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Un nouveau rapport de la Commission européenne souligne que l’IA pourrait améliorer la qualité des soins de santé, mais que son adoption dans ce domaine est ralentie par la complexité des règlementations et la méfiance.

The post IA dans la santé : les règles et la méfiance constituent un frein, selon une étude de la Commission appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Security guarantees, not concessions, top Ukraine allies’ agenda

The only effective deterrent is to create a credible threat that Moscow cannot beat, with much less wriggle room for would-be protectors to soften their commitment

Henrik Landerholm, who resigned in January over the scandal, left documents in an unlocked locker at a hotel in March 2023

Mehr als ein Jahr nach den tödlichen Unruhen in Neukaledonien unternimmt Paris einen neuen Anlauf, um ein umstrittenes politisches Abkommen des Territoriums voranzubringen.

UNFSS+4 delivered a clear message: solutions already exist. What’s missing is political will, adequate funding, and a willingness to challenge the status quo. Credit: UNFSS by kin creative-9555

By Stefanos Fotiou
ROME, Aug 18 2025 (IPS)

The global food system is under pressure from every direction – climate, conflict, inequality, and economic instability. But in Addis Ababa this July, something shifted. At the UN Food Systems Summit +4 Stocktake (UNFSS+4), over 3,500 people from 150 countries came together to confront the lack of progress and push forward solutions that can no longer wait.

Crucially, Africa wasn’t just a location for a global meeting. It led the conversation. Ethiopia showed what political commitment to transformation can deliver – investing in school feeding programmes, linking environmental restoration with jobs and food security, supporting local markets, and working across levels of government. These efforts are producing measurable outcomes under real-world conditions.

Governments that are serious about change now need to prove it. That proof depends on financing, coordination across sectors, and policies that support those making change happen

UNFSS+4 was also different in tone and structure. It didn’t rely solely on government declarations. Hundreds of civil society groups, farmers’ organizations, youth networks, research institutions, and private sector actors played an active role in shaping the Summit’s agenda and outcomes.

As Director of the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub, I was tasked with leading the team that supported this process. What I saw behind the scenes was the real engine of the Summit: a team of people – from governments, NGOs, development partners, and grassroots coalitions – working together with urgency, arguing through difficult decisions, staying focused on what mattered. The energy behind the Summit came from people who were committed to getting things done.

The outcomes reflected that. The Summit’s Call to Action spelled out the scale of the crisis:

• As many as 720 million people still go hungry;
• 2.6 billion cannot afford a healthy diet, with the situation worsening in Africa;
• Farmers are dealing with increasingly volatile climate shocks, rising costs, and unfair market conditions.

On top of that, governments are scaling back humanitarian funding. Food systems are being hit by inflation, debt, war, and ecological breakdown. And while political leaders often speak about the urgency of transformation, most continue to act as if change can wait.

UNFSS+4 focused on practical steps. First, it called for a reversal of the decline in food-related aid. People living through conflict or crisis need access to food now – and humanitarian actors need resources to reach them.

Second, it demanded progress on National Pathways – the country-level plans created after the first Food Systems Summit in 2021. These plans are where real change happens, or doesn’t. But without domestic funding and political backing, they risk stalling.

Third, it challenged public and private investors – including development banks – to back smallholder farmers, food workers, and local food economies. This means shifting incentives away from industrial monocultures and toward approaches that protect ecosystems and livelihoods. It also means connecting food policy with land use, financial systems, and public procurement, instead of treating them as separate agendas.

Finally, the Summit emphasized one point that too often gets lost in global meetings: the role of youth. Young people are organizing, farming, creating food enterprises, shaping policy debates – and demanding space to lead. The UNFSS+4 Youth Declaration, developed through months of consultations and adopted at the Summit, is a clear signal that young people are no longer asking to be included. They are already doing the work, and they expect institutions to catch up.

The obstacles ahead are real. Many governments still make food policy behind closed doors, influenced more by political calculations than public needs. Agricultural subsidies often benefit those who already hold power, rather than those feeding communities or regenerating land.

The same dynamics play out at the international level – where trade rules, financial flows, and climate decisions frequently ignore the priorities of low- and middle-income countries.

If we want transformation, we have to deal with these structures directly. That means more transparency. It means real accountability – tracking how funds are spent, who benefits, and what results are achieved. It means recognizing that technical solutions – better seeds, smarter logistics, improved data – won’t deliver much if the underlying incentives still reward extraction and exclusion.

Africa’s leadership at the Summit was not a symbolic gesture. It was a political statement: that the region hardest hit by the current food crisis is also prepared to lead efforts to fix the system.

But global actors must respond accordingly. That means more than offering praise or short-term grants. It means shifting the terms of engagement – on finance, on trade, on governance – and recognizing that power imbalances are part of the problem.

Summits often generate headlines and then fade. This one shouldn’t. With only five years left to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, and with hunger rising rather than falling, we are moving in the wrong direction. If we continue to delay action, the consequences will be measured not in targets missed, but in lives lost.

UNFSS+4 delivered a clear message: solutions already exist. What’s missing is political will, adequate funding, and a willingness to challenge the status quo. Governments that are serious about change now need to prove it. That proof depends on financing, coordination across sectors, and policies that support those making change happen.

Food is not just an economic sector. It is the foundation of human survival and dignity. And it’s time we treated it that way.

Excerpt:

Dr. Stefanos Fotiou is Director, UN Food Systems Coordination Hub

Le thon, poisson préféré des Européens, est à nouveau au centre de l’attention, la bataille juridique contre l’usage d’un dispositif de pêche controversé dans l’océan Indien étant relancée.

The post Thon : l’UE contrainte de justifier sa position sur une méthode de pêche controversée appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Over a year after deadly riots erupted in New Caledonia, Paris is making a fresh bid to revive the territory’s disputed political agreement

Numbers in all three Belgian regions went up but with a jump of 95% Wallonia takes first place

The Brussels huddle with Zelenskyy appeared on von der Leyen’s agenda ahead of the Oval Office meeting

Die Diskriminierung von übergewichtigen Menschen am Arbeitsplatz ist ein wachsendes Problem. Besonders Frauen verdienen schlechter, wegen neuer, alter Schönheitsideale., Übergewicht hat sich in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten zu einer großen gesundheitlichen Herausforderung mit pandemischen Ausmaßen entwickelt. Die WHO spricht schon seit 1997 von einer globalen Epidemie. Wir wissen zwar viel über die Auswirkungen von Übergewicht auf die Gesundheit und die Sozialsysteme, ...

Norway, western Europe's biggest oil and gas producer, is regularly criticised for its oil and gas production

This year’s blazes have already set a record for land burnt in Spain, with firefighters warning the peak wildfire season is still ahead

Le sommet de vendredi dernier en Alaska entre Donald Trump et Vladimir Poutine a suscité de vives critiques en Europe, où les dirigeants tentent désormais de peser sur la suite des négociations.

The post Paix en Ukraine : les Européens veulent rester impliqués appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Des chercheurs européens mettent en garde contre les failles des méthodes actuelles d’évaluation de l’intelligence artificielle et appellent les régulateurs à s’assurer que les éléments avancés par les entreprises du secteur reflètent bien la réalité.

The post Une étude européenne alerte sur les limites des tests de performance de l’IA appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Der Europäische Gerichtshof hat der EU-Kommission eine Niederlage zugefügt: Brüssel habe eine Beschwerde der französischen NGO BLOOM nicht ausreichend geprüft. Nun steht der Thunfisch erneut im Zentrum des Streits um seine Fangmethoden.

An NGO has reopened the battle over controversial tuna fishing devices in the Indian Ocean

Retour sur la dernière campagne publicitaire du poids lourd de l'industrie pharmaceutique Novo Nordisk en Espagne qui a créé la polémique, posant la question de la frontière entre messages de santé publique et publicité illégale.

The post Sensibilisation à l’obésité ou publicité illégale ? Une campagne de Novo Nordisk en Espagne fait polémique appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Abortion is illegal in Uganda. Girls who get pregnant resort to deadly backstreet abortion providers. However, it is also criminal to provide safe abortion services. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

By Wambi Michael
KAMPALA, Aug 18 2025 (IPS)

Sarah Namukisa nearly missed her final year exams earlier this year. She was subjected to a mandatory pregnancy test—the 25-year-old student at the Medical Laboratory Training School in Jinja was then expelled because she was pregnant.

While Namukisa’s case sparked public criticism, activists say it was by no means an isolated incident.

Across Uganda and other East African countries, pregnant students continue to face expulsion, forced school dropout, and stigma in both public and private educational institutions.

Labila Sumaya Musoke, from the Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER), told IPS that the widespread practice reflects deep-seated systemic discrimination and patriarchal control over young women’s bodies and futures

She said the expulsion mirrors systemic and institutional discrimination that international and regional human rights bodies have explicitly deemed unlawful and incompatible with human rights standards.

Namukisa was lucky that her case attracted the attention of the civil society and Uganda’s Equal Opportunities Commission. The commission ordered her school to rescind the expulsion. Many young women resort to deadly “backstreet” abortions in an effort to find ways to return to school or higher learning institutes. Abortion is still outlawed in Uganda and its neighbors—Kenya and Tanzania.

The most recent Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) datasets of the 12 East African countries found that the overall prevalence of adolescent pregnancy in East Africa was 54.6 percent. The survey concluded that it is vital to design public health interventions targeting higher-risk adolescent girls, particularly those from the poorest households, by enhancing maternal education and empowerment to reduce adolescent pregnancy and its complications.

Teenage pregnancy and motherhood rate in Kenya stands at 18 percent. This implies that about one in every five teenage girls between the ages of 15-19 years has either had a live birth or is pregnant with their first child.

The rate of teenage pregnancy has stagnated for over a decade in Uganda; it stood at 25 percent in 2006, at 24 percent in 2011 and now shows trends of rising at 25 percent. Teenage pregnancy in Tanzania is a significant public health issue, with 22 percent of women aged 15-19 having been pregnant, according to a 2022 Tanzania Demographic and Health Survey.

Rosemary Kirui, the Legal Advisor at the Center for Reproductive Rights—which works in seven countries, including Uganda—said the enjoyment of the Sexual Reproductive Health rights has been limited by barriers related to the legal and policy framework.

“We have a legal environment that has restrictive laws that criminalize some SHRH services. Most of the laws were adopted or inherited from the colonialists. And most of the countries have not changed the laws. So you will find that the penal code is similar, giving a blanket criminalization of abortion. So you will find this is being interpreted narrowly in many African countries,” said Kirui.

She told IPS that the other aspect of restrictive laws is the age of consent, where there is a mandatory third-party requirement for adolescents seeking information and sexual reproduction health services.

Primer Kwagala, a Ugandan Lawyer whose organization, Women Pro Bono Initiative (WPI), has been litigating for access to SHR services, told IPS that the country maintains restrictions on abortion.

“We are saying that 16 women are dying each day due to lack of services in public health facilities. And there are those who are dying in communities due to unsafe abortion. We have on our law books outdated colonial policies preventing health workers from providing life-saving services.”

Uganda’s constitution says that no one can take the life of an unborn child except in exceptional circumstances.

“For many women to exercise autonomy over their bodies and to say, ‘I cannot carry this pregnancy; I need an abortion,’ they cannot go ahead and have that discussion. The first thing the health worker will say is, ‘I don’t want to go to prison,’” said Kwagala.

The Ministry of Health in Uganda has issued guidelines allowing safe abortions in cases of defilement, rape, and incest. But the guidelines, according to Kwagala, are more on paper than in practice.

In 2020, a ruling by the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC) against the Republic of Tanzania found that Tanzania’s policy of expelling pregnant schoolgirls constituted a violation of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, particularly the rights to education, health, dignity, and non-discrimination.

Six girls who were pregnant were expelled from the school. The committee urged Tanzania to reform its education policies.

Dr. Godfrey Kangaude, an expert on Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights based in Malawi, said there is a tussle between the gatekeepers who think the SHR issues are for the civil society to handle.

“But I think this is closest to us. Sex and reproduction are relevant to everyone,” said Kangaude while speaking to the East Africa Law Society on litigating for sexual health rights.

He said sexual and reproductive justice is closely interrelated with finance and labor justice and generally the overall well-being of humans.

Kagaunde explained that in Malawi and other countries in the region, there are anomalies when it comes to the age of consent.

“In Malawi, the law says an adult cannot have sex with a child. Okay, we want to protect children. Isn’t it? But the line has been so rigid that an 18-year-old boy can’t have sex with a 17-year-old girl, because a 17-year-old is a minor and an 18-year-old is an adult. We understand that we want to protect people from harmful sexual conduct, especially children, but the law shouldn’t just be arbitrary. It should take into account that the 17-year-old and 18-year-old are peers.”

Criminalization of Consensual Sex 

Kangaunde and others argue that rights-based reform is needed. Laws should be gender-neutral, orientation-neutral, and distinguish exploitative adult–child sex from non-exploitative peer sex. Kangaude points to alternatives like multi-stage consent and close-in-age (“Romeo & Juliet”) exemptions.

Kangaunde and others have been criticized over their stance on the age of consent to sex and access for individuals younger than 18 to access contraceptives and safe abortion services.

“But look, there is a 19-year-old boy who is being charged with the offense of having sex with a girlfriend of 17. I mean, for him, life just went crazy. He is at school, and he had to stop schooling,” said Kangaude, the director at Nyale Institute. His institute provides legal support and engages in strategic litigation to protect and promote sexual and reproductive health rights.

Activists have since 2017 been pushing for a regional Sexual Reproductive Health Rights law. They contend that across East Africa, sexual and reproductive health rights have been narrowly defined as standalone rights.

If enacted, it would require the EAC member states to harmonize provisions on sexual and reproductive health services and information.

The bill has, however, faced significant resistance based especially on social and cultural barriers. The resistance has focused on aspects of comprehensive sex education for teenagers and provisions regarding legal abortion.

Dr. Tom Mulisa, a human rights and constitutional law researcher based at the University of Rwanda, told IPS that sexual and reproductive health rights are broad.

“Constitutions have those rights, and national health laws and policies have those rights, we are talking about the right to health, which most constitutions have, and we are talking about the right to privacy, the right to information, and sexual and reproductive health rights,” he said.

The partner states have ratified the Maputo protocol, which allows for the termination of pregnancy. The protocol is the main regional instrument that advances women’s rights especially sexual and reproductive health rights. The protocol also provides for elimination of discrimination and prohibition of harmful practices, such as female genital cutting.

Within the region, some countries have ratified the protocol, others have not and others have ratified it with reservations. Enforcement of the protocol has been split, making it difficult for all to enjoy the broader rights therein.

Kenya made reservations about Article (14), which provides for safe and legal abortion. Kenya’s constitution, on the other hand, provides for a right to legal and safe abortion when the life of the mother or fetus is at threat.

Learning From Advances in Rwanda

Rwanda has made significant progress in improving the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) of its population, especially young individuals. Like many countries in the region, it had post-colonial laws. It embarked on reform since 2009. The reforms laid the groundwork for what many describe as a flexible system.

Earlier this month, Rwanda’s Parliament passed a new law granting adolescent girls the right to access Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) services—particularly family planning—without requiring parental consent. It lowered the legal age to access contraceptives from 18-15.

Mulisa stated that the country modified its new penal code by eliminating the court’s requirement for an abortion. The penal code also included sexual reproductive health rights.

“Previously, the government held the right to health, while individuals were obligated to comply with it. But now the constitution has an explicit right to health,” revealed Mulisa, the founder of the Great Lakes Initiative For Human Rights and Development, which does public interest litigation in Rwanda.

It is now a crime under the penal code in Rwanda if a woman is denied access to contraceptives. And there are fewer restrictions on safe abortion following the removal of the court order requirement.

Rwanda’s ministerial order on abortion defines the right to health more broadly, incorporating the scope outlined by the WHO.

According to the WHO, the right to health includes four essential, interrelated elements: availability, accessibility, acceptability, and quality.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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