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UN reform should be an ongoing dynamic process and not simply a response to regular US threats to withhold funding. It must be overseen by a specialized unit reporting to the Secretary-General and which should have the power to review the organizational structure, responsibilities, work methods and output of any unit in the Organization or any unit affiliated to with it and make recommendations. Credit: United Nations

By Palitha Kohona
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, May 22 2025 (IPS)

The UN is going through another exercise in reforming itself under immense pressure from the US, its main funder. This time US President Donald Trump has expressed himself much more forcefully and seems determined to pare down US contributions and demand further curtailing of UN expenses, while some other donors, reluctant to show their own hands, are quietly cheering on the US.

To emphasise that it means business, and to the cheers of its cabal of domestic supporters, the US has withdrawn from the UN Human Rights Council, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

In addition, it has pulled out of the Paris Climate Accords. On previous occasions, the US had also withheld its contributions forcing then Secretaries-General, Kofi Annan and Ban ki-Moon to undertake reform exercises. That the US should now adopt a more ruthless approach to the UN after having been a catalytic force in its creation, is a sad commentary on the changes that have impacted on the original idealism.

It would seem that the UN goes through the ritual of trying to reform itself every time the US withholds funding, usually when the Republicans assume power in Washington DC. At the time, many senior UN staffers cynically believed that the US would come up with the funds that it owed sooner or later and treated the reform ritual with supercilious indifference. (This was what I experienced during my time at the UN).

This time round, the UN reform exercise may have to be more meaningful if the Trump Administration is to refrain from going through with its threats to curtail funding. In any, event, many would agree that the UN needs reform, both within the organisation as well as in its political bodies.

Reassuringly and to the relief of many, the US appears to be still committed to the UN. The Acting Permanent Representative of the US to the UN, Dorothy Shea has said, “The United Nations remains essential to resolving complex international challenges, first among them maintaining international peace and security, and addressing the causes of armed conflict. The UN must return to its principal purpose and the Secretary-General is uniquely positioned as the Chief Administrative Officer to lead this endeavor.”

At a time when many governments are facing budget reductions and reprioritization, the United Nations must refocus on effective delivery of its core purposes. This includes better delivery where it matters most: at the country-level”. It would seem that the US commitment to the UN remains positive despite worries to the contrary articulated by some. However, the message of the Acting PR is abundantly clear — the UN must re-focus on its key goals.

One of the irksome issues to address is the plethora of activities for which the UN has assumed responsibility. Over the years, the Organization has taken upon tasks, mostly at the behest of Member States, that may fall broadly within its mandate, but which are not necessarily consistent with its core functions.

Although many such tasks could be brought within the broad scope of its Charter mandated responsibilities, critics would argue that they do not fall within its core mandates. The funding in many cases came from the core budget, and the support structure is provided by the Organization, and some activities may even be funded by special contributions from Member States.

This has enabled certain Member States to facilitate UN activities which they themselves have funded but, in most likelihood, which respond to the agenda of their own domestic pressure groups. Human Rights and the Environment, especially climate change, likely fall into this category.

Over the years, the UN has thus taken on the role of responding to the domestic pressures of individual states, especially the rich states, leaving doubts in the minds of some as to whether these functions really fall within the core responsibilities of the Organization.

Added to the problem is the persistent shortfall of funds to realise the range of functions now being undertaken by the Organisation. By April 30, 2025, unpaid “assessments” (money owed to the UN by individual countries) stood at US$2.4 billion, with the US owing $1.5 billion, China around $600 million, and Russia more than $70 million.

On top of that, the peacekeeping budget was $2.7 billion in arrears. In 2024, 41 countries did not pay their mandated contributions. While non payers could lose their right to vote, this has never proved an adequate deterrent to those intent on delaying their dues.

In March 2025, UN Secretary-General António Guterres launched “UN80”, a review that seeks to make sure the institution continues to be fit-for-purpose as it looks towards a financially straightened future. The threatened funding cuts by the US, has helped to focus the attention of the Organization.

This exercise of the Secretary-General, reminiscent of the experience of both previous Secretaries-General, Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon, who also launched similar exercises but which petered out in time as much of the organization returned to the comfort zone of existing work methods and practices. Some things changed but not much.

UN reform, to be convincing, should be an ongoing process and not simply a response to US threats to withhold funding. The Department of Management Strategy, Policy and Compliance (DMSPC) and the UNGA Fifth Committee perform useful functions in this respect, but the UNGA 5TH Committee is subject to too much pressure from Member States.

Managers must not only be technically competent but also be modern executives who believe in continuing change, upskilling and upgrading. Training to upgrade skills and the commitment of staff to the core goals of the organization should be a regular feature. Those appointed to the highest levels by the Secretary-General, must possess superior managerial skills, especially those presented for appointment by influential states.

The organization must adapt to changing circumstances, embrace modern work methods and attitudes, seek to produce the best with available resources, and, very importantly, be committed to producing value for money. The world must feel that the world organization is producing results commensurate with what the international community is spending on it and, especially its staff.

Many staff have resigned to marking time in NY or Geneva while not producing much of value for the organization or the international community.

UN 80 has identified areas that could be improved immediately. But many of these proposals could run into staff resistance. For example, it recognized outdated working methods leading to inefficiencies within the organization as a key problem, while intergovernmental meetings are not making use of modern tools and technologies.

These were problems identified even during the tenures of Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon. A complex range of solutions were implemented. UN staff are on better than average benefits packages. Those considered redundant were encouraged to take a golden handshake and leave. Staff training was a priority.

Staff assessment methods were modernized. I remember the training and team building sessions we attended at Glen Cove with specialized external trainers. Automation happened quickly. Kofi Annan initiated the award of a UN 21 Pin to superior performers in management. (I was one of the early awardees of the Pin). But the initiative petered out largely because many of the senior political appointees who came from outside the organization could not relate to the innovations.

One solution to this would be to require nominees for such appointments possess superior management experience. Better still, countries that make such nominations, provide the secretariat with multiple names. The leadership of a unit or a division plays a crucial role in making the unit dynamic and productive.

It is to be remembered many managers who originated in developing countries, such as India and China, now lead cutting edge corporations and occupy senior government positions in the West, especially in the US. These changes, properly implemented, would very likely improve delivery.

Without doubt, UN meetings can be organised differently. All meetings need not take place in New York or Geneva with the participation of delegations from capitals. These meetings are expensive to organise, costly to the participants and unlikely to have the best representatives from poorer countries due to the costs involved.

If participation could be arranged from capitals, using modern technology which is now freely available, results would most likely be better. Where in the rare case that a country cannot organise such distant participation using modern technology, the UN office in the capital could assist in providing the necessary facilities.

Some countries might consider this a cost-effective option even for meetings of the UN Committees and even the UNGA. (This was tried out during the Covid lock downs).

The UN has been asked to consider moving some of its offices to more cost-effective locations. Nairobi already hosts, inter alia, UNEP, and UN Habitat and numerous environment related conferences. It would also make sense to bring together all UN ocean related offices under one roof in Jamica where the Commission on the Continental Shelf is located.

The use of NY for ocean related offices and meetings seems incongruous given that the US is not even a party to the Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC). A rigorous rationalisation of LOSC activities and moving them to Jamaica or some other similarly cost-effective location would seem desirable.

Given the close connection between the oceans and climate change, we could even consider moving all LOS activities to Bonn where the Climate Change secretariat is located. In addition to the cost advantages, access to cutting edge academic and dedicated research institutions in Europe would be an added advantage to both. The two institutions could feed from each other and thrive in a supportive environment. Moving UNDP and UNICEF out of NY should also be considered.

Over-lapping agendas of units such as between ECOSOC and its functional commissions and expert bodies, and those of the General Assembly and its Second and Third Committees, leading to duplication of efforts should be subjected to a rationalization review. Their own managerial bodies should undertake such reviews in the first instance.

A serious review must be undertaken of whether all those Under-Secretaries-General (USG), Assistant Secretaries-General (ASG) and Directors (D) are required. Many positions could be terminated, others consolidated. In implementing the reform, rigor must be exercised.

Otherwise, the current reform is also likely to go the same way as the previous ones.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

Dr Palitha Kohona is former Head, UN Treaties, a one-time Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the UN & until recently, Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China.

Most countries with low fertility rates are expected to experience population decline and demographic ageing throughout the remaining decades of the 21st century. Credit: Shutterstock

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, May 21 2025 (IPS)

Many countries around the world have a fertility rate below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman, but one country stands out with its exceptionally low fertility rate.

So, which country currently has the lowest fertility rate on the planet? Is that country

• Singapore
• South Korea
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland?

Some additional demographic information may be helpful. This country’s fertility rate, which has been below the replacement level for forty years, declined to approximately one-third the replacement level in 2023, or 0.72 births per woman. The fertility rate in 2023 was a fraction of levels about fifty and seventy years ago, which were 3.8 and 6.2 births per woman, respectively (Figure 1).

 

Source: United Nations.

 

The fertility rate of this country is expected to remain less than half the replacement level for the next thirty years and stay well below the replacement level for the rest of the 21st century.

The country has implemented various measures to address its low fertility rate, including childcare subsidies, tax reductions, childcare services, cash payments to parents, and extended maternity and paternity leave.

Fertility rates below the replacement level are becoming the global norm. In over half of all the countries in the world, representing over two-thirds of the world’s population, the fertility rate is below 2.1 births per woman

The country’s president declared population decline a national emergency and established a committee to prepare a plan to address its low fertility rate, population decline, and demographic ageing. A new Ministry of Population Strategy Planning has also been established to manage these issues.

The answer to the question of which country currently has the lowest fertility rate on the planet is the Republic of Korea, commonly referred to as South Korea.

Because of its high fertility rate in the recent past, the population of South Korea grew relatively rapidly over the past 75 years. From a population of nearly 20 million in 1950, the population of South Korea reached approximately 36 million by 1975 and about 52 million in 2025.

The past rapid growth of South Korea’s population is over and is being replaced by a rapid decline of its population.

By the end of the 21st century, the population of South Korea is expected to be approximately the same size as it was in 1950, around 22 million.

Population projections for South Korea consistently show a declining population over the coming 75 years. The various variants of United Nations population projections, for example, all show a rapidly declining population for South Korea over the coming decades.

The United Nations medium variant population projection expects South Korea’s current population of about 52 million to decline to approximately 22 million by the year 2100.

The UN’s high and low variants also project South Korea’s current population to be smaller in 2100 at approximately 32 and 14 million, respectively. The constant variant, which assumes the country’s fertility rate will remain constant at its current level, projects South Korea’s population to be 17 million by the century’s close (Figure 2).

 

Source: United Nations.

 

Besides population decline, South Korea is also expected to experience rapid demographic ageing. South Korea’s young population of the recent past has been replaced by an older population that is expected to be even older in the coming years.

In 1950, the median age of South Korea’s population was about 18 years, and the proportion of the population 65 years or older was about 3%. The country’s current median age is 46 years, and about 20% of the population is 65 years and older.

South Korea’s median age is expected to continue increasing, reaching 57 years in 2050 and 60 years by the close of the century. Also, the proportion of the population aged 65 years or older is projected to reach 40 percent in 2050 and 45 percent by 2100 (Table 1).

Source: United Nations.

 

Why do the population projections show a declining population for South Korea over the coming decades?

The answer to that question is relatively straightforward. South Korea is simply experiencing fewer births than deaths. In 2023, for example, the numbers of births and deaths were approximately 236 thousand and 346 thousand, respectively, yielding a natural change (births minus deaths) of -109 thousand.

The reason births outnumber deaths in South Korea is that the country’s fertility rate is well below the replacement level.

And why is South Korea’s fertility rate so far below the replacement level?

The answer to that vital question is more speculative and complex than explaining the country’s demographic trends. The answer to that question needs some context and explanation about South Korean couples having children.

It is important to recognize world demographic trends. Fertility rates below the replacement level are becoming the global norm. In over half of all the countries in the world, representing over two-thirds of the world’s population, the fertility rate is below 2.1 births per woman.

Among those many countries are some fifty populations, including South Korea, that have a fertility rate well below the replacement level. Those countries, which include China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain and Sweden, have a fertility rate below 1.5 births per woman (Figure 3).

 

Source: United Nations.

 

Because of low fertility rates, countries are having fewer births than deaths, and that difference yields negative rates of population growth. And because of sustained levels of that negative population growth, countries are facing population decline and demographic ageing.

Various critical factors are believed to be behind the exceptionally low fertility rate in South Korea. Among those factors are higher education, a declining marriage rate, high rates of contraceptive use, lifestyle choices, difficulties finding a suitable mate, personal goals and serious concerns about the future.

Also, additional factors across South Korean society that are contributing to the country’s low fertility rate include a work culture with an exceptionally lengthy workweek, long work hours, and stiff career competition, the high costs of living, especially for housing, education, and childcare, difficulties juggling parenthood with employment, gender inequality in the workplace, particularly the gender pay gap, and the traditional gender roles and inequalities in family and household matters.

Although South Korea’s fertility rate may increase slightly in the coming decades, it is expected to remain substantially below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman, resulting in a continuing trend of fewer births than deaths throughout the 21st century.

Many countries, including South Korea, are concerned about the decline and ageing of their respective populations. The governments of those countries are attempting to increase their low fertility rates with pro-natalist policies, incentives, and programs.

A final question concerns whether those pronatalist policies, incentives, and programs of governments will raise today’s low fertility rates back to the replacement level.

Such policies and programs may increase low fertility rates slightly. However, those increases are typically temporary and relatively small, with fertility rates remaining significantly below the replacement level.

Based on the experiences of countries over the past several decades, once a fertility rate falls below the replacement level, especially to 1.5 births per woman or less, the rate remains at low levels. Most population projections for countries with low fertility rates do not expect a return to the replacement level soon.

In conclusion, most countries with low fertility rates, including South Korea, which currently has the world’s lowest fertility rate, are expected to experience population decline and demographic ageing throughout the remaining decades of the 21st century.

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

The closing session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2026 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Credit: UN TV

By Naureen Hossain
NEW YORK, May 21 2025 (IPS)

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons must not be allowed to collapse under the weight of geopolitical cynicism, the preparatory committee at the UN heard.

This year, the Third Session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2026 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) (April 28-May 9) was intended to address procedural issues related to the treaty and the upcoming conference next year. The meeting was the third and final preparatory session before the review conference next year. As such, the session was an opportunity for countries to reaffirm the principles of the NPT by agreement.

Throughout the two weeks, delegations expressed their positions and deliberated over recommendations that would shape the agenda for the 2026 conference. Beyond member states, other stakeholders such as civil society groups were emphatic in expressing the urgency of the nuclear issue and calling for member states to take action.

“The continued existence of nuclear weapons remains one of the most urgent and existential dangers facing life on this planet,” said Florian Eblenkamp, an advocacy officer for the International Coalition Against Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). He went further to state, “The non-proliferation norm must not be allowed to collapse under the weight of geopolitical cynicism. If the NPT is to have a future, States Parties must send an unambiguous signal: Nuclear weapons are not to be spread. Not to be shared. Not to be normalized.”

The committee’s chair, Ambassador Harold Agyeman, who serves as the Permanent Representative of Ghana to the United Nations, told reporters early on that the success of the review conference in 2026 would be “dependent on the political will of state parties” in demonstrating progress on their obligations of the treaty and to “strengthen accountability for the related implementation of existing commitments.”

“Indeed, many around the world are concerned by the lack of raw progress on nuclear disarmament, and emerging proliferations risk that could undermine the hard-won norms established to bring about a world free of nuclear weapons and a regime to achieve that goal,” said Agyeman.

The third preparatory session took place in a time of increasing global anxiety over nuclear proliferation and even escalation. The most recent conflict between India and Pakistan has the world on edge that two nuclear powers might engage in war. Since April, Iran and the United States have been in negotiations over a new nuclear deal, which at times has seen both sides at a deadlock over limiting Iran’s nuclear programme.

Given that context, plus pre-existing tensions between other global powers, such as Russia and the war in Ukraine, this session was an opportunity for countries to act with urgency towards non-proliferation and to respect their obligations under the NPT. By the end of the conference, however, it seemed no agreement was reached. Revised recommendations for the review conference failed to reach consensus. This continues a concerning pattern of preparatory meetings that also failed to adopt an outcome.

As the meeting reached its conclusion on May 9, delegations expressed regret that the draft agreement did not reach consensus. “We regret that the desired breakthrough on transparency and accountability in the context of the strengthened due process was not reached,” said one delegate from Egypt. “The discussion was mature and based itself on mutual respect and commitment to multilateralism.

Many delegations made sure to reaffirm their commitment to the NPT and to strengthening the review process. Yet there was also a recurring acknowledgement of the “complex geopolitical situation” that presented a challenge in reaching consensus.

Civil society organizations have also been vocal in their disappointment at the lack of agreement or outcome document. ICAN stated that the lack of an agreement reflected a “horrifying lack of urgency in response to current risks.” Reaching Critical Will went further to criticize nuclear-armed states for refusing to comply with international law and their obligations to the NPT, which calls for them to eliminate nuclear weapons.

The NPT Review Conference (RevCon) is expected to be held in New York from 27 April to 22 May 2026. The PrepComm nominated Vietnam to chair the RevCon. Ambassador Dang Hoang Giang, Permanent Representative of Vietnam to the United Nations, stated that the presidency would be “characterized by inclusive, transparent, and balanced proceedings” that would ensure that the perspectives and interests of all state parties would be respected.

“The road ahead will be challenging, but we remain confident that through collective wisdom and shared determination, meaningful progress is not only possible but achievable. A robust and effective treaty ensures a safer and more secure work for everyone,” said Giang.

The presence—and threat—of nuclear weapons looms large. For good reason, they cannot simply be relegated to history as a relic of hubris and ambition when we can observe their influence in modern geopolitics. If the spirit for nuclear nonproliferation is indeed still there, then the international community must be vigilant in advocating for the NPT and other disarmament treaties, rather than let a small percentage of parties dictate the global agenda. This must be an ongoing process, lest we see the continued undermining of nonproliferation and multilateralism.

Note: This article is brought to you by IPS Noram in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with ECOSOC.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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IPS UN Bureau, IPS UN Bureau Report, NUCLEAR ABOLITION

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M23 rebels in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The group has been accused of gross human rights abuse of civilians. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

By Wambi Michael
KAMPALA, May 21 2025 (IPS)

Political instability and conflicts in the Great Lakes, the Horn of Africa, Sudan, and South Sudan have led to massive displacements and civilian suffering, and because the whole region is in crisis, the civilian population has few places to find refuge.

In the Great Lakes, Africa faces its most severe political crisis in more than 20 years; the M23 crisis in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has displaced more than 3.7 million people—many of them for the second time.

Recently, researchers and humanitarian workers have reported at various forums that civilians caught in the middle of this conflict are facing a humanitarian crisis.

“We have faced unprecedented atrocities. There has been mass rape of women in Khartoum, apart from the abduction of girls to be sold as slaves in Darfur,” said Dr. Faiz Jamie, a Professor of Political Science at the University of Bahri-Sudan.

“The aim behind atrocities against the villagers is so that they can loot comfortably,” argues Jaime.

The conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began on April 15, 2023, after a breakdown in the transition to civilian rule, following the overthrow of long-time President Omar al-Bashir.

“RSF is now in control of the Darfur region. But the region is the most devastated as far as civilians are concerned. Genocidal activities were identified against the Masalit ethnic group, where people were buried alive, as documented by videos uploaded by the very perpetrators (the RSF),” said Jaime.

He said civilians are bearing the brunt of the conflict because the rationale behind the war is to drive them out of the cities and villages into settler-like camps.

For the last two years, the conflict has mainly been in the capital, Khartoum. But more recently, the fighters have spread to other towns and regions.

Attacks on civilians have been reported in ZamZam camp, Abu Shouk camp, Al Fasher, and North Darfur.

On April 25, the UN Human Rights Office said that it had listed at least 481 civilians killed in North Darfur since April 10 and that “the actual number is likely much higher.”

In the statement, UN rights chief Volker Turk said, “The suffering of the Sudanese people is hard to imagine, harder to comprehend, and simply impossible to accept.”

“Deliberately taking the life of a civilian or anyone not or no longer directly participating in hostilities is a war crime.”

The RSF is accused of deliberate assaults on medical facilities and the killing of nine Sudanese aid workers from Relief International.

Sudan INGO Forum, a coordination and representation body, added, “What is happening in ZamZam, Abu Shouk camp, and Al Fasher is not just a tragedy—it is an atrocity. Civilians are being starved, slaughtered, and prevented from fleeing. Aid workers and local volunteer responders are being hunted (down).”

Over 13 million had been internally displaced as of April 2025, and 3.3 million had fled to neighboring countries, namely Chad, South Sudan, and Ethiopia.

Displacement from Sudan’s conflict has left well over 13 million people displaced. Credit: UNHCR/Reason Moses Runyanga

“Ending the suffering of the suffering Sudanese civilians requires regional and international pressure on the United Arab Emirates to stop arming and funding the RSF,” suggests Jamie.

Alon Ben-Meir, a retired professor of international relations, said both sides are entrenched, with external backers.

“The United Arab Emirates (UAE) backs the RSF, while Egypt supports the SAF, which prolongs the conflict. These divisions led to the failure of the peace talks in Jeddah in late 2023 because of mutual distrust and competing regional interests,” he observed in an article titled A Nation Bleeds While The World Watches: The Tragedy In Sudan Must End.

Alex De Waal, Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation and Research Professor, Tufts University, has studied the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region for close to 40 years. He said what is being witnessed in that region is a catastrophe on an even greater scale than earlier conflicts.

“All famines are man-made and, in general language, deliberate. Political decisions have triggered every famine. We have had deliberate starvation or reckless indifference to human life. That is what is happening in Darfur,” said De Waal.

According to De Waal, the conflict in Sudan is the biggest by magnitude and the war in the Horn of Africa threatens what he describes as a mass mortality event in more than a generation.

“We have never before had a situation in which all the countries of this region are in the same kind of crisis at the same time,” he said

“In the past, if we had a humanitarian emergency in South Sudan, people would move from there to Northern Sudan; if we had a crisis in Darfur, they could move to Chad or Khartoum; and in the 1984 famine in Ethiopia, many people from Tigray moved to Khartoum as refugees. Those things are not possible when the whole region is in crisis,” he added.

He suggested that immediate response needs to be informed by an effort to address the political and economic causes of the conflicts in the Horn of Africa.

“It didn’t happen overnight. We need to call out the men. I repeat, men made these famines. And we need to look out for the economic breakdown preceding this.  Sudan, for instance, will need an enormous bailout. Ethiopia is going to need some fundamental economic restructuring.”

The Horn of Africa faces a humanitarian crisis as some 90 million people are in danger of famine. War continues to rage in South Sudan and Sudan, while a fragile peace has taken hold in Ethiopia after the Tigray War of 2020-2022.

Observers have noted that the region’s borders, unlike those in the rest of Africa, are in flux, as secessionist movements have successfully given birth to new states in South Sudan and Eritrea and a de facto state in Somaliland.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno, Director of Columbia SIPA’s Kent Global Leadership Program on Conflict Resolution, said the Horn of Africa is a victim of geopolitics at the moment.

“Where every country is looked at through the prism of geopolitical competition. Ethiopia has connections with the west, it also has strong connections with China. And every country is looking at how it is going to position itself,” observes Guéhenno, a former UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping.

He has noted that the divisions among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council—China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America—in a way empower regional actors who may not necessarily want to support a peace process.

“So the division in the security council turns into the divisions in the regional divisions. And we see it certainly in the Horn, where you have different perspectives from different African countries, and you also have countries from the Gulf, which all have different interests. And so the situation is incredibly more complicated and, I would say, more fragmented,” notes Guéhenno.

The Gulf States stand accused of indulging in destabilizing political patronage of African actors, creating perverse incentives that undermine the foundations of peace.

The burden of the conflicts in the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region countries like DRC, among others, is disproportionately borne by women and children.

In the East of the mineral-rich DRC, in North Kivu and South Kivu, fighting between Congolese security forces and militant groups led by M23 escalated, culminating in M23’s capture of Goma. The fight has forced thousands of people to flee, sometimes multiple times.

“They are living in difficult conditions, often in extreme vulnerability. The multiple frontlines and the use of heavy artillery have led to many casualties, including an increasing number of civilians,” said Francine Kongolo, the spokesperson of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

ICRC said from the beginning of February 2025, more than 1400 weapon-wounded civilians had been treated at its surgical projects in the North and South Kivu provinces.

The United Nations Human Rights Office has documented more than 200 cases of rape and sexual violence in Eastern DRC since the start of the violence, some of which allegedly were perpetrated by M23.

“Reports from health facilities indicate a rise in rape cases, with children accounting for 30 percent of those treated,” the office said in a statement.

“As offensives intensify, more than 700,000 people, 41 percent of whom are school-aged children, have been displaced, and the number of casualties, including among children, is mounting at an alarming rate. A majority of cases remain unreported, and this may only be the tip of the iceberg.”

Meskerem Geset Techane, a human rights lawyer based in Ethiopia, has observed that the crisis in the Horn of Africa is a human rights crisis itself.

“Be it the food crisis or a peace crisis, it has taken a heavy toll on the protection of human rights across the region. We have seen the peace crisis in Ethiopia, Sudan, and South Sudan. It has not only violated the right to peace itself but also a range of fundamental human rights,” said Techane.

Jackline Nasiwa, Executive Director of the Center for Inclusive Governance, Peace, and Justice, said people of South Sudan are tired and traumatized.

Assefaw Bariagaber, a professor of diplomacy and international the readiness of these countries to amass such weapons without punishment from the international system is worrying.

“The availability of not only large amounts of armaments but also much more modern armaments, devastating armaments, needs to be checked; that is what has increased violence and civilian suffering. More than 150,000 people have lost their lives, and over 25 million have been displaced, including me,” he said.

There is a feeling that the institutions under the African Union and the leaders have not done what they should to protect the civilians from the disturbing increase in violence by the armed combatants.

Dr. Sabastiano Rwengabo, a Ugandan Political Scientist suggested the need to pressure states to strengthen institutions so they can  “bite,” including, where necessary, against states.

“It is because of some of these dishonesties and vested interests that member states don’t allow regional or continental bodies to act in a way that would prevent or reverse civilian victimization in armed conflicts,” Rwengabo told IPS.

Last month the DRC and Rwanda-backed M23 in April agreed to pause fighting as they work towards a broader peace deal.

Critics of the African Union processes said the truce wouldn’t have been possible if Qatar had not arranged a meeting between Presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Felix Tshisekdi of the DRC.

In a diplomatic tone, Kagame did not attribute the truce to the Qatar meeting but to what he described as several efforts at the same time.

“You look at the whole continent, and you find many trouble spots in different areas in different areas. There are all kinds of efforts going on back and forth. Succeeding in some places and not succeeding in others. These are some of the problems of the past and how we have handled our affairs,” said Kagame while addressing the Africa CEO Forum 2025 in Abidjan.

Part of the African-led efforts in resolving the conflict in DRC involved the deployment of South African troops participating in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The South African troops were withdrawn as the M23 captured the conflict zone in Goma.

President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa explained that the processes under the Nairobi accord, the Luanda process and the African Union process have been essential in building a foundation of peace-making and also confidence-building.

 

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The Third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) will be held in Nice, France, from June 9 to 13, 2025. This event will bring together world leaders, scientists, and stakeholders to discuss the conservation and sustainable use of the oceans. The conference's overarching theme is "Accelerating action and mobilizing all actors to conserve and sustainably use the ocean".

By Peter Thomson
NICE, France, May 21 2025 (IPS)

The United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC) takes place every three years and in just a few weeks, the international community will gather in Nice, France, at a time when the International Science Council has called for the world to address the new reality of a disrupted Earth system.

Research has found that global human health is intrinsically linked to the health of the ocean, but consequences predicted by science are beginning to confront us, with the current global coral bleaching and mortality event being the most intense on record, sea surface temperatures continuing to skyrocket and microplastics found in 60 percent of fish, it is now impossible to ignore that climate change and associated environmental stressors are impacting the ocean system and human wellbeing.

Credit: Pexels – Pixabay

Despite this linkage, UN Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG 14), which is meant to support the conservation and sustainable use of ocean resources, remains the least funded of any SDG—receiving just 0.01 percent of all development funding.

UNOC is therefore a crucial moment for the world to come together and take bold action in support of sustainable ocean economies.

Three special events will be held in the days before the conference: the One Ocean Science Congress which will gather the world’s leading ocean scientists to deliberate on the science we need for the ocean we want; the Blue Economy and Finance Forum, which will focus on transformative financing for ocean action; and the third will launch a coalition of cities and coastal communities to advance global and local response to sea level rise.

Climate change has already led to a four-inch rise in sea level since satellite measurement began in 1993 and the UN has calculated that 900 million people living in low-lying coastal areas are going to be placed in acute danger.

All three special event subjects demand concerted international attention in these challenging times.

Thankfully, important work has already begun. In 2022, the world agreed that in order to prevent a massive loss of biodiversity on this planet, we must set about protecting 30% of the planet by 2030 through the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).

In pursuance of that goal, a 30×30 Ocean Action Plan will be presented at UNOC to give attention to new funding models for Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), and with the opportunity to ratify the High Seas Treaty enabling of protected areas in the High Seas.

It is hoped that by the time the Nice conference is underway that the required number of national ratifications of the High Seas Treaty will have been received, thus allowing the treaty to come into force this year.

However, our management of the ocean must be as interconnected as the ocean itself—the 100% Alliance, is a crucial opportunity where countries commit to sustainably manage 100% of their national waters through evidence-based Sustainable Ocean Plans. By joining this initiative, countries can show their ambition and commitment to a more sustainably productive and prosperous ocean economy that benefits both people and nature.

The Alliance’s comprehensive management approach, coupled with the 30×30 goal, will ensure that new MPAs are not only established, but are effectively managed and financed as part of an integrated ocean stewardship agenda.

Meanwhile, a commitment to science-based sustainable management of fish-stocks must extend to the cessation of harmful fisheries subsidies. The latter are largely enjoyed by industrial fishing fleets, busy depleting the ocean of its declining resources.

At the WTO in Geneva the necessary agreement to end harmful subsidies is very close to reality, with the salutary effect of the UN Ocean Conference likely to facilitate the desired WTO consensus.

The conference will work towards the curtailment of marine pollution and will in tandem be urging the attainment this year of a robust, internationally-binding plastics treaty. In this task we must not stumble, for agreement on the proposed treaty is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to control plastic production and pollution.

There is no doubt that control is required, for it is estimated that somewhere between one and three million tonnes of microplastics enter the ocean in a year.

Scientific evidence is clear that these particles can absorb and accumulate toxic pollutants, and that they can cross biological barriers, posing risks to the health of oceanic food webs. I emphasise the word health, for emerging evidence of the harm being done to humans by the unregulated chemicals present in many plastics, is of growing concern to us all.

At the conclusion of the 10th Our Ocean Conference (OOC) in Busan, Korea, at the end of April, it was announced that the annual meetings have generated $160 billion over the past decade in voluntary commitments to improve the ocean. An important achievement in mobilizing the necessary finance, but a much greater global ambition is required to address the urgent challenges.

As we prepare for the 3rd UN Ocean Conference may we all dedicate ourselves to the true course set by multilateralism and the observance of international law. Without further delay, may we commit ourselves to a just transition to net zero, to an equitably electrified world powered by renewable energy.

Let us find hope in progress and allow reason and innovation to overcome the mounting challenges ahead. Let us take the tide while it serves, and through faithful implementation of SDG14, may we bequeath a healthy ocean to our children and grandchildren.

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Ambassador Peter Thomson is UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean

Despite having around 159 health facilities, including hospitals and clinics, much of Helmand Province’s population remains without access to essential healthcare services. Credit: Credit: Learning Together.

By External Source
MARJA DISTRICT, HELMAND PROVINCE, Afghanistan, May 20 2025 (IPS)

Bibi Gul, a pregnant woman from Helmand’s Marja District, walked two hours to reach the nearest health center in search of treatment for her moderate malnutrition.

“Our economic situation is not very bad,” she said upon arrival. “But the doctors told me that if I don’t treat my malnutrition or eat fortified foods during pregnancy, my children will also be born malnourished. Still, we dare not talk about this at home.”

Her story is far from unique in Afghanistan, where hunger continues to devastate millions. According to the UN World Food Programme (WFP), an estimated 15 million Afghans urgently need food assistance to survive. Yet the agency is severely underfunded and unable to meet the growing demand.

Afghanistan’s largely rural and agrarian population depends on subsistence farming. With limited access to healthcare and a weak transportation infrastructure, food insecurity and poor health outcomes are widespread—particularly for women and children.

“I’ve been working to prevent malnutrition in this province for nearly five years,” says Dr. Esmatullah, a health inspector overseeing nutrition programs in Helmand. “Ignorance is a major driver. In remote areas, most mothers don’t know how to change their diets during pregnancy, and often, the male head of the household doesn’t understand the issue either.”

The situation in Helmand Province reflects a nationwide crisis. Home to around 1.5 million people, Helmand is one of Afghanistan’s largest provinces. Most families rely on small-scale farming, and many cannot afford the cost of traveling long distances to reach medical care.

Recent data paints a bleak picture: one in four children in Helmand suffers from moderate to severe acute malnutrition. An estimated 40 percent of pregnant and lactating women are also moderately malnourished. Experts attribute the crisis to food shortages, infectious diseases, and low awareness of basic nutritional needs.

Staffing shortages further complicate the response. Although nearly 2,500 people work in Helmand’s health sector, only 310 are dedicated to nutrition services. As a result, many malnutrition cases go undetected or untreated. A recent study found that, on average, just 10 children and eight women receive nutritional support each day in clinics across the province—a fraction of those in need.

Helmand has approximately 159 health facilities, including hospitals and primary clinics. But long distances, a lack of vehicles, and limited resources prevent many families from accessing them.

Acute Malnutrition (GAM) level among children under five in Helmand is 18 percent, which is above the World Health Organization’s critical threshold of 15 percent.

Officials are nevertheless trying to bring the situation under control in spite of the acute lack of resources and the gravity of the situation, says Dr. Madina, who works in the maternal and child nutrition department at a health centre in the Gereshk district of Helmand province.

“We implement nutrition programs to manage moderate acute malnutrition and severe acute malnutrition”, she says.

Dr. Madina says they distribute ready-to-use food supplements to manage the dietary requirement of children under six months and older suffering from moderate acute malnutrition.

Ready-to-use supplementary food and super cereals are also supplied to pregnant and lactating mothers. They also conduct awareness programmes on proper nutrition and healthcare in health centres, according to Madina.

“Malnutrition rates are alarmingly high here,” says Dr. Madina. “It’s heartbreaking when women come from remote areas with their children, hoping for help, while our resources remain limited.”

To reduce the problem, inter-sectoral cooperation and the implementation of comprehensive nutrition and support programs are essential, experts say.

Excerpt:

The author is an Afghanistan-based female journalist, trained with Finnish support before the Taliban take-over. Her identity is withheld for security reasons

A panel on nuclear disarmament held ahead of the 2026 Review of the Treaty of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri

By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, May 20 2025 (IPS)

The argument for nuclear disarmament is perhaps more relevant than it has been since the end of World War II, especially in a world where there is a growing gulf between nuclear states and between nuclear states and those who don’t have the weapons.

In an event held at the sidelines of the Preparatory Committee for the 2026 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) (April 28-May 9), a panel of experts deliberated over how nuclear disarmament must be achieved in the modern day. The panel was co-organized by Soka Gakkai International (SGI) and the Permanent Mission of Kazakhstan to the United Nations in New York.

As new conflicts break out and pre-existing conflicts seem to drag on and escalate, there is a greater need for global parties to reach consensus on security matters, including the place of nuclear weapons in a post-Cold War era. William Potter, the director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, expressed concern about the “erosion” of the norms for nuclear weapons.

“To say the least, the world is in a state of disarray. It’s hard to distinguish traditional allies from adversaries,” said Potter.

Potter remarked on a “growing gulf” between nuclear states—countries that possess nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction—and non-nuclear states when it comes to the urgency with which the issue of nuclear disarmament needs to be addressed.

“It is not the nuclear weapon itself… rather, the true adversary lies in the thinking that rationalizes and justifies the use of nuclear weapons,” said Chie Sunada, SGI’s Director of Disarmament and Human Rights. “It’s the dangerous mindset to annihilate others when they’re perceived as a threat or an obstacle to their objective. It is that way of thinking that disregards the sanctity of life, [which] we must collectively defend.”

Even as some global powers debate over relaxing the restrictions on nuclear weapon deployment, there are still effective, diplomatic tools that are being employed to promote disarmament. One such example is the Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zones, as codified in region-specific treaties.

Countries across Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Pacific, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia agree not to possess nuclear arms or conduct testing. For non-nuclear states, these zones allow them to “[assert] their agency” and “the right to dictate how their regional security is formulated,” according to Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova, Japan Chair for a World Without Nuclear Weapons (VCDNP). She further added that these nuclear-free zones limit the freedom of action of nuclear states by forcing them to respect the treaties that protect them.

The panel also advocated for giving more credence to a ‘no first use’ policy, in which a nuclear power refrains from using nuclear weapons when engaged in warfare with another nuclear power.

So far, China is the only nuclear power and P5 Member State that has a ‘no first use’ policy, meaning they would only use nuclear weapons in retaliation against a nuclear attack. 

India has a ‘no first use’ policy, but it includes a caveat that allows for a response to biological or chemical weapons.

Meanwhile, the other P5 members—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, and France—along with other nuclear powers, such as Pakistan and North Korea, maintain policies that permit the first use of nuclear weapons in a conflict.

By giving further credence to a ‘no first use’ pledge that countries can adopt, this could prevent misunderstandings and miscalculations that could lead to a devastating result. In such deliberations on nuclear treaties, there need to be what Director and Deputy to the High Representative of the United Nations Office of Disarmament Affairs (UNODA), Adedeji Ebo, referred to as “confidence-building dialogues,” which can be achieved through enhancing reporting and transparency measures.

This year’s PrepComm began with a discussion on the issue. Alexander Kmentt, Director of the Disarmament, Arms Control, and Non-Proliferation Department of the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, argued that in NPT deliberations, nuclear states seemed to have greater political priority and are more inclined to maintain the status quo because their possession of nuclear weapons provides them a sense of security. This presents a power imbalance.

Meetings like this year’s NPT PrepComm and the Meeting of State Parties on the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons must also create environments where delegations and other stakeholders are well-informed and can speak with authority.

Ebo argued that non-nuclear states are “indispensable” for “achieving meaningful progress in nuclear disarmament.”

Umbrella states—countries that have nuclear protection agreements with nuclear powers—should leverage their positions and extend support to non-nuclear states in their nonproliferation stances.

There is a need to “demystify the nuclear conversation,” Ebo remarked. Diplomats and other experts that will deal with nuclear issues need to be properly informed about this matter. He also spoke of the potential power that comes from regular citizens and grassroots movements to hold their elected leaders accountable on the matter of nuclear disarmament. By bringing this issue to the attention of their elected officials, it becomes “difficult to ignore.”

“The nuclear issue is too important to be left to the states alone,” he said.

Disarmament and nonproliferation education is being carried out through nongovernmental organizations and advocacy groups, such as SGI.

Since 1957, nuclear disarmament has been part of SGI’s broader agenda for promoting the culture of peace. Sunada remarked that education plays a role in fostering “powerful, transnational solidarity” among people. To that end, SGI has organized and facilitated speaking engagements with hibakusha—survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings—to share their experiences with both Japanese and foreign audiences, along with workshops that reach over 10,000 people a year.

The panel recognized efforts toward nuclear disarmament through global diplomacy and grassroots movements. For nuclear treaties to be upheld and respected, perhaps at their core there should be a shared understanding of what constitutes a nuclear taboo, whether it prohibits the first use of nuclear weapons in warfare or if it is a complete prohibition.

Mukhatzhanova pointed out that understanding seems to vary among different groups, from policymakers and diplomats to academia and the general public and suggested that it could be beneficial to deliberate and debate on common ground for the NPT 2026 Review Conference.

Note: This article is brought to you by IPS Noram in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with ECOSOC.

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Linnet Ochieng, the lab manager, conducts AMR testing at the International Livestock Research Institute. Credit: ILRI

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, May 20 2025 (IPS)

More people are dying from once treatable infections because the medicines we rely on are no longer working as they should. The culprit? A growing health threat called antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

What is AMR?

AMR happens when bacteria, viruses, fungi, or parasites evolve and become resistant to the drugs meant to kill them—this makes common infections harder and sometimes impossible to treat. Without effective drugs, diseases last longer, spread more easily, and cause more deaths. Why? Antimicrobials are becoming less effective in treating infections because disease-causing germs are becoming resistant.

“AMR is a global crisis that is already here,” Dr. Arshnee Moodley, a microbiologist and team leader for Antimicrobial Resistance at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), told IPS via email.

“It makes infections in people, animals, and even plants harder—or sometimes impossible—to treat,” Moodley says. “Without working medicines, illnesses that were once routine can become life-threatening.”

The rise in AMR has made it more difficult to prevent and treat infections with medicines like antimicrobials.

What are antimicrobials and are they important for health?

Antimicrobials are very important medicines and include antibiotics, antifungals, antivirals, and antiparasitics, which are used to either prevent or treat infections in humans, animals, and plants. They are essential to modern medicine and veterinary care. Without them, we risk losing the ability to treat infectious diseases and protect our food systems.

Why is this happening? Should we be worried about AMR?

Imagine not having medicine that works when you get an infection. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the world scrambled to find ways to treat and manage a new disease.

AMR is largely driven by the overuse and misuse of antimicrobials in humans, animals, and agriculture. They are often used when they’re not needed or in the wrong doses. In farming, they are sometimes used to promote growth or make up for poor hygiene rather than treat disease. This overuse gives microbes more chances to adapt and become resistant, turning these life-saving medicines into useless tools.

The World Bank, the World Organisation for Animal Health, and AMR all warn that without action, AMR could cause significant economic harm on the scale of the 2008 global financial crisis. The World Bank estimates that by 2050, AMR could wipe away 3.8 percent of global gross domestic product each year and push 28 million people into poverty. The loss of productivity in agriculture, especially livestock systems, could severely affect food systems and livelihoods.

Who is most affected?

While AMR is a global burden, low- and middle-income countries like Kenya bear the greatest burden. Limited access to diagnostics, vaccines, and appropriate treatment means that drug-resistant infections often go undetected or are treated incorrectly. Farmers can lose entire herds or flocks due to untreatable infections, leading to food insecurity and loss of income. According to recent estimates, AMR directly causes 1.27 million deaths annually and contributes to nearly 5 million more. That’s on par with HIV/AIDS and malaria.

Researchers at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) use waste bins to collect empty containers, packaging, and used vials as a simple and effective way to monitor what antimicrobials are used on farms. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

Does climate change have a role in AMR?

Yes, climate change is an emerging factor in the spread and worsening of AMR. Rising temperatures, extreme weather, and flooding can alter the spread of pathogens and the application of antimicrobials, according to a recent review in which ILRI participated. For example, warmer conditions help bacteria grow faster and share resistance genes more easily. Floods can spread drug-resistant pathogens from sewage into water supplies, increasing the risk of infections in both people and animals. Animals stressed by heat may become more vulnerable to disease, leading to increased use of antimicrobials.

“There is also another link between AMR and climate change,” Moodley told IPS. “Residues of antimicrobials in manure can disrupt microbial processes in soil, potentially affecting greenhouse gas emissions. And we at ILRI are studying how antibiotics in livestock manure—because of treatment—affect greenhouse gas emissions and soil health.”

Can we fight AMR?

Yes. AMR is preventable, but it requires urgent action across all sectors. Vaccination can prevent infections and reduce the need for antibiotics. Improved diagnostics can ensure the right drug is used only when necessary. Better hygiene and infection prevention in hospitals, farms, and communities can reduce disease spread. Responsible antimicrobial use in both animals and humans is key to slowing AMR.

“While drug-resistant infections are a concern,” Moodley says, “We must not forget that many people still don’t have access to the basic health and veterinary services they need—including the very medicines, vaccines, and diagnostics that could save lives and prevent AMR.”

The bottom line

AMR threatens the future of healthcare, agriculture, and global development. It undermines progress toward Universal Health Coverage and Sustainable Development Goals like zero hunger (SDG 2) and good health and well-being (SDG 3). This silent pandemic is unfolding now and without urgent, coordinated action, the world risks entering a post-antibiotic era where even the smallest infections can once again kill.

Note: This feature is published with the support of Open Society Foundations.

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UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres prioritizes reform at 'UN80 Initiative' launch. 1 May 2025. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elías

By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, May 20 2025 (IPS)

How would the UN80 Initiative, designed to mark the 80th Anniversary of the United Nations, turned out to be, if Kamala Harris had won the American presidential election in November last year?

As more details are emerging on plans being drawn by Secretary General António Guterres to drastically restructure and re-organize the whole United Nation system, I could not stop thinking about this question.

The UN has become a real “galaxy” of agencies, programs and offices, often with overlapping mandates and functions. Yet without a second Trump Administration, it is very likely that the UN80 Initiative would have taken a much different shape.

After all, the UN 2.0 blueprint, a timid proposal to reform and modernize the United Nations, developed in 2022 as a key pillar of the ambitious Our Common Agenda, never really took off.

A frank assessment would consider the UN 2.0 as a blueprint full of hype and catchy words but profoundly lacking substance.

Yet at least the UN 2.0 talked, even if in generic terms, about an important need that the United Nations should have taken care of: change its internal culture.

But instead of focusing only on the UN turning itself into a “forward thinking” organization as proposed in the blueprint, the cultural shift at the UN should be much more ambitious and radical.

Does the UN have to start to think and act as a startup organization? Perhaps it can help get rid of a red tape culture but at the same time, some caution might be welcome, considering also all the negative consequences stemming from embracing a venture capitalist approach to organizational culture.

That’s why the profound rethinking that now is under place at the UN should be grounded on simple values of humbleness and humility.

As shocking as they might seem, these two elements are the cornerstone of principled leadership and the UN, if it really wants to be a “lighthouse” in situations in which humanity and the planet face troubling dark times, these should be embedded in any new restructuring.

Over the years the UN has become aloof and remote even in places like in the so-called Global South where it has a strong presence and its mandate is generally well received by locals.

This situation can be emblematically thought of as a working culture that lacks responsiveness and does not do enough to reach out to the locals.

This is partly due to the UN’s mandate to work and assist with national governments but it has become an excuse to not engage civil society and the citizenry.

The problem, instead, is deeper and it starts with the fact that UN staff ended up, even unconsciously and involuntarily, as a “caste” of special “ones”.

I do not doubt the seriousness and commitment of the vast majority of UN personnel but the system is so flawed that it is inevitable that, no matter your good intentions, you end up being isolated from the ground reality.

As naïve as it might look, why do not we start from the basics? Are the highly paid jobs at the UN morally justified?

One thing is to have a good salary but another thing is to have perks and facilities that only the privileged “ones” are supposed to be entitled to. Then, why not tax the salaries of UN personnel?

These issues do snowball and become bigger and influence an entire working mindset and, at the end, they become deeply entrenched in the organizational culture of the UN.

Why is it so difficult to secure appointments with the UN officials or getting an answer for some ideas that have been proposed to them?

It is certainly impossible for the UN agencies and programs to entertain any requests, but, I do believe it would make sense for the UN to have a much more responsive approach.

Another example: why running events in four or five star hotels?

Again, this question could be shot down with disdain and as a trivial matter but, it is just a symptom of a much broader malaise that has a real outcome: a lot of wasted resources that could be better spent.

There is a broader acceptance, even if it will be hardly admitted, that the UN are neither responsive nor accountable. The discussions being prioritized at the moment by the UN SG are not tackling these underlying issues.

The ongoing debate is more about eliminating the vast amount of inefficiencies through merging and elimination of overlapping entities. It is not that these potential shake ups do not make sense.

It is actually welcome but, unless there is a deep reflection on how the UN can be really more accountable and transparent and accessible, the change won’t be as powerful as many hope.

Right at the top, most of the executive heads of agencies and programs are very well-meaning and committed professionals but many of them are former high level officials in their country of origin.

They have been accustomed to high offices that often are far removed from the ground reality. Therefore, they are not well suited to try to create efficiencies and re-tool the entire working approach. But the problem is also with the mandate of the United Nations.

Rather than focusing exclusively on assisting its member nations, the UN should also reposition its functions to do a much better job at partnering with civil society organizations. This also makes sense because freedoms are shrinking both in the North and in the South and overall democracy is in decline.

A more agile and humble UN could have a core mandate of supporting grassroots organizations and the whole civil society. A practical way to start doing it is for the UN to engage and consult more and better with the society at large, even when the hosting nations would not appreciate it.

I do often think that the UN as a system is oftentimes too submissive to the host governments even if the latter are recipients of huge amounts of assistance. It acts and obliges as if it did not have any negotiating powers.

To bring in efficiencies, moreover, the UN agencies and programs should stop being implementers on behalf of other donors.

It often happens that, at country levels, the offices of major UN agencies sign partnership agreements with bilateral agencies.

There are better practices to implement development assistance rather than relying on the “technical’ expertise of UN Agencies.

Why can’t bilateral agencies directly support civil society or why can’t the UN agencies only play a much more limited role? Instead of setting up whole teams made up by contracted officials, in effect long term consultants, why not truly support local NGOs in terms of organizational development and technical knowledge through a much more nimble approach?

All these proposals might be easily dismissed by those who have been thriving throughout the years in a system whose potential of real impact has been trimmed by a working culture that does not any more meet the thresholds set by the high purposes for which the UN were created.

But the status quo cannot continue.

Unfortunately, only Donald Trump could trigger a bold restricting of the UN. Merging and cutting agencies and programs should be one side of the revolution that Mr. Guterres has been forced to tackle.

Let’s not forget the less visible, perhaps softer side of the coin. Without eradicating a mindset that ended up self-justifying and self-promoting, the UN will cease to exist.

And this will be a real problem for our humanity.

That’s why the status quo at the UN must be defeated.

https://press.un.org/en/2025/sgsm22644.doc.htm

Simone Galimberti writes about the SDGs, youth-centered policy-making and a stronger and better United Nations.

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, May 20 2025 (IPS)

With President Trump’s efforts to end the Ukraine war, Europeans are now mainly responsible for prolonging it. Despite lame protestations of peace, Europe seems committed to fighting ‘to the last Ukrainian’.

Unsustainable peace
As Europe celebrated the end of the Nazi-initiated Second World War earlier in May, it does not seem to know how to sustain peace after war.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Both ‘world wars’ of the 20th century started in Europe as inter-imperialist wars, killing millions. In 1884-5, the Berlin Conference divided Africa among the dominant European powers.

After attending the Versailles palace negotiations following WW1, the young John Maynard Keynes’ The Economic Consequences of the Peace warned the agreement’s terms undermined a sustainable peace, almost anticipating Nazism’s later rise.

Towards the end of World War II (WW2), FDR’s Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, insisted Germany should not be allowed to re-industrialise after the War.

After starting and losing two world wars, German military aggression seemed unavoidable. For Morgenthau, reindustrialisation would inevitably lead Germany to war again.

For FDR, only postwar recovery for all would ‘win the peace’, not subjugating and destroying the loser.

His WW2 generals, famously Eisenhower, Marshall and MacArthur, imposed ‘pacifist’ constitutions and reforms for postwar growth on Germany and Japan.

Imperial oversight?
Despite his brilliant contemporaneous insights into the unsustainability of the peace secured at Versailles, Keynes ignored its outcome for China.

At Versailles, the Shandong peninsula, previously ruled by the Germans, was not returned to China, but given to Japan instead!

The resulting May 4th (1919) movement culminated in the Chinese revolution. Keynes was as blind to this as to WW2’s three million lives lost to the Bengal famine.

Although invisible in movies, tens of thousands from China were involved in WW1, mainly digging trenches for European troops in a war primarily remembered for trench warfare.

German possessions in southern Africa were not returned to Africans, but instead held ‘in trust’ by European powers, including the white South African regime.

While there have not been more ‘world wars’ since the end of the Cold War, there have been many more wars in the supposedly unipolar/multipolar world.

NATO v the UN
At the UN General Assembly, 141 countries condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But many also oppose North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) expansion via Ukraine to threaten Russia.

This is reminiscent of broad international support for President John F Kennedy in 1962 when he insisted Soviet missiles be withdrawn from Cuba, just off Florida.

NATO was established for the Cold War and should have been dissolved at its end. Its raison d’être, the rival Warsaw Pact, was gone. Worse, NATO expansion continues while it conducts unlawful wars not sanctioned by the UN Security Council.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande have both confessed that the 2014 Minsk deal with the Russians was intended to buy time to arm Ukraine for war later, not to secure peace.

Similarly, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson successfully blocked negotiations between Ukraine and Russia in the last half-year of his tenure. A peace deal would have ended hostilities and saved hundreds of thousands of lives, mainly Ukrainian.

Europe has continued to insist on war despite worsening odds. And when NATO allies blew up the gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, no protests followed.

NATO should have been dissolved at the end of the Cold War, once its raison d’être, the rival Warsaw Pact, was gone.

Despite Europe’s pretensions of leading worldwide efforts against global warming, it quickly reversed earlier commitments, even abandoning its 2021 Glasgow commitment to reject coal less than half a year later.

Unsurprisingly, the Global South remains sceptical of the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), perhaps only the latest form of European trade protectionism.

The EU has already worsened world economic conditions by raising interest rates, imposing illegal sanctions, insisting on fiscal austerity and cutting social spending in favour of military expenditure.

European leaders now proudly announce military Keynesian policies, expecting growth from more war spending. Thus, the turn to war has meant less growth and more inequality.

A non-aligned South?
FDR envisaged a peaceful new multilateral order offering progress for all. But such hopes have been squelched by political pressures for informal empire abetted by a resurgent military-industrial complex.

A different world is needed based on much stronger commitments to peace, freedom and non-alignment. It may be time for the West, the Global North and others to learn from the South-East.

In 1955, Indonesia hosted the Afro-Asian summit in Bandung, which boldly spoke for the post-colonial South and made the case for non-alignment as the Cold War began.

Over half a century ago, in 1973, the Association for South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), set up in 1967, committed to creating a zone of peace, freedom and neutrality (ZOPFAN).

Creating the enabling conditions for ongoing cooperation, development, and progress can help sustain the bases for a peaceful and progressive new world order.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By CIVICUS
May 19 2025 (IPS)

 
CIVICUS speaks with Eric Bjornlund, President and CEO of Democracy International, about the impacts of the US foreign aid freeze and the resulting legal challenges the Trump administration is facing. Democracy International is a global civil society organisation (CSO) that works for a more peaceful and democratic world.

Upon taking office, Trump immediately suspended all foreign aid and dismantled the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), blocking over US$40 billion in congressionally approved funding. This halted crucial global work in democracy, development, health and human rights. In February, several CSOs, including Democracy International, filed a lawsuit challenging Trump’s legal authority to freeze these funds. Despite a court ruling ordering the release of the money and the restoration of foreign assistance, legal proceedings continue.

Eric Bjornlund

What are the most severe consequences of the funding freeze?

The impact on vital international work on democracy, healthcare, human rights and international development has been devastating and far-reaching. The government has even refused to honour invoices or reimburse legally authorised expenses, including those incurred under the previous administration. With 83 per cent of programmes cancelled, many organisations have been forced to shut their operations.

Health services were among the first to collapse: thousands of healthcare workers were dismissed, with essential medicine and food aid left stockpiled and expiring, being damaged or stolen. This has increased deaths from HIV/AIDS and malaria and left reproductive health needs unmet.

Beyond healthcare, the damage spans multiple sectors: education for girls cut, demining operations suspended, Ukrainian refugee shelters compromised, protection for minors from gang recruitment in Central America terminated, cybersecurity in Ukraine halted and support for civil society opposing authoritarian violence in Myanmar ended. Even efforts tracking zoonotic diseases in Bangladesh have ceased.

How has Democracy International been affected?

With 98 per cent of our 2024 revenue from USAID, we’ve been crippled. Despite a federal court declaring the terminations unlawful, all our programmes have been cancelled, forcing staff furloughs, office closures and delayed payments.

The human cost has been immense. In Bangladesh, we’ve discontinued medical assistance to students injured during protest crackdowns. In Burkina Faso, the lives of human rights defenders documenting violence against Christian communities are at risk because we can no longer relocate them. The same lack of crucial support is affecting Nicaraguan political prisoners, state violence victims in Mozambique, government critics in the Philippines and democracy advocates in Tanzania. In Jamaica, over 500 vulnerable young people risk being recruited by gangs without our counselling services, apprenticeship opportunities and vocational skills-building training.

We’ve also been forced to abandon critical governance initiatives. We’ve suspended support for Bangladesh’s post-authoritarian transition, legal assistance for civil society navigating foreign agent laws in Kyrgyzstan, funding coordination for displaced Armenians and democracy leadership in Libya.

Beyond immediate harms, this has broken the trust of communities we’ve supported for years, undermined civil society credibility and surrendered significant political influence to authoritarian powers such as China and Russia.

What collective action has civil society taken?

The freeze blindsided us, but we quickly recognised the need for a coordinated response. We’ve partnered with former USAID officials – particularly those whose work focused on democracy and human rights – to advocate for foreign aid restoration and defend democracy and the rule of law in the USA. We’ve also worked with USAID implementing partners, consulted global experts and sought to identify new funding opportunities.

But our strongest strategy has been legal action. We joined a coalition of USAID partners to file a lawsuit that secured a temporary restraining order in February and a preliminary injunction in March, ordering the government to resume payments and restore funding.

Despite our case reaching the Supreme Court, the administration has largely failed to comply, creating a constitutional crisis that’s testing the judiciary’s ability to check executive power. While legal action remains central to our strategy, we recognise the need for congressional involvement to achieve a sustainable solution.

What are your legal arguments?

We challenge the government on multiple grounds. First, we argue the blanket termination of foreign assistance under the Administrative Procedure Act is both arbitrary and unlawful. Second, we contend this action fundamentally breaches the constitutional separation of powers. Neither the President, Secretary of State nor USAID Administrator has legal authority to unilaterally withhold appropriated funds or dismantle a statutory agency.

The administration has violated both Congress’s exclusive power over spending and its shared foreign policy role. The Impoundment Control Act explicitly prohibits defunding programmes based merely on policy preferences without following strict procedural requirements.

The court has agreed with our position that no rational basis exists for such a sweeping freeze if the stated purpose was merely to review programmes’ efficiency and consistency. The government has also disregarded organisations’ significant reliance on these funds, forcing many to close permanently.

How can democratic institutions be strengthened against such overreach?

Constitutional checks and balances function only when all branches respect them. Congress must defend its spending authority, courts must continue asserting their oversight role and ultimately, the executive must respect the rule of law. But whether it will do so remains uncertain.

If this situation persists unresolved, the humanitarian toll will continue mounting globally while the security, prosperity and global standing of the USA deteriorate. Robust accountability mechanisms and institutional safeguards are essential to protect aid systems globally and democracy at home.

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United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC)
 
The Third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) will be held in Nice, France, from June 9 to 13, 2025. This event will bring together world leaders, scientists, and stakeholders to discuss the conservation and sustainable use of the oceans. The conference's overarching theme is "Accelerating action and mobilizing all actors to conserve and sustainably use the ocean".

By Ted Danson
NICE, France, May 19 2025 (IPS)

Seafood is a staple in my house – fish tacos, paella, sushi. But no matter how good it tastes, I can’t help but wonder: was my fish caught responsibly? Or did something go horribly wrong before it ever reached my plate?

Next month, as world leaders gather in Nice, France for the third United Nations Ocean Conference, they must confront a hard truth: a lack of transparency at sea is enabling illegal fishing and undermining efforts to protect our oceans.

Too often, bad actors exploit the vastness of the ocean to fish illegally and launder their catch into the seafood supply chain – with devastating consequences for marine life, coastal communities, and legitimate fishers.

This means the seafood at your local grocery store or favorite restaurant might be tied to these illicit activities — and you’d have no way of knowing. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Ted Danson

In 2023, Oceana – where I serve on the Board of Directors – analyzed fishing activity near Ecuador’s iconic Galápagos Islands, a marine protected area since 1998. What we found was alarming: hundreds of industrial fishing vessels – mostly flagged to China, but also Spain, Panama, and Ecuador, clustered near the border of the protected area – only to disappear from view after disabling their public tracking devices.

This kind of behavior often signals something is wrong. A vessel might be trying to hide its location to fish illegally, operate in another country’s waters without permission, or offload its catch under the radar.

Even in places with rules, those rules are often flouted. The European Union, for instance, requires vessels over 49 feet to keep their tracking systems on at all times, unless there’s a genuine safety issue. Yet in our analysis of fishing around the Galápagos, 24 Spanish-flagged vessels disappeared for more than 35,000 hours combined.

Fifty-three Chinese-flagged vessels vanished for nearly 27,000 hours – and nearly all had a potential encounter or transshipment activity, where fishing vessels transfer their catch to refrigerated cargo ships at sea. While not illegal, this practice is often used to mix legal and illegal seafood, making it nearly impossible to trace.

If these practices continue unchecked, local fishers may soon find themselves coming home empty-handed.

But there’s a better way.

In 2023, small-scale mahi-mahi fishers in San Mateo, Ecuador – where 90% of the community relies on artisanal fishing – pioneered a program to build trust and traceability. Their boats were equipped with cameras and digital tracking systems.

The catch data was embedded in QR codes, allowing buyers to trace each fish back to the boat and the people who caught it.

Peru is also stepping up. The government is working to ensure that every vessel fishing for human consumption is tracked and reporting its catch. This isn’t just a top-down regulation – small-scale fishers are helping lead the way, alongside groups like Oceana.

And at the end of April, the governments of Cameroon, Ghana, and South Korea all endorsed the Global Charter for Fisheries Transparency at the Our Ocean conference. But more must be done.

The upcoming United Nations Ocean Conference is a prime opportunity for other governments around the world to follow suit and commit to greater transparency and accountability in global fishing.

That means requiring all vessels to keep tracking systems on at all times, cracking down on those who disappear at sea, and supporting programs that help fishers prove they’re following the rules.

We already have the tools. Platforms like Global Fishing Watch let anyone track fishing vessels in near-real time using satellite data. But to close the loopholes, we need governments to act.

Our oceans are not the Wild West. They are a shared resource – and a shared responsibility. By committing to transparency, we can protect marine ecosystems, ensure a level playing field for honest fishers, and give consumers confidence that their seafood is safe, legally caught, and honestly labeled.

The decisions made in Nice could shape the future of our oceans. We can’t lose sight of what’s at stake.

Ted Danson is an actor, advocate, and Oceana Board Member

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Representatives of the Maasai community in Longido receive a mock check from the Soil for the Future company as a payout to limit their grazing land in September 2024. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS

By Kizito Makoye
DAR ES SALAAM, May 19 2025 (IPS)

As global demand for carbon credits rises, Tanzania has become a magnet for carbon offset projects. From Loliondo in Arusha to Kiteto in Manyara, foreign firms and conservation groups are looking for land to capture carbon and sell credits to polluting industries in the Global North. The growing interest in carbon trading has sparked hope, confusion, and concern— putting millions of hectares of village land and the livelihoods of people who depend on it at risk.

What is carbon and carbon trading?

Carbon is commonly referred to as pollution from oil, gas, and coal, whereas carbon trading is a global tool to fight climate change. It allows companies or countries that emit a lot of carbon to “offset” their emissions by paying for projects that reduce carbon elsewhere, like protecting forests or improving land use through sustainable grazing. So, big polluters sell their pollution to areas where there is low pollution and balance their books through it. Everybody has to decrease their carbon limit global warming to 1.5°C, global emissions need to be reduced by 45 percent by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050, according to the Paris Agreement.

Who are the main players? 

Tanzania has become a key player in the carbon market, thanks to its vast forests and efforts to conserve them. Foreign investors and carbon credit firms from Europe and North America partner with local NGOs to manage swathes of village land often used by Maasai communities for grazing. Major players include Soils for the Future Tanzania Ltd, backed by Volkswagen Climate Partners and The Nature Conservancy, active in Longido, Monduli, and Simanjiro districts.

How are carbon credit schemes regulated?

Tanzania’s carbon market is growing fast but lacks regulation. Backed by the government, foreign firms and conservation groups are luring local communities to use their land for carbon credit projects. In the Arusha and Manyara regions, such schemes increase, promising income, better infrastructure, and environmental benefits. But while investors call it a win-win, the reality on the ground is complicated.

What are communities agreeing to?

Most villagers don’t understand how carbon markets work. Many sign 30–40-year contracts without knowing what rights they’re giving up or what they’ll get in return. Villages usually get a one-time “signing fee”—sometimes called dowry money—that critics say leads to rushed, secretive agreements.

The contracts are in English— not Swahili— and often exclude women and youth from decision-making. In Loliondo, pastoralist leaders say they were asked to agree to carbon credit deals without clear information on how long the land would be locked and what would happen if terms changed.

What exactly does the deal entail?

Under the Longido Monduli rangelands carbon project, a conservation group called Soil for the Future Tanzania—which works to restore degraded rangelands and savannah ecosystems—is managing a deal on behalf of Volkswagen Climate Partners. The project spans 970,000 hectares and pays 59 villages between 40 and 130 million Tanzanian shillings (about USD 15,000–50,000) over a 40-year period, from January 2024 to December 2063, in exchange for carbon credits. In return, communities must limit activities such as grazing and burning grasslands, raising concerns among some residents about losing access to land they have used for generations.

Whom does the law protect?

Tanzania’s land laws recognize both statutory and customary ownership, but there are no clear rules for carbon trading—leaving rural communities exposed to exploitation.

Although the Village Land Act of 1999 protects customary tenure, problems arise when carbon offset contracts are signed without the free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) of everyone affected.

Often, traditional grazing land is reclassified for conservation without compensation.

In Loliondo and Ngorongoro, where land disputes and evictions are rife, residents fear more land loss.

The contracts are often difficult to cancel and unclear about how benefits will be shared. With no national guidelines on transparency or accountability, communities are left in the dark.

Is carbon trading undermining Maasai traditions?

Traditional Maasai pastoralism depends on mobility—moving herds across vast rangelands for water and pasture. But carbon projects often enforce rotational grazing and land-use rules aimed at storing carbon, which can clash with pastoral survival strategies, especially during droughts.

Are villagers stakeholders or just bystanders?

Though marketed as “community-based,” many carbon projects sideline rural Tanzanians in decisions that affect their land for decades. The government backs carbon trading to boost revenue and conserve nature, but without clear policies, critics warn it could repeat old patterns of exploitation—this time under a green label.

What is the situation elsewhere?
Tanzania’s experience reflects a broader trend across Africa, where Indigenous communities are being drawn into carbon deals that may offer quick cash but raise lasting concerns about land rights, sovereignty, and justice.

Note: This feature is published with the support of Open Society Foundations.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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The aftermath of a Russian attack on the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv on July 8, 2024. Credit: Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, May 19 2025 (IPS)

The international community must take action to uphold international humanitarian law, say healthcare and rights advocates, as attacks on healthcare in war zones reached a record high last year.

A new report from the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition (SHCC) released today (May 19) documented more than 3,600 attacks on doctors and health care workers, hospitals, and clinics in zones of armed conflict in 2024—up 15 percent from 2023 and 62 percent since 2022.

The report’s authors say attacks on healthcare in war zones are not only more numerous but are also more destructive and involve heavier weapons—there was a growing use of explosive weapons in attacks against healthcare, rising from 36 percent of incidents in 2022 to 48 percent in 2023. Perpetrator use of drones against health care facilities drove much of the increase, as their use nearly quadrupled, according to the report.

Meanwhile, more than 900 doctors were killed last year—a rise of 21 percent from 2023—and almost 500 were arrested. More than 100 were kidnapped.

However, the report suggests attacks on healthcare in war zones may be even more widespread, as the collection of data on violence is impeded by insecurity, communications blockages, and the reluctance of some entities to share data on violence.

It also says the rise in attacks has come alongside attempts by perpetrators to limit legal protections for health care and civilians in war.

It highlights how Israel has “sought to dilute legal requirements of precaution and proportionality during conflict” while “campaigns to delegitimize the International Criminal Court (ICC) are underway,” with US president Donald Trump imposing sanctions on ICC staff and their families for having charged Israelis with war crimes, Russia criminalizing cooperation with the ICC or any foreign court seeking to hold Russians to account, and other countries announcing plans to leave the ICC.

The authors say regimes around the world are increasingly flouting international human rights laws, and action must be taken to bring actors behind these attacks to justice or risk a proliferation of military targeting of healthcare.

Christina Wille, Director of Insight Insecurity, an SHCC member, told IPS that the international community has a role to play.

“International humanitarian law, which says that healthcare in conflict must be protected, is not being respected. The international community should come together to ensure that there is accountability for these attacks and the people responsible for them are brought to justice. But if nothing is done and this continues, other states may see the targeting of healthcare as a tactic that they can use in conflict without risk of censure or sanction and will go ahead with it,” Wille said.

While the report documented more countries last year reporting attacks on healthcare, the majority of recorded incidents occurred in a handful of states.

By far the largest number of attacks on health care—more than 1,300—took place in Gaza and the West Bank, but there were also hundreds of attacks in other countries that have seen brutal conflicts, including Ukraine (544), Lebanon (485), Myanmar (308), and Sudan (276), where there has been evidence of systematic targeting of local healthcare facilities and workers by attacking, or both attacking and opposing, forces.

The results of these attacks have been dire, not just in terms of the immediate casualties among healthcare workers and civilians from such strikes but also the knock-on effects on the local civilian population from the destruction of facilities, as in some cases even the most basic of medical services subsequently become unavailable.

The report points out that in Gaza, every hospital has been hit, and many multiple times, with dire impacts on their capacity to address the massive number of traumatic injuries, treatment for chronic and infectious disease, and safe childbirth.

“The health system in Gaza has collapsed. Hospitals and clinics have been completely destroyed, like the of the civilian infrastructure. Today, only 22 out of 36 hospitals are partially functioning, and that can mean only being able to treat a few patients a day. Most of the labs are not running, there is very little material available, the staff is exhausted, and some are still detained,” Simon Tyler, Executive Director of Doctors of the World, the UK chapter of the international human rights organization global Médecins du Monde network, told IPS.

A charity organization working in Gaza, Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), said that devastating attacks on two hospitals – the European Gaza Hospital (EGH) and Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza—in the last week had worsened the situation.

“The attacks put the EGH out of service and increased the pressure on services at Nasser, as well as destroying parts of the hospital, including the burns unit. EGH was the only hospital in Gaza providing cancer services following the destruction of the Turkish Friendship Hospital in March,” MAP communications manager Max Slaughter told IPS.

Israeli forces have often claimed that hospitals in Gaza were being used as bases for Hamas military operations.

But the UN has said Israeli forces’ attacks on healthcare in Gaza are a war crime.

Doctors in Myanmar who spoke to IPS on condition of anonymity for security reasons said the intensified use of drones by government forces fighting rebel groups in the last 18 months “posed grave threats to the provision of humanitarian aid and healthcare services.”

“Deliberate attacks on healthcare facilities, including hospitals, rural health centers, and other related infrastructure, have resulted in severe damage to health facilities, injuries, fatalities, and, in some cases, permanent disabilities among healthcare workers,” one said.

The doctors added that a combination of people being afraid to travel and frequent displacement of healthcare service sites has significantly disrupted access to essential medical care, and drone attacks targeting group activities, such as the provision of humanitarian aid, hinder effective delivery by deterring gatherings of people and creating logistical challenges.

Meanwhile, the risk posed to humanitarian workers by these attacks has reduced the presence of organizations on the ground, diminishing aid availability for affected populations.

In Ukraine, the healthcare system has faced similar widespread destruction.

Earlier this month, Ukraine’s Health Ministry said that Russian forces had damaged or destroyed more than 2,300 medical infrastructure facilities since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

In some areas near the line, healthcare systems have all but disappeared, with people having to either rely on local aid groups and NGOs for basic care and essential medicines or travel long distances in difficult conditions to facilities that are still functioning.

But it is not hospitals that have come under attack, as Russian troops regularly target ambulances—since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, 116 ambulances have been damaged, 274 destroyed, and 80 seized.

But hospitals and clinics in areas far from the fighting have not been spared. In one of the worst attacks on healthcare since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital, one of the largest of its kind in Europe, was hit by a missile on July 8 last year. Two adults were killed and at least 34 people, including nine children, were injured.

Despite initial denials by the Kremlin that its forces had hit the hospital, evidence showed the building had been deliberately struck with a hypersonic missile.

Another problem faced in many conflict zones is how attacks on other infrastructure, such as energy facilities, are impacting healthcare.

Volodymyr Hryshko, Senior Legal Counsel with Ukrainian group Truth Hounds, told IPS more intense Russian targeting of energy infrastructure in 2024 had had a devastating impact on healthcare. In a survey by the group, 92 percent of doctors reported such attacks had experienced power cuts at work, and 66 percent said medical procedures had been affected. The attacks had led to deaths from oxygen deprivation as life support systems failed and staff at some hospitals were forced to work in complete blackouts.

“But the impact is not only immediate risk to patients but also long-term system degradation, staff burnout—reported by over 80 percent—and psychological trauma among both patients and healthcare providers,” he said.

However, despite the death and destruction caused by such attacks, the report shows they are increasing in number.

Wille said the reasons for this are varied and that not all strikes on medical facilities documented may be deliberate.

“Weapons may not be as accurate as believed, and heavy weapons can also have a ‘wide area’ effect—attackers may not have been aiming to hit a hospital, but the impact of the strike still damaged it,” she said.

However, she pointed out that militaries are aware they can gain an advantage in conflict by targeting healthcare systems.

“Health systems are often seen by conflict parties as a system that can help keep the enemy going—treating injuries, helping them recover, and providing a place for them to rest and recuperate.

“Attacks on health systems can also damage morale significantly because health facilities and workers supply the services the population, especially very young and old people, desperately need,” she explained.

But groups working to provide medical and humanitarian help in war zones believe the fact that the regimes behind these attacks are carrying them out with seeming impunity is fueling continued attacks on healthcare in war zones.

“The principle that civilians and aid workers should be protected is being violated time and again. In recent times, we’ve seen clinics bombed, convoys attacked, and our colleagues targeted simply for doing their job in Gaza, the West Bank, and Ukraine. We can no longer rely on or guarantee protection for our staff and services. Civilians, humanitarian workers, health workers, and infrastructure should never be targets. We firmly condemn all attacks on healthcare and call for independent investigation and accountability for the perpetrators,” said Tyler.

“The continued inaction of… some of the most powerful governments in the world in the face of the Israeli authorities’ deadly blockade is indefensible—and could be judged as complicity under international humanitarian law and human rights law. We must hold all responsible for violations accountable to ensure justice for victims, deter further violations, and prevent future escalations,” he added.

MAP’s Slaughter warned that Israel’s “… deliberate blockade of aid and continued attacks on healthcare, all with no real accountability or impunity, are setting a precedent that the international community will permit such atrocities to be committed with no recourse.”

The SHCC report calls for UN states to take action to ensure healthcare is protected in conflicts, including ending impunity by encouraging investigations, data sharing, prosecutions through the International Criminal Court and empowering monitoring bodies.

Wille admitted, though it may be difficult to get a powerful international consensus that would lead to such attacks being stopped, or at least significantly reduced.

“I have little optimism that governments can prevent such attacks in the current climate. When major powers that should uphold the rules-based international order instead question its legitimacy—and even erode the rule of law at home, as in the US—it becomes nearly impossible to build the international consensus needed to enforce those rules,” she said.

“Yet it remains essential to keep calling for these attacks to stop and for perpetrators to be held accountable because even a fractured international order can be repaired, and justice demands persistence,” she added.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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The world needs the UN, now more than ever. But we have also experienced firsthand how maddeningly inefficient and bureaucratic it can be. No wonder some critics want to defund it, the authors argue. Credit: United Nations

By Felix Dodds and Chris Spence
SAN FRANCISCO, California / APEX, North Carolina, US, May 16 2025 (IPS)

The United Nations has been called many things in its time:

• A champion of human rights.
• The world’s peacekeeper and provider of disaster relief.
• A leader on climate change, sustainable development, cutting poverty, and combating disease.
• The world’s single most important organization.

 

But also:

• Bureaucratic.
• Byzantine.
• Disorganized.
• Duplicative.
• Fragmented.
• Frustrating.

Which is it?

The correct answer is, probably both. In our opinion, the UN is essential. Its role over the past 80 years has been critical in so many ways. As we argue in our books, Heroes of Environmental Diplomacy (2022) and Environmental Lobbying at the United Nations (2025) the world needs the UN, now more than ever.

But we have also experienced firsthand how maddeningly inefficient and bureaucratic it can be. No wonder some critics want to defund it.

Unlike some previous efforts at UN reform that have petered out—often because governments and various UN entities could not agree on their implementation—this time the UN seems to have no choice but to adapt. For the first time in its history, funding is likely to fall. The years of growth are clearly over. Budgets will soon need to be cut. Already, funding shortfalls are starting to bite

One of the problems for the United Nations has been the expectations surrounding it. With every new global challenge—from decolonization to climate change—the organization’s mandate has grown.

The United Nations feels both too big and too small. After ongoing budgetary growth for the best part of 80 years, it is sufficiently big that many expect it to be able to deal with anything that comes its way. The UN system as a whole has revenue of more than US$74 billion—bigger than many countries. However, the UN’s regular (core) budget is relatively small: $3.72 billion for 2025. What’s more, it has generally only gone up by the cost of inflation for the last thirty years.

Where does the rest of the money go? A lot is dedicated to helping developing countries with their humanitarian, development, and environmental work. In addition, there is a peacekeeping budget that pays for UN peacekeeping forces. This budget is currently $5.6 billion.

Another expense relates to UN programmes focusing on specific topics, such as development (UNDP), environmental protection (UNEP), or humanitarian aid (UNHCR).

These programmes are funded through voluntary contributions from governments, and are managed through the specific UN programme’s dedicated governing bodies. UN agencies are also technically separate from the “core” UN; they select their own leaders and have their own governing bodies.

 

Cuts Are Coming

Together, these many UN entities undertake a lot of activities. They also cost a lot. Now, however, many governments are reducing their aid budgets and several, including the US, are making wholesale cuts to their UN funding. This means change is coming whether the organization likes it or not.

Unlike some previous efforts at UN reform that have petered out—often because governments and various UN entities could not agree on their implementation—this time the UN seems to have no choice but to adapt. For the first time in its history, funding is likely to fall. The years of growth are clearly over. Budgets will soon need to be cut. Already, funding shortfalls are starting to bite.

UN member states (that is, governments) are assessed for annual UN “contributions” based on a formula that considers their national income and various other factors. But what if governments don’t pay what they owe?

By April 30, 2025, unpaid “assessments” (money owed to the UN by individual countries) stood at US$2.4 billion, with the US owing $1.5 billion, China around $600 million, and Russia more than $70 million. On top of that, the peacekeeping budget was $2.7 billion in arrears. In 2024, 41 countries did not pay their mandated contributions.

In March 2025, UN Secretary-General António Guterres launched “UN80”, a review that seeks to make sure the institution continues to be fit-for-purpose as it looks towards a financially-straightened future. So far, everything seems to be on the table: his review is examining operational efficiency, how the organization’s key tasks or missions are implemented, and major structural reforms.

The Secretary-General has acknowledged criticism about major overlaps between UN agencies and programmes, as well as inefficiencies, spiraling costs, fragmentation, outdated working methods, and the rapid growth in high-level managerial and executive jobs within the system.

He is considering major changes, such as merging multiple departments, agencies and groups into a much smaller number that would each cover a major area like Peace and Security, Humanitarian Affairs, Human Rights, and Sustainable Development.

Currently, many entities have overlapping responsibilities in each of these areas and there are literally dozens of different groups active in each one.

Such mergers seem sensible and long overdue. Internally, it will likely cause a lot of anguish and stress among staff, since it will certainly result in layoffs. This must be undertaken with a pro-staff approach; many who work for the UN have devoted their lives to the organization, and any staff changes should try to respect their service.

Sadly, the cuts in funding mean a certain level of job losses are inevitable. That said, we believe it is far better for the UN to take on the challenge intentionally and with the clear goal of improving the organization’s efficiency and impact, than for it to adopt a “defensive” posture and resist change while funding falls anyway.

Are there ways some cuts could be offset by finding additional ways to fund the UN and its various activities? While these are unlikely in the short term, it is worth actively considering what new income streams might be possible and how they could play a role in funding new or existing mandates. In future, any new activity or mandate being considered by the UN should certainly include a clearly-funded budget.

 

A Sustainable United Nations?

A major lens we would like to see applied to any reform is judging the UN’s activities by its areas of comparative advantage. What are activities the UN does better than anyone else? Conversely, in what areas does the UN underperform, or even duplicate, others? Are there areas the UN adds so little value that it should exit altogether? UN leadership will need to be clear-eyed about the realities of this as they look at the changes needed.

One area in which we believe the UN excels is in coordinating international action on topics that go beyond national boundaries. This includes sustainable development and major environmental crises like climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. As we argue in our books and previous articles, the UN’s convening power has made a huge difference in trying to tackle these complex, global challenges.

Even here, however, improvements can be made. For instance, might it be possible to consolidate the many UN entities dealing with issues of sustainable development and the environment? Currently, there are several dozen, including DESA, FAO, IFAD, UNDRR, UNDP, UNESCO, UN-Habitat, UNIDO, and many others.

At this point, it may be easier for the UN Secretary-General to start by reforming the UN secretariats and programmes rather than the UN “agencies” (such as FAO, ILO, UNESCO, and WHO). This is because UN agencies often have wider mandates, more complex structures, greater autonomy, and longstanding support from vested interests. So, it may be more practical to start with parts of the system that can be easier to change and rationalize.

In addition to potential consolidation, are there savings to be had by shifting to lower cost centers? This could include building up UN headquarters in places like Nairobi, where UNEP and UN-Habitat are located, and which is more affordable than, say, Geneva or New York.

Shifting programmatic work to the UN regional commission headquarters in places like Chile, Ethiopia, and Thailand may also save money. In Europe, it may be worth considering whether there are less expensive options than Geneva or Paris (both in the top ten cities globally for costs), compared with, say, Bonn, where the UN’s climate secretariat, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification and some smaller UN bodies such as UN Volunteers, are located.

Even within specific areas like the UN’s climate change work, there are multiple mandates, overlaps, and ongoing questions. Should the UN’s climate secretariat in Bonn be brought under the umbrella of the UN Environment Programme, for instance?

The UNFCCC has a policy-making mandate, but can the scope and scale of the UN negotiations on climate change be pared back, especially now we are supposed to be largely finished with negotiations and focused on implementation?

For instance, could we change how the annual UN climate summits (also known as “COPs”) are organized, so that the “Blue Zone”, which is the UN-controlled area set aside for diplomatic negotiations, incorporates the Action Agenda of Implementation, a voluntary initiative launched in 2021 that includes a broader group of stakeholders. This might be more inclusive, and could help us move away from the technical, government-to-government negotiations that we are supposed to have largely concluded by now.

The UN climate treaty (UNFCCC) is also the only so-called “Rio” treaty (the others deal with biodiversity and desertification) not under UNEP’s purview. Bringing the UNFCCC under UNEP would enable better coordination between the Rio Conventions and move towards the clustering of environmental conventions. This was actually proposed as far back as the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development.

UNEP has prior experience in working to better coordinate among different environmental treaties: it oversaw the clustering of the various chemical-related conventions and the beginning of the clustering of the biodiversity-related treaties, too. If UNEP was empowered to coordinate the chemicals, biodiversity and climate conventions, it could save funds and ensure better and more effective delivery.

Elsewhere, what about merging UNAIDS (the UN program on HIV/AIDS) within a large body, like the World Health Organization or UN Development Programme? A fit with the WHO seems particularly logical to us. Should UN Women and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) also join together? Again, this may bring internal difficulties, but in times of financial duress it seems worthy of consideration.

The idea of better coordination between UNEP and UN-Habitat on sustainable urban development also seems rational. Could this be taken a step further into a merger? UN-Habitat was once part of UNDP, but nowadays it focuses a lot on sustainable development at the local level. This is an important task, but can it have the impact it needs as a smallish, standalone programme, or would it be better off inside a bigger entity?

 

Making the SDGs Sustainable

Although this review doesn’t seem to be focused on the bodies that govern UN entities, we would like to see a review in this area. Perhaps the new UN Secretary-General, who is due to be named in 2026 and start work in 2027, could look at these bodies as a part of a high-level panel? Such an outcome could be part of the review of the Sustainable Development Agenda, which is slated to start in 2027 in the lead-up to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Summit in 2030.

There are also questions to be asked about whether the UN High-Level Political Forum is fit for purpose? As the UN’s chief platform for monitoring and assessing implementation of the SDGs, the HLPF seems to have lost political support over the past few years.

In part, this is because its policymaking is predominantly done before the “main event” in July, meaning stakeholders have great difficulty attending and engaging with government delegates while the detailed work is being done.

Before the HLPF was established in 2013, the previous UN body responsible for sustainable development was the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD). Its preparatory policymaking occurred over two weeks every February or March, before it met again in April, May, or June to finalize policy. It had an approach of reviewing the implementation and the policy year, centered on developing recommendations and strategies to overcome challenges.

Perhaps this model might be a better one? Or perhaps a Council of the UN General Assembly similar to the Human Rights Council should be considered? This may be too “in the weeds” for the Secretary-General’s UN80 review to take on, but the process of reviewing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in the coming years should certainly look at these two options.

In the meantime, we hope the UN Secretary-General will use this moment of financial duress as an opportunity to revitalize the organization, take the hard decisions needed, and leave the UN leaner, more effective, and more fit-for-purpose when he departs in late 2026 than when he took on the role back in 2017. In this increasingly complex and insecure world, a leaner, more focused and politically-supported UN can and should take a leading role not only in addressing key challenges in the years ahead, but in pursuing its long-term vision of a more sustainable, just and fair world for all.

 

Prof. Felix Dodds and Chris Spence have participated in UN negotiations on the environment and sustainable development since the 1990s. They co-edited Heroes of Environmental Diplomacy: Profiles in Courage (Routledge, 2022). Their next book, Environmental Lobbying at the United Nations: A Guide to Protecting Our Planet, is scheduled for release in June 2025.

Excerpt:

While it may be difficult and painful, the UN Secretary-General is right to embrace change, believe Prof. Felix Dodds and Chris Spence

Credit: Unsplash/Kel Avelino

By Maximilian Malawista
NEW YORK, May 16 2025 (IPS)

The Gulf’s most powerful weapon isn’t a military, a United Nations (UN) Security Council seat, or a legacy of global diplomacy. Choosing multilateralism and mega-projects over militaries and old-world diplomacy, they are tipping the scale without firing a single shot. Their approach is more modern, where money, alliances, and an active vision for the future are the weapon of choice.

The UN’s 2030 Agenda is a framework for redefining global leadership, and it seems like the Gulf nations are stepping into it full force. As global policy moves towards renewable energy and farther away from fossil fuels, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, and Kuwait are the leading countries in global climate reform. Through their plans, from Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 to Kuwait’s Vision 2035, these Gulf states are not looking to rely on oil: they are actively diversifying their economies for the world’s market, and fast. They do this by promoting initiatives which support SDG 7: affordable and clean energy, SDG 13: climate action, and SDG 8: decent work and economic growth, setting the stage for a renewable, efficient, and clean world. The Gulf is showing that they don’t just want to escape the “resource curse” but rather redesign global leadership in its entirety.

While Gulf nations are actively diversifying, they are still heavily reliant on oil as a main driver in their economies. Saudi Arabia sees 40 percent of its 1.068 trillion USD GDP to be solely oil, the UAE sees 30 percent of their 514.1 billion USD GDP, Qatar follows with oil accounting for around 60 percent of their 213 billion USD GDP, and Kuwait at 50 percent of their 163.7 billion USD GDP. Not only is oil their main driver, but it is also their main global influence, as 21 percent of the world’s oil consumption passes through the Strait of Hormuz, a shared border with the UAE.

Without Gulf oil, the world’s energy prices would skyrocket, easily putting many global powers into recessions. Powers like Europe, China, South Korea, Japan, the U.S., and India all rely on the Gulf for their energy needs, placing most of their oil dependence on the Gulf above other oil exporters.

However, with actions like the Paris Agreement, the Global Stocktake, and COP28, countries that have historically been big oil importers are now starting to shift towards renewable energy sources, hoping to eventually completely shift out of oil and reach net-zero emissions by 2050. This means reducing oil emissions by 43% by 2030, a huge hit to Gulf economies if they don’t pivot fast. A move away from oil means the crippling of the Gulf economies, but this is what Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Kuwait are prepared for.

In cities like Dubai, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Jeddah, Doha, and Kuwait City, the Gulf is now home to various desert mirages, all of which are putting their 2030 visions above all. Not only are they tourist destinations for the desert traveler, but home to businessmen and billionaire elites. The Gulf achieves this by making their cities expat-friendly. The UAE has topped the leaderboards with #1 in the world for movers, with Qatar at #3, and Saudi Arabia at #10, breaking the narrative of being strict for foreigners.

Each nation has strived to create a connectedness within their cities, using the English language for most if not all business transactions, and teaching it alongside or even without Arabic, depending on the type of schooling. 92 percent of Dubai’s population are expats, followed by Doha at 90 percent, Abu Dhabi at 80 percent, Kuwait City at 68 percent, Jeddah at 58 percent, and Riyadh at 52 percent. None of the main Gulf cities are Arab majorities nor majority Arabic-speaking, they are people from diverse backgrounds and foreign countries: numbers unseen anywhere else in the world.

Credit: Unsplash/Oskars Sylwan

A Challenge to the West:

The most stable economic expansion, zero crime, the geographic crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and allied with virtually the whole world, the Gulf has seen a surge in global mediations, sovereign wealth deposits, and UN activity at a faster rate than anywhere else.

Just this March, peace talks between the United States and Russia, amidst the Russia-Ukraine war, took place in Riyadh, highlighting its status as a close ally for both nations.

Ali Shihabi, a retired Saudi banker, now author and commentator, said: “I don’t think there’s another place where the leader has such a good personal relationship with both Trump and Putin.”

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Slam, or MBS, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, has pushed for a modernization of Saudi Arabia, moving the kingdom away from rigid cultural traditions in daily life, and toward a more globally welcoming cosmopolitan society – a direction which has been echoed all throughout the Gulf; aligning with a broader diplomatic vision and values on the global stage.

Similarly, Qatar has been heading mediations between the Israel-Palestine conflict, connecting Hamas and the West, playing a crucial role in hostage negotiations, ceasefire & de-escalation talks, pressure for acceptance of humanitarian aid, and a coordinator in the financial support for Palestine’s reconstruction.

The rest of the Gulf has also seen increasing diplomatic mediation efforts. Saudi Arabia managed mediation between warring factions in Sudan, creating room for U.S. dialogue. Culminating in 2020, Qatar had hosted Taliban-US negotiations, by being the neutral ground where the Taliban’s political office was stationed, leading to an agreement for the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Lebanon’s political gridlock was alleviated through mediation and economic support efforts by Qatar, facilitating the election of Joseph Aoun as President of Lebanon. Saudi Arabia arranged the re-entry of Syria into the Arab League by initiating talks and promoting regional stability. The UAE, behind closed doors, has opened communication channels between Pakistan and India, looking to reduce tension in the Kashmir region. Kuwait also led successful mediation efforts during the Gulf crisis, which resolved the most serious internal dispute in the history of the GCC.

Roger Carstens, the United States Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, said in 2023: “What I can say is that Qatar is playing a very strong and important role as an intermediary. There are times when, of course, the United States does not really have entrée into some of the negotiating groups, and this is a case where Qatar has really been able to bring its gravitas in the region to bear.”

This role which Qatar has, as an Islamic and Arabic-speaking Middle Eastern nation but also a wealthy, trusted, connected member of the Western world, has allowed its intermediary status, one which other Gulf nations are also creating space for.

The Gulf displays itself as not only an ally to the West, but a contender in its model. The Gulf has proved its ability in filling diplomatic vacuums, exhibiting that the power of mediation is not exclusive to the West, while actively creating global financial and innovation hubs, featuring multinational HQs, and UN offices in cities that are nothing short of futuristic desert mirages – while much of the West crumbles under crippling and dated infrastructure.

This could be a signal to the West for change, perhaps a switch in its focus. By actively investing in markets outside of oil, the Gulf is successfully creating civilizations open to the world, and far more welcoming than the traditional Western city, by just about every metric, whether you look at the US. News, or urban safety and cleanliness benchmarks, or the IMD Smart City Index: the Gulf is smashing the charts. From finance and AI to innovation, travel, diplomacy, and inclusivity, the Gulf is actively surpassing Western metropolises, becoming the go-to global destination of choice.

Maximilian Malawista is a student at the University of Buffalo where he majors in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), Global Affairs, and English.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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New mangroves have been created in various areas to reduce climate change risks in Badamtoli village of Dakop upazila (sub-district) of Khulna district. Credit: Rafiqul Islam Montu/IPS

By Rafiqul Islam Montu
SHYAMNAGAR, Bangladesh , May 16 2025 (IPS)

Golenur Begum has faced 12 cyclones in her life. As a child, she witnessed her father’s house destroyed, and as an adult, she watched her home smashed. Saltwater brought by the tidal surges that accompanied the cyclones wrecked their farms and livelihoods.  And with climate change, these impacts are becoming more intense and frequent.

“Sixteen years ago, in 2009, my house was washed away by Cyclone Aila. At first, we sheltered on a raised dirt road near our house. After the road was submerged, we rushed to a shelter two kilometers from the village to save our lives. The next day, when we returned to the village, we saw that many more houses had been destroyed. Shrimp farms, vegetable fields, chicken farms, and ponds submerged in salt water,” Golenur (48), who lives in Sinhartoli village, remembers.

She is not alone. Sahara Begum (32), Rokeya Begum (45), and Anguri Bibi (44), from the same village, spoke of the same crisis.

A new mangrove in front of Golenur Begum’s house in Singhahartali village of Shyamnagar upazila (sub-district) of Satkhira district. Credit: Rafiqul Islam Montu/IPS

 

Neelima Mandal points to the mangrove in front of her house in Chunkuri village of Shyamnagar upazila (sub-district) of Satkhira district. Credit: Rafiqul Islam Montu/IPS

Climate-vulnerable Sinharatoli village is part of Munshiganj Union of Shyamnagar Upazila (sub-district) in the Satkhira district in southwestern Bangladesh. The Malanch River flows past the village.

On the other side of the river is the World Heritage Sundarbans—a mangrove forest area in the Ganges Delta formed by the confluence of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna Rivers in the Bay of Bengal.

Most of the people in the villages along the Malanch River lost their livelihoods and homes due to Cyclone Aila. Not only Aila—Golenur has faced 12 cyclones.

Neelima Mandal, 40, of Chunkuri village, a village adjacent to the Sundarbans, says, “Due to frequent cyclones, the embankments on the riverbank collapsed. The tidal water of the Malanch River used to enter our houses directly. As a result, both our livelihoods and lives were in crisis.”

The southwestern coast of Bangladesh is facing many crises due to climate change. The people of this region are very familiar with the effects of tides, cyclones, and salinity. They survive by adapting to these dangers. But, despite their resilience, there are not enough strong embankments in this region. Although embankments were built in the 1960s, they are mostly weak. If cyclones become more intense with a changing climate, people’s lives will be even more affected.

New mangroves protect houses at risk of climate change on the embankment in Chunkuri village of Shyamnagar upazila (sub-district) of Satkhira district. Credit: Rafiqul Islam Montu/IPS

 

What kind of benefits are the villagers getting from the newly created mangrove forest? This graph shows the results of the opinions gathered from 100 people from villages near the Sundarbans. Graph: Rafiqul Islam Montu/IPS

Despite the mangrove-rich Sundarbans, which include four enlisted and protected areas by UNESCO, which should protect them, the southwestern coastal districts of Bangladesh. The Sundarbans themselves are also facing a crisis due to frequent cyclones. The 2007 cyclone Sidr caused extensive damage, which took several years to recover from. According to a study by the Change Initiative, dense forest covered 94.2 percent of the Sundarbans in 1973. In 2024, it had decreased to 91.5 percent. The people of this region face extreme events during the cyclone season when the tide height reaches up to 3 meters (10 feet).

Mangrove Wall for Vulnerable Communities

In 2013 the women in this community began building a mangrove wall—a sign that they were not going to let the climate dictate their future.

The wall now stands where the water from the storm surge entered Golenur’s house during Cyclone Sidr in 2007 and Cyclone Aila in 2009. Now she does not have to worry about her livelihood and home as much. Apart from protection from natural hazards, the forest provides her with many other economic benefits.

“When we started planting mangrove seedlings here, the entire area was devoid of trees. Tidal water once submerged the area. In a few years, a mangrove forest has formed in the vacant space. More than 500 people from about 100 houses in the village are now free from natural hazards,” says Golenur.

A mangrove safety wall now also covers Chunkuri village, which was similarly vulnerable. The villagers take care of the mangroves and benefit from them.

Many women in Banishanta village of Dakop upazila (sub-district) of Khulna district are happy and financially better off after starting a mangrove nursery. Credit: Rafiqul Islam Montu/IPS

 

Abandoned seeds floating from the Sundarbans are processed into seedlings in the nursery at Namita Mondal’s nursery in Dhangmari village of Dakop upazila (sub-district) of Khulna district. Credit: Rafiqul Islam Montu/IPS

“Mangroves help us secure our livelihood. We can collect fodder for our cattle from the forest. Mangroves help us reduce heat,” added Sabitri Mondal, a resident of Chunkuri village.

Various organizations, including the Bangladesh Resource Council of Indigenous Knowledge (BARCIK), Bangladesh Environment and Development Society (BEDS), and Friendship, are working to restore mangroves in different parts of Khulna, Satkhira, and Bagerhat districts.

Since 2008, BARCIK has planted 1,800 mangrove trees in coastal villages, including Koikhali, Burigoalini, Munshiganj, Gabura, Padmapukur, and Atulia in the Shyamnagar upazila of Satkhira. BEDS has planted over one million mangrove saplings in 146.55 hectares of land in Shyamnagar, Satkhira, and Dakop, Khulna, since 2013.

Maksudur Rahman, CEO of BEDS, says, ‘To save mangroves, we need to involve the local community. If we can provide alternative livelihoods to the local community, the mangroves will also be saved and the people will be protected. The initiative that we have been continuing since 2013 is already reaping the benefits of the community.’

Abandoned seeds are a source of livelihood

“The mangrove nursery is now the driving force of my family. The income from the nursery is what keeps my family going. My husband and I no longer have to go to the risky Sundarbans to catch fish and crabs. Alternative livelihoods have made my life safer,’ said Namita Mandal of Dhangmari village in Dakop upazila of Khulna district.

Women plant mangrove seedlings in Dakop upazila (sub-district) of Khulna district. Credit: Rafiqul Islam Montu/IPS

 

Namita Mandal maintains a mangrove nursery in Dhangmari village in Dakop upazila (sub-district) of Khulna district. Credit: Rafiqul Islam Montu/IPS

The mangrove seeds are a source of livelihood for women in villages near the Sundarbans. Once upon a time, families used to wait for seeds and leaves that floated from the Sundarbans to cook. They would dry them and save them for cooking. But many women like Namita have started nurseries with those abandoned seeds. Seedlings are being grown in the nursery from the seeds and new mangroves are being formed from those seedlings. Many more women in villages near the Sundarbans have chosen mangrove nurseries as a source of livelihood.

Seedlings suitable for mangroves are grown in the nursery. The tree species include keora (Sonneratia apetala), baen (Avicennia alba), gewa (Excoecaria agallocha), khulshi (Aegiceras corniculatum), kankra (Bruguiera gymnorrhiza), golpata (Nypa fruticans), and goran (Ceriops decandra). The seeds of these trees float down from the Sundarbans.

Her income from the nursery has increased significantly in the past few years. ‘I sold seedlings worth 50,000 taka ($426) in a year. My nursery has expanded. The number of employees has increased. In 2023, I sold seedlings worth about 4 lakh taka ($3,407) from my nursery to some clients, including the Bangladesh Forest Department, international NGO BRAC, and BEDS,’ added Namita.

Rakibul Hasan Siddiqui, Associate Professor at the Institute of Integrated Studies on Sundarbans Coastal Ecosystem, Khulna University, said, ‘The Sundarbans and its surrounding settlements are severely affected by rising sea levels and frequent cyclones in the Bay of Bengal. Sundarbans Restoration is helping to protect coastal residents from any kind of natural disaster.”
Note: This feature is published with the support of Open Society Foundations.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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IPS UN Bureau, IPS UN Bureau Report, Bangladesh, Climate Change Justice, Climate Justice

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Excerpt:

Golenur Begum watched her house being washed away twice by powerful storms that hit the coastal village of Sinharatoli in southwestern Bangladesh. Now the women from her village and others are climate-proofing their communities by planting mangroves.

UNICEF found downward trends in overall child well-being when it comes to physical and mental health, and academic performance. Credit: UNICEF/Ezequiel Becerra

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, May 16 2025 (IPS)

Due to the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of children, particularly in some of the world’s wealthiest countries, experienced declines in their overall health and academic performances.

On May 13, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) issued a report detailing global downturns in child wellbeing in the 2020s. Titled Report Card 19: Child Wellbeing in an Unpredictable World, the report compares data from studies conducted in 2018 and 2022, with children from across 43 countries in the European Union and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). There were six markers of wellbeing that were studied: life satisfaction, suicide rates, child mortality, obesity, academic success, and social skills.

Over the past 25 years, these countries have noted significant upturns in child wellbeing, marked by decreased rates of suicide and child mortality, as well as increased rates of school completion. Despite this, rates of child wellbeing have begun to slip in the past five years due to th COVID-19 pandemic exacerbating a host of social inequities, as well as heightened risks brought on by climate shocks and world conflicts.

According to the report, the top three countries that showed the lowest rates of decline remained the same from 2018 to 2022, being the Netherlands, Denmark, and France. Mexico, Türkiye, and Chile were found to have experienced the highest rates of decline in child wellbeing. Other nations with highly developed economies, such as South Korea and Japan, reported gains in academic performance but significant losses in mental wellbeing.

Due to the widespread global shutdowns of schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, children around the world are estimated to have lost, on average, about 7 months to a year of progress in their academic careers. Although many schools attempted to supplement the absence of an in-person curriculum with remote learning, it was largely unsuccessful.

According to a study from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), many schools around the world reported lower scores on standardized tests compared to pre-pandemic years. Additionally, many students and teachers reported decreased academic performance due to increased rates of disorganization, a lack of motivation, as well as jarring lifestyle changes.

Declines in academic performance can also be attributed to a lack of essential tools such as internet access, as well as being in environments that are not conducive to learning, such as noisy or overcrowded households. Additionally, the pandemic spurred increased rates of electronics usage and decreased rates of interaction with peers, which led to impairments in social development, fewer hours of sleep, depression, anxiety, and attention deficits.

Due to the prolonged state of social isolation, many of these impacts can still be seen in children and young adults in the present day. In the 43 countries that were surveyed, out of 17.2 million 15 year-old children still in school, 8.4 million were determined to be not functionally literate and numerate. This indicates that roughly half of this age group has little to no understanding of basic reading, writing, and math skills. Illiteracy has increased the most in Bulgaria, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, and Mexico. Humanitarian organizations have expressed concern that these children will be largely unprepared for most sectors of their local economies.

The UNICEF report underscores that children from “disadvantaged” families, such as those experiencing poverty, disability, food insecurity, disease, conflicts, and violence, are disproportionately affected.

“Prior to the pandemic, children were already struggling on multiple fronts, and didn’t have access to adequate support – even in wealthy countries,” said UNICEF Innocenti Director, Bo Viktor Nylund. In the wake of the pandemic, the data set a worrying benchmark for children’s wellbeing, especially for children from disadvantaged backgrounds,” Nylund added.

Additionally, nations around the world have reported significant declines in mental health in the wake of the pandemic. Out of the 32 countries that yielded available data in mental health, 14 reported decreased rates of life satisfaction. In nearly all of the countries that experienced declines in this field, girls were found to have less life satisfaction than boys.

Surprisingly, socioeconomic status was found to have a relatively weak correlation with life satisfaction. According to UNICEF, decreased life satisfaction can be attributed to a lack of exercise, increased social media use, and worsened peer relationships, all of which have been exacerbated by the pandemic.

Additionally, 17 countries reported increased rates of suicide. Japan, South Korea, and Türkiye reported the largest increases in suicide rates. Humanitarian organizations also expressed concern of increased rates of suicide among small populations in Iceland and Malta, indicating widespread instability in these regions.

On the other hand, the report notes that in 2018, it was estimated that roughly 2 in every 1,000 children died in their youth. This figure has halved in 2022, dropping to only 1 out of every 1,000 children. Overall, rates of child mortality have been dropping for decades, with 33 out of 43 countries studied reporting vast decreases in child deaths.

Despite these gains, UNICEF found that rates of child overweightness and obesity have been on the rise following the pandemic. The biggest declines in physical health have been observed in Chile, Colombia, and the United States. In wealthy countries, children have been recorded to have higher rates of obesity, while food insecurity plagues the youth of lower income countries.

Increased rates of obesity and overweightness have been attributed to increased worldwide reliance on digital technology and decreased physical exercise. Use of digital technology is linked with consumption of nutritionally poor foods and the use of harmful cosmetic products that cause hormonal and reproductive issues. Additionally, wealthier countries face higher rates of obesity as unhealthy diets are associated with people who work more hours a week, on average.

“The extent of the challenges children are facing means we need a coherent, holistic, whole-of-childhood approach that addresses their needs at every stage of their lives,” said Nylund.

UNICEF has urged local governments to adopt programs that promote access to healthier food options, offer mental health services, and establish supplemental learning programs that ensure that all young people maintain the necessary skills for career success. Furthermore, it is imperative that these programs target the most vulnerable populations, such as disabled children or those that are living in protracted crises, and supply them with the essential services they will need to be self-sufficient.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Deportee from the U.S., Aasis Subedi, with his father, Narayan Kumar Subedi. Credit: Diwash Gahatraj/IPS

By Diwash Gahatraj
JHAPA, Nepal, May 16 2025 (IPS)

Sitting in his small hut in the Beldangi refugee camp in Jhapa district, Nepal, Narayan Kumar Subedi feels relieved that his son, Aasis Subedi, is safe.

Aasis is one of four United States deportees who were the subject of Nepal’s Supreme Court landmark ruling on April 24, which directed the government not to deport four Bhutanese refugees who entered Nepal in March of this year after being disowned by Bhutan. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported the four after they had lived in various parts of the United States for nearly a decade.

The Apex body ordered that “Aasis Subedi, Santosh Darji, Roshan Tamang, and Ashok Gurung should not remain in police custody. Instead, they should be housed in the Bhutanese refugee camps in eastern Nepal, where they lived before moving to the United States.” The ruling came in response to a habeas corpus petition filed by Narayan, father of Aasis.

“It was a mixed feeling that night when my son and two other deported men—Santosh and Roshan—came to my house. I was thrilled to see my son after ten years but was equally sad that he was escaping like a stateless homeless person,” says the 55-year-old.

On March 27, the morning after their deportation, Nepali immigration authorities arrested the three men for entering the country without visas. The fourth refugee, Ashok Gurung, was detained separately in Bahundangi, a village on the Indo-Nepal border, two days later.

The Department of Immigration investigated their case for nearly a month while they remained in police custody until the country’s highest court granted them a second chance to live in Nepal. However, this decision will be reviewed after 60 days. Until then, the four men must remain within the camp premises and report to the local police station once a week, adds Narayan.

The four men have found themselves in legal and diplomatic limbo after Bhutan refused to accept them back. Now sheltered in Nepal’s refugee camps under a temporary court order, their case highlights the ongoing crisis of statelessness among the Lhotshampa community and exposes the fragile nature of third-country resettlement solutions.

Cruel Connection

Aasis Subedi photographed with his wife while in the United States.

The four men in their mid-thirties—Aasis, Santosh, Roshan, and Ashok—share a bitter connection of multiple displacements and statelessness.

They belong to the Bhutanese Lhotshampa community, a Nepali-speaking ethnic group that settled in southern Bhutan. The Lhotshampas (“southerners” in Bhutan’s Dzongkha language) migrated to Bhutan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries during the reign of King Ugyen Wangchuck, encouraged to develop the sparsely populated southern lowlands.

Initially granted citizenship in the 1950s and 1970s, the status of Lhotshampas changed when Bhutan introduced the “One Nation, One People” policy in the late 1980s. The policy promoted Drukpa cultural norms, which included mandatory dress codes and language use, resulting in protests from Lhotshampas who felt marginalized.

The government subsequently revoked citizenship for many Lhotshampas, labeling them “illegal immigrants.” Between 1990 and 1993, persecution and mass arrests forced over 100,000 Lhotshampas to flee—a situation many consider ethnic cleansing. Most ended up in refugee camps in eastern Nepal.

A few decades ago, the families of the four deported individuals also came to Nepal as expelled citizens of Bhutan, and they lived as refugees in the camps until a decade ago, when they became part of a third-country resettlement program.

After years of unsuccessful attempts to return to Bhutan through numerous petitions to the king and internal organizations, as well as appeals for help from nations like India and Nepal, the refugees’ hopes for repatriation dimmed.

A turning point came in 2007 when the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) launched a third-country resettlement program, offering the displaced Bhutanese both a ray of hope and a path to citizenship elsewhere. By 2019, more than 113,500 refugees had relocated to eight different countries, with the majority settling in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Approximately 96,000 Bhutanese resettled in the United States.

Following the resettlement program, only two of the original seven refugee camps—Beldangi and Pathri in Jhapa district—remain operational, housing around 6,300 residents. These individuals either declined third-country resettlement in the hope of returning to their homeland, Bhutan, or missed the opportunity due to a lack of valid documentation.

Now, the four men have rejoined camp life. All four had U.S. Green Cards—despite this, the Trump administration deported them. Officials suspected them of criminal acts. Some had finished long jail terms. Then ICE took them for deportation. After days in custody, they were taken to Paro, Bhutan, via New Delhi.

At Paro Airport, Bhutanese officials interrogated them but refused to recognize them as citizens. Authorities escorted them out through the Phuentsholing-Jaigaon border. Each received INR 30,000 (about USD 350).

“With nowhere to go, my son and the others decided to come to Nepal. They had no documents to show at the border, so they had to cross illegally with help from an Indian fixer,” explains Narayan.

Bhutan’s refusal to recognize the deportees as citizens has resulted in a diplomatic impasse between the two Himalayan countries. 

“The order from the Supreme Court of Nepal to stop deportation gives these men temporary relief but doesn’t solve the bigger problem,” said Dr. Gopal Krishna Siwakoti, President of INHURED International, a human rights organization. “The court only directed the government to finish its investigation within 60 days, leaving their future uncertain after that period.”

“Nobody seems to have clear answers in this complex situation,” Siwakoti noted, describing it as a “bureaucratic black hole.”

“We had hoped the Supreme Court would direct the government to start diplomatic talks with Bhutan, India, and the USA at the same time, considering these men were essentially made stateless and moved between countries against their will. Unfortunately, the issue wasn’t mentioned in the ruling,” Siwakoti added.

So far, America has deported 24 Bhutanese refugees. Besides the four men in Nepal, there are no official records on the whereabouts of the others.

United States Travel Ban

Bhutan, known for promoting the Gross National Happiness Index, has traditionally maintained favorable diplomatic relations with the United States. However, since early this year,  Bhutan has been included in a draft “Red List” proposed by the United States government.

This list suggested a complete travel ban for citizens of certain countries, including Bhutan, due to concerns over national security and irregular migration patterns. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security reported a 37 percent increase in visa violations. Reportedly, over 200 Bhutanese nationals were found to be residing illegally in the United States between 2013 and 2022.

This policy shift appears to have been influenced in part by the unresolved issue of Bhutanese refugees. Sivakoti, a long-time advocate for resolving the Bhutanese refugee crisis, stated, “We understand that the United States administration had discussions with the Bhutanese government prior to the deportations. The United States presented documentation showing that while these individuals had refugee status in Nepal, their country of origin was Bhutan.”

On this basis, the United States contended that Bhutan should assume responsibility for these people. Bhutan, however, remained reluctant.

“The U.S. administration then took strict action and placed Bhutan in the ‘red zone.’ After such a move by the United States, Bhutan hesitated and was forced to evacuate these refugees,” Siwakoti said in an interview with Sethopathi, a Nepali news outlet.

Meanwhile, the Bhutanese government has reportedly requested a review of this decision, asserting that their citizens do not pose a significant security threat. As of now, the draft travel ban has not been officially implemented.

Meanwhile, the future looks uncertain for the four men stuck in the Beldangi camp and others who may face deportation in the coming days. Sivakoti says, “The complex legal and immigration challenges surrounding their cases make it unlikely that any country would accept them.”

“Today, resettlement opportunities have shrunk worldwide. There might be a small chance through family or institutional sponsorship in another country, but even that requires proper documents—like a refugee registration card or a travel document—which are nearly impossible to get now or anytime soon.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Credit: Zorana Jevtic/Reuters via Gallo Images

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, May 16 2025 (IPS)

Three catastrophic events in the Balkans have sparked powerful movements for systemic change. A train collision that killed 57 people in Greece, a nightclub fire that claimed 59 young lives in North Macedonia and a collapsed railway station roof that left 15 dead in Serbia have ignited sustained anti-corruption protests in all three countries. These weren’t random tragedies but the culmination of systemic failure – neglected safety regulations, illegally issued permits and compromised oversight – with corruption the common denominator.

Young people, particularly students, stand at the forefront of these movements, alongside victims’ families who’ve become powerful advocates for change. In Greece, the Association of Relatives of Tempi Victims has emerged as a legitimate voice demanding accountability. North Macedonia’s protests have united citizens across economic and political divides, channelling widespread disillusionment with limited youth prospects and endemic corruption. Serbia’s movement has achieved remarkable geographic reach, spreading to some 400 cities and towns with innovative tactics like ‘half-hour noise’ protests following moments of silence for victims.

All three countries became democracies within living memory: Greece democratised five decades ago when its military junta collapsed, while North Macedonia and Serbia emerged from Communist Yugoslavia after its 1990 dissolution. Today, profound disillusionment pervades these societies. Clientelism, corruption and patronage flourish, effectively placing state functions at the service of elite interests rather than public needs. In Serbia, and to a lesser extent in North Macedonia, governments have also taken authoritarian turns. The most deeply disappointed are young people who grew up after democratic transitions and were taught to expect better.

The human cost of corruption

Greece’s February 2023 railway tragedy revealed a system crippled by chronic underinvestment and maintenance failures linked to corrupt contracting practices. In the face of official denials and inaction, private investigators hired by victims’ families discovered many initially survived the crash, only to perish in the subsequent fire, possibly caused by undeclared flammable chemical cargo.

In North Macedonia, the Pulse nightclub that caught fire this March was a disaster in waiting: a converted factory with only one viable exit, locked emergency doors, highly flammable materials and no fire safety equipment, operating with an illegally issued licence.

Serbia’s Novi Sad railway station, where a canopy collapsed in November 2024, had just been renovated under confidential contracts with Chinese companies. The tragedy was preventable, but corner-cutting maximised profits at the expense of safety.

In all three cases, excessive private influence over government decisions sacrificed public safety for private gain. Warning signs had repeatedly been flagged by civil society groups, journalists and opposition politicians, only to be ignored. A protest slogan in North Macedonia powerfully captured this view: ‘We are not dying from accidents, we are dying from corruption’. The same sentiment echoed in a Greek protest slogan, ‘Their policies cost human lives’ and a Serbian message to the authorities: ‘You have blood on your hands’. Another popular Serbian protest motto, ‘We are all under the canopy’, conveyed a general sense of shared vulnerability from corrupt governance structures.

Demands and responses

Protesters across all three countries share strikingly similar demands: accountability for those directly responsible and officials who enabled safety violations, transparent investigations free from political influence and systemic reforms to address corruption’s root causes. They recognise that democracy requires functioning accountability mechanisms beyond elections, in the form of institutionalised checks and balances and public oversight.

Government responses have taken a predictable course: minor concessions followed by attempts to manage rather than meaningfully address public anger.

North Macedonia’s interior minister was quick to admit the nightclub’s licence was illegally issued and the authorities ordered the detention of 20 people, including the club manager and government officials. But protesters saw these actions as scapegoating rather than genuine reform. In Greece, following the train crash initially blamed on a ‘tragic human error‘, the transport minister resigned, but investigations progressed at a glacial pace amid accusations of evidence cover-ups and avoidance of political responsibility. Serbia’s government initially released some classified documents and promised to address protesters’ demands, yet as protests persisted, President Aleksandar Vučić shifted to confrontational rhetoric, accusing protesters of orchestrating violence as puppets of western intelligence services.

The pattern of symbolic gestures followed by resistance to substantive reform, sometimes accompanied by protest repression, revealed a fundamental credibility gap: people can’t trust that announced reforms will be implemented when implementation depends on institutions compromised by corruption. This explains why protesters across all three countries emphasise civil society oversight and adherence to international standards as essential components of any credible reform.

From street protest to institutional reform

The emotional impact of these tragedies created rare policy windows, mobilising otherwise disengaged people and generating reform pressure. The critical question remains whether these windows will close with minimal change or whether sustained pressure will achieve meaningful institutional transformation.

These movements face significant challenges: maintaining mobilisation as emotional impact fades, avoiding co-optation or division by shallow governmental reform language and shifting from opposing clear wrongs to offering politically feasible yet transformative reform ideas. History suggests real reform is rare, bringing the danger that, without government action, momentum could be coopted by populist politicians eager to take advantage of anger at government failures and put it at the service of their regressive agendas.

But there are also grounds for optimism. The broad-based protest coalitions that have emerged have shown the potential to cross traditional political divides. Their focus on specific, documented governance failures provides tangible reform targets rather than abstract demands. The moral imperative of honouring victims creates emotional resources that could sustain them over time. And they’ve come at a time when corrupt elites’ legitimacy was already under strain due to economic challenges.

As protesters keep gathering in town squares across the Balkans, they embody a compelling vision of democracy that genuinely serves citizens rather than rulers. In reclaiming democratic promises repeatedly betrayed by those in power, they serve as a reminder that power in a democracy should flow from and benefit everyone, not just a few.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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

 

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