, the alliance brings together major African financial institutions with a combined balance sheet exceeding $70 billion.

Its members—including Afreximbank, the Africa Finance Corporation, and the Trade and Development Bank—are increasingly seen as critical players in mobilizing capital for large-scale development projects.

By strengthening collaboration among these institutions, participants said, Africa can better align financing with its strategic priorities and reduce reliance on external funding models that may not fully reflect local realities.

From dialogue to delivery

The Tangier discussions ended with a strong call for action: move beyond diagnosis and toward implementation.

Key priorities include reducing the cost of capital, expanding risk-sharing mechanisms, improving project preparation, and mobilizing long-term funding at scale. Equally important is strengthening collaboration among governments, financial institutions and development partners.

For Africa’s digital transformation to deliver on its promise, participants agreed, financing must become more coordinated, more innovative—and more responsive to the continent’s realities.

The stakes are high. With one of the world’s youngest populations and a rapidly expanding digital economy, Africa has a unique opportunity to leapfrog traditional development pathways.

But as the Tangier meeting made clear, realizing that potential will depend not just on how much money is available—but on how effectively it is used.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Time and again, evidence has shown that proactive investments in anticipatory action, preparedness and mitigation can reduce the negative impacts of extreme weather events while minimizing economic losses. Credit: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS

By Esther Ngumbi
URBANA, Illinois, US, Jul 29 2026 (IPS)

Recently, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations put out an alert, warning countries around the world about an impending new El Niño  phase that is expected to significantly increase the likelihood of drought, heat waves, storms, and flooding and pose major risks to agriculture across multiple regions.

But this is not surprising, as in recent years, including 2026, droughts, storms, tornadoes, heat waves, and flooding have become increasingly frequent and severe.

These erratic and extreme weather events have resulted in the loss of lives, caused billions of dollars in damage to infrastructure, while inflicting devastating consequenses to crop production, food security, and agriculture, a sector that supports millions of livelihoods, provides employment, and contributes significantly to national economies in both the United States and globally.

Countries need to invest in developing anticipatory action plans, strengthen early warning and forecasting systems, and equip citizens and at-risk communities with practical solutions and mitigation strategies they can implement before these catastrophic weather events happen

The question then becomes, how can countries including the United States best prepare for these devastating extreme weather events that have such negative impacts on agriculture and food security?

First and foremost, countries need to invest in developing anticipatory action plans, strengthen early warning and forecasting systems, and equip citizens and at-risk communities with practical solutions and mitigation strategies they can implement before these catastrophic weather events happen.

Doing so is a win–win for everyone. Time and again, evidence has shown that proactive investments in anticipatory action plans, preparedness and mitigation reduce extreme weather events negative impacts while minimizing economic losses.

Complementing these forecasting systems would be the need for countries to develop national preparedness plans with the goal to protect food and agricultural supply chains from production through to consumption, before, during, and after extreme weather events.

Countries should also promote a culture of preparedness by encouraging its citizens, farmers, and other stakeholders in the agriculture sector to take anticipatory action before weather events happen. For example, in 2025, the United States Department of Agriculture encouraged producers to prepare for the hurricane season.

Taking anticipatory actions by farmers and other stakeholders in the agriculture sector can vary depending on resources and expected weather events. For example, if heatwaves and droughts are forecast, farmers can take anticipatory measures including planting drought tolerant crop varieties and using other innovative drought solutions. When flooding is expected, farmers can plant flooding tolerant varieties.

In parallel and beyond preparedness, countries must encourage farmers to adopt regenerative agriculture practices including cover cropping, reduced till and no till farming, crop rotations, pest management conservation system, mixed cropping and other soil health building strategies.

Collectively, these practices enhance soil health, improve water retention and ultimately strengthen agricultural crops’ ability to withstand heatwaves, drought, flooding and other extreme weather events.

Notably, agricultural research continues to reveal other effective approaches including harnessing beneficial soil microbes to improve crop production while strengthening plant resillience to droughts and other biotic and abiotic stressors.

Importantly, there is a continued need to invest in research and development. To stay ahead of the increasing weather events and their devastating impacts on agriculture, countries must continue to invest in science by funding research. Sadly, many countries continue to cut the federal budgets allocated for research and development beginning with the United States. This needs to change.

When scientists are funded and investments are made, researchers can continue to research not only the impacts of these weather events but also potential innovative solutions to address these challenges.

Alongside investing in research there is the need to invest in extension. Extension is the arm that allows for the last mile of research to be effective, since extension people work with communities to transfer research and to share the research discoveries.

Agricultural extension work with farmers to provide advice throughout the growing season suggesting changes and strategies farmers should take to ensure that crops survive the weather brought about challenges.

Finally, continued collaboration across sectors and countries is necessary to confront weather associated challenges impacting agriculture.

This includes forging creative partnerships that engage governments, federal and state funding agencies, research institutions and researchers in both public and private institutions, universities, growers, extension experts and agents, NGO’s and philanthropists.

Coordinated collaborations will go a long way to ensure that extreme weather events have minimal impacts on agriculture and food security.

At a time when unpredictable extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and severe, investing in developing anticipatory plans, early warning and forecasting systems, as well as developing preparedness plans and creative and innovative ways to disseminate available information, solutions and strategies to growers will go a long way in improving agricultural productivity while strengthening our ability to sustainably grow crops and meet our food security needs both today and in the years to come.

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

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 29 2026 (IPS)

Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (Republican of Kansas) rose to public attention in the 1950s with his allegations that hundreds of “Communists” had infiltrated the State Department and other federal agencies.

Fast forward to 1971.

Addressing a class of post-graduate students at the Columbia University’s School of Journalism in 1971, one of the Professors was explaining the red-baiting that took place during the late 1950’s when Senator McCarthy, in his crusade against Communism, led a series of investigations and Congressional hearings to reveal—imaginary or real—of Communist infiltration into the US government.

There was hysterical paranoia about “reds” and “Communists” in the deep state. The slogan was “Reds under the Beds”.

The extent of McCarthyism was evident, he said recounting an anecdote, when there were two groups of demonstrators – the pro Communists and anti- Communists—staging protests and counter protests in Times Square in the heart of New York city

The word “Communism” was dreaded—but perhaps only anti-Communists were tolerated during the witch hunt under McCarthyism.

When the demonstrations got unruly, the cops dragged some of the protestors from the streets and bodily threw them into Police vans (called paddy wagons) when one of them pleaded: “I am anti-Communist. I am anti-Communist”.

And the cop shouted back: “I don’t care what goddam brand of Communist you are”.

Meanwhile, when Zohran Mamdani was elected the 112th mayor of New York City last November, he was the city’s first Muslim and South Asian American mayor, and at 34, its youngest leader in over a century.

But Mamdani, who describes himself as a “democratic socialist” has been repeatedly accused of being a “communist” by political opponents, most notably President Donald Trump and conservative media commentators.

The mayor has been dismissed by Trump and various Republicans as a “100% Communist lunatic” during and after the mayoral race, to criticize his left-wing platform.

But with more democratic socialists being elected at two House primaries and a fistful of legislative races, the communist label has been viciously used against all “socialists”—and may be used by Republicans against Democrats ahead of the mid-term elections.

Which triggers the question: is this the beginning of a new McCarthyism era, which was rooted in the 1950s?

James E. Jennings, President of Conscience International, told Inter Press Service (IPS): Donald Trump has taken advantage of the ignorance of his MAGA followers to gain and hold power for a corrupt class of Billionaires.

He has succeeded by altering the meaning of words to suit his purposes and using them as weapons, a political skill as old as time. Now, he is throwing the word “Communist” at his Social Democrat and Democratic Socialist opponents who are not at all Communists. All these niceties are lost on his supporters.

“Communism insists on state ownership of property. Social Democrats advocate government regulation of the marketplace and property rights for the benefit of all, while Democratic Socialism takes this a step further, urging the abolition of capitalism.”

Trump and his cadre of Republican sycophants must stop confusing people with hateful epithets that are no way accurate. Everybody should read Orwell’s 1984 and reject Trumpism, because semantics do in fact rule political discourse. Confucius was right: The rectification of things is the naming of things, said Jennings

Trump’s obfuscation, he pointed out, is about concentrating power and wealth. But as early as 1776 Virginia established itself as a Commonwealth, the idea of shared prosperity for the benefit of all. Property was not to be concentrated in the hands of rulers.

“No man,” they said, is entitled to “exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges.” Pennsylvania’s Constitution also forbids the “Advantage of any single man, family, or set of men.” Massachusetts and Kentucky followed suit. Those ideas are not Communist. They simply advocate equality and opportunity for all, declared Jennings.

Speaking at Mount Rushmore July 4, while commemorating the country’s 250th birthday, Trump described his political opponents as “godless”, “evil” Communists.

The New York Times said he used the word “communism” so many times, “you might have thought the Cold War was still on”. It was a bigger threat than Pearl Harbor and 9/11, Trump was quoted as saying.

According to a report in the Times July 27, the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has added over 7,000 new members.

The political philosophy of DSA includes rising taxes on the rich, guaranteed free medical care for the poor, a freeze on rising rents on public housing, raising the minimum wage and shortening the work week. The mayor also plans to open 5 New York city-owned grocery stores with 30 percent discount on produce, meat, bread and milk. And on foreign policy, the DSA has taken a strong stand for Palestinian statehood.

Norman Solomon, executive director, Institute for Public Accuracy and national director, RootsAction told IPS the core of the repression being spearheaded by (Secretary of State Marco) Rubio is that the people now running the U.S. government hate democracy and want to stamp out as much of it as they can.

Freedom of speech is at the center of democracy – they need each other – and the witch-hunt being mounted by the Trump regime is methodical.

“ There are many differences between the current wave of repression and the McCarthy era at America’s mid-century, but the very real continuity involves the wielding of government and media power to intimidate and stoke the fires of fear. The goal is to engender passivity and subservience,’ he said.

Much of liberal-leaning America, notably the administrations of many colleges, quickly buckled under pressure to crack down on nonviolent campus protests against Israel’s war on Gaza and U.S. support for it.

That dynamic, said Solomon, began in late 2023 and become powerful during 2024, in the last year of the Biden presidency. The common responses from college administrators were forms of authoritarian actions, aiming to cause self-censorship and preemptive obedience – in other words, suppression of First Amendment rights. This process became more extreme after Trump regained presidential power.

“Issuing lists of supposed subversives was a key tactic of the McCarthy Era. It sowed fear, and the result involved poisonous crops of stifled public discourse and fearful silences,” Solomon pointed out.

“Similar dynamics are now underway. But many people and organizations are refusing to accept the repression, and there are reasons to hope that nonviolent emphatic resistance can be effective in mitigating the damage to civic life”, declared Solomon, author of “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Credit: United Nations

By Amitabh Behar
DELHI, India, Jul 29 2026 (IPS)

On 15 September 1953, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit of India was elected the eighth president of the UN General Assembly — the first woman to hold the UN’s second-highest position. Since then, only four women have followed her, most recently the current president, Annalena Baerbock. Since its founding, the UN has had nine Secretaries-General. All men. Now, 81 years after the UN’s founding, we have a historic opportunity to correct that record. It is time to entrust the UN leadership to a woman of the Global South who shapes a more inclusive, effective and forward-looking UN.

The stakes extend far beyond symbolism. In the coming weeks, attention will turn to the Security Council, where the informal straw polls will effectively determine who emerges as the next Secretary-General, before it forwards its recommendations to the General Assembly for appointment.

Of the six candidates currently in the race, four are women, Michelle Bachelet, Rebeca Grynspan, María Fernanda Espinosa and Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett. Their credentials leave no doubt that the UN has highly qualified women ready to lead. The choice facing UN member states, and especially the Permanent Five is therefore not whether a woman can lead the organisation, but which candidate is best placed to pull multilateralism back from the brink, revers trends of conflict and inequality, uphold international law, and restoring confidence in cooperation as a force for justice and human dignity.

That is no small task. The next Secretary-General will need to provide principled leadership to advance the interests of people whose voices are excluded from global decision-making, while defending the UN’s independence from its most powerful members. Trygve Lie, the first Secretary-General, once called the job “the most impossible job in the world.” This quote has rarely been proven righter than today.

The organisation the next Secretary-General inherits is not in good shape. A recent poll found that just 4% of people in the Global South believe the UN has sufficient authority in global governance; 44% blamed the concentration of power among the Permanent Five in the Security Council. Yet the same poll affirmed the need of the UN in this context with its enduring value as the only universal forum where all member states can address shared challenges — and the need for a Secretary-General who listens to people.

That points to four non-negotiable commitments that should anchor the next Secretary-General’s agenda: representation, participation, accountability and the right to self-determination. Among these four commitments accountability matters most urgently to stop impunity. Committing to it means real reform of a Security Council where the Permanent Five too often act as judge and jury: prioritising prevention, curbing the veto, strengthen the equality of all Security Council members in decision-making so advancements to global peace cannot be blocked, limiting the “penholder” system that lets the P5 monopolise drafting, and putting civilian protection at the centre of every peacekeeping effort.

Ultimately, addressing these structural challenges will require a broader conversation about the future of the UN Charter itself, including serious consideration of Article 109 as a pathway for reviewing whether the Organization’s founding framework remains fit for purpose in today’s world.

Translating these commitments into people’s lives means concrete action in a few key areas: Inequality must finally move to the centre of the UN agenda: billionaire wealth has hit a historic $18.3 trillion and only 16% of the Sustainable Development Goals remain on track. Establishing an International Panel on Inequality, modelled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will be a vital next step in tackling the inequality emergency.

Civilian protection and defending international humanitarian law must be non-negotiable to dismantle systems of impunity, at a moment when dozens of people fall into humanitarian emergency every minute. And with the world badly off track on the Paris Agreement, the next Secretary-General must build on Antonio Guterres’ legacy and continue pushing to make a just transition away from fossil fuels — backed by real climate finance — a defining political priority.

The next Secretary-General must put a feminist vision at the heart of the UN. This means confronting a rigged, sexist, and racist economic order that prizes endless growth over the care of people and the planet, and backing the Roadmap for Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth. And none of this will happen if civil society is sidelined and fundamental rights -including digital ones – are not protected while Artificial Intelligence keeps expanding without control. The UN’s legitimacy depends on hearing from the people it was built to serve — the Charter’s founding principle of “We the Peoples” — especially as civic space shrinks worldwide including in the UN.

In her inaugural address as UNGA president, Pandit said the world “must learn to cooperate effectively in safeguarding peace and in raising standards of living.” Seventy-three years on, as multilateralism strains under the weight of its own contradictions, that sentence has lost none of its urgency.

Leading the UN of tomorrow might be the hardest job in the world. But as Lie also said, the harder the task, the greater the reward. It is time for structural change — and for a woman of the Global South to lead it. We cannot afford to miss this opportunity. The coming weeks, and the opening of the 81st session of the General Assembly, will show whether world leaders are ready to seize it

Amitabh Behar is Oxfam International’s Executive Director

IPS UN Bureau

 

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