Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe
By Harvey Dupiton
NEW YORK, Sep 17 2025 (IPS)
The recent IPS article, “UNGA’s High-Level Meetings: NGOs Banned Again,” served as a stark and painful reminder of a long-standing paradox: the United Nations, an organization founded on the principle of “We the Peoples,” often closes its doors to the very communities it was created to serve.
Yet, after sharing this article with our members, we were reminded of a powerful truth: in spite of these physical barriers, the NGO community is “better together” and remains a potent force capable of shaping the decisions of governments.
The ban, far from silencing us, has only amplified our resolve. As we speak, hundreds of NGOs are organizing side events outside the UN, participating with willing governments and continuing our vital work.
We are often told that access is restricted “for security.” IPS quotes voices across civil society who have heard that refrain for years. But the net effect is to marginalize the very partners the UN relies upon when crises break, when schools need rebuilding, when refugees need housing, when women and youth need pathways into the formal economy.
If the room is too small for the people, you don’t shrink the people—you build a bigger room.
This ban also speaks to the very heart of why our NGO Committee is so deeply involved in the 2025 UNGA Week (September 22-30) of International Affairs initiative. We are committed to expanding UNGA beyond the walls of the UN and into the vibrant communities of the Tri-State area and beyond.
Our goal is to transform this week into an “Olympic-caliber” platform where diplomacy connects directly with culture, community, and commerce.
As a private-sector committee of NGOs, we recognize we are sometimes perceived as being “on the side of governments” because we emphasize jobs, investment, and a strong economy. That has spared us some of the blowback that human rights and relief NGOs bear every September.
But proximity to government doesn’t mean complacency. Where we part ways with business-as-usual—both in some capitals and within parts of the UN system—is on the scale of joblessness that goes uncounted.
Official series routinely understate the lived reality in many communities. In Haiti and across segments of the LDC bloc, our coalition’s fieldwork and partner surveys suggest joblessness well above headline rates—often exceeding 60% when you strip away precarious, informal survivalism. If you don’t count people’s reality, you can’t credibly fix it.
That is why our 2025 agenda is jobs-first by design. Our Global Jobs & Skills Compact is not just a proposal; it is a declaration of our commitment to a jobs-first agenda, aligning governments, investors, DFIs, and diaspora capital around a simple test: does the money create decent work at scale—and are we measuring it?
We are mobilizing financing tied to verifiable employment outcomes, building skills pipelines for the green and digital transitions, and hard-wiring accountability into the process so that “promises” translate into paychecks.
Accountability also needs daylight. During the General Debate we will run a Jobs-First Debate Watch—tracking job and skills commitments announced from the podium and inviting follow-through across the year.
The point is not to “catch out” governments but to help them succeed by making the public a partner. Anyone who has walked with a loved one through recovery knows the first step is honesty. Denial doesn’t heal; measurement does. That is as true for addiction as it is for unemployment.
IPS rightly reminds us that NGOs are indispensable to multilateralism even when we are asked to wait outside. We agree—and we’ll add this: if the UN is “We the Peoples,” then UNGA Week must be where the peoples are.
In 2025, that means inside the Hall and across the city—on campus quads and church aisles, in galleries and small businesses, at parks and public squares. We’ll keep inviting governments to walk that route with us, shoulder to shoulder.
Until every door is open, we will keep building bigger rooms. And we will keep filling them—with jobs, skills, investment, and the voices that make multilateralism real.
Harvey Dupiton is a former UN Press Correspondent and currently Chair of the NGO Committee on Private Sector Development (NGOCPSD).
IPS UN Bureau
Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
Le Lycée international Pierre Manoël de Cotonou fait désormais partie des établissements privés d'enseignement de ‘'renommée internationale''. Une liste d'établissements habilités à accueillir les meilleurs lauréats au CEP et au BEPC, aux frais de l'Etat.
Le 30 juillet 2025, le président Patrice Talon a signé un décret qui place officiellement le Lycée international Pierre Manoël de Cotonou parmi les établissements privés d'enseignement secondaire de ‘'renommée internationale''.
L'établissement est ainsi autorisé à accueillir, pour le compte de l'État, les meilleurs lauréats du CEP et du BEPC, dans le cadre du programme national de ‘'Bourses de vie''.
Cette inscription n'est pas une simple formalité. Elle est le résultat d'un processus exigeant défini par le décret n° 2025-483, qui fixe les conditions strictes pour intégrer cette liste sélective d'établissements partenaires de l'État.
Un cercle restreint
Pour être éligible, un établissement doit notamment : offrir un internat de qualité ; proposer des programmes exigeants et performants ; accorder chaque année des bourses d'études aux meilleurs élèves
Le décret prévoit également la signature d'une convention de partenariat entre l'État et le Lycée Pierre Manoël. Celle-ci encadrera l'accueil des élèves boursiers et précisera les engagements mutuels.
Concrètement, l'établissement formera les élèves sélectionnés parmi les meilleurs des départements, tandis que l'État prendra en charge leur bourse de vie : hébergement, alimentation, transport, santé, etc.
M. M.
LIRE LE DECRET
Le décret présidentiel n°2025-483 du 30 juillet 2025 fixe les conditions d'accès à une liste exclusive : celle des établissements privés d'enseignement secondaire de renommée internationale habilités à accueillir les meilleurs lauréats du CEP et du BEPC, avec le soutien de l'État.
Des établissements privés d'enseignement secondaire seront désormais de " renommée internationale". Une reconnaissance de l'Etat béninois pour la qualité de leurs programmes et de leurs résultats. C'est ce qui ressort du décret présidentiel n°2025-483 du 30 juillet 2025.
Pour figurer sur cette liste d'établissements habilités à accueillir les meilleurs lauréats à l'examen du Certificat d'Etudes Primaires (CEP) et du Brevet d'Enseignement du Premier Cycle (BEPC), ces écoles doivent remplir des conditions. Il s'agit de : offrir un cadre de vie et de formation de qualité élevée ; disposer obligatoirement d'un internat
L'inscription ne se fait pas sur simple demande. Elle est décidée par décret en Conseil des ministres, sur rapport motivé du ministre de l'Enseignement secondaire. Ce rapport doit démontrer les atouts et les performances de l'établissement candidat.
M. M.
LIRE LE DECRET
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On September 16th, IPI in partnership with the Asia Society, hosted a reception to open the exhibit of the global WISH TREE project by Yoko Ono.
Since 1996, Yoko Ono has invited people from around the world to write their personal wishes and tie them to a tree branch as WISH TREE.
WISH TREE is an interactive art installation by the artist Yoko Ono where participants write wishes for peace on tags and tie them to a tree’s branches. These wishes become a visual testament to collective hope and continue on in connection with Ono’s IMAGINE PEACE TOWER in Reykjavík, Iceland.
The project invites people to reflect on peace and unity, transforming the tree into a symbol of global aspiration.
Welcoming Remarks:
Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, President and CEO, International Peace Institute (IPI)
Debra Eisenman, Executive Vice President & COO, of The Asia Society; Founding Director & Senior Fellow, Asia Society Policy Institute
Opening Remarks:
Katia Mead, Representative of IPI’s Art for Peace Committee; and Director of the US Nominating Committee, Praemium Imperiale
The post Art for Peace: IPI’s Exhibit of the “WISH TREE” by Yoko Ono appeared first on International Peace Institute.
La ville de Aïn Oussera, habituellement paisible, a été bouleversée par un drame familial d’une rare violence qui s’est déroulé dans le quartier Ali Amar. […]
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