Agrégateur de flux

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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Committee and political group meetings, Brussels

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Selon le parti écologiste belge Ecolo, le manque d'intérêt pour un accès élargi s'explique par le fait que le grand public n'est pas suffisamment sensibilisé aux avantages d'une plus grande ouverture du site

The post Serres royales de Bruxelles : grilles ouvertes mais un débat timide sur l’accès appeared first on Euractiv FR.

A small meeting room in the European External Action Service is an unlikely place to get goosebumps. Yet, this happened time and time again as I spoke to European Union (EU) officials about the ground-breaking decision to deploy the European Peace Facility (EPF) to support Ukraine’s military response against Russia’s full-scale invasion during a cold February weekend in 2022. They all recall the gravitas of the moment: High Representative Borrell’s famous “Just add a zero” line that allowed the EPF budget to be multiplied by ten, the ground-breaking decision to deploy it to provide lethal equipment, and the momentous feeling of unity between Member States – a Union that, for once, rose up to the stakes of the moment.

Yet, the goosebumps are a momentary experience, and quickly go away as the conversation shifts to the months and years that followed. The tone gets more sour and frustrated. From a powerful innovation signifying European resolve, since 2024, the EPF has been completely blocked by the assertiveness of Hungarian vetoes. The officials I interview often use this as an example to show me that, although we tend to see the EU’s reaction to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine as an ideal case of unity, consensus is not part of the equation at all.

How and why, then, has internal disagreement not impeded a common response in support of Ukraine? The conventional wisdom – that EU foreign policy action requires unanimity – cannot explain this.

My PhD starts from a different premise. Full agreement is a lot to ask of a group of twenty-seven Member States bound together by a sprawling institutional architecture and a multiplicity of tools, but torn apart by diverging interests and strategic cultures. In a decision-making machinery still dominated by unanimity, collective action does not require the elimination of disagreement by channelling twenty-seven voices into one. It requires organising twenty-seven voices into patterns of complementarity rather than contradiction.

These are the theoretical propositions I carried with me back and forth in my Eurostar journeys from London to Brussels since January 2026, when I began my fieldwork, generously supported by the UACES PhD Fieldwork Scholarship.

What I Am Finding: Complementarity, Not Unity 

The central conceptual move emerging from my research is a shift away from thinking about EU unity as the enabling factor of common external action to thinking about complementarity.

The dominant framing treats EU unity and consensus as necessary conditions for EU presence on the global stage: either it ‘speaks with one voice’ or it fragments into competing national positions. A holistic analysis of those cases that are considered closest to ideal types in this binary – Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the Gaza conflict – reveals something this dichotomy cannot capture.

By taking into account the multiplicity of actions across the Union’s multi-actor, multi-method, multi-level system of foreign policy, one starts seeing a different picture. It is the management of conflict and disagreement – not consensus – that enables EU external action, which can exist in multiple forms short of unity. What matters is not whether agreement can be found in the Council, but whether EU institutions and Member States act, in practice, to fill the gaps left by one another.

The EU’s multi-centred architecture – its multiple voices – does not merely constrain action, but provides avenues through which action can be routed around blockages at any given level. The European Peace Facility is a particularly successful and evident example of this: where disagreement existed, and common competencies lacked to support the provision of lethal equipment to Ukraine, the Commission provided EU financing through off-budget mechanisms, Member States delivered weapons bilaterally, and the EEAS coordinated. Each maintained its distinctive organisational approach, but these were structured to complement each other. No preference convergence or further integration occurred, but institutional innovations and procedural flexibility organised these differences productively.

I propose complementarity as the concept to capture this: the degree to which EU institutions and Member States reinforce rather than contradict each other at political, strategic, and operational levels. Complementarity is not coherence or uniformity: it allows for differentiated contributions, sequenced actions, and division of labour across a spectrum. What matters is not the institutional design of decision-making, but its outcome in practice, and whether actors reinforce, supplement, or contradict one another.

What Complementarity Reveals

 This concept helps to start theorising three more and more explicit developments in EU foreign policy into a single framework. These are typically analysed in isolation or misread as signs of dysfunction. Rather, I argue that they are all part of the same phenomenon whereby the EU assumes different patterns of complementarity as the outcome of internal conflict management.

The first concerns the simultaneous rise of Commission assertiveness and Member State coalitions. The European Commission increasingly deploys its own instruments – SAFE, Readiness 2030 – to provide frameworks for action in areas where unanimity in CFSP/CSDP cannot be reached. At the same time, Member States form informal ‘coalitions of the willing’ to tackle urgent problems outside the constraints of unanimity. These are usually analysed as two distinct trends, and the latter is often read as a sign of fragmentation. Yet, I argue that they are symptoms of complementarity in action: efforts of separate actors to enable or strengthen the collective effort.

The second development concerns the increasing visibility of Commission instruments in the making and shaping of EU external action. The existing debate has long equated EU foreign policy with its most visible intergovernmental surface – Council conclusions, statements, declarations. These are either voted on by unanimity or fail to come into existence. But a more holistic view that understands Community and Member State instruments and external competencies as part of the same system of foreign policy, a different picture emerges. Political, strategic, and operational coordination do not always move in tandem: Community tools can be effectively deployed at the operational level even when political consensus is absent. What appears as “disunity” at one level does not necessarily mean the EU is failing to act, or vice versa. It is precisely in these intermediate configurations – visible through a complementary view – that some of the most undertheorised dynamics of EU foreign policy reside.

Third, these configurations are not static. Complementarity is better understood as a process than a state – something that is constructed, sustained, and that can erode. The EU’s response to Ukraine illustrates this vividly: the rapid construction of a coherent response in the weeks following February 2022 gradually became more pluralistic over time – regardless of the sustained existential threat to European security. Changes external configuration of the EU – whether it speaks with one voice or it is characterised by coalitions of the willing and Commission-led workarounds – are often read as predictive signs of the trajectory of EU foreign policy integration. My argument is that this is the wrong frame entirely. These are not steps forward, backwards, or sideways on an integration spectrum that can tell us whether the EU is advancing unevenly, retreating, or finding a differentiated middle path. They are pragmatic, adaptive responses to the specific configuration of external constraints and internal costs the EU faces at a given moment. The EU is not on a linear trajectory; rather, a kaleidoscopic, shape-shifting polity in which coalitions form and reform around specific issues, and where the relevant question is not the degree of integration but the pattern of alignment.

Bridging Theory and Practice: Fieldwork in the Brussels Bubble

The core of my fieldwork consists of elite interviews with practitioners across the EU’s foreign policy ecosystem: officials from the EEAS, the Commission, the Council Secretariat, and Member States. The interviews seek to unveil not the achievement of unanimity as described by the treaties, but the daily, often improvised work of finding éscamotages, creative solutions, and producing collective action under pressure.

Brussels is a bubble that rewards presence. Many of these conversations would not have happened over Zoom. The willingness to speak candidly about politically charged dynamics – particularly about why coordination breaks down and how dissent is absorbed rather than resolved – depends enormously on trust built face to face. The informal chats after the recorded interview, the run-ins around Schuman or To Meli, the introductions passed along by a colleague: these are the understated elements that make research beyond the diplomatic narrative possible. I still have much to do: the human component of interviews requires time – digging into the EUWhoIsWho to identify interlocutors, waiting for answers (which often never come), and finding an appropriate time in the interviewees’ busy schedules. This means: I am still deeply in the process – widening my reach to Member State officials in Permanent Representations and select national capitals.

The UACES PhD Fieldwork Scholarship is essential to sustaining this presence. The scholarship supported my travel and living costs, allowing me to conduct a far richer set of interviews than would otherwise have been feasible. I am deeply grateful to UACES for this support, and for the broader role the association plays in enabling early-career researchers to undertake empirically grounded work.

Looking Ahead

The broader ambition is to equip scholars and practitioners with a framework that makes sense of recent developments in EU foreign policy while relieving them of the unrealistic expectation of consistent unity and the frustration of apparent weakness. The EU is not a unitary state. It cannot always ‘speak with one voice’. But it can and does act – sometimes with remarkable coordination, sometimes in productive pluralism, and sometimes in disarray. Understanding why it takes these different forms can offer insights into how this adaptive quality could become a strength rather than a source of anxiety in an increasingly volatile international order.

The post Conflict Is Underrated: From Unity to Complementarity in EU Foreign Policy appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Le dirigeant hongrois, désormais écarté, est prêt à redevenir « capitaine de l'équipe » et à « mener les garçons jusqu'au centre du terrain » – si son parti, le Fidesz, l'accepte

The post Orbán se confie sur sa « douleur » et son « sentiment de vide » appeared first on Euractiv FR.

ÄNDERUNGSANTRÄGE 1 - 305 - Entwurf eines Berichts Bericht 2025 der Kommission über Georgien
Ausschuss für auswärtige Angelegenheiten
Rasa Juknevičienė

Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2026 - EP

Le cessez-le-feu tiendra-t-il et les efforts diplomatiques se poursuivront-ils, ou l'Iran et les États-Unis se dirigent-ils vers une escalade contrôlée, voire vers une guerre plus vaste ?

« Sans crainte. En Europe, maîtres dans notre propre maison » : tel est le slogan

The post Les « Patriotes » cherchent à redorer leur blason après plusieurs revers appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Après six ans loin du public, la diva québécoise sort un titre en français. "Dansons", écrit par son compositeur fétiche Jean-Jacques Goldman, a été dévoilé vendredi. Le morceau était très attendu par les fans de la chanteuse qui revient sur scène pour une série de concerts cet automne à Paris.

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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AMENDMENTS 1 - 290 - Draft report 2025 Commission report on Kosovo
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Riho Terras

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

AMENDMENTS 1 - 290 - Draft report 2025 Commission report on Kosovo
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Riho Terras

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Despite the swearing-in of a new "civilian" government, progress on the project is likely to remain sluggish.

Meeting in Beijing, To Lam and Xi Jinping declared that they view the bilateral relationship "as a strategic choice of overarching and long-term significance.”

Written by Issam Hallak

Obstacles to businesses’ cross-border operations and expansion constitute a major hurdle to an effective single market. The International Monetary Fund estimates that persistent barriers to the single market represent the equivalent of a 44 % and 110 % tariff on goods and services, respectively. The Letta report emphasised that a single business code would be a ‘game-changer’, making all business procedures – from establishment to end of activity – smoother and more transparent.

To address this issue, the European Commission published a proposal on 18 March 2026 for a regulation establishing the 28th regime corporate legal framework that introduces a new legal entity, EU Inc. Any company would be able to register in any Member State and opt in to the EU Inc. company form. The framework would allow quick, fully digital registration that is automatically valid across the whole EU, thereby benefiting the operations and expansion of EU Inc. businesses. In addition, the proposal provides for a single tax treatment of employee remuneration through stocks and enables employee participation schemes. It also provides for fast-track termination of solvent companies, and a legal framework for winding up insolvent small and young innovative companies, known as start-ups.

Parliament adopted a resolution in January 2026 supporting the approach but remained cautious about its chances of success.

Read the complete briefing on ‘The 28th regime corporate legal framework‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

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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SEE ALSO
Technology: innovation without accountability CIVICUS | State of Civil Society Report 2026
AI governance: the struggle for human rights CIVICUS Lens 11.Sep.2025
Facial recognition: the latest weapon against civil society CIVICUS Lens 23.May.2025

 

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