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A view of the rubble in Jabalia, northern Gaza, after heavy Israeli bombardment. Credit: UNICEF/Rawan Eleyan

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 17 2026 (IPS)

Roughly six months after the ceasefire in the Occupied Palestinian Territory went into effect, the humanitarian situation in Gaza remains precariously fragile, despite a relative decline in hostilities. The crisis, marked by ongoing Israeli airstrikes and shelling, continued blockades on humanitarian aid, and widespread displacement, has pushed the majority of Palestinians in Gaza to the brink. Amid the vast scale of needs, basic services are increasingly strained, and humanitarian experts warn that the situation could deteriorate further in the coming months unless sustained aid and funding are secured.

A new report from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinians in the Near East (UNRWA) on the current conditions in Gaza confirmed a continuation of airstrikes, shelling, and gunfire across multiple areas, including Beit Lahia, Jabalia, Deir al Balah, Khan Younis, Rafah, and Bureij. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that since the eruption of hostilities on October 7, 2023, approximately 72,315 Gazans have been killed and another 172,137 injured.

“The scale and pattern of these actions, occurring alongside mass displacement of Palestinians from their homes and land in Gaza shows once again the ongoing broader policy of ethnic cleansing across the occupied Palestinian territory,” said a group of United Nations (UN) experts on April 13. “This cycle of displacement, terror, and targeted attacks serves an ultimate purpose: to make life unbearable for Palestinians and permanently force them from their land…Targeting areas known to shelter displaced civilians is a grave breach of international humanitarian law and is a grim reminder of the urgent need for international action and accountability.”

According to Palestine’s Ministry of Health, at least 32 Gazans have been killed by Israeli forces in early April alone. Airstrikes, gunfire, and shelling are daily occurrences, with women, children, disabled persons, humanitarian workers, and journalists being routinely targeted. On April 9, a young girl was killed by Israeli gunfire in a crowded classroom-turned-makeshift encampment.

“For the past 10 days, Palestinians are still being killed and injured in what is left of their homes, shelters, and tents of displaced families, on the streets, in vehicles, at a medical facility and in a classroom,” said United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk. “Movement itself has become a life-threatening activity. Incidents of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces while walking, driving, or standing outside are recorded nearly every day.”

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) also confirmed that there have been increasing cases of Israeli forces killing Palestinians based on their proximity to the “yellow line”, a line of demarcation that divides the Palestinian-controlled areas of Gaza and the Israeli-controlled areas. “Targeting civilians not taking direct part in hostilities is a war crime, regardless of their proximity to deployment lines,” said Türk

On April 6, Israeli forces shot at vehicles from the World Health Organization (WHO), killing a driver. Two days later, Israeli drone strikes killed Al Jazeera journalist Mohamed Washah in Gaza City, marking the 294th Palestinian journalist to be killed by Israeli forces since October 7, 2023. Additionally, Israel has continued to ban international journalists from accessing Gaza, further compounding the regional decline of journalistic freedom.

“The number of journalists and humanitarian personnel killed in Gaza is unprecedented, and further compounds civilian harm as it makes reporting on the situation and responding to its humanitarian implications life-threatening,” added Türk.

Internal displacement is particularly rampant, with OCHA estimating that routine evacuation orders and bombardment have affected roughly 92 percent of all housing across the enclave, with the vast majority of affected communities having been displaced multiple times. Civilians residing in overcrowded, makeshift encampments are disproportionately affected by insecurity, freezing temperatures, building collapse, and a severe shortage of humanitarian aid and basic services.

Humanitarian movement remains severely constrained, with all UNRWA staff banned from accessing the entire Occupied Palestinian Territory since March 2025. The agency, which has long acted as a critical lifeline for Palestinians, has pre-positioned food parcels, flour, and shelter supplies at Gaza’s borders, which could help hundreds of thousands of Gazans.

Thousands of Palestinians across the enclave are in urgent need of medical care as Gaza’s health system nears the brink of collapse, facing severe shortages of supplies amid an influx of injured and ill patients. Medications are critically short in supply, and UNRWA has reported a sharp uptick in cases of ectoparasitic infections such as scabies and fleas, as well as chickenpox and other skin diseases, which have been linked to disrupted water and hygiene (WASH) services, overcrowding, and pests.

Despite these challenges, humanitarian experts have expressed optimism that the situation in Gaza could improve as access constraints begin to fade. Following nearly 40 days of closure, the critical Zikim crossing reopened in early April, allowing nutritional and health supplies to reach northern Gaza directly. UNRWA is currently supporting over 67,000 displaced individuals across 83 collective emergency shelters, with over 11,000 personnel providing lifesaving care.

UNRWA, in collaboration with WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and Palestine’s Ministry of Health, reached almost 2,100 children under three years of age with vaccinations between April 5 and 9. WHO and its partners have also been facilitating dozens of medical evacuations through the Rafah border crossing and providing access to medical care, food, water, and psychosocial services to returning Gazans.

The UN experts stressed that a definitive end to hostilities, an expansion of protection services, and the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid are crucial in coordinating an effective return to stability in Gaza. Additionally, the experts called on Israeli authorities to ensure a safe and dignified return to Gaza for displaced individuals, as well as the lifting of restrictions for UNRWA operations.

“We reiterate our call on States to bring Israel’s unlawful occupation to an end and ensure the immediate protection of civilians sheltering in displacement sites across the Gaza Strip, including by scaling up vital humanitarian assistance,” the experts said. “States must comply with their legal obligations. They must bring Israel’s unlawful occupation to an end, refrain from recognising it and withhold assistance to it, and take effective measures to ensure investigations and accountability for grave violations of international law in the occupied Palestinian Territory.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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If you are reading commodity price movements as evidence that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has been absorbed without consequence, you are reading the right data for the wrong time horizon. Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS

By Máximo Torero
ROME, Apr 17 2026 (IPS)

The headlines are wrong about food prices — but right to be afraid, very afraid. Walk into a supermarket in Chicago, Berlin, or Mumbai today, and you will not find the shelves stripped bare or the prices dramatically higher than last month. Despite weeks of alarming headlines about commodity markets, food inflation in most major economies has risen only marginally — a tenth or two-tenths of a percentage point between February and March of this year. In the United States, food inflation moved from roughly 2.9 percent to 3.1 percent. In Germany, from 0.8 to 0.9. In India, from 7.8 to 8.0.

This is not a crisis at the checkout counter. Not yet.

But here is what the headlines are getting wrong, and what they are getting terrifyingly right at the same time: the stability you see today is real, and it is also beside the point. What is coming — if the world does not act quickly and the cease fire does not continue— is a food price shock of a different order, arriving not in March but in the harvests of late 2026 and the markets of 2027.

To understand why, you first have to understand what commodity price indexes actually measure, and what they do not. The FAO Food Price Index — which did rise slightly in March, driven largely by vegetable oils and sugar amid higher crude oil costs — tracks the international price of raw agricultural commodities: wheat, maize, rice, oilseeds, dairy.

It does not track what you pay for a baguette or a box of pasta. By the time wheat becomes bread, the grain itself represents only 10 to 15 percent of the final retail price. The rest is energy, labor, processing, packaging, logistics, and retail margins.

This cost structure is precisely why grocery bills do not lurch upward the moment commodity markets move. It is also why the current calm is not a reliable indicator of future stability specially because of the significant share of energy costs.

Short-term stability is not medium or long-term security. The time between a fertilizer shock and a harvest failure is measured in months. The time between a harvest failure and a food price surge is measured in months more. We are already inside that window

The markets for major cereals are, for now, sending reassuring signals. Wheat and maize prices have held steady. Rice prices actually declined. Global cereal stocks remain high, and the market is correctly reflecting sufficient near-term availability. If you are reading commodity price movements as evidence that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has been absorbed without consequence, you are reading the right data for the wrong time horizon.

The Strait carries roughly 35% of crude oil exports — but its disruption reaches agrifood systems through a less obvious channel, logistics and energy costs for food processing. In addition, the Strait carries 20% of natural gas which can’t be replaced by any other source, and which is essential for nitrogen fertilizer ( specifically urea), 20-30% of fertilizers export depending on the specific type and about 50% of Sulfur exports a key input to produce phosphate fertilizer. All this is still  not showing up in this month’s price indexes. 

According to FAO analysis, the Strait of Hormuz closure has choked off 30 to 35 percent of global urea trade. Urea prices have already jumped between 40 and 60 percent. The feedstock that makes nitrogen fertilizer possible — natural gas — has risen 70 to 90 percent in price. Brent crude is up 60 percent just before the cease of fire.

These are not abstract figures. They are the inputs that farmers in the United States, Europe, South Asia, and across the Northern Hemisphere are confronting right now, as planting season either begins or approaches.

The decision they face is not a comfortable one: pay double for fertilizer when commodity prices are already low, and hope prices recover, or cut application rates and accept lower yields. Some will shift toward nitrogen-fixing crops like soybeans. Others will pivot toward crops destined for biofuel production, reducing the food supply further still.

The consequences of those decisions will not appear on store shelves until the harvest comes in, or the markets decides to incorporate them in future prices. When they do, the combination of constrained yields, elevated energy costs running through every link of the supply chain, and ongoing trade disruptions will drive commodity prices higher, and food prices even higher because of the additional energy cost increases — not by a tenth of a point per month, but meaningfully, in ways that will be felt most acutely by the households that can least afford it.

Short-term stability is not medium or long-term security. The time between a fertilizer shock and a harvest failure is measured in months. The time between a harvest failure and a food price surge is measured in months more. We are already inside that window.

The world’s response cannot wait for the price indexes to confirm what the agronomic and economic data already make clear.

Governments, development institutions, and the private sector must act now on three fronts: ensuring fertilizer access for smallholder farmers and input and food import-dependent nations before their planting decisions become irreversible; protecting and diversifying trade routes so that disruption in one chokepoint does not become a global supply crisis; avoid export restrictions of fertilizers and energy products and pursuing with urgency the diplomatic solutions that remain, for now, within reach.

The supermarket and retail store shelves are stocked. The silos are full. And the window to keep them that way is closing. 

Keeping the Strait of Hormuz open is therefore not just about preventing food inflation — it is about averting a broader surge in overall inflation that would directly undermine economic growth, while also shielding every other sector dependent on the energy and input prices that flow through this strategic chokepoint.

 

Excerpt:

Máximo Torero Cullen is Chief Economist of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Frank McCourt, founder of Project Liberty, speaking with Foreign Policy CEO Andrew Sollinger at the Geoeconomics Forum. Credit: IPS

By Umar Manzoor Shah
SRINAGAR, India, Apr 17 2026 (IPS)

As war in the Middle East ripples through global markets, policymakers, economists, and industry leaders gathered in Washington this week to agree that economics is no longer separate from geopolitics. It is now its core instrument.

At the Geoeconomics Forum hosted by Foreign Policy alongside the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, speakers repeatedly pointed to a world shaped by shocks, where supply chains, energy flows, and technology have become tools of power.

“Geoeconomics is no longer a backdrop to global politics. It is the key and critical element,” said Foreign Policy CEO Andrew Sollinger in his opening remarks.

The urgency of that shift is tied closely to the ongoing conflict in the Gulf, which has disrupted energy markets and exposed vulnerabilities in global trade systems. The war has made the world understand how quickly regional crises can cascade into worldwide economic instability, affecting everything from fuel prices to industrial production.

Participants at the forum described a transformed global order where governments increasingly deploy economic tools once considered neutral or technical.

Trade policy, capital flows, and supply chains now serve strategic goals. Critical minerals, essential for semiconductors and artificial intelligence systems, have become geopolitical leverage points. Energy routes such as the Strait of Hormuz have turned into potential choke points with global consequences instead of just transit corridors.

“Geopolitics and economics have always been linked. We are going back to a school of thought that sees them as inextricable,” Jacob Helberg, U.S. Under Secretary for Economic Affairs, said in his address.

Helberg pointed to growing competition over rare earth minerals, where China dominates processing and has begun using export controls as a strategic tool. At the same time, logistics corridors and manufacturing hubs have emerged as additional pressure points in the global system.

“The stack is totally interlinked,” he said, referring to the chain from raw materials to finished technology. “There are choke points at every layer.”

The forum repeatedly returned to a central theme: fragmentation.

Countries are adapting to a “shock-prone” world marked by conflict, pandemics, and financial instability. This has led to a shift away from global integration toward more regional and strategic economic blocs.

Middle powers, in particular, face difficult choices. As competition intensifies between the United States and China, many nations are weighing how to align their economic and technological futures.

Dr Pedro Abramovay, Vice President, Programs, Open Society Foundations, argued that the moment offers both risk and opportunity for these countries.

“We need to make sure that middle powers act as middle powers and not just middlemen,” he said, stressing that democracy can shape their role in a changing order.

Abramovay said the current moment has exposed long-standing imbalances in the global system.

“It unveils the reality that existed before,” he said, referring to earlier global arrangements that often did not serve the interests of the Global South.

He noted that domestic political pressure is now reshaping how countries engage globally. Leaders can no longer align externally without responding to internal constituencies.

“That internal pressure can empower those middle powers to assert their sovereignty and negotiate effectively,” Abramovay said.

The forum highlighted growing calls for a reworked international order grounded in sovereignty and public interest rather than narrow economic gain.

“We need to have clear clarity of agenda. We need to have commitment of those leaders expressing that they are there, not representing big corporations or, again, interests and organisations that speak for themselves, but exactly speaking in the name and representing the majority of the world,” Abramovay added.

Frank McCourt, founder of Project Liberty, warned against framing the future as a binary choice between U.S. private-sector dominance and Chinese state-led models.

“This is a false dichotomy,” he said, arguing for a third path that aligns technology with democratic values.

He highlighted growing unease among countries that feel caught between competing systems, noting that many are exploring alternative frameworks for digital governance and economic cooperation.

Human Impact Behind the Strategy
While much of the discussion focused on high-level strategy, speakers acknowledged the human consequences of geoeconomic shifts.

Energy shocks translate into higher costs for households. Supply chain disruptions affect jobs and access to goods. Decisions made in boardrooms and ministries ripple outward to communities worldwide.

“The best-laid plans can be interrupted by unforeseen circumstances. You have to pivot, adapt, and build better,” Sollinger said.

That message echoed throughout the event.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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A group of young people. Photo by Iwaria Inc. on Unsplash. Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations.
 
The choice is clear; the window is narrow; and the time to prepare Africa’s workforce for the frontier economy is now. Africa’s growth story over the past two decades is real, but it is not yet transformative.

By Claver Gatete
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, Apr 17 2026 (IPS)

Across the continent, GDP has risen on the back of more workers, more capital and a commodity super-cycle, rather than through genuine gains in productivity and innovation. Too little labour has moved out of subsistence agriculture into higher-productivity manufacturing and modern services.

As the recent Africa Business Forum in Addis Ababa drew to a close, a clear message emerged: if Africa is to create the tens of millions of quality jobs its young people need in the coming decade, it must shift decisively from input driven growth and embrace an innovation-led growth powered by data and frontier technologies.

Our 2026 Economic Report on Africa comes at a time when governments are realising that this pivot is no longer optional. It is the only credible route to resilient, inclusive and sustainable development amidst climate shocks, tightening financing conditions, geopolitical challenges and rapid technological change.

Frontier technologies, from artificial intelligence and advanced data analytics to the Internet-of-Things, robotics and clean energy solutions, are already reshaping value chains in agriculture, manufacturing, services and public administration.

Claver Gatete

The question for African policymakers and industry leaders is not whether these technologies will transform the labour market, but whether the continent will shape that transformation, or simply adjust to it on other people’s terms.

Jobs of the future

Preparing for the jobs of the future starts with an honest diagnosis of the skills challenge. Today, only a small share of African children achieve minimum reading proficiency by age 10; enrolment in technical and vocational education remains low; and tertiary enrolment lags far behind global averages. This is a recipe for exclusion from a technology intensive global economy.

Countries need comprehensive national skills compacts that place foundational learning, STEM education and digital literacy at the centre of economic strategy, not as an add on.

That means curriculum reforms that prioritize problem solving, coding, data literacy and creativity; large scale teacher upgrading; and robust partnerships between universities, TVET colleges and industry to ensure training aligns with real labour market demand.

Encouragingly, some countries are already moving in this direction.

For example, Kenya’s digital innovation ecosystem – from mobile money to platform-based logistics and e commerce – is creating new occupations in fintech, digital marketing, data services and platform management that barely existed a decade ago.

Rwanda has positioned itself as an African testbed for emerging technologies, investing heavily in broadband, digital public services and coding academies to build a workforce ready for data driven and AI enabled jobs.

In Egypt, Morocco, and South Africa, automotive and renewable energy value chains are spawning new roles in advanced manufacturing, battery technology and solar and wind engineering.

Tangier, the city that hosted the ECA Conference of Ministers of Finance and Economic Development last month, has a world-class frontier technologies port that rivals many in developed countries.

These examples show that when countries align education, industrial policy, and digital strategy, they can start to bend their labour markets towards the industries of the future.

More is required

But skills alone will not deliver the jobs dividend. Workers need productive firms to hire them, and firms need an enabling ecosystem to innovate.

That is why the report stresses the importance of industrial and innovation policy that deliberately integrates frontier technologies in Africa’s productive sectors.

In agriculture, for instance, the jobs of the future will be in climate smart farming, Agri data services, precision input distribution and digital extension.

Realizing that potential requires investment in irrigation, rural broadband, data platforms, and support for agritech start ups that can tailor frontier tools, from sensors to satellite imagery and AI based advisory services, to local realities.

In manufacturing, governments can use industrial parks and special economic zones to attract firms deploying automation, smart logistics and advanced materials, while negotiating technology transfer and local supplier development that expand skilled employment.

At the same time, Africa must treat data as a strategic economic asset, not an afterthought. Data underpins frontier technologies across all sectors – yet much of the continent’s data is stored and processed offshore, with limited value captured locally.

Building a data economy that creates jobs means investing in data centres, cloud infrastructure, high performance computing and secure connectivity, while developing clear rules on data governance, privacy, cross border flows and competition.

It also means supporting local firms that work along the data value chain – from collection and labelling to analytics and AI services – and equipping young people with the skills to work as data engineers, analysts, ethicists and product managers.

If Africa continues to export raw data while importing high value digital services, it will simply reproduce its traditional commodity trap in digital form.

The financing model for innovation and jobs must also change. Traditional banking systems, focused on collateralized lending, are poorly suited to high risk, intangible asset driven technology ventures. African countries can begin to close this gap by creating blended finance facilities, innovation bonds, public venture funds, and regional credit lines that crowd in private capital for high productivity sectors.

Public procurement can be a powerful lever here: by designing innovation friendly tenders and reserving space for local digital and tech providers, governments can create predictable demand that helps start ups and SMEs grow and hire.

Some countries are already experimenting with sandboxes and innovation challenges in fintech, e health and govtech, signalling how policy can catalyse new job creating ecosystems.

None of this is without risk.

The risks

Frontier technologies are already automating routine tasks and reshaping value chains in ways that can displace workers, widen social and gender inequalities and deepen digital divides. Jobs will not disappear overall, but they will change – and some will vanish.

Preparing for that disruption demands robust social protection systems, active labour market policies and targeted support for women and youth to access training, finance and technology.

It also requires serious attention to cybersecurity, data protection and platform regulation to prevent predatory practices, safeguard rights and maintain trust in digital systems.

If governance lags too far behind innovation, the labour market will absorb the adjustment costs through informality, underemployment, and social tension.

Africa starts this journey with significant advantages.

It is home to the world’s youngest population, vast critical mineral reserves essential for clean energy and technology manufacturing, and some of the best solar resources on the planet.

These assets can underpin new waves of green industrialization – in batteries, electric mobility, green hydrogen, clean power, and digital infrastructure – creating diverse, future oriented jobs in engineering, construction, maintenance, data and services.

But to convert potential into reality, countries must abandon the comfort of input driven growth and embrace a more demanding agenda: one that puts skills, innovation ecosystems, data, and frontier technologies at the heart of economic strategy.

With the AfCFTA as our Marshall Plan, we have the rules and platform for continental scaling, leading to shared prosperity in jobs, created from harnessing data and frontier technologies.

The jobs of the future are being designed today, in how Africa educates its children, regulates its data, finances its innovators and plans its infrastructure.

If African countries act with urgency and purpose, they can shape a labour market that is more productive, more inclusive, and more resilient than the one they inherited.

If they hesitate, the continent risks remaining a consumer of other people’s technologies and a supplier of low value labour and raw materials.

In the end, the real question is simple: will Africa harness frontier technologies to accelerate economic growth and structural transformation, or remain on the margins of the industries shaping the 21st century?

The choice is clear; the window is narrow; and the time to prepare Africa’s workforce for the frontier economy is now. This is how we can ensure sustainable economic growth on the continent.

Claver Gatete is Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa.

Source: Africa Renewal

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Mangroves, reefs and coastal ecosystems are more than natural assets — they are frontline climate solutions. Across Pacific villages, including Naidiri on Fiji’s Coral Coast, these systems are helping reduce erosion, protect livelihoods and support long-term resilience. Credit: Ludovic Branlant/SPC

By Sera Sefeti
NAIDIRI, FIJI, Apr 17 2026 (IPS)

Climate change is no longer a distant threat. Across the Pacific, it is a daily reality reshaping coastlines, livelihoods, and the delicate balance between people and the environment. But in a region long defined by resilience, solutions are not being invented from scratch. They are being remembered, strengthened, and scaled. Nature-based solutions (NbS) approaches that use ecosystems to address climate, disaster, and development challenges have always existed in Pacific communities. For generations, villages have relied on mangroves, agroforestry, and customary practices to protect their land and sustain their people. But as climate impacts intensify, the scale and speed of change demand more.

Now, a new regional effort is working to bridge the gap between tradition and modern policy.

The Pacific Community’s Promoting Pacific Islands Nature-based Solutions (PPIN) project is designed to do exactly that: connect what communities already know with the systems that govern development and investment.

Dr Rakeshi Lata, Training and Capacity Building Officer for Nature-based Solutions at SPC, explains that the project is not about replacing traditional knowledge but elevating it.

“It functions as a bridge connecting community practices with national policies to secure resources and scale up proven local methods,” said Lata.

Naidiri village on Fiji’s Coral Coast shows how nature-based Solutions are put into practice, with communities restoring mangroves and reefs to protect their coastline and sustain livelihoods. Credit: Ludovic Branlant/SPC

At its core, PPIN challenges a long-standing imbalance in development thinking where engineered, “grey” infrastructure is prioritised, and nature is treated as secondary.

“More specifically, PPIN addresses the fact that Pacific countries are highly vulnerable to climate change, disasters, and ecosystem degradation, yet development decisions still prioritise grey, engineered solutions while nature is treated as secondary or only an environmental issue,” Lata said.

This disconnect is especially stark in the Pacific, where people’s lives, cultures, and economies are deeply intertwined with the natural environment. When ecosystems fail, communities feel it immediately through food insecurity, coastal erosion, and increased disaster risks.

Yet despite the proven value of nature-based solutions, their adoption has remained limited—often fragmented, underfunded, and confined to small pilot projects.

“There is limited policy integration, technical capacity, economic evidence, and financing to make NbS ‘business as usual’ across sectors such as infrastructure, finance, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and tourism,” Lata said.

That gap between what works locally and what is scaled nationally is where PPIN steps in.

Importantly, the project rejects the idea that traditional knowledge and modern science are in competition.

“The core philosophy of PPIN is that traditional knowledge and modern policy are not opposing forces but complementary strengths, this project aims to formalise what communities have already been practising successfully for centuries,” she said.

“PPIN actively incorporates modern science to strengthen traditional approaches.”

Across Fiji, Vanuatu, and Tonga, this integration is already visible not in theory but in practice.

Mangrove restoration, for example, is being used to reduce coastal erosion and storm surges, offering a natural alternative to costly seawalls. During Cyclone Vaiana in Fiji, boats sought shelter within mangrove systems, shielded from powerful winds and waves,  an example of ecosystem protection delivering real-time resilience.

These same mangroves also trap sediment, protecting downstream communities and coral reefs without the need for concrete infrastructure.

In rural areas, traditional agroforestry systems are being strengthened, combining trees and crops to improve soil stability, enhance food security, and build drought resilience. These systems reduce the need for engineered irrigation and land stabilisation while maintaining ecological balance.

Despite these successes, scaling such solutions has historically been difficult. Fragmented governance, siloed implementation across ministries and NGOs, and limited technical capacity have slowed progress.

Coral restoration helps rebuild reef ecosystems that protect Pacific coastlines, support fisheries and sustain community livelihoods. Credit: Ludovic Branlant/SPC

PPIN is designed to dismantle these barriers.

“A central pillar of PPIN is targeted capacity-building, which includes training programmes and communities of practice by establishing peer-to-peer learning networks focusing on specific sectors to foster continued knowledge exchange and collaboration,” she said.

Beyond policy integration, the project is investing in people, particularly those closest to the land.

Training programmes, including Farmers’ Field Schools and coastal resilience initiatives, focus on practical, livelihood-based applications of NbS. Participants gain hands-on skills in climate-smart and organic farming, linking ecosystem health directly to food production and household wellbeing.

The response has been strong. Women make up more than half of participants over 80 out of 146 with youth and community practitioners also actively engaged.

As the project moves toward closure, its legacy is already taking shape not just in outcomes but also in systems that will endure.

“To ensure sustainability and long-term accessibility, materials from trainings, technical guidance, needs assessment findings and more are being consolidated and hosted within a regional NbS knowledge hub led by SPREP,” Lata said.

“This hub provides a single, trusted platform where governments, practitioners, communities, women and youth can access the PPIN resources.”

But perhaps its most lasting impact will be less tangible and more powerful.

“Beyond materials, PPIN leaves behind strengthened regional networks and communities of practice, which will continue to connect practitioners across countries and sectors.”

In a region on the frontline of climate change, the future may not lie in choosing between tradition and science but in weaving them together.

Because in the Pacific, resilience has never been built on one system alone. It is carried across generations, across knowledge systems, and now, increasingly, across policy and practice.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By CIVICUS
Apr 17 2026 (IPS)

 
CIVICUS discusses the spread of AI-powered surveillance in Africa with Wairagala Wakabi, executive director of the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) and co-editor of Smart City Surveillance in Africa: Mapping Chinese AI Surveillance Across 11 Countries, the latest report by the African Digital Rights Network (ADRN) and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS).

Wairagala Wakabi

At least 11 African governments have spent over US$2 billion on Chinese-built surveillance infrastructure that uses AI-powered cameras, biometric data collection and facial recognition to monitor public spaces. Marketed as ‘smart city’ solutions to reduce crime and manage urban growth, these systems have been rolled out with little regulation and no independent evidence of their effectiveness. This technology is instead being used to monitor activists, track protesters and silence dissent, with a chilling effect on freedoms of assembly and expression.

How widespread is AI-powered surveillance in Africa?

Under the guise of reducing crime and fighting terrorism, at least 11 governments have invested over US$2 billion in AI-powered ‘smart city’ surveillance infrastructure: Algeria, Egypt, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Governments are installing thousands of CCTV cameras linked to central command centres, paired with tools such as automatic number-plate recognition, biometric ID systems and facial recognition to track people and vehicles. The largest known investments are in Nigeria (over US$470 million), Mauritius (US$456 million) and Kenya (US$219 million), though the real total is likely much higher, since surveillance spending is often secret and the report covers only 11 of Africa’s 55 countries.

Despite being presented as tools for crime prevention, counter-terrorism, modernisation and urban management, these are not targeted security measures. They represent a broader shift toward continuous, population-level monitoring of public spaces, rolled out over the past five to ten years almost always without clear legal limits or public debate.

Are these systems achieving their stated purpose?

No, there is no compelling evidence that they have in any of the countries studied. Instead, the data points to a pattern of use that raises serious human rights concerns.

In Uganda and Zimbabwe, AI-powered surveillance including facial recognition is being used to suppress dissent rather than ensure public safety. Activists, critics of the government, opposition leaders and protesters are identified and monitored through this system, even after protests have ended. In Mozambique, smart CCTV systems have reportedly been installed in areas of strong political opposition, suggesting targeted rather than neutral surveillance.

In Senegal and Zambia, countries with relatively low terrorism threats, governments have still invested heavily, which calls into question the stated security rationale.

Across the countries studied, the scale of surveillance far exceeds any actual or perceived security threat, and the infrastructure is consistently being used to monitor dissent and consolidate state control rather than address genuine public safety needs.

Who’s supplying this technology?

While firms from Israel, South Korea and the USA supply surveillance technologies, Chinese companies are the primary suppliers and financiers. They typically offer end-to-end ‘smart city’ packages that include cameras, software platforms, data analytics systems, training and ongoing technical support. Many projects are backed by loans from Chinese state-linked banks, which makes them financially accessible in the short term but creates long-term dependencies on external vendors for maintenance, system management and upgrades.

This model undermines transparency. Procurement processes are opaque and civil society, the public and oversight institutions including parliaments rarely have information about how these systems operate, how data is stored or who has access to it. That lack of accountability is what makes abuse not just possible, but hard to detect or challenge.

What impact is this having on civic space?

This large-scale surveillance of public spaces is not legal, necessary or proportionate to the legitimate aim of providing security. Recording, analysing and retaining facial images of people in public without their consent interferes with their right to privacy and, over time, their willingness to move, assemble and speak freely.

The most immediate consequence is a chilling effect, particularly where civic space is already restricted. Knowing they can be identified and tracked, activists and journalists are less willing to attend protests for fear of later arrest or reprisals, and end up self-censoring. Civil society organisations also report heightened anxiety about the risks for their members and partners.

What should governments and civil society do?

None of the 11 countries studied have a legal framework capable of balancing the state’s security needs with its commitments to protect fundamental human rights. That must change. Governments must adopt clear regulations on surveillance, including restrictions on facial recognition and other AI tools, require independent human rights impact assessments before introducing new systems, make procurement and deployment processes transparent and establish strong oversight mechanisms, including judicial and parliamentary scrutiny, to prevent abuse.

Civil society should continue documenting abuses, raising public awareness and advocating for accountability, while also supporting affected people and communities through digital security support and legal assistance.

Technology-exporting states and donors must enforce stricter controls and safeguards on the export and financing of these tools, support rights-based approaches to digital governance and help fund independent monitoring and advocacy across Africa.

Without urgent action, these systems will continue to expand, and the rights of people across Africa will continue to shrink.

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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Since the Taliban returned to power, women and girls have been progressively banned from education, public spaces, and most forms of employment. Credit: Learning Together.

By External Source
KABUL, Apr 16 2026 (IPS)

Ever since childhood, Khatera’s (not her real name) dream was to study medicine at university and become a doctor.

“Every time I saw doctors in their white coats, I would tell myself that I wished one day I could wear a similar coat and serve the people”, she recallls.

Over the years, she felt that each passing day brought her closer to her dream, at least until five years ago, when the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan and upended her lifelong dream.

Khatera tells her story: “When I finished school, I was supposed to take the university entrance exam and had prepared fully for it, leaving nothing to chance. But unfortunately, the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, and everything turned upside down. Their very first act was to ban girls and women from education.”

“At that moment, I felt as if all my childhood dreams had been reduced to dust. I was so exhausted and hopeless that it felt like my life had screeched to a halt. To be denied education is to be forced to live in absolute darkness”, she says.

Khatera, 26, lives in a remote village in Badakhshan province with her parents, two sisters, and two brothers. She fell into depression when she realized she could no longer continue her education.

“As the days passed, my emotional and mental state worsened. My depression, exhaustion, and distress deepened with each passing day. The Taliban kept ramping up the restrictions on women until we were no longer even allowed to move around freely. I gradually began to lose hope in life”.

Suddenly, however, a light appeared on the horizon. One day she received a telephone call from a former classmate. There was a possibility to pursue university courses online, tailored for women, her friend informed her.

Economist Abdul Farid Salangi founded the Online Zan University in 2022. He serves as the school’s director from abroad. The project aims to support girls who have been denied an education. For Salangi, providing that education is a duty, because Afghanistan cannot develop without educated women.

Khatera immediately applied for admission to study psychology at the Online University and was accepted.

However, internet connectivity in her village was poor, and she had to move in with her sister in city in order to pursue her studies.

Khatera is now in her fourth semester. The teachers are from Afghanistan and some from abroad, and she says the quality of instruction is professional.

For Khatera, the online university is more than a place to study. She describes it as a light in the darkness.

Studying online is not without its difficulties, though. Internet access is intermittent and expensive. Khatera’s mother sells milk in the village to cover her expenses.

“The Online Zan University helped me escape a deep sense of hopelessness and gave my life meaning again”, says Khatera. The lectures take place at night and she has to live with her sister in the city, separated from the rest family, but Khatera says it is all worth it.

Salangi explains the motivation behind the project: “My goal in creating the university was to support girls who had been denied education. When schools and universities closed, hope and motivation vanished for thousands of girls. I knew if this continued, an entire generation would be lost, and society would face deep crises.”

“For me, this was a human responsibility”, concludes Salangi, who trained as a financial economist at Moscow International University.

Online Zan University started modestly. It had no budget and no organizational backing. Salangi reached out to colleagues and professors, many of whom volunteered, and gradually the activities grew.

Today, the university has several faculties, hundreds of teachers in Afghanistan and abroad, and administrative staff. It provides education to tens of thousands of women, almost free of charge.

Teaching often takes place in the evenings, since many of the teachers work elsewhere during the day. If in-person lectures cannot be arranged, lectures are recorded and the videos distributed.

Even though the lectures take place at night, Khatera says she studies hard and makes sure she does not miss them.

“I balance household chores and prepare for the webinars my professors assign. Honestly, I hardly notice how the days and nights pass by. Over time, all the fears and negative thoughts I once had have faded away. Now, I move forward with dreams and hope, imagining a bright future for myself,” Khatera says with delight.

 

A crew member with The Greater Cape Town Water Fund looks out over the landscape where the team is working to remove invasive alien plants for improved water security. Credit: Roshni Lodhia/ The Nature Conservancy

By Louise Stafford
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Apr 16 2026 (IPS)

In 2018, Cape Town came perilously close to becoming the first major city in the world to run out of water. Known as “Day Zero”, it was more than just a crisis, it marked a pivotal moment. It made clear that water insecurity is not a distant threat, but an immediate reality.

It also revealed something equally important, water security depends not only on built infrastructure, such as dams, desalination plants and groundwater extraction, but on the health of the natural systems that sustain them. Ecological infrastructure – our catchments, rivers and wetlands – is as essential as the roads we travel and the grids that power our homes.

South Africa is in a period of structural water scarcity. According to the National Water and Sanitation Master Plan, the country could face a water deficit of up to 17% by 2030. Much of the focus has rightly been on failing built infrastructure, such as non-revenue water, ageing infrastructure, and wastewater discharge into rivers. But an equally critical, and often overlooked, part of the problem lies upstream.

Degraded catchments, driven by poor land management, erosion, invasive alien plants, river diversion, and the loss of wetlands and riparian areas, are undermining the very systems that produce and regulate water.

The Hidden Drain on South Africa’s Water

The impact of alien tree invasions on our water resources is not unknown in South Africa. Multiple scientific studies emphasized the scale of the problem. The invasion of catchment areas by alien tree species, such as pine and Australian acacias, has a significant effect on streamflow. They reduce South Africa’s water availability by an estimated 1.4 billion cubic metres every year, enough to irrigate between 140,000 and 280,000 hectares of farmland according to WWF-SA, drawing on research by the CSIR and partners.

That is water that could otherwise sustain crops, support rural economies, households and strengthen national food security. In the greater Cape Town region, these species consume around 55 million cubic metres annually, roughly equivalent to two months of the City of Cape Town’s water supply.

South Africa has taken important steps to address alien plant invasions through programmes like Working for Water and through the efforts of landowners. However, these initiatives face persistent challenges such as limited funding, uneven prioritisation, and interruptions in implementation that reduce long-term effectiveness.

Restoring catchments requires continuity and scale. Traditional public budgets cannot keep up. Short-term grants and project‑based funding cycles are mismatched with the long‑term reality of managing and restoring South Africa’s catchments. Catchments do not operate on three-year budget cycles. They require decades of commitment. To secure our water future, we must rethink how we value and finance the ecological infrastructure that underpins our economy.

Science Meets Implementation: A Proven Model

The Water Fund model has added a valuable new option to address catchment restoration. South Africa’s first, the Greater Cape Town Water Fund (GCTWF), provides compelling proof that investing in ecological infrastructure and prioritizing headwaters deliver measurable results. Over the past seven years, with support of the private sector and City of Cape Town, over 40,000 hectares have been cleared of invasive alien plants priority catchments. Importantly, the cleared areas have been followed up multiple times to prevent regrowth.

This work increases water flows into dams of the Western Cape Water Supply System by 36 million cubic meters per year. The benefits extend far beyond water. The programme creates job opportunities, reduces wildfire risk, and supports the recovery of native fynbos and freshwater ecosystems — while building resilience to climate change.

The Greater Cape Town Water Fund demonstrates that ecological infrastructure can deliver reliable, measurable returns. Yet scaling this model has been constrained by one persistent challenge namely predictable funding to plan and reach the set target of clearing 54,300 hectares to replenish the water losses.

Rethinking How We Fund Water Security

What about a new funding approach? One that can crowd in private capital while ensuring accountability for results and bridging the gap between short term and sustainable funding. This is the foundation of the FRB Cape water performance-based bond, developed through a partnership between Rand Merchant Bank and The Nature Conservancy.

The Cape Water Performance-based Bond, a first of its kind financial instrument designed to unlock non‑traditional funding sources and secure a consistent five‑year funding stream to accelerate invasive plant control in priority catchments of the Greater Cape Town region. This marks an important milestone not only for Cape Town but for South Africa as a whole, a shift toward mobilizing capital markets to invest in nature at scale.

Accountability is built in. Rigorous monitoring and data collection tracks delivery and ensures a positive return on investment. “Clearly demonstrating what an investment has achieved is the backbone of impact finance. Investment returns in the FRB Cape water performance-based bond rely on performance and so we require systems to independently verify results. This independence and transparency are critical to ensure trust in these results, and to scale nature-based impact finance products.” Chris Barichievy, Director of Science, Conservation Alpha

Taking Impact To Scale

Water security underpins economic stability. From farms to factories, every sector depends on a reliable flow of water. When systems fail, the costs are staggering. When they succeed, they quietly power equity and prosperity.

The Cape Water Performance-based Bond matters because it can be replicated. Cities across Africa face similar challenges, degraded landscapes, limited public funds, rising demand. This model offers a science-based, practical path forward that can be adapted to different contexts.

From Vision to Delivery

This is where vision meets action. Governments and other roleplayers need to recognize that healthy catchments are as essential as pipes, treatment plants and pumps. Healthy catchments enable water to reach our dams, which is the first step in securing our water supply.

The capital markets are the world’s largest funding pools. Yet the opportunity for capital markets to play a role in the water supply system has been limited – until now. Martin Potgieter from RMB said: “This Cape Water Performance-based Bond gives financial institutions and investors the opportunity to participate in the security of the water supply system. It gives investors a low-risk entry to the funding of a water catchment, while at the same time enabling a project that delivers lasting, systemic impact.”

Large and critical interventions need long-term planning and commitment, with the Cape Water Performance-based Bond providing five years of predictable funding.

Without this change, the risks to our water security will only grow. In 2018, Cape Town has shown the world what it means to be pushed to the edge. Now, it is showing the world what it means to lead. By building financing systems that match the scale of the challenge, we can secure a future where both nature and people thrive.

Louise Stafford is the South Africa Country Director at The Nature Conservancy

 

The GEF actively supports climate resilience and sustainable livelihoods in Zanzibar, with a specific focus on the seaweed farming sector, which is crucial for over 20,000 farmers—mostly women—in the region. Here a woman identified as Jazaa is pictured working as a seaweed farmer. She carefully attaches little seaweed seedlings to the rope that she will harvest after two months. Credit: Natalija Gormalova/Climate Visuals Countdown

By Umar Manzoor Shah
SRINAGAR, India, Apr 16 2026 (IPS)

The Global Environment Facility, widely known as the GEF, plays a central role in financing environmental protection across the world. It supports developing countries in tackling climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, pollution, and threats to ecosystems.

Since its establishment in the early 1990s, the GEF has grown as a multilateral environmental fund, supporting projects in more than 170 countries.

Over time, the GEF has evolved into what it calls a “family of funds”, each targeting a specific global environmental challenge while operating under a shared strategic framework.

This explainer looks at how the GEF funding works, the origins of its financing model, and the role of six major funds that channel resources toward global environmental goals.

While the GEF predates the 1992 Rio ‘Earth’ Summit, its importance as a financial mechanism grew after the summit. Here UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali opens the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, which aimed to develop a global blueprint for balancing economic development with environmental protection. Credit: Michos Tzavaras/UN Photo

Origins of the GEF Funding Model

The GEF was created in 1991, before the Rio ‘Earth’ Summit in 1992, which aimed to develop a global blueprint for balancing economic development with environmental protection; however, its importance grew after the summit.

The Rio Summit produced three major environmental conventions. These were the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Convention on Biological Diversity, and, later in 1994, the Convention to Combat Desertification. The GEF became the financial mechanism for these agreements, meaning it mobilises and distributes funds to help countries implement them.

Over the past 35 years, the GEF has expanded its mandate. Today it supports multiple conventions and environmental initiatives through a structured set of trust funds. This architecture allows the facility to coordinate funding across different environmental priorities while maintaining specialised programs for each global commitment.

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is now focusing on solving environmental problems together instead of separately. It looks at climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution as connected issues and works with governments, international groups, civil society, and businesses to address them.

The GEF Trust Fund was initially created to support multiple environmental agreements simultaneously. Over time, countries preferred more specific funding for their particular needs.

Because of these changes, the GEF now has different funds, each designed for different purposes and methods of giving money.

Some funds – like the Trust Fund, the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF), and part of the Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF) – use a system that helps countries know in advance how much funding they can expect.

The GEF Trust Fund

The Global Environment Facility Trust Fund is the main source of funds for the GEF. It provides grants to support environmental projects in developing countries.

The Trust Fund finances activities across several environmental areas.

These include

• Biodiversity conservation,
• Climate change mitigation,
• Land degradation control,
• International waters management, and
• Chemicals and waste reduction.

Countries receive funding through a system known as the System for Transparent Allocation of Resources, or STAR, which distributes funds based on their environmental needs and eligibility.

Projects funded by the Trust Fund often focus on creating global environmental benefits. These may include:

• Protecting endangered species,
• Restoring ecosystems,
• Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and
• Improving pollution management systems.

The Trust Fund operates through periodic “replenishment” cycles. Donor countries pledge new contributions every four years, which allows the GEF to finance programs during the next funding period. For example, the GEF-9 cycle will cover the period from July 2026 to June 2030 and focus on scaling up environmental investments while mobilising private capital and strengthening country ownership of environmental policies.

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) has created Integrated Programs. These are special programs designed to address multiple environmental goals at the same time in a more coordinated and efficient way.

For example, the Food Systems Integrated Program does not fund separate projects for climate change, biodiversity, and land degradation. Instead, it combines them into one unified project, which helps achieve stronger and longer-lasting results while making better use of funding.

 

The GEF helps fund biodiversity across the globe, helping to create conditions to prevent the further endangerment of species like the Sumatran Orangutan (Pongo abelii). Credit: Thomas Gabernig/Unsplash

Global Biodiversity Framework Fund

The Global Biodiversity Framework Fund is a relatively new component of the GEF family of funds. It was created to help countries implement the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which was adopted in 2022 under the Convention on Biological Diversity.

The biodiversity framework sets ambitious targets for protecting nature by 2030. Its most prominent targets include the “30 by 30” target, which calls for protecting at least 30 percent of the world’s land and ocean areas by the end of the decade.  The Framework also sets a 30 percent target for the restoration of ecosystems and a target of mobilising 30 billion dollars in international financial flows to developing countries for biodiversity action.

The Global Biodiversity Framework Fund supports actions that help countries meet these targets.

Actions that are supported include the following:

• Expanding protected areas,
• Restoring degraded ecosystems,
• Protecting endangered species, and
• Strengthening biodiversity monitoring.

Another important focus is the integration of biodiversity into economic planning. Many projects supported by this fund work with governments and businesses to match financial flows with biodiversity goals. This means reducing financial support for activities that damage the environment and encouraging more sustainable farming, forestry, and fishing practices.

By providing targeted financing for biodiversity commitments, the fund helps translate global agreements into practical actions at the national and local levels.

It is also important to highlight that the fund sets a target of providing at least 20% of its resources to support actions by Indigenous Peoples and local communities. This form of direct financing is unique for a multilateral environmental fund.  To date, this target has been exceeded and mechanisms such as the Green Climate Fund and the Tropical Forest Forever Facility are considering replicating this approach.

GEF-9 biodiversity investments will bring together four interconnected pathways:

• Scaling up financial flows to close the nature financing gap,
• Embedding environmental priorities in national development strategies,
• Mobilising private capital through blended finance, and
• Empowering Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and civil society as active conservation partners.

“A renewed emphasis on the Forest Biomes Integrated Program will continue directing investment into the landscapes most critical for achieving 30×30 – ensuring that GEF financing remains focused where the stakes are highest,” said Chizuru Aoki, the head of the GEF Conventions and Funds Division.

 

Medicinal and aromatic plant species, such as the baobab, are often exploited; however, the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing aims to ensure fair use of the planet’s genetic resources and secure benefits for Indigenous knowledge holders. Credit Noah Grossenbacher/Unsplash

Nagoya Protocol Implementation Fund

The Nagoya Protocol Implementation Fund supports countries in implementing the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing. This international agreement, part of the Convention on Biological Diversity, aims to make sure that the genetic resources of the planet are used fairly and equitably, with benefits shared with those who provide them.

Genetic resources include plants, animals, and microorganisms that are used in research and commercial products such as medicines, cosmetics, and agricultural technologies. Historically, many developing countries have expressed concerns that companies and researchers benefit from these resources without sharing profits or knowledge.

The Nagoya Protocol fixes these issues by requiring users to do the following:

• Get permission from the country providing the resources, and
• Agree on how benefits (like money or knowledge) will be shared.

The fund supports countries by helping them:

• Create laws and rules for using genetic resources,
• Improve monitoring systems, and
• Build skills among researchers and policymakers.

Projects funded also support Indigenous peoples and local communities, who often hold traditional knowledge associated with biological resources. Protecting this knowledge and ensuring fair compensation is a key objective of the Nagoya framework.

Least Developed Countries Fund

The Least Developed Countries Fund focuses on supporting climate adaptation in the world’s most vulnerable nations. These countries often face severe environmental risks but lack the finances and systems to respond efficiently.

The fund supports the preparation and implementation of National Adaptation Programs of Action and National Adaptation Plans. These are country-specific strategies that identify the most urgent climate risks facing each country and outline measures to reduce vulnerability.

Typical projects include the following:

• Strengthening climate-resilient agriculture,
• Improving water management systems,
• Protecting coastal zones, and
• Building early warning systems for extreme weather events.

Because many least developed countries face multiple environmental issues at once, the fund often supports integrated projects that address climate change alongside biodiversity conservation and land management.

This funding system makes sure that the poorest and most vulnerable countries get the help they need to deal with climate change, even though they did very little to cause it.

Villagers in Nyamisati, Rufiji District, wade through muddy tidal flats to plant mangrove seedlings—part of a grassroots effort to curb saline intrusion that has begun to poison nearby rice paddies as saltwater seeps underground. The initiative reflects growing local responses to environmental degradation driven by human activity along Tanzania’s coast. The GEF supports projects like these that help mitigate the impacts of climate change. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS

Special Climate Change Fund

The Special Climate Change Fund supports climate action in developing countries and works alongside the Least Developed Countries Fund.

While the Least Developed Countries Fund focuses on the poorest nations, this fund helps other developing countries that are also affected by climate change.

It supports projects that:

• Help countries prepare for climate impacts,
• Include climate planning in development and infrastructure,
• Improve water management and agriculture.
• Reduce disaster risks, and
• Promote environmentally friendly technologies.

The SCCF also, in some cases, supports mitigation efforts, particularly when they involve innovative technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By financing both adaptation and mitigation initiatives, the fund contributes to global efforts to stabilise the climate system.

Capacity Building Initiative for Transparency Trust Fund

The Capacity Building Initiative for Transparency Trust Fund supports countries in implementing transparency requirements under the Paris Agreement.

Under this agreement, countries must regularly report their greenhouse gas emissions and track their progress on climate goals. However, many developing countries do not have the tools or skills to do this properly.

This fund helps by supporting:

• Training for government officials,
• Creation of national emissions data systems, and
• Better monitoring and reporting methods.

Strong reporting systems are important because they:

• Help track climate progress,
• Build trust between countries, and
• Ensure countries meet their commitments.

The fund helps developing countries improve their climate reporting so they can fully take part in global climate efforts.

How the “family of funds” works together

One of the defining features of the GEF funding model is that each part speaks to the others.

Think of it like a team of funds working together, rather than separate, isolated programs.

These funds are coordinated so they can:

• Support the same project from different angles,
• Avoid duplication (no overlapping funding for the same purpose), and
• Align with global environmental agreements.

For example:

• A biodiversity project might use:
  • The main GEF Trust Fund
  • Plus the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund
• A climate adaptation project could combine:
  • Least Developed Countries Fund
  • Special Climate Change Fund

This ‘family’ structure improves:

• Coordination, so different funds work in sync,
• Efficiency, so funds work with less waste and duplication, and
• Flexibility, so projects can tap into multiple funding sources.

Environmental problems are interconnected. A single project (like forest conservation) can:

• Reduce carbon emissions,
• Protect biodiversity,
• Improve water systems, and
• Avoid land degradation.

Because of the integrated funding system, the GEF can support all these goals at once, rather than funding them separately.

The “family of funds” is a coordinated funding system that allows the GEF to:

• Combine resources;
• Support complex, multi-sector projects; and
• Maximise environmental impact

The Future of GEF Financing

As global environmental crises grow, so does the demand for money and resources to meet climate and biodiversity needs. International assessments suggest that hundreds of billions of dollars are needed each year.

The GEF aims to play a “catalytic” role in closing this gap – in short, the GEF acts as a “catalyst” or tool for using limited public funds to unlock much larger investments.

Its funding model mobilises additional resources from

• Governments,
• Development banks, and
• Private investors.

“In practical terms, the mechanisms being supported in GEF-9 include debt-for-nature and debt-for-climate swaps, green bonds, pooled investment vehicles, and outcome-based financing structures. Each of these can serve a different purpose depending on the context – but the common thread is that they allow the GEF to use its resources strategically to unlock much larger pools of capital from the private sector, multiplying the environmental impact that public funding alone could achieve,” Aoki said.

Note: This feature is published with the support of the GEF. IPS is solely responsible for the editorial content, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of the GEF.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By Hippolyte Balima, Andresa Lagerborg and Evgenia Weaver
WASHINGTON DC, Apr 16 2026 (IPS)

War is again defining the global landscape. After decades of relative calm following the Cold War, the number of active conflicts has surged in recent years to levels not seen since the end of the Second World War.

Meanwhile, rising geopolitical tensions and heightened security concerns are prompting many governments to reassess their priorities and spend more on defense.

Beyond their devastating human toll, wars impose large and lasting economic costs, and pose difficult macroeconomic trade-offs, especially for those countries where the fighting is taking place.

Even without active conflicts, rising defense spending can raise economic vulnerabilities in the medium term. After the war, governments face the urgent post-conflict task of securing durable peace and sustaining recovery.

In an era of proliferating conflicts, our research in two analytical chapters of the latest World Economic Outlook highlights the deep and prolonged economic harm inflicted by war, which has particularly affected sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.

We also show that rising defense spending—which can boost demand in the short term—imposes difficult budgetary trade offs that make good policy design and lasting peace more important than ever.

Economic losses

For countries where wars occur, economic activity drops sharply. On average, output in countries where fighting takes place falls by about 3 percent at the onset and continues falling for years, reaching cumulative losses of roughly 7 percent within five years.

Output losses from conflicts typically exceed those associated with financial crises or severe natural disasters. Economic scars also persist even a decade later.

Wars also tend to have significant spillover effects. Countries engaged in foreign conflicts may avoid large economic losses—partly because there is no physical destruction on their own soil.

Yet, neighboring economies or key trading partners with the country where the conflict is taking place will feel the shock. In the early years of a conflict, these countries often experience modest declines in output.

Major conflicts—those involving at least 1,000 battle-related deaths—force difficult trade-offs in economies where they occur. Government budgets deteriorate as spending shifts toward defense and debt increases, while output and tax collection collapse.

These countries may also face strains on their external balances. As imports contract sharply because of lower demand, exports decrease even more substantially, resulting in a temporary widening of the trade deficit.

Heightened uncertainty triggers capital outflows, with both foreign direct investment and portfolio flows declining. This forces wartime governments to rely more heavily on aid and, in some cases, remittances from citizens abroad to finance trade deficits.

Despite these measures, conflicts contribute to sustained exchange rate depreciation, reserve losses, and rising inflation, underscoring how widening external imbalances amplify macroeconomic stress during wartime. Prices tend to increase at a pace higher than most of central banks’ inflation targets, prompting monetary authorities to raise interest rates.

Taken together, our findings show that major conflicts impose substantial economic costs and difficult trade-offs on economies that experience conflicts within their borders, as well as hurting other countries. And these costs extend well beyond short-term disruption, with enduring consequences for both economic potential and human well-being.

Spending trade-offs

More frequent conflicts and rising geopolitical tensions have also prompted many countries to reassess their security priorities and increase defense spending. Others plan to do so. This situation presents policymakers with a crucial question about trade-offs involved with such a boost to spending.

Our analysis looks at episodes of large buildups in defense spending in 164 countries since the Second World War. We find that these booms typically last nearly three years and increase defense spending by 2.7 percentage points of gross domestic product.

That’s broadly similar to what is required by North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members to reach the 5 percent of GDP defense spending target by 2035.

Ramping up defense spending primarily acts as a positive demand shock, boosting private consumption and investment, especially in defense-related sectors. This can raise both economic output and prices in the short term, requiring close coordination with monetary policy to temper inflationary pressures.

Overall, the aggregate effects on output of scaling up defense spending are likely modest. Increases in defense spending typically translate almost one for one into higher economic output, rather than having a bigger multiplier effect on activity.

That said, the multiplier or ripple effects of such spending vary widely depending on how outlays are sustained, financed and allocated, and how much equipment is imported.

For instance, output gains are smaller and external balances deteriorate when the stimulus is partly spent to import foreign goods, which is especially the case for arms importers. By contrast, a buildup of defense spending that prioritizes public investment in equipment and infrastructure, together with less fragmented procurement and more common standards, would expand market size, support economies of scale, strengthen industrial capacity, limit import leakages, and support long-term productivity growth.

The choice of how to finance defense spending entails critical trade-offs. Defense spending booms are mostly deficit-financed in the near-term, while higher revenues play a larger role in later years of defense spending booms and when the defense spending buildup is expected to be permanent.

The reliance on deficit financing can stimulate the economy in the short term, but strain fiscal sustainability over the medium term, particularly in countries with limited room in government budgets.

Deficits worsen by about 2.6 percentage points of GDP, and public debt increases by about 7 percentage points within three years of the start of a boom (14 percentage points in wartime). The resulting increase in public debt can crowd out private investment and offset the initial expansionary effect of defense spending.

The buildup of fiscal vulnerabilities can be mitigated by durable financing arrangements, especially when the increase in defense spending is permanent. However, raising revenues come at the cost of reducing consumption and dampening the demand boost, while re-ordering budget priorities tends to come at the expense of government spending on social protection, health, and education.

Policies for recovery

Our analysis also shows that economic recoveries from war are often slow and uneven, and crucially depend on the durability of peace. When peace is sustained, output rebounds but often remains modest relative to wartime losses. By contrast, in fragile economies where conflict flares up again, recoveries frequently stall.

These modest recoveries are driven primarily by labor, as workers are reallocated from military to civilian activities and refugees gradually return, while capital stock and productivity remain subdued.

Early macroeconomic stabilization, decisive debt restructuring, and international support—including aid and capacity development—play a central role in restoring confidence and promoting recovery. Recovery efforts are most effective when complemented by domestic reforms to rebuild institutions and state capacity, promote inclusion and security, and address the lasting human costs of conflict, including lost learning, poorer health, and diminished economic opportunities.

Importantly, effective post-war recovery requires comprehensive and well-coordinated policy packages. Such an approach is far more effective than piecemeal measures. Policies that simultaneously reduce uncertainty and rebuild the capital stock can reinforce expectations, encourage capital inflows, and facilitate the return of displaced people.

Ultimately, successful post-war recovery lays the foundation for stability, renewed hope and improved livelihoods for communities affected by conflict.

This IMF blog is based on Ch. 2 of the April 2026 World Economic Outlook, “Defense Spending: Macroeconomic Consequences and Trade-Offs,” and Ch. 3, “The Macroeconomics of Conflicts and Recovery.” For more on fragile and conflict-affected states: How Fragile States Can Gain by Strengthening Institutions and Core Capacities.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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The question of who should be responsible for meeting the rapidly growing need and expenses for elderly care remains a contentious issue in many countries. Credit: Shutterstock.

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Apr 15 2026 (IPS)

Who should be responsible for providing care and covering expenses for the elderly? Should it be governments, the elderly themselves, their families, a combination of the three, or a new societal arrangement?

As populations age and more elderly individuals live longer lives, there are relatively fewer workers and less tax revenue, causing governments to struggle with the challenge of providing care for the elderly. This struggle is particularly notable in the provision of nursing care and health services.

The challenge is mainly driven by the growing demand for care, workforce shortages, and rapidly rising costs. These issues are expected to become increasingly difficult to sustain in the upcoming years.

Furthermore, this challenge is complicated by age discrimination towards elderly individuals. This discrimination is increasingly prevalent and has a negative impact on older people’s physical and mental well-being. It is associated with earlier death, poorer physical and mental health, and slower recovery from disability in older age.

The proportion of the world’s population aged 65 years or older has doubled from 5% in 1950 to 10% today and is expected to reach 16% by 2050. Most of the world’s elderly are below the age of 75, with 41% in the age group 65 to 69 and 29% in the age group 70 to 74 (Figure 1).

Source: United Nations.

The increase in the proportion of elderly individuals is significantly greater in many countries. For example, in Japan, the proportion of elderly has increased six-fold since 1950. Similarly in Italy and China, the proportion of elderly has tripled since 1950. By 2050, it is projected that approximately one-third of the populations of Japan, Italy, and China will be elderly (Figure 2).

Source: United Nations.

In addition to population ageing, life expectancy at birth for the world’s population has increased from 46 years in 1950 to 74 years in 2026. It is projected that by 2070, the global life expectancy at birth will nearly reach 80 years, with many countries, such as France, Japan, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland, expected to reach life expectancies at birth of around 90 years.

Elderly individuals in need of care are more likely to be women, 80-years-old and older, and live in single households. Many of them experience social isolation while living at home, which negatively impacts their mental and physical health. Additionally, these individuals typically have lower incomes than the country’s average.

The cost of providing care for elderly individuals varies drastically across countries. Costs for care are mainly driven by labor costs, healthcare infrastructure, and government subsidies.

Governments, especially those leaning towards political conservatism, are hesitant to cover the increasing expenses associated with care for the growing numbers of elderly. In the United States, for example, the president recently announced that it’s not possible for the federal government to fund Medicare, Medicaid, and child care costs. Instead, he argued that the one thing the federal government must take care of is the country’s military spending

Many high-income countries rely on migrant workers with irregular work contracts, to fill labor gaps, often operating with limited legal protections and standardized training. The situation is further complicated by poor working conditions, comparatively low salaries, and a lack of recognition making recruiting and retaining care workers difficult.

High-income countries have relatively high annual costs for care, while low-to-middle-income countries typically rely on family members to provide assisted care for the elderly.

For example, in the United States, the average annual cost in an assisted living community is approximately $75,000. Care in Switzerland is also expensive, with nursing home costs averaging over 100,000 Swiss francs annually. Similarly in Germany, the average annual cost for nursing home care is roughly between 36,000 to over 48,000 Euros.

Among OECD countries, publicly funded elder care systems still leave nearly half of older people with care needs at risk of poverty, especially those with severe care needs and low income. Out-of-pocket costs represent, on average, 70% of an older person’s median income across OECD countries.

Governments, especially those leaning towards political conservatism, are hesitant to cover the increasing expenses associated with care for the growing numbers of elderly.

In the United States, for example, the president recently announced that it’s not possible for the federal government to fund Medicare, Medicaid, and child care costs. Instead, he argued that the one thing the federal government must take care of is the country’s military spending.

Conservative and authoritarian governments typically do not see much economic benefit from government spending on elderly care, as they perceive the elderly as a societal burden. They argue that health care costs for the elderly is negatively correlated with economic growth and tend to oppose publicly funded efforts for life extension, advocating for limited government spending in these areas.

Furthermore, these conservatives and government officials often stress the importance of individual responsibility and solutions from the private sector. They believe that the costs of caring for the elderly should be borne by the elderly and their families.

However, the total cost of care for the elderly is often unaffordable for most families. In many OECD countries, elderly individuals risk falling into poverty without substantial financial assistance from their governments.

Some countries, such as Germany, Japan, South Korea, and the Netherlands, have implemented mandatory enrolment in elder care insurance. These programs are typically funded through mandatory payroll contributions.

In many countries, however, informal care for the elderly is still provided by family members, with the majority being women. This informal care is facing increasing strain due to factors such as urbanization, declining fertility rates, dual-career families, workforce mobility, and rising financial costs, all of which are putting pressure on the capacity of families to care for elderly relatives.

Although the need for elder care is rapidly increasing worldwide, the ability of existing systems to respond to current and rising needs remains limited in many countries. Most individuals in need of care rely on families and informal caregivers for support, while care services remain expensive, unstable, and difficult to access. These circumstances place significant strains on families, caregivers, and health care systems.

Further complicating care systems is the fact that elderly individuals often suffer from chronic health conditions. Some common health issues experienced by the elderly include Alzheimer’s disease, arthritis, asthma, back and neck pain, cancer, cataracts, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), dementia, diabetes, frailty, falls and injuries, heart disease, hearing loss, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, osteoarthritis, stroke, and urinary incontinence. Furthermore, as individuals age, they are more likely to experience multiple health conditions simultaneously (Table 1).

Source: World Health Organization.

In conclusion, as a result of population ageing and increased longevity, countries are facing the challenge of providing care for their elderly citizens. The question of who should be responsible for meeting the rapidly growing need and expenses for elderly care remains a contentious issue in many countries.

The general public believes that the government should take on the responsibility of providing care for the elderly. In contrast, many governments, concerned about the escalating fiscal burden, prefer that the elderly and their families themselves provide the necessary care and be responsible for the expenses. Still, others believe that a new societal arrangement is needed to provide care for the elderly.

Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division, and author of many publications on population issues.

Protesters demonstrate outside the Columbia University campus in New York City. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider
 
For decades, five powerful actors—the United States, the Arab states, the European Union, AIPAC, and Israel’s own opposition—have all claimed to seek Israeli-Palestinian peace while enabling permanent occupation, together burying the two-state solution.

By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, Apr 15 2026 (IPS)

Every powerful actor in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict professes to seek peace. The US and EU repeat the two-state mantra, the Arab states invoke Palestinian rights, AIPAC proclaims its defense of Israel’s security, and Israeli opposition parties promise “responsible” leadership and stability.

Yet each, in its own way, has enabled and entrenched a destructive status quo—shielding Israel from accountability, normalizing permanent ruthless occupation, and rendering Palestinian statehood ever more illusory while fueling radicalization on both sides.

The US as the Prime Enabler

Successive US administrations have long recited support for a two-state solution, yet in practice, Washington has done more to bury that prospect than to realize it. For decades, the United States has shielded Israel from real international accountability while refusing to use its vast leverage to compel any meaningful movement toward Palestinian statehood.

By turning the “peace process” into an empty ritual, the US has provided cover for a status quo that is neither peaceful nor temporary.

At the same time, unconditional US military, financial, and diplomatic backing has enabled Israel’s relentless settlement expansion and creeping annexation of Palestinian land. American officials issue ritual complaints about settlements, but the financial and military aid kept flowing and the vetoes at the UN kept coming, signaling that no red line would ever be enforced.

This toxic mix of lofty rhetoric and impunity has locked both peoples into an ever more entrenched, zero-sum conflict and foreclosed the only viable formula—two states—for ending it.

The Gaza war has stripped away any remaining illusions. Even amid mass devastation and accusations of genocidal conduct, Washington has continued to arm and protect Israel diplomatically, becoming complicit in Israel’s war crimes. To be sure, in the name of protecting Israel, the United States has gravely imperiled Israel’s viability as a democratic state and its long-term security while setting the stage for the next violent conflagration, to Israel’s detriment.

The Arab States’ Shortcomings

The Arab states, though never tiring of affirming the justice of the Palestinian cause and the necessity of a two-state solution, have consistently fallen short of their words. Although they possess enormous strategic weight—withholding or granting diplomatic recognition, and opening markets, energy, airspace, and security cooperation—they have rarely used these tools to force Israel to choose between occupation and peace with the Palestinians.

This failure has signaled to Israel that it can normalize relations with some Arab states, à la the Abraham Accords, while maintaining its grip on Palestinian land without risking any backlash.

Even in the face of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, most Arab governments limited themselves to statements, summits, and carefully choreographed outrage that stopped well short of meaningful pressure.

The Arab states that normalized relations with Israel continued to protect key political and economic ties, while the front-line states—Egypt and Jordan—maintained security coordination that shielded Israel from real strategic isolation.

By doing so little when so much was at stake, Arab states have become, in effect, accomplices to the perpetuation of the conflict they denounce. Their inaction has left Palestinians without a credible Arab shield, allowed Israel to entrench settlement and annexation, and pushed the two-state solution—the only realistic path to a just peace and security for both Israel and the Palestinians—to the wayside.

The EU’s Shortsightedness

The European Union is Israel’s largest trading partner and a major source of investment, technology, and diplomatic legitimacy. Yet, it has systematically refused to wield this considerable leverage to force a choice between occupation and peace with the Palestinians.

Instead of linking market access, research cooperation, or association agreements to clear benchmarks on settlements and Palestinian rights, Brussels has largely confined itself to criticism and symbolic measures that Israel has comfortably ignored.

The EU’s posture has effectively insulated Israel from serious economic or diplomatic consequences for entrenching an apartheid one-state reality of perpetual domination.

At the same time, although individual EU states, including France, the United Kingdom, and Spain, have recognized the Palestinian state, they have done virtually nothing to turn that recognition into hard power; arms exports and trade preferences continue with Israel as usual. Recognition becomes a cheap, cost-free declaration rather than a meaningful constraint on Israeli policy.

Thus, EU passivity has helped normalize occupation and settlement expansion while leaving Palestinians without an effective European counterweight, making a genuine two-state solution ever more remote, to the detriment of both Israel and the Palestinians.

AIPAC’s Culpability

AIPAC presents itself as a friend of Israel. Still, by relentlessly reinforcing the country’s most hardline positions, it has turned “pro-Israel” into a rigid orthodoxy that equates any pressure on Israeli governments with betrayal, thereby narrowing the range of policies American lawmakers feel politically safe to support.

For decades, AIPAC has backed Israeli governments without qualification—endorsing military campaigns, providing political cover for settlement expansion, and supporting a maximalist posture toward the Palestinians.

It rallies Congress behind unconditional aid, arms transfers, and diplomatic protection. This has helped Israeli leaders believe they can permanently deepen occupation and de facto annexation while still counting on automatic American support.

AIPAC has refused to use its considerable leverage to press for peace-oriented concessions and territorial compromise. Instead, it has rendered the two state solution an empty slogan while supporting the Israeli policies that make it impossible. In doing so, AIPAC has directly contributed to the ever worsening conflict and put Israel’s security under constant threat.

Still, AIPAC has not awakened from its blind support that jeopardizes Israel’s very existence and, with that, scuttles any prospect for an Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Israeli Opposition Parties’ Dismal Failure

Israel’s opposition parties have failed to offer a credible, sustained alternative to the right’s permanent conflict paradigm, and in doing so have gravely weakened Israel’s chances for peace. Instead of forcefully championing a two-state solution, most opposition leaders tiptoe around the very words “Palestinian state,” intimidated by electoral backlash and the charge of being “soft” on security. Their political inaptitude has allowed the right to define what is “realistic,” narrowing the political options to endless occupation and recurrent war.

Thus, they have directly contributed to the current impasse, making the conflict ever more intractable. Without a major party willing to argue that Israel’s long-term security depends on a two-state solution, the public hears only variations of the same message: manage, contain, punish, but never resolve. This abdication cedes the strategic debate to the extremist Netanyahu and his messianic lunatics, who are creepingly implementing their scheme of greater Israel, which would bury any prospect for peace.

It is a dire reality for the country that the opposing parties failed to coalesce and present a united front to push for a two-state solution, even following the Gaza war, which has unequivocally demonstrated that after nearly 80 years of conflict, only peace would provide Israel with ultimate security.

Every leader from these parties feels they are the most qualified to be the prime minister, but has failed miserably to offer realistic plans to end the conflict.

By failing to unite, organize, educate, and mobilize Israelis around a clear two state vision, these parties are undermining Israel’s security, eroding its international standing, and endangering its very future as a Jewish, democratic state.

The record of these five enablers is devastating. They made a just peace ever more remote, pushing Israel precariously toward an apartheid one state reality it cannot sustain morally, demographically, or strategically, while abandoning the Palestinians to the cruelest, inhumane occupation.

They must change course now—or condemn Israelis and Palestinians to generations of bloodshed that will erase Israel’s reason for being and extinguish Palestinian nationhood.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations, most recently at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

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Credit: Kristian Tuxen Ladegaard Berg/NurPhoto via AFP

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Apr 15 2026 (IPS)

When Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen addressed her supporters on election night on 24 March, she chose her words carefully. Losing four percentage points after almost seven years in power, she suggested, wasn’t so bad given there’s been a pandemic, a war in Europe and a confrontation with Donald Trump over Greenland. The reality was the Social Democrats had recorded their worst general election result since 1903. Meanwhile, the far-right Danish People’s Party (DPP) tripled its seat count, despite years of the Social Democrats leading a systematic crackdown on immigration to try to prevent it gaining support.

A historic result

While the Social Democrats came first on 21.9 per cent of the vote, they dropped from 50 to 38 seats. Their centre-right coalition partner, Venstre, had its worst result in its 150-year history. These are the two parties that have led every government since mainstream politics began copying far-right narratives on immigration. The bargain has benefitted neither.

Vote-switching data from exit polls told the story. The Social Democrats retained only around two thirds of their 2022 support. Their largest group of defectors — 13 per cent of their previous voters — switched to the Green Left, which now holds 20 seats as parliament’s second-largest party. Right-leaning voters switched to the DPP rather than rewarding the Social Democrats for delivering the immigration restrictions the DPP has long demanded. Time and again, evidence suggests that voters who are highly motivated about an issue tend to prefer parties that have always prioritised it over parties that have adopted it more recently out of electoral calculation.

The overall picture leaves neither bloc with a majority. The left-wing grouping holds 84 seats and the right holds 77, both short of the 90 needed to govern. Frederiksen has submitted her resignation as prime minister but, as leader of the largest party, has been charged with forming a new government. This is a task made harder by the conditions attached by Moderates leader Lars Løkke Rasmussen, who’s unwilling to join a government that does not include both left and right.

Twenty-five years of accommodation

The Social Democrats’ turn on immigration began in the aftermath of their 2001 election defeat. The party believed it was losing working-class voters to the far right over immigration and concluded it needed to compete on that ground. It framed anti-immigration policies as a defence of the welfare state, trying to emphasise solidarity rather than xenophobia, and over the next decade moved steadily rightward on this issue.

The nine seats the DPP got in 2001 became invaluable to centre-right Venstre leader Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who formed a minority government with its support. His government subsequently launched a wave of amendments to the Aliens Act, which was changed 93 times between 2002 and 2016 with the explicit goal of making Denmark less appealing to asylum seekers.

Throughout the 2000s and early 2010s, the DPP grew steadily, winning 20.6 per cent of votes in 2015 to become the biggest force on the right. Between 2015 and 2018, immigration law was amended over 70 times.

When Frederiksen became Social Democrat leader in 2015, she sought to outbid the DPP. By the 2019 election, the Social Democrats’ anti-immigration platform closely mirrored the DPP’s. And in the short term, it worked for them. They won the 2019 election while the DPP lost almost 12 percentage points. In losing, though, the DPP had won: its previously fringe positions on migration, belonging and identity had been absorbed into mainstream politics.

A rights-violating regime

On entering government in 2019, Frederiksen entrenched what the Social Democrats called a ‘paradigm shift’, moving from integration to deterrence, detention and return, with the stated goal of admitting ‘zero asylum seekers’. Denmark became the first European state to declare parts of Syria safe, enabling it to deport Syrian refugees to an active conflict zone. In 2021, parliament authorised the outsourcing of asylum processing to countries outside Europe. By 2024, Denmark was granting under 900 people asylum a year, the lowest figure in four decades, pandemic years excluded.

The human rights consequences have been documented by international civil society organisations and bodies such as the United Nations Committee Against Torture. Amnesty International has raised concerns about the forced return of asylum seekers to danger in violation of the 1951 Refugee Convention. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Denmark’s three-year waiting period for family reunification for refugees with temporary protection status violates the right to family life. Policies targeting government-classified ‘ghetto’ areas — overwhelmingly low-income neighbourhoods with high concentrations of people from migrant backgrounds — have been challenged at the European Court of Justice on grounds of racial discrimination.

The harm has been intentional. A framework designed to make Denmark as unwelcoming as possible has placed tens of thousands of people in prolonged legal uncertainty, with documented effects on family stability and mental health. Under Denmark’s presidency of the Council of the European Union, Frederiksen pressed for similar policies across Europe and, alongside far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, lobbied for a revised European Convention on Human Rights to enable easier deportation. Centre-left governments in Sweden and the UK have looked to Denmark as a model.

Normalisation, not neutralisation

The political calculation was that taking ownership of immigration would reduce its salience as an issue and deny the far right the fuel to grow. Instead, the move intensified demand, leaving opponents of migration taking ever more extreme positions while erasing the distinction between mainstream and far-right politics.

Denmark’s experience is a lesson other European centre-left parties appear determined not to learn. Twenty-five years of accommodation have produced a society in which far-right assumptions have become normalised, at enormous and ongoing cost to those whose rights are being stripped away. This is not a template; it is a warning.

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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The Leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Yasser Arafat, arrived at UN Headquarters by helicopter. A view of the helicopter, as it approached the North Lawn of the UN campus, on 13 November 1974. But Arafat was denied a US visa for a second visit to the UN in 1988, to address the General Assembly. Credit: UN Photo/Michos Tzovaras

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 15 2026 (IPS)

The United Nations faces two crucial elections later this year: the election of a new Secretary General, with no confirmed date for polling, and the election of a new President (PGA), scheduled for June 2, for the upcoming 81st session of the General Assembly.

In accordance with established geographical rotation, the president for the next session will be elected from the Asia-Pacific Group with two candidates in the running: Dr. Khalilur Rahman of Bangladesh, currently serving as Foreign Minister, and Andreas S. Kakouris, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cyprus. A third declared candidate, Riyad Mansour (Palestine), withdrew from the race.

The dual candidacy breaks a longstanding tradition of a single candidate running for the office of PGA from each geographical group.

According to one of the established rules, speeches before the General Assembly were limited to 15 minutes– but rarely enforced.

The longest speech –269 minutes–was credited to Fidel Castro of Cuba at a meeting of the General Assembly on 26 September 1960. But the longest speech ever made at the UN was by V.K. Krishna Menon of India. His statement to the Security Council was given during three meetings on 23 and 24 January 1957 and lasted more than 8 hours.

In a bygone era, the General Assembly was also the center of several politically memorable events in the history of the world body.

When Yasser Arafat was denied a US visa to visit New York to address the United Nations back in 1988, the General Assembly defied the United States by temporarily moving the UN’s highest policy making body to Geneva– perhaps for the first time in UN history– providing a less-hostile political environment and a platform, for the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Arafat, who first addressed the UN in 1974, took a swipe at Washington when he prefaced his statement in Geneva by remarking: “it never occurred to me that my second meeting with this honorable Assembly, since 1974, would take place in the hospitable city of Geneva”.

On his 1974 visit to address the General Assembly, he avoided the hundreds of pro and anti-Arafat demonstrators outside the UN building by arriving in a helicopter which landed on the North Lawn of the UN campus adjoining the East River.

When he addressed the General Assembly, there were confusing reports whether or not Arafat carried a gun in his holster—“in a house of peace” — which was apparently not visible to delegates.

One news story said Arafat was seen “wearing his gun belt and holster and reluctantly removing his pistol before mounting the rostrum.” “Today, I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom-fighter’s gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand,” he told the Assembly.

Setting the record straight, Samir Sanbar, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General and head of the former Department of Public Information told Inter Press Service (IPS) it was discreetly agreed that Arafat would keep the holster while the gun was to be handed over to Abdelaziz Bouteflika, then Foreign Minister and later President of Algeria (1999-2019).

Incidentally, when anti-Arafat New York protesters on First Avenue shouted: “Arafat Go Home”, his supporters responded that was precisely what he wanted—a home for the Palestinians to go to.

Although Arafat made it to the UN, some of the world’s most controversial leaders, including Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Syria’s Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar al-Assad, and North Korea’s Kim il Sung and his grandson Kim Jong-un never made it to the UN to address the General Assembly.

Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Minister of Industries of Cuba, addresses the General Assembly on Dec. 11, 1964. Credit: UN Photo/TC

Meanwhile, when the politically-charismatic Ernesto Che Guevara, once second-in-command to Cuban leader Fidel Castro, was at the UN to address the General Assembly sessions, back in 1964, the U.N. headquarters came under attack – literally. The speech by the Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary was momentarily drowned by the sound of an explosion.

The anti-Castro forces in the United States, reportedly backed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), had mounted an insidious campaign to stop Che Guevara from speaking. A 3.5-inch bazooka was fired at the 39-storeyed Secretariat building by the East River while a vociferous CIA-inspired anti-Castro, anti-Che Guevara demonstration was taking place outside the U.N. building on New York’s First Avenue and 42nd street.

But the rocket launcher – which was apparently not as sophisticated as today’s shoulder-fired missiles and rocket-propelled grenades – missed its target, rattled windows, and fell into the river about 200 yards from the building. One newspaper report described it as “one of the wildest episodes since the United Nations moved into its East River headquarters in 1952.”

As longtime U.N. staffers would recall, the failed 1964 bombing of the U.N. building took place when Che Guevara launched a blistering attack on U.S. foreign policy and denounced a proposed de-nuclearization pact for the Western hemisphere. It was one of the first known politically motivated terrorist attacks on the United Nations.

After his Assembly speech, Che Guevara was asked about the attack aimed at him. “The explosion has given the whole thing more flavor,” he joked, as he chomped on his Cuban cigar.

When he was told by a reporter that the New York City police had nabbed a woman, described as an anti-Castro Cuban exile, who had pulled out a hunting knife and jumped over the UN wall, intending to kill him, Che Guevara said: “It is better to be killed by a woman with a knife than by a man with a gun.”

Meanwhile, in 2004, when the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the predecessor to the present African Union (AU), barred coup leaders from participating in African summits, Secretary-General Kofi Annan singled out the OAU decision as a future model to punish military dictators worldwide.

Annan went one step further and said he was hopeful that one day the General Assembly would follow in the footsteps of the OAU and bar leaders of military governments from addressing the General Assembly.

Annan’s proposal was a historic first. But it never came to pass in an institution where member states, not the Secretary-General, reign supreme.

The outspoken Annan, a national of Ghana, also said that “billions of dollars of public funds continue to be stashed away by some African leaders — even while roads are crumbling, health systems are failing, school children have neither books nor desks nor teachers, and phones do not work.” He also lashed out at African leaders who overthrow democratic regimes to grab power by military means.

Meanwhile, some of the military leaders who addressed the UN included Fidel Castro of Cuba, Col Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya, Amadou Toure of Mali (who assumed power following a coup in 1991 but later served as a democratically elected President), and Jerry Rawlings of Ghana (who seized power in 1979, executed former heads of state but later served as a civilian president voted into power in democratic elections). As the International Herald Tribune reported, Rawlings was “Africa’s first former military leader to allow the voters to choose his successor in a multi-party election”.

In October 2020, the New York Times reported that at least 10 African civilian leaders refused to step down from power and instead changed their constitutions to serve a third or fourth term – or serve for life.

These leaders included Presidents of Guinea (running for a third term), Cote d’Ivoire, Uganda, Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Ghana and Seychelles, among others. The only country where the incumbent was stepping down was Niger.

Condemning all military coups, the Times quoted Umaro Sissoco Embalo, the president of Guinea-Bissau, as saying: “Third terms also count as coups”

Back in 1977, a separatist activist/lawyer from London, Krishna Vaikunthavsan, who was campaigning for a separate Tamil state in Sri Lanka, surreptitiously gate-crashed into the UN, and virtually hijacked the General Assembly when he walked to the GA podium ahead of Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister ACS Hameed, the listed speaker, and lashed out at his government for human rights violations and war crimes.

When the President of the Assembly realized he had an interloper, he cut off the mike within minutes and summoned security guards to bodily eject the intruder from the hall. And as he walked up to the podium, there was pin drop silence and the unflappable Hameed, unprompted by any of his delegates, produced a riveting punchline.

“I want to thank the previous speaker for keeping his speech short,” he said, as the Assembly, known to tolerate longwinded and boring speeches, broke into peals of laughter.

Meanwhile, a security officer once recalled an incident where the prime minister from an African country, addressing the General Assembly, was heckled by a group of African students. As is usual with hecklers, the boisterous group was taken off the visitor’s gallery, grilled, photographer and banned from entering the UN premises.

But about five years later, one of the hecklers returned to the UN —this time, as foreign minister of his country, and addressed the world body.

This article contains excerpts from a book on the United Nations titled “No Comment – and Don’t Quote Me on That” authored by Thalif Deen, Senior Editor at Inter Press Service news agency. A former member of the Sri Lanka delegation to the UN General Assembly sessions, he is a Fulbright scholar with a Master’s Degree in Journalism from Columbia University, New York, and twice (2012-2013) shared the gold medal for excellence in UN reporting awarded annually by the UN Correspondents Association (UNCA). The book is available on Amazon. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

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From the left, Rev. Tolbert Thomas Jallah Jn with Mariann Bassey Olsson during the launch of the campaign in Cartagena, Colombia. Credit: AFSA.

By Isaiah Esipisu
NAIROBI, Apr 14 2026 (IPS)

Over 800 households in Ikolomani Constituency in Kakamega County, Western Kenya, fear eviction to pave the way for a British firm, Shanta Gold Limited, to begin extracting gold valued at Sh683 billion ($5.29 billion) on an estimated 337 acres of residential and agricultural land.

Efforts by residents to protest against the looming displacement during an attempt for a public participation session on the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) by the government on 4 December 2025 were met with police brutality, leading to four deaths due to bullet wounds, arbitrary arrests and scores of injuries.

According to the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC), the incident is part of a disturbing and escalating pattern in Kenya’s extractive sector, where communities seeking accountability are met with brutal force, political threats, and procedural manipulation.

“Mining zones are increasingly becoming death traps rather than engines of community development,” reads part of a statement issued by the commission following the incident.

This trend mirrors what is happening in many other countries across Africa, where communities living in mineral-rich areas face forceful displacements, abuse of basic human rights, and environmental degradation linked to industrial mineral extraction, often perpetrated by foreign firms with full support of the political class.

According to Appolinaire Zagabe, a Congolese human rights activist and the Director for the DRC Climate Change Network (Reseau Sur le Changement Climatique RDC) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), often, people he terms ‘greedy government officials’ sign contracts with extractive firms to legalise their activities, then use police machinery to forcefully and brutally evict communities without informed consent and proper compensation.

It is based on such injustices that civil society organisations, social movements, faith-based actors, Indigenous Peoples, pastoralist and peasant organisations from Africa under the umbrella of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) launched a campaign calling for land policies that protect African smallholder farmers and communities against punitive extractive practices and land grabbing, which are currently a threat to human rights, livelihoods and sustainable food systems.

“Land is more than a resource; it is our heritage, our identity, and our future,” said Rev. Tolbert Thomas Jallah Jr, the Executive Director at the Faith and Justice Network, during the launch of the campaign on the sidelines of the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20) in Cartagena, Colombia.

“Across Africa, our soils feed our families, sustain our economies, and connect generations, yet today, land degradation, industrial extractive practices by foreign enterprises, climate change, and land grabbing threaten the very foundation of our food systems,” he added.

In a joint declaration at the conference, the organisations observed that rural communities across the world continue to face dispossession, land concentration, and ecological destruction.

“Despite global commitments to end hunger and poverty, land and food systems are increasingly controlled by corporate and financial interests, while communities that produce food remain marginalised and insecure,” reads part of the declaration statement.

It was further observed that carbon offset projects, extractive industries, agribusiness expansions, and speculative land markets are accelerating dispossession, soil degradation, and social inequality, often excluding communities from territories they have governed collectively for generations.

The campaign, dubbed “Protect Our Land, Restore Our Soil”, is now calling on governments to strengthen land rights and protect smallholder farmers; communities to embrace sustainable farming practices that rebuild soil fertility; and youthful farmers to view agriculture not as a last resort but as a powerful pathway to innovation and resilience.

“When soil is degraded, food becomes scarce, and when land is taken or misused, communities lose dignity and security,” said Rev. Tolbert, who is also the sitting Chairperson at the AFSA’s Board of Directors.

Just like the looming evictions of residents of Ikolomani in Kenya, Amnesty International has also observed that people of the DRC also pay a high price to supply the world with copper and cobalt: forced evictions, illegal destruction of their homes, and physical violence – sometimes leading to deaths.

The DRC supplies 70 to 74 percent of the copper and cobalt used in lithium-ion batteries. These batteries power our smartphones, laptops, electric cars, and bicycles, and they play a major role in the energy transition away from fossil fuels. This transition is urgent and necessary.

However, according to Amnesty International, mineral-rich regions of the DRC are sacrificed to mining development, leading to a shocking series of abuses in the region. Thousands of people have lost their homes, schools, hospitals, and communities due to the expansion of copper and cobalt mines in the country, especially in Kolwezi, which sits above rich copper and cobalt deposits.

The AFSA-led campaign calls on governments and corporate organisations to guarantee meaningful participation of affected communities and free prior and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples in land, agriculture and climate decision-making to avoid conflicts and abuse of basic human rights.

“The future lies not in further commodifying land and food systems, but in restoring community control over territories, securing pastoralist mobility and commons, and supporting agroecological transitions rooted in justice and ecological integrity,” observed Mariann Bassey Olsson, a Lawyer, and Director at Action (Friends of the Earth Nigeria).

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The Rohingya did not choose dependency on aid. It was created by the restrictions surrounding them. Credit: UNHCR/Amanda Jufrian

By Mohammed Zonaid
COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh, Apr 14 2026 (IPS)

While global attention right now is on escalating geopolitical tensions involving the United States, Israel, and Iran, another crisis continues quietly in Bangladesh.

Beginning April 1, 2026, the World Food Programme (WFP) introduced a revised Targeting and Prioritisation Exercise (TPE) for Rohingya refugees living in camps in Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Char, according to a statement released by the United Nations in Bangladesh on April 2.

Under the new system, refugee households will receive food assistance of $12, $10, or $7 per person per month, depending on their assessed level of food insecurity. Previously, all refugees received $12 per person.

On paper, vulnerability-based targeting appears reasonable. In many humanitarian crises, such systems help ensure that limited resources reach those most in need. However, the Rohingya context is different.

Nearly nine years after fleeing genocide and persecution in Myanmar, more than one million Rohingya refugees remain confined to camps in Bangladesh, according to the latest data from UNHCR Bangladesh including 144,456 biometrically identified new arrivals and 1,040,408 Registered refugees 1990s & post-2017. 78% them are Women and children.

Unlike refugees in many other countries, Rohingya in Bangladesh have extremely limited freedom of movement and cannot legally work or run small businesses within the camps. Refugees are also not formally employed by humanitarian organizations—except as volunteers receiving small daily allowances. As a result, they remain almost entirely dependent on humanitarian assistance.

Within this context, reducing aid raises serious concerns. When refugees are not permitted to engage in meaningful economic activity, food insecurity becomes less a household condition and more a structural outcome.

Humanitarian agencies have provided life-saving support for years, and their efforts should not be overlooked. But survival is not the same as stability. Instead of creating pathways toward self-reliance for Rohingya and local communities in Cox’s Bazar who are affected due to refugee statements, the current system has largely institutionalized dependency.

Many programs labeled as “livelihood initiatives” have not produced meaningful outcomes. Skills training programs—such as electrical repair or other technical courses—often fail to translate into real opportunities because refugees do not own motorbikes, electricity access is limited in many camp areas, refugees cannot legally move beyond the camps to seek work, and humanitarian organizations don’t employ trained refugees within their own operational structures.

This raises difficult questions: Why invest donor resources in skills that cannot realistically be applied? And what long-term strategy do these initiatives serve?

The new targeting model categorizes refugees as extremely food insecure, highly food insecure, or food insecure. Some vulnerable households—such as those led by elderly individuals, persons with disabilities, or children—will continue receiving the highest level of assistance.

Yet the broader reality remains unchanged: the entire Rohingya population in Bangladesh faces severe restrictions on economic participation.

Recent protests in the camps are often described as reactions to ration reductions. In reality, they reflect deeper concerns about uncertainty and the absence of long-term planning. Refugees are asking a simple question: What happens if funding declines further in the future? Where will we go? Well Bangladesh alone will be left dealing with the Rohingya crisis?

They want to send a message to the world: dependency on aid was designed around the Rohingya. It is time to think beyond relief and give them the tools to stand on their own feet.

Long-term strategic thinking is urgently needed. This includes serious discussions about ensuring safe and dignified lives in the camps until the Rohingya are able to return to Myanmar, expanding economic participation for refugees, and creating policies that allow them to contribute economically while remaining under appropriate regulation.

At the same time, Bangladesh itself is going through a transitional period after the election, and the new government and said it will work closely to make Rohingya repatriation possible and shared data on 8.29 lakh Rohingyas with Myanmar.

But the Rohingya crisis cannot be a lesser priority, the new government also needs to recognize that prolonged displacement cannot be managed indefinitely through restriction and relief alone—the same approach that largely characterized the policies of the previous government.

Carefully regulated work opportunities—such as camp-based enterprises, pilot employment schemes, or limited work authorization programs—could help reduce humanitarian dependency while preserving government oversight.

If even one or two members of each refugee household were allowed to work legally under controlled frameworks, humanitarian costs could gradually decline, camp economies could stabilize, and youth frustration could decrease.

Most importantly, dignity could begin to return.

After nearly nine years, international agencies have managed one of the world’s largest refugee operations with remarkable logistical capacity. Yet the central question remains: what durable systems have been created to help refugees stand on their own feet?

As global funding pressures increase and donor fatigue grows, humanitarian assistance is being recalibrated downward. Without structural reforms, this risks managing dependency more efficiently rather than reducing it.

The Rohingya did not choose dependency on aid. It was created by the restrictions surrounding them. Food assistance remains essential. But the future of an entire population cannot be defined solely by ration cards and vulnerability categories.

The Rohingya crisis requires more than improved targeting of aid. It requires policies that combine protection with participation and living with safety.

The world has learned how to feed the Rohingya.

The real test is whether it will allow them to stand—until the day they can safely return home to Myanmar with rights, safety, and dignity.

Otherwise, families quietly reduce meals. Young people seek unsafe informal labor. The risks of child labor, early marriage, unsafe migration. and involvement in illicit activities increase. When opportunity disappears, desperation fills the gap.

Mohammed Zonaid is a Rohingya SOPA 2025 honoree, freelance journalist, award-winning photographer, and fixer. He works with international agencies and has contributed to Myanmar Now, The Arakan Express News, The Diplomat Magazine, Frontier Myanmar, Inter Press Service, and the Myanmar Pressphoto Agency.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr 14 2026 (IPS)

Trump 2.0 has been marked by the blatantly aggressive exercise of power to secure US interests as defined by him. While many recent trends even predate his first term, his reduced use of ‘soft power’ has exposed his bullying, extortionary use of US power.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Rule of law?
Trade liberalisation has been reversed for at least two decades. Almost all G20 developed nations raised trade barriers following the 2008-09 global, actually Western, financial crisis.

The US has illegally weaponised more laws and policies, especially by unilaterally imposing sanctions and tariffs, especially on dissenting regimes.

Often, such threats are not ends in themselves but actually weapons to strengthen the US bargaining position to secure more advantageous deals.

Under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, members are obliged to extend ‘most favoured nation’ status to all other member nations.

On April 2, 2025, President Trump announced supposedly ‘reciprocal tariffs’, ostensibly responding to others having trade surpluses with the US.

Appealing to the WTO dispute settlement mechanism is futile, as the US has blocked the appointment of Appellate Body members since the Obama presidency.

Trump 2.0 has also been trying to get rich investors and governments – mainly from Europe, Japan, and the oil-rich Gulf states – to invest in the US.

Most such investments are in financial markets, rather than the real economy. Such portfolio investments have propped up asset prices, even bubbles.

Trump’s bullying is resented but has not been very effective vis-à-vis strong adversaries. Consequently, allies have been most affected and resentful.

Deepening stagflation
Meanwhile, much of the world economy has never really recovered from the COVID-19 slowdown, while Western sanctions and tariffs have raised production costs, worsening inflation.

Recent trends have also deepened the stagnation since 2009. Many governments and the IMF have made things worse by cutting spending when most needed.

Impacts have varied, generally worse in poorer countries, where the IMF limits policy options and credit rating agencies raise borrowing costs.

US Fed chair Powell’s interest rate hikes, ostensibly to address inflation, also reversed ‘quantitative easing’, which had lowered interest rates from 2009.

Trump’s aggression has reduced economic engagement with the US, inadvertently accelerating de-dollarisation, thus undermining the dollar’s ‘exorbitant privilege’.

Central banks worldwide have responded predictably, refusing to be counter-cyclical in the face of economic slowdown, citing inflationary pressures.

Transactional?
Trump’s transactional approach has meant bilateral, one-on-one dealings, further advantaging the world’s dominant power.

Involving one-time asymmetric ‘zero-sum games’, such transactions ensure the US gains, necessarily at the expense of the ‘other’. Transactionalism also enables ‘buying influence’, or corruption.

The resulting uncertainty reduces investments, not only in the US, but everywhere, due to greater perceived risks, exacerbating the stagnation. Thus, Trump 2.0 policies have reduced investment and growth.

The whole world, including the US, has suffered much ‘collateral damage’, but the White House seems content as long as others lose more.

Unipolar sovereigntism
The transitions to unipolar sovereigntism and then to a multipolar world have been much debated.

Three decades ago, the influential US Council on Foreign Relations’ journal, Foreign Affairs, argued that the post-Cold War unipolar world was actually ‘sovereigntist’.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s ‘Daddy’ reference to Trump suggests that the sovereigntist moment is not quite over, as the US ‘No Kings’ mobilisation suggests.

Trump’s ‘America First’ clearly opposes multilateralism, generating broader concerns. He has withdrawn the US from many, but not all, multilateral bodies.

On January 7, the US withdrew from 66 international organisations deemed “wasteful, ineffective, or harmful”, addressing issues it claimed were “contrary” to national interests.

Trump’s continued, selective use of multilateral bodies has served him well, retaining privileges, e.g., permanent membership of the UN Security Council with veto power.

The UN Security Council’s Gaza ceasefire resolution was used to create and legitimise his Board of Peace, now touted by some as an alternative to the UN!

Trump will not withdraw from the WTO as its Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement is key to US tech bros’ trillions from transnational IP.

End of soft power
Some of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s January 20th remarks at Davos are telling:

“More recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.

“You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination… If we are not at the table, we are on the menu.”

Besides exercising overwhelming military superiority, Trump 2.0 has increasingly weaponised rules, agreements and economic relations to its advantage.

The abandonment of ‘soft power’ – accelerated by Elon Musk’s DOGE – has ripped the velvet glove off US ‘hegemony’, exposing the mailed fist beneath.

USAID and other US government-funded agencies and programmes have been crucial for soft power, fostering the illusion of domination with consent. Abandoning soft power may well increase the costs of achieving America First.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By CIVICUS
Apr 13 2026 (IPS)

 
CIVICUS discusses recent regressive changes to Argentina’s labour laws with Facundo Merlán Rey, an activist with the Coordination Against Police and Institutional Repression (CORREPI), an organisation that defends workers’ rights and resists state repression.

Facundo Merlán Rey

Argentina has just passed the most significant changes to labour legislation in half a century. Driven by President Javier Milei following his victory in the October 2025 parliamentary election, the law profoundly changes the conditions for hiring and dismissing workers, extends the working day, restricts the right to strike and removes protections for workers in some occupations. The government says the measures will boost formal employment and investment, but trade unions and social organisations warn they erode decades of hard-won rights. The law has triggered four general strikes and numerous protests.

What does the new law change and why did the government decide to push it through?

Capitalising on its victory in last year’s legislative election, which gave it a majority in both parliamentary chambers, the government pushed through a labour law that introduced changes on several fronts simultaneously.

It increases the daily maximum of working hours from eight to 12, with a weekly cap of 48. Hours worked beyond this limit no longer need to be paid separately, but can be accumulated and exchanged for days off at a later date.

It also introduces the concept of ‘dynamic wage’, allowing part of an employee’s pay to be determined based on merit or individual productivity. The employer can decide this unilaterally with no need for a collective agreement. This would allow two people to be paid differently for doing the same work.

The law creates the Labour Assistance Fund, an account to which the employer contributes three per cent of a worker’s salary, of which between one and 2.5 percentage points come from the worker’s pay. If dismissed, the worker receives the amount accumulated in that fund. This is deeply humiliating. It makes the worker contribute to the financing of their dismissal. Given that these contributions previously went into the pension system, the effect will also be to weaken pensions.

The law restricts the right to strike by expanding the list of occupations deemed essential, which means they are required to maintain at least 75 per cent of their operations during a strike. Previously, this category included air traffic control, electricity, gas, healthcare and water. Now it also includes customs, education at all levels except university, immigration, ports and telecommunications. In practice, this means that in these fields a strike will have a much more limited impact.

Finally, the law repeals the special regimes that regulated working conditions in some trades and professions. Over the next six months, hairdressers, private drivers, radio and telegraph operators and travelling salespeople will lose these protections. The Journalists’ Statute will be abolished from 2027 onwards.

At CORREPI, we believe all these measures are unconstitutional, as they directly contravene article 14 of the constitution, which guarantees the right to work and the right to decent living conditions. The changes put employers in a position of almost absolute dominance in an employment relationship, leaving workers with no real scope to defend their rights.

How have trade unions and social organisations reacted?

The most militant groups highlighted the problems with the new law clearly, but the response from the organised labour movement has been insufficient.

Union leaders responded with a belated and low-profile campaign plan. They have long been criticised for preferring discreet agreements to open confrontation, and this time was no different. They negotiated behind the scenes and secured concessions to protect themselves. The law maintains employers’ contributions to trade union health schemes and the union dues paid by workers for two years. The rights of workers as a whole were sidelined.

What impact are the changes having?

Although the law is already in force, its full implementation faces obstacles, partly because it has internal consistency issues that hinder its practical application. When the government attempts to apply it in employment areas that still retain rights, it will likely face legal challenges, which will increase social unrest.

Even so, some of its effects are already being felt. Unemployment is rising slowly but steadily. Factory closures, driven by the opening up of imports and the greater ease of dismissal, are pushing more workers into informal employment and multiple jobs. The result is a fall in consumption and a level of strain with outcomes that are difficult to predict.

The consequences extend beyond the economic sphere. Increasingly demanding working conditions, combined with high inflation and rising household debt, are taking a toll on workers’ mental health. Regrettably, there is already a worrying rise in the suicide rate.

There’s also a consequence that is harder to measure: this reform erodes the collective identity of workers. When work is informal, individuals tend to solve their problems on their own, making it much harder to organise to demand better conditions. In working-class neighbourhoods, drug trafficking is becoming established as an alternative source of employment, generating situations of violence that largely go unnoticed. Unfortunately, everything points to an ever-deepening social breakdown.

What lessons does this experience hold for the rest of the region?

Regional experience shows it is very difficult to reverse this kind of change. In Brazil, President Lula da Silva came to power in 2022 promising to repeal the labour law passed in 2017 under Michel Temer’s government, similarly opposed by social organisations and trade unions. However, he failed to do so, and the framework Temer left remains in force. Once passed, these laws tend to remain in place regardless of who governs next.

That’s why what’s happening in Argentina should not be viewed as an isolated phenomenon. The reform appears to be part of a broader direction that regional politics is taking under the influence of the USA, one of the main drivers of these changes and a supporter of the governments implementing them.

The weakening of labour rights and collective organising is not a side effect; it is the objective being pursued. Dismantling workers’ ability to organise collectively facilitates the advance of extractive and financial interests and guarantees access to cheap labour. In that sense, Argentina offers a warning to the rest of the region.

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
‘Milei managed to capture social unrest and channel it through a disruptive political proposal’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Carlos Gervasoni 13.Dec.2025
‘Society must prepare to act collectively to defend rights and democracy’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Natalia Gherardi 27.Feb.2025
‘The state is abandoning its role as guarantor of access to rights’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Vanina Escales and Manuel Tufró 22.Jul.2024

 

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A motorcycle rider riding through flood in Kolkata, India. Cities should transform into sponges to absorb flood as part of climate adaptation. Credit: Pexels/Dibakar Roy

By Temily Baker, Leila Salarpour Goodarzi and Elisa Belaz
BANGKOK, Thailand, Apr 13 2026 (IPS)

As the Pacific recovers from a severe cyclone season and Asia braces for the monsoon, flood readiness has become a defining test of sustainable urban development.

The Asia and the Pacific 2026 SDG Progress Report signals a hard truth: while poverty reduction, health and basic infrastructure have advanced, the region is regressing on climate action, disaster resilience and biodiversity—areas now decisive for long-term development.

The widespread flooding across the region in November 2025 was not merely a weather event; it was a warning and a new baseline. From Hat Yai to Colombo, dense urban districts were underwater for days, exposing millions of people and billions in assets to cascading disruption.

Across the Asia-Pacific region, climate extremes are intensifying, increasing water inflow to drainage systems by over 53%. In coastal areas, flooding can halt transport, isolate communities, delay emergency response and lead to saltwater intrusion that damages agriculture and freshwater supplies.

ESCAP’s analysis (Figure 1) examines how these threats are expected to continue to increase in the region’s low-lying river deltas, small island nations and rapidly growing coastal cities. For example, Seenu Atoll in the Maldives is expected to face a six-fold jump in population exposure to coastal flooding by 2050.

Looking across the region, Jiangsu Province in China, West Bengal in India, Khula and Marisal Divisions of Bangladesh, and Bến Tre and Bạc Liêu Provinces of Viet Nam are all expected to see hundreds of thousands of people exposed along their respective coastlines in the next 25 years.

Figure 1 – Percentage of People Exposed to Coastal Flooding of 0.5 Meters and Above in States/Provinces Across the Asia-Pacific Region and in Atolls of the Maldives (2018 Baseline vs. 2050 RCP8.5).

In the face of these risks, cities become engines of growth only when they are resilient. So, why do many cities across the Asia-Pacific region find themselves underwater while others weathered the storm with far less disruption? The answer lies in whether cities treat rain as a resource or as waste

Traditional “grey” systems, such as pipes, pumps and channels, aim to move water out fast. In a nonstationary climate and denser urban fabric, this is no longer sufficient. Sponge city design blends green-blue-grey systems (permeable surfaces, parks, wetlands, bioswales, green corridors) with modernized drainage to capture, store, and safely release rainfall at the source.

China’s national Sponge City Initiative (launched in 2015) built on international practice and showed how integrated planning can retrofit districts and guide new growth to manage water where it falls. The logic is simple: expand infiltration and storage, reduce peak runoff and use engineered conveyance when and where needed.

Results from early adopters are tangible

In Wuhan, sponge city measures contributed to a 50% reduction in locations experiencing overflow and pipe overloading during high flow years. Over the life of assets, green-blue systems can cost significantly less than like-for-like grey expansions, while delivering co-benefits that traditional drains cannot: cooler neighborhoods, improved air quality, biodiversity and accessible public space.

For cities facing rising loss and damage under SDG 11.5 (deaths, affected people and economic losses), sponge city programmes generate a resilience dividend—not just a flood fix.

Sponge city thinking is also evolving toward smart hybrid infrastructure

Nature-based systems are being coupled with engineered assets and digital tools, such as digital twins, to model urban hydrology and optimize performance in real time, enabling city planners to simulate rainfall scenarios, forecast flood hotspots and manage infrastructure adaptively, thereby improving the effectiveness of sponge-city interventions.

This pairing turns static drainage into adaptive urban water management, essential as rainfall intensity and patterns shift, reducing and managing risk through early warning, community preparedness and basin scale controls.

Urban resilience is also ecological

The Asia-Pacific region is home to an estimated 30–40% of the world’s wetlands, yet only around 22% are formally protected. As wetland buffers are drained or reclaimed, cities lose natural absorption, filtration and surge moderation, just as extremes intensify. Protecting and restoring urban and peri-urban wetlands is therefore core infrastructure policy, reinforcing SDG 15 while directly advancing SDGs 11.5 and 13.1.

Sponge city approaches are not a panacea. Their effectiveness can be constrained by governance capacity, implementation scale and maintenance requirements, land availability and high-density development. They must therefore be complemented by robust end-to-end early warning systems and coordinated disaster risk management frameworks.

To this end, ESCAP supports countries across the region by providing regional and national risk analytics through its Risk and Resilience Portal, enabling policymakers to integrate climate and disaster information directly into development planning.

These analyses and tools are tailored to regional and country needs, such as ClimaCoast, which focuses on coastal multi-hazard and socio-economic exposures. These initiatives are complemented by targeted financing from the Trust Fund for Tsunami, Disaster and Climate Preparedness, through programmes that strengthen coastal resilience in Asia and the Pacific. Together, these initiatives aim to reverse the current regression in resilience related SDG targets and help safeguard sustainable development in the region’s high risk hotspots.

Asia and the Pacific region can no longer rely on drainage systems built for a different climate and century. By adopting sponge city principles, Asia Pacific cities can embed resilience into everyday urban life—a development imperative, not just a technical shift.

Strengthening urban resilience is essential to advancing SDG 11 and SDG 13 and protecting hard won development gains that too often wash away when floods strike.

Temily Baker is Programme Management Officer, ESCAP; Leila Salarpour Goodarzi is Associate Economic Affairs Officer, ESCAP and Elisa Belaz is Consultant, ESCAP

IPS UN Bureau

 

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