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By James Alix Michel
VICTORIA, Seychelles, Apr 8 2026 (IPS)

We live in a century of extraordinary achievement.

Humanity has split the atom, mapped the genome, and sent astronauts to the Moon, with plans now underway to reach Mars. Our knowledge has expanded, our tools have become more powerful, and our capacity to shape the world around us exceeds anything previous generations could have imagined. We communicate instantaneously across continents, diagnose diseases earlier, monitor climate patterns in real time, and design artificial intelligences that can aid in everything from medicine to climate modelling.

James Alix Michel

And yet, for all this advancement, we are caught in a troubling paradox.

We possess the means to protect our planet, restore degraded ecosystems, and build a future that is regenerative and sustainable. The Earth still holds enough resources to feed, shelter, and nourish every person on it.

The science is clear, the solutions are known, and the pathways are increasingly understood. We know how to phase out the most damaging fossil fuels, how to design circular economies, and how to restore forests and oceans on a large scale. The question is not whether we can heal, but whether we choose to.

Instead of using this knowledge to nurture life, we spend trillions on weapons, war, and systems of domination. We continue to refine instruments of destruction with the same ingenuity that once helped us survive as hunter gatherers.

From spears and arrows to missiles and nuclear arsenals, technology has evolved far faster than our moral imagination. The same species that can design satellites and decode life itself is also capable of perfecting the means to erase itself. We have turned our curiosity into a danger when it is not paired with humility.
War has become normalised. We export violence beyond our borders, fuel conflicts in distant lands, and justify the dehumanisation of others in the name of power, ideology, or fear.

In doing so, we risk losing sight of what it means to be human: to care, to share, to protect, and to build together. Our intelligence has grown, but our ethics have often lagged behind. We have impressive control over external environments, yet we struggle to govern our own impulses—greed, resentment, the desire for domination over cooperation.

We still behave as if survival depends on conquest, as though strength is measured by the capacity to destroy rather than by the courage to cooperate.

In that sense, humanity is trapped between two identities: one capable of profound creativity and compassion, and another still governed by ancient instincts of greed, lust for power, and tribal dominance.

We have evolved in technology, but not always in spirit. We built institutions meant to protect rights and distribute justice, yet those very institutions are often weaponised or hollowed out by self interest.

The Earth is still rich enough to nourish us all. The ocean still teems with life, the land can still grow food, and the air can still be cleansed. We have the tools to live in balance, instead of in excess. We can choose renewable energy systems that do not poison our skies, farming practices that restore soil instead of depleting it, and urban designs that integrate nature instead of paving it over.

The problem is not scarcity, but choices—choices that prioritise short term gain over long term survival, accumulation over equity, and fear over trust.

If humanity is to truly evolve, it must move beyond the old logic of domination and embrace a new ethic of stewardship. This is not a soft or sentimental vision. It is a hard, practical necessity if we want civilisation to continue.

Stewardship means recognising that power is not only the ability to control, but the responsibility to protect. It means designing economies that reward regeneration, not extraction; diplomacy that favours mediation over militarisation; and education systems that nurture empathy as much as efficiency.

Progress cannot be measured only by how far we can reach into space, or how fast we can compute. It must be measured by how well we can care for the planet and for one another. It must be measured by how peacefully we resolve our differences, how fairly we share resources, and how seriously we protect the rights of future generations.

True progress is the transition from a species that merely adapts to its environment, to one that consciously shapes it for the benefit of all life, not just a privileged few.

We have not lost our humanity. We have only forgotten it.
The challenge now is to rediscover it—not as a romantic ideal, but as a practical imperative.

In a world capable of such beauty, creativity, and connection, the only true insanity is the choice to destroy rather than to heal, to dominate rather than to share, and to fear rather than to love.

After all, the moon and the stars will remain, no matter how we choose; what is at stake is whether we will still be worthy of the Earth we were given.

That is the real test of our century. And it is one we must pass together.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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In 2006, Amina Saida was only two years old when her parents moved to the Dadaab refugee camp in northern Kenya, near the border with Somalia. The Dadaab refugee complex was established in 1991, when refugees fleeing the civil war in Somalia began crossing the border into Kenya. Over the years, thousands of Kenyan ethnic […]

UN lobby with images of former UN secretaries-generals. Credit: United Nations
 
With the deadline for candidates’ nominations now passed, four names are officially in the frame. Prof. Felix Dodds and Chris Spence size up the candidates.

By Felix Dodds and Chris Spence
APEX, North Carolina / SAN FRANCISCO, California, Apr 8 2026 (IPS)

Let the race begin!
April 1st was the deadline for candidates to be nominated for Secretary-General. Was it a coincidence that the deadline was April Fool’s Day? Judging by the quality of the official candidates, we suspect so.

Before looking at the four official finalists, however, it’s worth examining the state of global politics, since this will certainly have an impact on the likely outcome.

We are currently living in one of the most unstable times since the Second World War. Multilateralism is under threat and the UN is facing significant political and financial turbulence. To its credit, the UN is attempting to address these challenges through the UN80 process, which is trying to repurpose it for the years ahead. However, as the world becoming increasingly multipolar.

As the previous global order, shaped largely by the U.S. and its western allies, recedes into the rear-view mirror, there will still be plenty for a new Secretary General to do. In short, she or he will inherit an institution and a staff that is unclear about exactly what their future role should be.

One critical issue when looking at the candidates is to understand that any of the Permanent Five members of the powerful UN Security Council (China, France, Russia, the UK, and the USA) can veto a candidate. Will any of them exercise that power? Recent history suggests they may. Russia in particular has recently increased its use of the veto, and the US and China have also done so on occasion, although the UK and France have not exercised their “rights” in several decades.

Do the P5 share the same outlook in terms of a future Secretary General? For better or worse, it looks increasingly like the “big five” are looking for more of a “Secretary” than a “General”. On that basis, finding common ground may be possible.

What’s more, there is a general expectation that the successful candidate will probably be from Latin America and the Caribbean. This is based on a general sense among UN member states that leadership rotates through the various regional groups and that it is Latin America and the Caribbean’s ‘turn’.

So far, there has been no public disagreement with this approach, although the regional rotations are considered more of a guideline than a hard rule, and there have been exceptions in the past. For instance, present UN Secretary General, António Guterres of Portugal, was appointed at a time when it was generally expected that the successful candidate would come from Eastern Europe.

Another consideration is gender. The last time a Secretary General was appointed, there was a strong push to appoint a woman. This did not happen, even though seven qualified women were nominated.

In the straw polls held prior to this hiring process, António Guterres was the only candidate who did not attract a veto. In part, this was because he was the most experienced candidate and the first former head of state to stand. However, calls for a woman leader are perhaps even stronger this time around, backed by a sense that such an appointment is long overdue.

So, who are the four official candidates, and what happens next?

The four candidates that have been nominated will each have a three-hour “hustings” on the 21st or 22nd of April, which will be available to view live on UN web TV.

The candidates are:

MICHELLE BACHELET
Nominated by Brazil and Mexico (although her own country, Chile, has withdrawn its support). Bachelet is a former President of Chile. Her party was the Socialist Party of Chile, which is a member of the Progressive Alliance. Her hustings appearance will be on April 21st 10am to 1pm Eastern time.

Advantages
Seniority: Bachelet has held the top job in Chile not once, but twice. Not only that, but she has also held two senior roles within the UN. Her experience has been at the highest level, and her networks are impressive. It is hard to imagine someone with a more appropriate mix of expertise.

UN Credentials: As a former head of both UN Women and the UN High Commission for Human Rights, Bachelet’s insider knowledge is considerable. She would know how to navigate the organization effectively from her first day in the job.

A Female Leader: Michelle Bachelet would be a strong candidate to break the glass ceiling and become the first female leader of the UN.

A Latina Leader: With the tradition that the UN Secretary-General is chosen by rotating through the various UN regions, Bachelet would likely satisfy those who believe it is Latin America and the Caribbean’s “turn” to nominate Guterres’ successor.

Proven Impact: There are few potential candidates who could point to such broad impact both as a national leader and during two separate stints in high-level UN roles, especially in the fields of human rights and supporting vulnerable populations. Given the unprecedented uncertainty swirling around international diplomacy these days, a figure with a reputation as a “doer” may be welcomed.

Disadvantages

Objections from the Big Five? Bachelet has made comments in the past, particularly during her time as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, that may not have been welcomed by specific UN member states. With her own country withdrawing its support for her, it may make difficulties for her candidacy.

In spite of Bachelet’s obvious credentials, if even one of the “Big Five” members of the Security Council shows sensitivity to her past human rights comments, Bachelet may have her work cut out to change their views. Still, her credentials are impressive and even opponents might have a hard time making a case against her.

RAFAEL GROSSI
Nominated by Argentina, Italy, and Paraguay, Grossi is the present Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency. He is an Argentine career diplomat. His hustings are on April 21st from 3pm to 6pm.

Advantages

Seniority: He has held the post of Argentina Ambassador to Austria, Belgium, Slovenia, Slovakia, and International Organizations in Vienna, and the permanent representative of the United Nations Office at Geneva. While not as politically senior as some of the competition, his track record in diplomacy is certainly strong.

UN Credentials: He is the current Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) since December 3, 2019.

Proven Impact: Grossi has dealt with nuclear safety in conflict zones, doing shuttle diplomacy to maintain communications between warring parties. His work includes preventing nuclear accidents, particularly at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. He has also, through his “Atoms for Peace and Development”, modernized the IAEA, addressing issues of climate change, poverty, and fostering nuclear technology for development.

Latin Leader: Grossi also ticks the regional box, since he is from the Latin American and Caribbean Group.

Disadvantages

Objections from the Big Five? It’s hard to say. In spite of an exemplary record as a diplomat, in recent years Iranian officials accused him of aligning too closely with U.S. and Israeli interests. This is something Grossi’s supporters deny, and it is unclear how other in the P5, particularly China and Russia, might view the situation.

Not A Female Leader: Clearly not a woman, although it is unclear if this would be a deciding factor or deal breaker for the P5 under its current political leadership.

REBECCA GRYNSPAN
Grynspan was nominated by Costa Rica. She is the current Secretary-General of UNCTAD and a former Vice President of Costa Rica. She was a member of the National Liberation Party, which is a member of Socialist International. Hustings April 22nd, 10 am to 1 pm.

Advantages

Seniority: Grynspan may not have been a president or prime minister, but as Vice President of Costa Rica she climbed close to the summit of her country’s political mountain.

UN Experience: As the first female Secretary-General of UNCTAD, Grynspan has already broken one glass ceiling within the United Nations. She would also bring more than twenty years’ experience within the UN system, something that would surely be viewed as an asset during these uncertain times.

Additionally, she is familiar with the internal workings of the UN in Geneva, New York and across Latin America, giving her insights into decision making at both headquarters and regionally. This breadth of experience within the UN could be useful to any future UN leader.

Proven Impact: Grynspan is viewed as someone who can have an impact, a perception recognized by Forbes magazine, which named her among the 100 most powerful women in Central America four years running. She was also instrumental in the UN-brokered Black Sea Initiative, agreed by Russia, Türkiye, and Ukraine, that has allowed millions of tons of grain and other foodstuffs to leave Ukraine’s ports, playing an important role in global food security.

Connections: Grynspan has had many years of experience operating at the regional and global levels. Her networks may arguably not be as wide as some other candidates’, but would still provide a good platform for her to succeed.

A Female Leader: Grynspan offers the chance to break the glass ceiling and become the first female leader of the UN.

Climate and the Environment: Although Grynspan has strong credentials on trade, finance and development, it is only in recent years that she has taken a higher profile on climate change and some of the other big environmental issues of our time. Interestingly, this may be an advantage at this moment in time, since more some P5 members are now either lukewarm or hostile to candidates with a progressive track record on climate change.

Disadvantages

Peace and Security: Peace, security, and conflict resolution have not featured prominently in her background. If the UN Security Council members are looking for expertise in this area, might Grynspan’s relative lack of experience be considered a possible weakness?

Name Recognition: Although she is widely respected in her fields and across the UN, Grynspan may not have the same sort of name recognition among the public as some of the other candidates.

Objections from the Big Five? How might Grynspan’s political background play out in the current politically-charged atmosphere? Will her center-left credentials find a sympathetic audience among the current P5, or might some in the current conservative US administration object?

MACKY SALL
Nominated by Burundi, Sall is the former President of Senegal and Chairman of the African Union. Politically, his party (Alliance for the Republic) is a member of Liberal International. Hustings April 22nd, from 3pm to 6pm.

Advantages

Seniority: As the former President of Senegal (2012-2024) and former Prime Minister (2004-2007), he has the seniority that a UN Secretary General might well need these days.

Proven Impact: As Chairperson of the African Union, he succeeded in lobbying for the AU to join the G20. He has mediated in regional crises.

Objections from the Big Five? Sall is a center-right politician known to have forged positive ties with France’s Emmanual Macron. Will a right-wing administration in the US be drawn to a candidate also on the conservative side of the political spectrum?

Disadvantages

UN Credentials: Sall cannot claim strong UN credentials, but has been the chairperson of the African Union and a Special Envoy for the Paris Pact for the People and the Planet.

Not A Female Leader: While he would disappoint the many voices calling for the next UN head to be a woman, it’s unclear that would be a reason for any of the P5 to veto.

Not from Latin America: How important is it that the next Secretary-General be from the Latin American and Caribbean Group? At this point, it is hard to say if rotating around the regions “fairly” will be a big issue for members states. As noted earlier, it was not a deal breaker last time around.

A Late Entrant?

What if all four official candidates fail to win over the P5? We have seen in the past that new candidates appear after the nomination deadline. In fact, the process was only truly formalized as recently as 2015. Before that, the selection of a new UN leader was known for being opaque and characterized by back-room discussions and P5 deal making.

If consensus among the P5 cannot be reached, other candidates must emerge. Possibilities from the Latin American and Caribbean Group might include Ivonne Baki (Ecuador), Alicia Bárcena (Mexico), David Choquehuanca (Bolivia), María Fernanda Espinosa (Ecuador), Mia Mottley (Barbados), and Achim Steiner (Brazil).

There may also be interest from beyond the region, such as Amina Mohammed (Nigeria), who is the UN’s current Deputy Secretary-General. Additionally, Kristalina Georgieva (Bulgaria) and Vuk Jeremić (Serbia)—both former center-right European politicians with strong international credentials—have also been mentioned.

However, if the four official candidates all fail to find favor, then appointing a successor that all the P5 can agree on may take some deft diplomatic manoeuvring. At this point, the outcome of such haggling is pretty much anyone’s guess.

Prof. Felix Dodds and Chris Spence have been involved with UN policy making since the 1990s. They recently wrote Environmental Lobbying at the United Nations: A Guide to Protecting Our Planet (Routledge, 2025) and co-edited Heroes of Environmental Diplomacy: Profiles in Courage (Routledge, 2022).

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Life expectancies at birth reveal significant disparities in death rates. Some of the lowest life expectancies at birth, around 55 years, are seen in sub-Saharan African countries, such as Nigeria, Chad, and South Sudan. Credit: Shutterstock

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Apr 7 2026 (IPS)

As stated in Hamlet, “Thou know’st ’tis common; all that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity.” Although death is inevitable for all living beings, human mortality, which is expected to reach approximately 64 million individual deaths worldwide in 2026, is not evenly distributed across populations.

While mortality is a common fate for all humans, the timing, causes, and circumstances of death vary greatly across and within countries. This discrepancy often leads to a gap in death rates between privileged and marginalized groups.

Inequalities in human mortality are evident worldwide. Premature death is particularly prevalent in low-income regions due to limited access to healthcare, poverty, and conflict. This results in a world where some individuals pass away at young ages while others enjoy a long life.

From the first year of life, significant differences in the likelihood of death among human populations become apparent. Countries such as Iceland, Japan, and Finland have some of the lowest infant mortality rates, with less than 2 infant deaths per 1,000 live births. In contrast, nations like Niger, Somalia, and Nigeria have some of the highest rates, with more than 62 infant deaths per 1,000 births, which is 30 times higher than the lowest rates (Figure 1).

Source: United Nations.

The disparities in infant mortality rates are also evident in maternal mortality rates. In 2023, some of the highest maternal mortality rates are found in sub-Saharan African countries, such as South Sudan, Chad, and Nigeria, with more than 1,000 maternal deaths per 100,000 births. In contrast, countries like Norway, Poland, and Iceland have rates of less than 3 maternal deaths per 100,000 births.

Similarly, life expectancies at birth in 2025 reveal significant disparities in death rates. Some of the lowest life expectancies at birth, around 55 years, are seen in sub-Saharan African countries, such as Nigeria, Chad, and South Sudan. Conversely, countries like Japan, South Korea, and Switzerland have relatively high life expectancies at birth, approximately 30 years greater at about 85 years (Figure 2).

Source: United Nations.

Disparities in death rates persist when comparing life expectancies at age 65. In 2025, life expectancy at age 65 is around 12 years in Nigeria, Chad, and Togo, while it is approximately 23 years in Japan, France, and Australia.

Mortality variations exist not only among countries but also within countries. For instance, in 2022, life expectancy at birth in the United States varied from highs of about 80 years in Hawaii, Massachusetts, and New Jersey to lows of approximately 73 years in Kentucky, Mississippi, and West Virgina (Figure 3).

Source: U.S. National Vital Statistics System.

Differences in life expectancy at birth exist among the major ethnic groups in the United States. In 2021, life expectancies at birth for these groups varied considerably, approximately 84 years for Asians, 78 for Latinos, 77 for Whites, 72 for Blacks, and 64 for Native Indians.

Furthermore, differences in life expectancy at birth also exist based on income and education. Generally, individuals from working-class backgrounds and those with lower levels of education can expect to live shorter lives compared to wealthier and more educated individuals.

For example, in the United States, working-class individuals can expect to die at least 7 years earlier than their wealthy counterparts. Higher education is also linked to higher income, lifestyle improvements, increased access to health-care, and longer life spans.

In addition to deaths caused by illness, disease, accidents, violence, conflict, and war, voluntary human death is becoming a significant global issue.

Inequalities in human mortality exist both among nations and within them, spanning various social and economic dimensions. While death is a natural part of life, the distribution of human deaths is unequal, with some individuals passing away at a young age while others enjoy a long life

Medically assisted death, also known as death with dignity, voluntary assisted dying, or medical aid in dying (MAID), is a topic of debate in many countries. This practice can involve assisted suicide, where the individual takes the lethal medication themselves, or euthanasia, where a doctor administers the medication.

While MAID is not legal in most countries, it is permitted in a growing number of countries under certain circumstances. Definitions and eligibility for medically assisted death vary across countries and states or provinces within countries.

Although laws vary in scope from place to place, jurisdictions that allow medically assisted death generally permit mentally competent, terminally ill, or suffering adults to end their lives with medical assistance. To qualify for voluntary assisted dying, individuals must meet certain criteria, which often include having a terminal or incurable illness with a short-term prognosis, being of sound judgment, voluntarily deciding to end their life, repeatedly expressing their desire to die, and self-administering the lethal dose.

Approximately twenty countries and various states or provinces within countries permit medically assisted death. These places include Austria, parts of Australia, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and parts of the United States. In a number of other countries, including France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, and Great Britain, legislators are considering bills on laws or rules on medically assisted death.

Among those who choose to take a lethal dose of medication, some key concerns for many of them include the loss of autonomy, control, bodily functions, and dignity; minimizing severe pain and intense emotional distress; inability to engage in enjoyable or meaningful life activities; reduced quality of life; fear of becoming a burden on family and caregivers; anxiety over future suffering; and avoidance of financial implications of treatment.

Additionally, some of the most common medical conditions in euthanasia requests include cancer in a terminal phase, Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, constant suffering, and advanced cardiovascular disorders.

Those opposed to medically assisted death offer several arguments against it. They believe it creates the potential for abuse; leads to a slippery slope towards involuntary euthanasia; normalizes death as a solution; and undermines medical ethics and the sanctity of life.

They also argue that assisted suicide poses risks to vulnerable populations by influencing societal attitudes and policies towards older adults, the seriously ill, and the disabled. They believe it could lead to placing pressure on those considered a societal burden, jeopardizing funding and provision of palliative care. Additionally, there are concerns about ensuring that individuals’ decisions to end their lives are genuinely voluntary.

In summary, inequalities in human mortality exist both among nations and within them, spanning various social and economic dimensions. While death is a natural part of life, the distribution of human deaths is unequal, with some individuals passing away at a young age while others enjoy a long life.

The unequal distribution of resources often leads to a mortality gap between privileged and marginalized groups. Premature death is particularly prevalent in low-income regions, primarily due to factors such as limited access to healthcare, poverty, and conflict. Additionally, the contentious issue of voluntary human death, also known as medically assisted death, is receiving global attention. There are strong arguments both in favor of and against this policy, with around twenty countries allowing it under specific circumstances.

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

By Katsuhiro Asagiri
TOKYO, Japan, Apr 7 2026 (IPS)

As tensions surrounding Iran deepen and uncertainty spreads across global energy markets, Japan is once again confronting a structural weakness: its heavy dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

For decades, Japan has relied on crude imports from a region repeatedly shaken by war, confrontation and instability. With the stability of the Strait of Hormuz and surrounding waters once again under threat, Tokyo is accelerating efforts to diversify both supply sources and transport routes. In that process, Kazakhstan has emerged as an increasingly important partner.

Yet the strengthening relationship between Japan and Kazakhstan is not limited to oil, uranium or logistics. It also has a deeper historical and ethical dimension. Both countries carry the memory of nuclear suffering and have sought to transform that memory into a foundation for dialogue, cooperation and advocacy for peace.

Central Asia plus Japan Dialogue” (CA+JAD) Credit: Primi Minister’s Office of Japan

Japan’s growing interest in Central Asia was not triggered directly by the current Iran crisis. In December 2025, Japan hosted the “Central Asia plus Japan” summit in Tokyo and adopted the Tokyo Declaration. There, strengthening critical mineral supply chains and diversifying transport routes were set out as strategic priorities.

That framework has since taken on even greater urgency.

One important element is the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, the so-called Middle Corridor. Connecting Central Asia and Europe without passing through Russia, this route has drawn attention as a new transport channel for energy and strategic goods. In an era shaped by war, sanctions, shipping disruptions and intensifying rivalry among major powers, such corridors have become increasingly important for Japan.

Kazakhstan stands at the center of this calculation.

Middle Corridor. Credit: TITR

Japanese energy interests are already present in the Caspian region. INPEX, a Japanese company, holds stakes in major oil projects including Kazakhstan’s Kashagan field and Azerbaijan’s ACG field. Crude from these fields could serve as an alternative supply source to Middle Eastern oil for Japan. In addition, routes through the Caspian and Mediterranean can avoid the Strait of Hormuz, although that means longer transport times and higher shipping costs.

Karipbek Kuyukov(2nd from left) and Dmitriy Vesselov(2nd from right). Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri

This reflects a shift in Japanese thinking. Diversification is no longer simply about finding new supplier countries. It is also about reducing the vulnerabilities embedded in the geography of trade itself.

Even so, energy alone cannot fully explain the distinctiveness of Japan-Kazakhstan ties.

What gives this relationship unusual depth is their shared historical experience of nuclear suffering. Kazakhstan endured the grave consequences of 456 nuclear tests conducted at the Semipalatinsk test site during the Soviet era. Japan remains the only country ever attacked with atomic bombs in wartime, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki continue to stand as enduring symbols of the catastrophic human cost of nuclear weapons.

The two histories are different. But the ethical language that emerged from them has much in common.

The remains of the Prefectural Industry Promotion Building, after the dropping of the atomic bomb, in Hiroshima, Japan. This site was later preserved as a monument. Credit: UN Photo/DB

Over the years, Kazakhstan has worked with civil society actors, including the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), Soka Gakkai International (SGI) and hibakusha, the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to draw attention to the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and nuclear testing. Through conferences, exhibitions and testimony, these experiences have continued to be made visible in international discourse. That is especially significant at a time when nuclear debates are often narrowed to deterrence theory and geopolitical rivalry.

What matters here is the “dialogue” dimension of Kazakhstan’s diplomacy.

A Group photo of participants of the regional conference on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and nuclear-free-zone in Central Asia held on August 29, 2023. Credit: Jibek Joly TV Channel

Through the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, held in Astana since 2003, Kazakhstan has sought to position itself not merely as a supplier of resources or a transit country, but as a hub for dialogue across political, religious and civilizational divides. This initiative has become part of the country’s diplomatic identity, grounded in denuclearization, mediation and coexistence.

For Japan, this adds another layer to Kazakhstan’s significance. Kazakhstan is not only a country with oil, uranium and transport routes. It is also a state that has sought to transform its own history of suffering into diplomacy centered on peace, trust and human security.

7th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions Group Photo by Secretariate of the 7th Congress

This approach resonates with the realities of today’s world, where multiple crises overlap.

Credit: akorda.kz

As Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has warned, nuclear risks are rising again. At the same time, energy insecurity, supply-chain fragility and geopolitical fragmentation are all intensifying. These are no longer separate policy issues. They are now deeply intertwined.

In this context, the relationship between Japan and Kazakhstan carries a broader lesson.

Cooperation between states does not have to be shaped only by economic and strategic interests. It can also incorporate shared memory, moral purpose and a commitment to dialogue. In practical terms, that means cooperation on energy and transport. Politically, it means contributing to a more stable and diversified regional order. Humanitarianly, it means sustaining the argument that security must not be separated from its human consequences.

Of course, this relationship is not free from limits or contradictions. Alternative routes are costly. State behavior is still heavily shaped by strategic calculation. Dialogue alone cannot neutralize the pressures of war.

Even so, in an international environment marked by fragmentation, coercion and renewed nuclear anxiety, the growing closeness between Japan and Kazakhstan means more than a tactical adjustment. It is also an attempt to connect realism with responsibility.

That is why this relationship deserves attention.

At a time when many countries are retreating into narrower and more inward-looking definitions of national interest, Japan and Kazakhstan are seeking to build a partnership that links resource security and diplomacy, memory and strategy, and national resilience with the search for peace.

Credit: UN photo

This article is brought to you by INPS Japan in collaboration with Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with UN ECOSOC.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

With instability around Iran exposing Japan’s dependence on Middle Eastern oil, Tokyo is deepening ties with Kazakhstan in search of more resilient supply chains, alternative energy routes and renewed cooperation on nuclear disarmament.

An artisan puts final touches to the monument of Magawa, a Tanzanian-born bomb-sniffing rat. Credit: APOPO

By Kizito Makoye
MOROGORO, Tanzania , Apr 7 2026 (IPS)

At Mazimbu village, not far from Tanzania’s Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), Stephano Jaka still remembers the night he trapped and killed a rat that had been feasting on his maize cobs – stored in a meticulously woven basket designed to protect grains from rodents.
“I felt a big sense of relief when I finally killed it. It had been causing huge losses to my family,” he tells IPS.

Thousands of kilometres away in Siem Reap, Cambodia, farmers were among the dignitaries invited on Saturday to honour a Tanzanian-born rat for detecting hundreds of landmines, helping to clear swathes of land for farming.

Where farmers in Tanzania’s Morogoro region still perceive rats as destructive creatures threatening their livelihoods, communities in Cambodia embrace one of the species as a life-saving hero – underscoring how a despised animal has come to embody entirely different meanings across continents.

Cambodia remains one of the world’s most landmine-infested countries, with millions of explosives still buried underground, making large areas unsafe for farming, settlement and development.

On the eve of the International Day for Mine Awareness, a 2.2-metre statue – the world’s first public monument dedicated to a life-saving rat – was unveiled. The monument honours Magawa, whose bomb-sniffing career began after a yearlong stint at Sokoine University. He was hailed not as a crop-raiding pest but as an unlikely hero whose extraordinary sense of smell helped uncover hidden dangers.

For years, Magawa worked across some of Cambodia’s most dangerous terrain, detecting more than 100 landmines and helping to make large areas safe before his death in 2022. He remains the only rat ever awarded the PDSA Gold Medal for bravery.

Carved from local stone by Cambodian artisans, the statue shows Magawa wearing his medal and operational harness. Its base incorporates fragments of decommissioned explosives, symbolising the threat he helped eliminate. Erected in central Siem Reap, the monument also directs visitors to APOPO’s centre, where they can learn about the rats’ work and the ongoing impact of landmines.

“Magawa became a global symbol of hope for Cambodia’s mine-affected communities. This statue honours his extraordinary service and the work of all APOPO HeroRATs who continue to save lives in Cambodia and around the world — step by step, life by life,” said Christophe Cox, founder of APOPO.

The tribute also serves as a reminder that millions of landmines remain buried, and efforts to clear them continue despite limited resources.

Magawa was trained by APOPO, a non-governmental organisation that deploys African giant pouched rats to detect explosives. Because they are too light to trigger landmines, the animals can safely search contaminated areas far more quickly than conventional methods.

Born at Sokoine University of Agriculture in Morogoro, Magawa showed early promise before being deployed to Cambodia in 2016, where he became one of the most successful detection animals in the programme.

In heavily affected regions such as Battambang, land once considered too dangerous has been cleared and returned to productive use, allowing communities to rebuild livelihoods and restore a sense of normalcy.

Magawa’s work also highlights a broader story of African innovation contributing to global solutions, with a programme developed in Tanzania now supporting mine clearance efforts in several countries.

Although Magawa died in 2022, other trained rats continue the work, helping to reduce the threat posed by unexploded landmines.

Residents of Morogoro spoke with a mix of pride, curiosity and quiet awe when reflecting on the global recognition of Magawa, the giant African pouched rat whose work in Cambodia has saved countless lives.

“Who would have thought a rat from our region could become a global hero?” said Jaka. “Here, rats are something we chase away. But Magawa has changed that story completely. He has shown us that even the smallest creatures can carry the biggest responsibilities.”

At the Morogoro main market, trader Rehema Msuya said Magawa’s story had sparked new conversations among residents about science and innovation.

“People now talk about rats differently,” she said. “We used to see them only as destructive. But this one saved lives and detected danger where machines sometimes fail. It makes you proud, knowing such intelligence can come from a rat.”

For some, Magawa’s legacy goes beyond admiration, emphasising the possibilities often overlooked.

“Magawa represents Africa in a very powerful way,” said Dar es Salaam-based secondary school teacher Godfrey Lwambano. “We often underestimate what we have – our environment, our knowledge, even our animals. Yet here is a creature trained with patience and care, going on to clear deadly landmines and protect communities far away.”

Young people in Morogoro, too, say the story touched them.

“When I first heard about him, I thought it was a joke,” said 22-year-old university student Neema Kibwana. “But when I learnt he worked for years detecting mines and even received awards, I was inspired. It shows that impact doesn’t depend on size or status.”

As the story of Magawa circulates in Tanzania and beyond, it continues to challenge long-held perceptions – transforming an animal once seen only as a pest into a symbol of ingenuity, resilience and hope.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By Anis Chowdhury
SYDNEY, Apr 7 2026 (IPS)

Bangladesh is scheduled to graduate from the least developed country (LDC) status in November this year after more than half a century. Bangladesh joined the UN club of LDCs in 1975 and consistently met all three graduation criteria – per capita Gross National Income (GNI), human asset and economic vulnerability – since 2018.

Anis Chowdhury

However, there is resistance and the current government has requested the UN for a delay. This is not surprising given the capture of the state by the business class, especially the ready-made garments (RMG) sector. In FY 2024-25 alone, the RMG sector received more than USD 1.3 million (BDT 16 crore) in cash subsidies and tax concessions despite the Interim Government’s effort to gradually phase out cash incentives.

RMG’s dominance and failure to diversify

Bangladesh is indeed a leading, often the highest, user of Duty-Free Quota-Free (DFQF) facilities among LDCs, largely driving its RMG sector growth through the European Union (EU)’s Everything But Arms (EBA) scheme. This reliance on preferential access has made Bangladesh a dominant exporter among LDCs.

However, the RMG sector’s dominance also made Bangladesh highly vulnerable. In the late 1970s when the RMG sector started its journey, it accounted for less than 5% of Bangladesh’s total exports. By the end of the 1990s, this proportion had reached about three-fourths. After more than four decades, since 2013, it has been hovering between 80-85%, according to the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA).

Bangladesh’s heavy reliance on a single export item makes its export basket one of the least diversified among the global economies. This is starkly different from South Korea, a country from which Bangladesh received technical assistance to usher in its RMG sector. South Korea’s textile industry accounted for 33.3% of exports in 1970; it declined to 22.6% within two decades in 1990 as the economy diversified. By 1975 South Korea became a major exporter of electrical machinery and appliances, transport equipment and various other manufacturing products.

Bangladesh’s vulnerability does not arise only from its export product concentration. Bangladesh’s export market is also not diversified with close to 60% going to the EU and UK with apparel comprising more than 90%. The USA, which does not provide any LDC related preferential market access, accounts for about 16% Bangladesh’s exports.

Here, too, Bangladesh’s experience differs from that of South Korea. With the diversification of the economy, South Korea’s exports by destination also became less concentrated. For example, while around 63% of South Korea’s export went to Japan alone in 1960, the combined market share of Japan and the USA fell to around 56% by 1975.

The South Korean State’s autonomy from groups with a vested interest is well documented. Thus, its policies were driven by broader national interest. On the other hand, Bangladesh’s policy space has been captured by the RMG sector.

Undoubtedly, the preferential treatment by the state helped the RMG sector expand rapidly; but at the high cost of failure to diversify. Professor Munir Quddus of Prairie View A&M University and President, Bangladesh Development Initiative (BDI) compared the RMG sector’s support environment with Leather exports to demonstrate the RMG sector’s state capture. His findings, summarized below, are revealing:

The usual justification for such preferential treatment is that RMG is the “largest export sector and foreign exchange earner”. But the argument is perverse. Given some of these subsidies have been in existence for nearly 50 years, prudent policymaking demands that it is high time to redirect scarce resources to support other potentially dynamic export sectors.

Being used to state support, the RMG sector ignored the need for raising productivity. The sector’s average labour productivity is lower than Bangladesh’s competitor countries except Cambodia. The sector’s compliance with the environmental and labour standards has also come under scrutiny. However, it seems by becoming too big through state support, the sector’s demand cannot be ignored.

The cosy relationship between the RMG sector leaders and the fallen kleptocratic regime is well-known. The regime allowed them to flourish through loan defaults and state subsidies and in return the business leaders were cheering on the fascist regime hoping to see its continuation. Understandably, they were fearful that they might not enjoy the same crony relationship with the Interim Government led by Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus; thus, they cried foul and campaigned for a postponement of LDC graduation.

LDC graduation as structural transformation

The Interim Government accepted the White Paper’s recommendation and viewed the LDC graduation momentum as an opportunity to accelerate structural transformation of the economy. Despite bureaucratic inertia, it did succeed in improving business environment, such as significant reductions in times to obtain business licenses/certificates/permits, simplifications of customs procedures and fast-tracked implementation of national logistic and national tariff policies. It also identified the bottlenecks for potential sectors, such as pharmaceuticals, leather & footwear, electronics, light engineering and fishing & agro-based industries and took measures to remove or ease them.

No doubt a lot still needs to be done as part of an ongoing process of reform and policy adjustment. But that cannot be used as a justification to request a delay on the basis that the preparation is inadequate, particularly when Bangladesh’s macroeconomic performance is far better than the most LDCs, including Nepal and Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), the two countries scheduled to graduate along with Bangladesh.

Thanks to the macroeconomic management of the Interim Government which succeeded in preventing a total collapse of the economy; it restored discipline in the financial and banking sector, rebuilt the country’s foreign exchange reserves, stabilized the exchange rate and earned the confidence of international financial leaders to re-open trade financing and maintain foreign investment inflows. It earned the diaspora community’s confidence resulting in increased remittances. The Interim Government concluded Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Japan in record time, ensuring duty-free market access for 99.9% of its products. It also initiated EPA talks with other major trade partners, including the EU.

Graduation delay: Bad signal for LDCs and win for vested interest

The UN-DESA uses three criteria for LDCs – GNI per capita, human asset index (HAI) and economic vulnerability index (EVI). Its evaluation in February 2025 shows that Bangladesh is in a much better position than Nepal and Lao PDR in terms of GNI per capita and EVI. Bangladesh with higher GNI per capita is economically less vulnerable than Nepal and Lao PDR, both of which suffer from additional disadvantages of landlockedness.

Bangladesh’s economy is projected to grow at a faster rate (around 5.0%–5.1% in FY 2005-26 and 5.7% in FY 2026-27 according to the ADB) than both Nepal and Lao PDR despite slightly elevated inflation rates. Bangladesh also performs better in logistics, ranked 88th out of 139 countries by the World Bank compared to Nepal’s rank of 114th and Lao PDR’s 115th. Bangladesh also has better productive capacity according to the UNCTAD’s productive capacity index.

Bangladesh will continue to enjoy DFQF market access for three more years after its graduation as endorsed by the WTO. Australia and Canada indicated extended periods of DFQF access until at least 2034. The UK will allow 92% Bangladesh products duty-free access after 2029. Therefore, a delay for a better performing Bangladesh will be a bad signal for the LDCs aspiring to graduate from LDC status.

It will also mean a win for the vested interest groups and stalling of the momentum towards accelerated structural transformation. The state capture by the RMG sector has already become clear; a highly professional and successful central bank governor has been replaced with a failed (loan defaulter) garment sector businessperson with no background in banking or international macroeconomics. The Transparency International Bangladesh views “such a decision risks turning the central bank once again into an instrument of business lobbies dependent on defaulted loans and political connections, rather than safeguarding national interest, as was the case during the authoritarian kleptocratic regime”.

Bangladesh will be better off spending its diplomatic efforts to secure GSP+ facilities in the EU and EPA with its trading partners instead of lobbying for a LDC graduation delay. It should worry more about EU’s new, stricter and mandatory Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) regulations. Whereas ESG failure may cost Bangladesh 30% of EU exports, strict compliance can function as powerful catalysts for production upgrading and accelerating structural transformation while achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Anis Chowdhury, Emeritus Professor, Western Sydney University (Australia). He held senior UN positions in Bangkok and New York and served as Special Assistant to the Chief Advisor for Finance (with the status and rank of State Minister) in the Professor Yunus-led Interim Government. E-mail: anis.z.chowdhury@gmail.com

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Workers in Kiribati were building sea walls to protect against rising sea levels from climate change. Credit: UNFPA/Carly Learson

By Andie Fong Toy, Nobuko Kajiura and Peter Emberson
BANGKOK, Thailand, Apr 7 2026 (IPS)

Rising seas, intensifying storms, saltwater intrusion and shifting coastlines are the lived realities of Pacific communities today. Families are making difficult decisions about whether to stay, adapt or move. Some communities have already relocated. Others are preparing for that possibility. Many are determined to stay for as long as possible on lands that hold ancestral meaning and identity.

Climate mobility is not simply a policy category. It is about people, culture, dignity and the future of Pacific societies. With the endorsement of the Pacific Regional Framework on Climate Mobility in 2023, Pacific leaders articulated a collective approach grounded in human rights, community leadership and regional solidarity.

But frameworks alone do not move communities to safer ground. Implementation does.

A Pacific vision anchored in community

At the heart of the Framework is a simple but powerful principle: Climate mobility must be guided by the voices and priorities of Pacific communities themselves. This is not abstract diplomacy. It reflects lived experience, where communities are asking how to preserve identity, protect livelihoods and ensure that mobility, if necessary, occurs with dignity rather than desperation.

The Framework seeks to ensure that these decisions are not forced by crisis, but shaped through planning, consultation and collective responsibility. Mobility has long histories through voyaging and internal migration in the Pacific, but climate change introduces new pressures requiring coordinated governance.

Stories from community representatives who have already experienced planned relocation show that this is not merely a technical exercise. It is a human process touching identity, belonging, spirituality and intergenerational memory.

A deeply personal story shared by people forced to leave their village during a period of social conflict in Fiji’s colonial past is a reminder that movement has long been part of human history. What matters is whether that movement occurs with dignity, opportunity and support, or under conditions of hardship and loss.

Climate mobility policy, when relocation becomes necessary, should open pathways to resilience rather than trauma.

A regional responsibility

Communities across the Pacific face similar challenges, yet each context is unique. Regional cooperation allows sharing lessons, strengthening capacities and solidarity expressed in practical ways.

But collaboration must also be genuine.

The Pacific has long benefited from strong partnerships with development partners, including technical work that contributed to the development of the Framework.

Yet, a quiet caution as implementation begins. Climate mobility cannot become another item on the international development checklist.

Too often, global processes risk becoming procedural: workshops are convened, reports produced, partnerships announced, while communities remain marginal in decision-making.

This approach will not suffice. Partners must genuinely listen. Communities, relocated or contemplating relocation, carry knowledge that cannot be replicated in technical reports. Their experiences reveal the social, cultural and emotional dimensions of mobility that policy frameworks must address.

Effective climate mobility governance requires sustained cooperation across institutions and sectors, civil society practitioners and various development partners. No single agency can carry this work alone.

But coordination must be guided by humility. International partners must recognise that Pacific communities are not passive beneficiaries of policy. They are custodians of knowledge and agents of their own futures.

The global context: A critical moment

Later this year, the global climate community will gather once again for negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change when the human dimensions of climate change are becoming increasingly visible around the world.

Yet global governance mechanisms for addressing these realities of climate-driven displacement and migration remain fragmented.

The Pacific’s approach offers important lessons.

Pacific leaders have proactively confronted the issue, acknowledging mobility as part of the climate response landscape while emphasising rights, dignity and community agency.

The Pre-COP dialogue, to be hosted by Fiji and Tuvalu, provides an opportunity to bring Pacific perspectives into the global climate negotiation process directly, reminding the international community that climate mobility is not an abstract concept.

From framework to action

The Implementation Plan for the Framework is in place. Governance mechanisms are emerging through technical working groups and partnership platforms.

Now these commitments must translate into real outcomes for communities.

This means investing in community-led planning processes, supporting governments to strengthen legal and institutional frameworks and ensuring that relocation, where necessary, is accompanied by adequate resources, land access and long-term livelihood opportunities.

It also means recognising that mobility is only one part of the broader climate resilience agenda. Many Pacific communities remain determined to stay on their lands for as long as possible, supported by adaptation measures and protective infrastructure.

Climate mobility policy must therefore operate alongside, not instead of, ambitious climate mitigation and adaptation efforts.

The ball is now in our court

The Pacific has demonstrated leadership in confronting the complex dimensions of climate change, but implementation will require sustained commitment from governments, development partners, regional organisations and communities themselves.

The ball is now in the court of all stakeholders and partners.

Engagement must be genuine. Partnerships must be meaningful. Listening must precede action.

Above all, the work must remain anchored in the aspirations and dignity of Pacific peoples.

Climate mobility is not simply about moving people. It is about safeguarding cultures, protecting rights, and ensuring that communities can navigate a changing climate with agency and hope.

Andie Fong Toy is Head of ESCAP Subregional Office for the Pacific); Nobuko Kajiura is Economic Affairs Officer, ESCAP Subregional Office for the Pacific and Peter Emberson is Consultant, ESCAP Subregional Office for the Pacific.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Credit: US Department of Defense / Wiki Commons

By Herbert Wulf
Apr 6 2026 (IPS)

 
Donald Trump ran on a platform of ending wars. After his success in Venezuela, he is intoxicated by his military achievements and is banking on regime change in several countries.

In a swift and decisive move, US forces abducted Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife to the United States. The current government in Caracas has little choice but to largely submit to Washington’s dictates. Trump’s motives for the war against Iran remain unclear, partly because the US president has cited various reasons: to finally destroy the Iranian nuclear program, to end the Iranian threat to the Middle East, to support the Iranian people, and to overthrow the terrible regime in Tehran. He remains vague about his reasoning and seems to make off the cuff suggestions for regime change. Trump had a lofty idea at how he envisions the end of this war. He has suggested “unconditional surrender,” followed by his personal involvement in the selection of a successor: I must be involved in picking Iran’s next leader.

The swift victory against Iran failed to materialize, an end to the war is not in sight, and a new leader has been chosen without Trump’s involvement. The structures of the mullah regime appear so entrenched that the anticipated regime change following the rapid decapitation of the leadership did not occur. Yet Donald Trump had proclaimed: “What we did in Venezuela is, in my opinion, the perfect, the perfect scenario.” The Atlantic calls this attitude a “hostile corporate takeover of an entire country”. Now the US government expects Cuba to surrender. “I think I could do anything I want” with Cuba, Trump declared, now that the island is virtually cut off from energy supplies and its economy is in ruins. He is demanding the removal of Cuban President Diaz-Canel.

In the business world hostile corporate takeovers sometimes work, sometimes they fail. Similarly with Trump’s idea of swift government surrenders. In the case of Iran, he was misguided by the Wall Street playbook. Irresponsibly, he called on Iranians to overthrow the government before the bombing campaign started. Regime change in Iran has now been forgotten and Trump is agnostic about democracy. He is interested to get the oil price down and the stock market up.

Lessons from the past

The concept of regime change—replacing the top of the government to install one more agreeable to the US—is not new to US foreign policy. Proponents of regime change usually point to Japan and Germany as positive examples of successful democratization. Often, however, the goal is not, or at least not primarily, democratization, but rather the installation of a government that is ideologically close to the US or amenable to them. But the “Trump Corollary”, as explicitly stated in the National Security Strategy to enforce the Monroe Doctrine, is not new either. In reality, it was already the Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush doctrine.

Both Trump’s idea of regime change and his rigorously pursued territorial ambitions (Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal) are reminiscent of the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, particularly the version of this doctrine expanded by President Roosevelt in 1904. This doctrine legitimized American interventions in Latin America. At the beginning of the 20th century, the US intervened in numerous Latin American countries in ‘its backyard’, using military and intelligence means: in Colombia, to support Panamanian separatists in controlling the Panama Canal; repeatedly in the Dominican Republic; they occupied Cuba from 1906 to 1909 and intervened there repeatedly afterward; in Nicaragua during the so-called ‘Banana War’, to protect the interests of the US company United Fruit; in Mexico, as well as in Haiti and Honduras.

The New York Times recently suggested that Trump’s current enthusiasm for regime change is most comparable to that of Dwight D. Eisenhower. During his two terms in office from 1953 to 1961, the once coldly calculating general allowed himself to be seduced into a downward spiral from one coup to the next. In 1953, the US succeeded in overthrowing the elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh with Operation Ajax. Mossadegh wanted to nationalize the British-owned oil industry. The coup succeeded with CIA support. The US installed the Shah as its puppet. He ruled with absolute power until the so-called Iranian Revolution and the dictatorship of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. After the successful overthrow of the government in Iran, Eisenhower decided to intervene in Guatemala. The elected president, Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, who initiated far-reaching land reform laws, was overthrown in a coup d’état in 1954 and replaced by the pro-American colonel, Castillo Armas.

During this period, the US government also formulated the so-called domino theory, which aimed to prevent governments, particularly in Asia, from aligning themselves with the Soviet Union. The assumption was that if one domino fell, others would follow. It was during this time that the costly war in Korea ended in an armistice. Therefore, countries like Vietnam, Laos, Burma, Indonesia, and others were on Eisenhower’s domino list. However, the destabilization campaigns carried out by the CIA sometimes had the opposite effect. Governments in Indonesia and Syria emerged strengthened from the interventions. Eisenhower left Kennedy with the loss of American influence in Cuba. The failed Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961, intended to overthrow Fidel Castro, was the starting point for the decades-long blockade of Cuba, which Trump is determined to end now through regime change.

The most dramatic example of failed regime change in recent history is undoubtedly the Iraq War, which began in 2003 under President George W. Bush. The stated goal was to remove Saddam Hussein from power and destroy his weapons of mass destruction. The war led to the overthrow of the regime. The United Nations and US teams found no weapons of mass destruction despite intensive on-site investigations. Attempts to establish an orderly state in Iraq failed. These experiences, and especially the disastrous outcome of two decades of military intervention in Afghanistan, discredited the concept of regime change.

What are the implications?

The most important lesson taught by efforts to affect externally forced regime change is that interventions often lead to crises that were ostensibly meant to be prevented or solved. The temptation was too great for Trump to miss the opportunity to depose the despised Maduro government.

Scholarly studies of the numerous attempted regime changes and democratization efforts reveal three key findings. First, simply removing the government from power (whether through assassination, as in the case of Saddam Hussein in Iraq or now in Iran, or through kidnapping as in Venezuela) is insufficient, as such actions often lead to chaos, state collapse, or even civil war. Thus, it will be interesting to watch further developments in Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran.

A second lesson from empirical studies of regime change is that democratization is more likely to succeed if democratic experience already existed in the country. However, this is often not the case.

Finally, if the real goal is democratization (and not just to secure spheres of influence or oil supplies etc.), it is far more promising not only to hold elections (as in Afghanistan, for example), but to renounce violence and initiate a long-term program with development aid and support for civil society.

Whether the US government will be impressed by these findings, or even acknowledge them, is doubtful. Currently, the American president is euphoric, despite the strong reaction from the Iranian government which he, surprisingly, did not expect. His promises to end the senseless wars and not start any new ones, however, seem to have been forgotten.

Related articles:
The US: Good at Starting but Bad at Ending Wars
Failure of US–Iran Talks Was All Too Predictable — But Turning to Military Strikes Creates Dangerous Unknowns
The ‘Donroe Doctrine’
The Return of the Ugly American

Herbert Wulf is a Professor of International Relations and former Director of the Bonn International Center for Conflict Studies (BICC). He is presently a Senior Fellow at BICC, an Adjunct Senior Researcher at the Institute for Development and Peace, University of Duisburg/Essen, Germany, and a Research Affiliate at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago, New Zealand. He serves on the Scientific Council of SIPRI.

This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished from the original with their permission.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Credit: Mamunur Rashid/NurPhoto via AFP

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Apr 6 2026 (IPS)

Bangladesh’s first credible election in nearly two decades delivered a landslide win for the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its leader Tarique Rahman, son of a former prime minister, just back from 17 years of self-imposed exile.

The election was made possible by a Generation Z-led uprising that security forces sought to repress by killing at least 1,400 people. The protest that began when young people rose up against a job quota system that functioned as a tool of patronage grew into a movement that brought down a government. Many protesters wanted something beyond the ousting of an authoritarian government, calling for old politics to be swept aside and young people to have a genuine say in government. What’s resulted falls short of that, and Bangladesh’s new government should be aware that unless it delivers genuine change, protests could rise again.

The uprising

The 2024 protests that toppled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina began when Bangladesh’s High Court reinstated a 30 per cent quota for descendants of 1971 independence war veterans, leaving less than half of public sector jobs open to recruitment based on merit. In a country with acute youth unemployment, frustrated young people rejected this system as a vehicle for Awami League patronage. Coordinated by the Students Against Discrimination network, the movement spread nationwide through road and railway blockades.

The government’s response turned a policy dispute into a political crisis. Members of the Awami League’s student wing attacked protesters. Authorities imposed a nationwide curfew with a shoot-on-sight order, shut down the internet and directed security forces to fire lethal weapons into crowds. But the repression backfired. People used their phones to document every incident, and footage circulated widely after internet access was partly restored, directly undermining the government’s narrative that cast protesters as violent agitators. The killing of student coordinator Abu Sayed, filmed as he stood unarmed with arms outstretched before police opened fire, became the uprising’s defining image.

On 5 August 2024, facing a mass march on her residence, Hasina fled to India on an army helicopter. As CIVICUS’s 2026 State of Civil Society Report sets out, Bangladesh’s Gen Z-led uprising went on to inspire subsequent protests in Indonesia, Nepal and beyond.

Reforms in the balance

Three days after Hasina fled, Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus was sworn in as Chief Adviser of an interim government. This was a victory for the student movement, which had made clear it would not accept a military-backed administration. His government established reform commissions covering the constitution, corruption, judiciary, police and public administration, and negotiated the July National Charter with political parties: 84 proposals designed to reduce the concentration of power in the prime minister’s office and make it structurally harder for any future government to capture the state the way Hasina had. Most parties signed it in October 2025.

But the path to the election was neither clean nor consensual. The International Crimes Tribunal, a domestic judicial body reinstated by the interim government, convicted Hasina in absentia for crimes against humanity and sentenced her to death. In May 2025, the interim government banned the Awami League under anti-terrorism legislation. International observers warned that excluding the country’s largest party risked disenfranchising millions and undermining the election’s democratic credibility.

The election timing was also bitterly contested: the BNP, eager to capitalise on its frontrunner status, pushed for an early date, while the newly formed National Citizen Party (NCP), founded by Gen Z protesters, wanted more time to organise and for institutional reforms to be locked in first. The BNP prevailed.

A dynasty returns

The BNP and its allies won 209 of 299 contested seats, securing a decisive two-thirds parliamentary majority. The right-wing Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami — whose 2013 ban the interim government lifted — emerged as the main opposition with close to 80 seats, its best-ever result. The NCP won just six of the 30 seats it contested.

The NCP’s poor showing had partly structural causes — formed in February 2025, it had barely a year to build an organisation with limited funds and no networks beyond urban centres — and was partly self-inflicted. A decision to ally with Jamaat-e-Islami as part of an 11-party coalition alienated many young voters who had hoped for genuinely new politics. Prominent NCP figures resigned in protest and stood as independents. NCP leader Nahid Islam, just 27 years old, did win a seat, and the party has pledged to rebuild in opposition.

The election itself was a genuine improvement on Bangladesh’s recent history. Turnout reached 60 per cent, up from 42 per cent in the fraud-ridden 2024 poll. Over 60 per cent of voters endorsed the July Charter in a referendum that was held alongside the election, giving the reform agenda a democratic mandate the new government will find difficult to ignore. Yet the vote would have been more legitimate had all parties been permitted to compete freely, and the campaign was not fully free of violence either: rights groups documented that at least 16 political activists were killed in the run-up to polling day.

Now the BNP inherits a state apparatus politicised over decades of one-party dominance and holds a two-thirds parliamentary majority with no meaningful check on its authority. Whether it will govern differently from those it replaced, or simply settle into the same logic of power, remains to be seen. The young people whose uprising made this election possible are watching. They have already brought down one government. The new one would do well to remember this.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Head of Research and Analysis, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report. She is also a Professor of Comparative Politics at Universidad ORT Uruguay.

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

 

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Smoke rises in downtown Dhaka, the capital of Capital, during the July-August 2024 youth-led anti-government protests. Credit: UN Bangladesh/Mithu

By The Institute of Development Studies
BRIGHTON, UK, Apr 6 2026 (IPS)

Urgent steps need to be taken to rebuild the relationship between citizens and state to stem the decline of democracy globally. Experts point to inequality and political exclusion as two of the biggest drivers for democratic backsliding, with the exclusion of citizens from a role in policy and decision-making spaces leading to ‘hollow citizenship’.

A report, published by the Institute of Development Studies, comes as Europe, Africa, Latin America, Asia and the US, have seen a rise in support for populist leaders on the left and right stoking division and weakening democratic safeguards, such as free and fair elections and free media.

This has led to key aspects of democracy declining during the last decade and now 74% of the
world’s population (6 billion) live in autocracies.

In response, the report authors call for an urgent rethink of democracy – which evidence shows delivers better social and economic outcomes than other regimes – to focus on people, power and inequality and less on institutions.

The experts say that past efforts to strengthen democracy globally focused too much on strengthening institutions, like legislature, judicial systems and electoral commissions and neglected the needs of people.

To sustain and strengthen democracies for the future, the reports call for urgent action to ensure people are included and engaged in democracy at local and national levels.

Shandana Khan Mohmand, Research Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, said: “After decades of unsuccessful efforts, and millions of dollars spent by Western powers to try and strengthen democracy globally, we need to learn the lessons about what does and doesn’t work.

“While supporting democratic institutions like electoral commissions, judicial systems and independent media are all critically important, evidence shows that the missing ingredient is people – and the extent that they can engage in democracy in meaningful ways. Whether in local council decisions about community parks or on a nation’s policy on green energy, or going to war, citizens need to be included and feel that they are heard in decision making.”

While there was optimism that digital technology, and particularly social media, would act as a force for democratisation and improving transparency and accountability, the research finds that has only led to limited gains.

Instead, the evidence shows that digital technology has been harnessed by regimes to support a descent into authoritarianism, using tactics like mass surveillance and internet shutdowns to suppress dissent and human rights.

The report also finds that the notable youth-led uprisings, such as in Bangladesh, Nepal and Madagascar attracted the headlines but that it is the more everyday acts of young people demonstrating inclusion and collective decision-making, rather than the mass protests, that are more significant for strengthening democracy and peace.

Marjoke Oosterom, Research Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, said: “The scale of democratic backsliding globally serves as a warning to leaders of high, middle and low-income democracies alike. They ignore inequality and political exclusion at their peril as both are being exploited by anti-democratic politicians to stoke division, and lead people to question whether democracy works for them.

“The evidence shows that democracy is still the best model for an inclusive and fair society and urgent action is needed to halt the current democratic decline we are seeing in continents around the world.”

Despite the budget cuts by governments across Europe and the USA which significantly reduced initiatives designed to strengthen democracy globally, the report includes several recommendations for ways that states, policymakers and philanthropist funders can help strengthen democracy.

Those include fixing the relationship between states and citizens via greater inclusion of people in governance and politics, making space for diverse opinions and ideological positions, and public policy to address the needs of marginalised groups and reduce inequality, which in turn builds trust in democracy.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elías

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 6 2026 (IPS)

The US has spelled out in detail its own concept of what a restructured United Nations should look like: after drastic reductions in staff, cutting down its budget, avoiding duplication in mandates, slashing peacekeeping operations worldwide and deploying artificial intelligence (AI) for translations and interpretations in six languages.

As the biggest single contributor to the UN budget – and despite nearly $4.0 billion in unpaid dues —it is using its perceived financial clout to help radically change the world body.

The US says it wants to “make UN great again (MUNGA)”—variation of President Trump’s oft-repeated slogan “Make America Great Again (MAGA)”.

But will it work? And is it feasible?

Ambassador Mike Waltz, U.S. Representative to the United Nations, addressing a Congressional Field Hearing on UN Reform, said last week: “As I stated in my confirmation hearing, the UN truly does need to get what we’re calling back to basics and back to its original mission, from its founding, back to maintaining international peace and security.

As I’ve mentioned in my hearing then, the UN’s budget in the last 25 years has quadrupled. We have not seen, arguably, a quadrupling of peace and security around the world commensurate with those hard-earned dollars, he said.

“So, we are pressing it. We’re pressing it to streamline its bureaucracy, to eliminate duplication. We’ve made it clear that we will cease participation in some UN agencies that undermine our sovereignty and cannot be reformed.”

Earlier this year, he pointed out, President Trump did announce “our withdrawal from 66 international organizations. That review is ongoing. And from my perspective, let me be clear, the U.S. will not fund organizations that act contrary to our interests.”

On UN compensation and personnel, he said, we’re leading reforms to what is often exorbitant compensation and benefit standards that the over 100,000 UN staff receive. The UN pays 17% more than U.S. equivalent civil servants, even though many of them are right here in New York.

They also have additional generous benefits packages far exceeding what our great civil servants, both here and abroad, receive. And staff costs alone are 70% of their regular budget of these things we’re trying to bring back in line.

“So, we need to, and we are working to bring those compensation and benefits packages back in line with common sense standards. Part of that will be the pension. There’s over $100 billion in management, in the UN pension with 16% – I don’t know of an employer or a government out there that contributes 16% to their pension”.

And there’s other reforms, he said.

For example, the number of interpreters and translators – times six for the six UN languages here – technology can be used, AI can be used, remote translation can be used that will save a lot of the travel and the conference costs, said Waltz.

Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco and director of Middle Eastern Studies, who has written extensively on the politics of the United Nations, told Inter Press Service (IPS) this is not about cost-cutting or fiscal responsibility.

“Like cutbacks to important U.S. government agencies and domestic programs, the Trump administration appears determined to dismantle the system itself.”

This should be understood in the context of pulling out of international organizations and treaties, the establishment of the so-called “Board of Peace,” the Iran War, and the recently-announced dramatic increases in military spending–it is about undermining international legal institutions and replacing it with an imperial order backed by raw military force, said Dr Zunes.

Richard Gowan, Program Director, Global Issues and Institutions, at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, told IPS in the first half of 2025, U.S. policy towards the UN was pretty chaotic, and diplomats from other countries really had no idea what Washington wanted from the world organization.

Like it or not, he said, Mike Waltz and his team have brought some message discipline and are clarifying their goals for the UN pretty sharply.

“Most diplomats say that Waltz can be reasonable in private and that ultimately, he and his team want to reshape the UN rather than just wreck it. There are times when Waltz goes out of his way to bash the UN and individual UN officials on social media, but I think that is partly him playing to the Republican base”.

Waltz is clear that he wants a slimmed-down UN, Gowan pointed out, and it is worth admitting that this is a popular message among many UN member states. The U.S. is not alone in thinking that the organization’s bureaucracy has grown too big and needs a tough financial diet.

“Trump, Rubio and Waltz are pretty consistent in arguing that the UN should focus on peace and security issues. But I think the administration has not really convinced most other UN members that it has a plan to make the UN deliver on conflict prevention and diplomacy again.”

Instead, he said, the U.S. appears to have a very selective and instrumentalist approach to when and how it uses the UN as a security partner. It wants the UN to help in Haiti but to get out of the way in Lebanon. I do not think there is really a coherent vision at work here. It is a very ad hoc, case-by-case approach.

“Trump’s boosting of the Board of Peace as a potential alternative to the UN has complicated Waltz’s position too. The fact that Trump is willing to flirt with the Board, even if it is not a very serious institution, makes it harder to believe that Washington really wants the UN to regain credibility on peace and security,” declared Gowan.

Meanwhile, excerpts from Ambassador Waltz’s testimony include:

–“On budget and staffing cuts, the UN should be doing less and doing it better. Let’s get it more focused and actually achieve more results. The 2026 UN regular budget was estimated at $3.45 billion. The U.S. funds roughly a fifth of that at $820 million in 2025 alone.

–Again, I think we need to reduce the UN’s size and assure every taxpayer dollar is spent responsibly, and thanks to the strong efforts by the United States, led by Ambassador Bartos here and his team in what we call the UN’s Fifth Committee, which approves its budget, we are working towards a leaner and better prioritized 2026 budget going forward.

–In December, we led Member States to adopt a historic 15% cut. $570 million out of the UN’s regular budget. That will eliminate nearly 3000 headquarters positions. And for our contribution, it will reduce our assessment by $126 million. So just in the six months that we’ve been here, we will see going forward, $126 million savings to the U.S. taxpayer.

–We’ve also pushed for a 25% reduction in peacekeeping troops, and I’ll talk a bit about other peacekeeping reforms in a moment that will also save us tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars while enabling what we call here the repatriation, the sending home of poorly performing peacekeeping troops.

–From an oversight perspective, beyond the salaries and benefits, oversight is essential. We’re leading efforts to empower oversight bodies to root out waste, fraud, and abuse, and misconduct.

On peacekeeping reform, he said, the administration has been clear about focusing on the core mandate of peace and security, and we’re leading efforts to wind down some of these ineffective and costly peacekeeping missions.

Some of them have been around for 30, 50, even 80 years. So, it’s one thing to stop a conflict, to insert an international force, to part ways with warring, with the two sides, or to separate them, to create the space for a political resolution.

But it can’t then become an excuse to not have a political resolution. When you have a peacekeeping force, for example, in DRC and Congo, at the cost of a billion dollars a year, that’s been there for 30 years – you can do the math and see how we have a mission creep.

So, what we’re looking to do is, as these peacekeeping forces come up for renewal, usually on an annual basis, tie them to a political process and use that as an opportunity to drive efficiencies along those lines, again, led by our reform team here that we have an ambassador, someone of an ambassador rank dedicated to.

This is just as a quick aside, the reimbursement for the equipment that these peacekeeping forces bring, sometimes to the tunes of 10,000 18,000 soldiers. It’s quite significant. These countries were being reimbursed whether they use the equipment or not.

All they had to do is bring it. So, there was an obvious incentive in place – and we received this feedback from the field, to not use the equipment very much, don’t have a lot of wear and tear, and countries would still receive the same level of reimbursement.

We just negotiated new rules, first time ever that put standards in place that the equipment actually has to be used for the peacekeeping force before you receive reimbursement. These are the kind of common-sense reforms that I think are pretty hard to argue with, although we received a lot of push back, because for a lot of these countries, it’s a money maker for their ministries of defense. We were able to just get those reforms.

Just a few examples as we look to streamline these mandates, we’re also looking to draw some of them down. UNIFIL and Lebanon, we’ve made it clear hasn’t achieved its goals, hasn’t lived up to its mandate and should be drawn down in the next year.

We’re looking at a strategic review of the peacekeeping force in Western Sahara that has been there for 50 years. We are putting benchmarks in place for the peacekeeping force that’s in Southern Sudan. We just oversaw the orderly closure of UNAMI in Iraq, which will reduce costs by $87 million annually.

We just pressed for closure of the special political mission in Yemen that will save $25 million annually. We streamlined missions in Colombia and Haiti, saving approximately $20 million annually. So again, these peacekeeping missions that solve problems not exist indefinitely.

On the humanitarian system, just as a personal aside, as someone who has served across Africa and the Middle East, I can’t tell you how many times I would pull up to this tiny ministry in a small country in Africa or in South Asia, and you have more UN vehicles in the parking lot than they have in their entire ministry from 16, 17, 18, different agencies, often with overlapping missions – all meaning well, all trying to help.

But we’ve now pulled a lot of our funding that will force these agencies to use the same warehouses, use the same aviation, use the same vehicle fleets, and eliminate a lot of that duplication of waste in their back offices.

So, moving forward, these reforms have made some significant steps. We have a long way to go – as I’m sure we’ll hear about today – to create a more focused, leaner and effective UN. We are just getting started.

We’re building on this momentum heading into the next year with both long overdue changes, the UN’s compensation system and pension plan, streamlining these peacekeeping missions, halting waste that undermine the effectiveness. And we’ll work with the UN leadership to align our reform agenda with the Secretary-General’s – what he calls his UN 80 mandate.

We will have a new Secretary-General elected this year, and we’re having those conversations now with the candidates of what they seek to keep and continue, or what new they seek to put in place, but reform is at the top of our list as we meet with some of these candidates.

So, this is a critical moment with senior leadership transitions approaching here over this next year. We need to have a clear message. We will prioritize qualified Americans. Representative DeLauro, along the lines of what you sought to do so many years ago, of having qualified Americans in UN leadership positions, not just here, but across the ecosystem in Geneva, in Vienna, and Nairobi and other places where you have UN agencies.

And I’ll just conclude with echoing President Trump’s own words.

As he said most recently at the General Assembly: the UN has tremendous potential. My charge from him is to help it realize that potential. We are dedicated to making the UN live up to that promise, to making the UN great again – if I can say so our new acronym, MUNGA.

The UN is the one place where everyone can talk. If we walked away tomorrow – which I nor the president, are advocating – it would be reinvented somewhere else. I will push hard and continuously to have it right here in the United States where it belongs.

And I look forward to keeping open dialogue with your committee. I thank you for the legislation, Chairman, that you pushed through. It adds additional arrows in our quiver to help make the UN great again,” declared Waltz.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Environmental activists and farmer groups opposed to the construction of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), the world’s longest heated oil pipeline, are mounting a last-ditch legal effort meant to stop its construction in a suit they plan to have filed in London, UK,  believing that it stands a chance to stop the controversial […]

Credit: Office of New York City Mayor

By Thalif Deen
NEW YORK, Apr 3 2026 (IPS)

A fifth wave of a new Covid 19 variant BA.2, followed by a surge in infections, is threatening to undermine the safety of New York city (NYC) which was gradually returning to normal after a prolonged pandemic shutdown. As a result, the City went on “high Covid alert.”

But NYC Mayor Eric Adams has assured New Yorkers he will not bring back mask and vaccine mandates in work places, shopping malls, restaurants and Broadway theaters. Instead, he said he will focus on anti-virus treatment and home-testing.

Briefing reporters at a press conference, he said “I think the reason we are here—and not seeing drastic actions – is because we’ve done an amazing job of telling people—vaccines, boosters”.

“When I was hit with Covid, it was just a tickle in my throat. I was still able to exercise, didn’t have any breathing issues, no pain,” he added.

“We are staying prepared and not panicking. When I look at the hospitalizations and deaths, the numbers are stable”, Adams assured.

Back in March, the Mayor released a new color-coded system that tracks COVID-19, alerts and keeps New York City residents apprised of the risks they face.

This new system will better help New Yorkers understand the current level of COVID-19 risk and how they can best protect themselves and others based on the current risk.

The system consists of four alert levels that outline precautions, and recommends actions for individuals and government—and is based on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Community Burden Indicator.

Meanwhile, there was a rising wave of celebrity infections in the US last month, including Attorney General Merrick Garland, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and several members of Congress, including Joaquin Castro, Susan Collins and Adam Schiff, along with Broadway stars Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick and Daniel Craig.

The United States also reached a milestone: one million deaths from the coronavirus infection.

According to the New York Times, more Americans have died from Covid-19 than in two decades of car crashes or on battlefields in all of the country’s wars combined. The U.S. toll is higher than that of any other country in the world.

Mayor Adams announces “unprecedented Investments” in safe haven beds and resources for New Yorkers experiencing unsheltered homelessness

By Thalif Deen
NEW YORK, Apr 3 2026 (IPS)

Faced with a growing problem of homeless people living and sleeping in park benches and on subway trains, New York city (NYC) authorities are physically moving them out—mostly under protest– to some 150 encampments or public shelters.

A cleanup crew removed all of their belongings lying scattered in a “miniature tent city” across from Tompkins Square Park in Manhattan. As an alternative, the NYC is providing them with “safe Haven” communal shelters.

New York Mayor Eric Adams said makeshift housing is dangerous, and shelters are far safer.

But one advocate for the homeless said the process is “tired and cruel,” and chases people out of the city rather than providing them a place to live safely.

The clearing of the encampments was supervised and coordinated by dozens of police officers and a sanitation truck, with a police loudspeaker repeatedly announcing: “you are ordered to leave the area.” But few responded.

As a result, eight protesting homeless people were arrested and charged with obstructing governmental administration for blocking the planned cleanup. The people arrested also included activists from anti-eviction organizations and groups supportive of the homeless.

Currently, there are an estimated 50,000 homeless people living in shelters. The problems arising from the homeless include crimes committed by some of the mentally ill, including a woman killed after being pushed onto an oncoming subway train, dozens of syringes and drug paraphernalia and, in one instance, the discovery of over 500 discarded needles across homeless campsites.

“Our teams are working professionally and diligently every day to make sure that every New Yorker living in the street knows they have a better option while ensuring that everyone who lives in or visits our city can enjoy the clean public spaces we all deserve,” the Mayor said.

He said NYC was in the process of opening up some 500 beds in specialized shelters. “You cannot continue to live in carboard boxes or sleeping in a tree in the park. You don’t deserve that,” the Mayor noted.

Business Forum: Harnessing Opportunities, Unlocking Growth - March 12th, photo by IDB

By Claudia Escorza
MEXICO CITY, Apr 3 2026 (IPS)

In Asunción, Paraguay last month, finance ministers, central bank presidents, and private sector leaders gathered for the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB) Annual Meetings to talk about growth.

In a session titled “Seizing Opportunities, Stimulating Growth” hosted by IDB Invest, the bank’s private sector institution, they discussed how investment and innovation could strengthen agribusiness and food systems across Latin America.

One place to start is clear: the IDB Invest should exclude industrial livestock production from its portfolio. Industrial animal agriculture is a leading driver of deforestation, water pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions in the region.

It puts profits in the hands of a few, while rural and Indigenous communities are left to deal with dirty water, damaged land, and fewer ways to earn a living. Yet at the very session dedicated to agribusiness, livestock was conspicuously absent from the conversation.

If the IDB Invest won’t even acknowledge the problem, it’s obviously not trying to solve it. Public development money shouldn’t be funding an industry that worsens the climate crisis and harms communities.

Equally troubling is the lack of transparency when projects do move forward. When the IDB Invest supports a project, communities have a right to understand its risks, impacts, and benefits. That did not happen, for example, in the case of Pronaca, an Ecuadorian agribusiness company that received a $50 million loan from IDB Invest.

An independent investigation by the Bank’s own accountability mechanism found seven violations of environmental and social safeguards, including failures to disclose critical information and assess the company’s role in the contamination of a local river that the Indigenous Tsáchila community rely on for food and hygiene, and which holds deep spiritual significance within their cosmology.

But key environmental documents were classified as confidential, and meaningful information was never shared. This isn’t just a problem with the IBD’s internal procedures. It can have real impacts on human rights.

Perhaps most importantly, the IDB Invest must ensure the effective participation of affected communities from the very beginning of any project. In the Pronaca case, the investigation found no evidence that nearby Indigenous communities were consulted at all, even though one community is located just a few hundred meters from a facility.

This absence of consultation wasn’t accidental, but instead part of a deep imbalance of power, where decisions are made in boardrooms and imposed on territories without consent. Communities must have a seat at the table, not as an afterthought, but as decision-makers with the ability to shape, or reject, projects that affect their futures. Anything less is incompatible with the IDB Invest’s stated mission to reduce inequality.

This month’s meeting in Paraguay showed that the IDB Group is quite ambitious when it comes to growth in Latin America. However, it would be a mistake for the IDB to believe that growth is the only measure of progress and should be the priority no matter the cost.

Right now, the IDB has the opportunity and the responsibility to pursue a sustainable growth agenda by excluding harmful industries, committing to full transparency, and including the impacted communities at every step of the process. To do that, the IDB must listen to those who were not in the room, and must recognize that economic growth cannot be built on weakened ecosystems and silenced communities.

Claudia Escorza, the Latin America Regional Coordinator for “Stop Financing Factory Farming (S3F) coalition, is based in Mexico City, and advocates sustainable food systems.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Public Domain. Smoke rises above Tehran, Iran. Source: UN News

By Daniel D. Bradlow
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Apr 3 2026 (IPS)

By Easter 2026 it was still not clear when – or how – the war initiated by Israel and the US against Iran would end. But what was already clear was that it would harm Africa in a number of ways.

Firstly, it would adversely affect the global supply and prices of oil and gas, fertilisers and food. Secondly, local currencies would be affected. More than a month after the war had started a number of African currencies had begun to lose value against the US dollar.

Thirdly, interest rates stopped falling and further rate increases were highly likely. Fourth, there will be a decline in access to affordable foreign financing.

How should Africa respond?

African countries cannot avoid being harmed by the current Gulf war. Nevertheless, based on my work in international economic law and global economic governance, I think there are two lessons that, if followed, can help the continent emerge from the crisis in a better place.

First, governments and societies need to be pragmatic. Their first priority must be to do whatever they can to mitigate the impact of the war, particularly on their most vulnerable citizens. This will require governments to make trade-offs.

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They will have to reallocate budgets to at least maintain the level of imports necessary to meet the society’s basic needs. They will need to convince their creditors to help finance their necessary imports. They will also need to persuade them to be flexible enough that they leave governments with at least some policy space.

Second, states and societies need to identify opportunities within the crisis for actions that over the medium term can help them meet their financing, economic, environmental and social challenges. This requires collaboration between the state and its non-state stakeholders. Business, labour, religious groups, civil society organisations and international organisations all have something to contribute.

Oil price surge is hurting African economies: scholars in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa take stock

Action in the short run

The focus of Africa’s efforts in the short term must be on minimising the negative effects of the war and on managing the state’s external debts in the most sustainable and effective way.

This is easy to state, but hard to implement. This is particularly the case in the current international environment, in which it is not realistic to expect donor countries and other international sources of finance to be particularly generous.

African countries will need to convince their creditors to acknowledge that this crisis is beyond Africa’s control and that they should not compound the pain that’s being experienced. This will require, at a minimum, that the creditors agree to suspend debt payments for the next year.

Creditors have already accepted the principle that debt payments can be suspended when debt challenges arise from sources beyond the debtor’s control. Many of them have accepted clauses requiring such action under specific conditions in their most recent debt contracts. They also did this during COVID.

Second, African countries, which are already heavily indebted, should challenge their multilateral creditors to accept the consequences of being among the biggest creditors for the continent. This includes the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the African Development Bank. By custom these institutions are treated as preferred creditors.

This means that they get paid before all other creditors. Instead of participating in any debt restructurings, they also make new loans to the debtor in crisis. This shifts the debt restructuring burden onto the debtor’s other creditors. It also increases the total amount owed to the multilaterals.

This cannot continue. These institutions need to be more creative in providing Africa to financing. This should include:

• Using their financial resources to guarantee the financial transactions of African countries so that they can reduce their borrowing costs and attract new equity investments.
• More generously supporting innovative debt for development swaps. These involve creditors agreeing with African sovereign debtors to convert a portion of the existing debts into financing for specific local projects, for example in health or education.
• Helping African governments convert their foreign exchange denominated debts into local currency debts at affordable interest rates.

Third, governments should work with the Alliance of African Multilateral Financial Institutions to use these institutions more effectively to finance African development. For example:

• They should require the institutions to only undertake transactions that are consistent with their development mandates. This means no more opaque transactions like the recent one that the African Finance Corporation concluded with Senegal.
• African governments should take the necessary action to activate the African Financial Stability Mechanism that they agreed to establish last year. This would create a useful financial safety net for the continent.

Fourth, African governments must build on the efforts they began last year to become a more effective advocate for African development financing interests at the international level. Among these efforts was the initiative by African ministers of finance to develop common African positions on sovereign debt restructurings. Another was South Africa’s launch of the African Expert Panel that proposed a number of initiatives on African debt and development financing.

In the medium term

African countries should advocate for the IMF to review its governance arrangements so that it becomes more accountable and responsive to developing countries, including African states and societies.

They should also advocate for the IMF to more use its existing resources, including its gold reserves, more creatively to support Africa.

Second, Africa should call for a debate on the preferred creditor status of multilateral financial institutions. This has become particularly relevant because the members of the Alliance of African Multilateral Financial Institutions are claiming that, like all other multilateral financial institutions, they are entitled to this status.

It is not clear that there are good arguments for excluding these institutions from preferred creditor status while protecting the position of the legacy institutions. This suggests that there is a need for some general principles that help determine which institutions should be treated as preferred creditors. These should be acceptable to all multilateral financial institutions and other market participants.

Third, African societies must make every effort to demonstrate that they are taking control of their own development. They should demand that their governments and all other actors in African development finance behave responsibly in regard to the financial, economic, environmental and social aspects of these transactions.

Another medium-term objective should be to limit the illicit financial flows that are so often associated with international trade and investment. This goal would be advanced by the successful conclusion of the current efforts to agree on a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation.

Prof Daniel D. Bradlow, Professor/Senior Research Fellow, Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship at the University of Pretoria, was Senior Non-Resident Fellow, Global Development Policy Center, Boston University and Professor Emeritus, American University Washington College of Law

Source: Conversation Africa

IPS UN Bureau

 

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On 27 October, Omer, a Community Development Committee member, supports health workers at the UNICEF-supported mobile clinic in Al Jadab village in Atbara, River Nile State. Through this initiative, UNICEF is restoring lifesaving healthcare services, such as nutrition, immunization, antenatal and postnatal services, medical consultations, and essential medicines, closer to vulnerable communities. Credit: UNICEF/Mohamed Dawod

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 2 2026 (IPS)

Global human migration is at record-high levels, as the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that roughly 1 in 8 people—about one billion individuals—are on the move. Many of these migrants and refugees face harsh living conditions and heightened challenges, such as poverty, insecurity, and limited access to basic services. With the number of international migrants having doubled since 1990, new findings from WHO call for expanding health systems to meet the growing scale of needs.

“Refugees and migrants are not just recipients of care, they are also health workers, caregivers and community leaders,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO. “Health systems are only truly universal when they serve everyone. “Like anyone else, refugees and migrants need uninterrupted, affordable, and equitable access to health services wherever they are.”

WHO estimates that there are approximately 304 million international migrants worldwide, including 170 million migrant workers. Roughly 117 million of those are persons who have been forcibly displaced, 49 million are children, and 2.3 million have been born as refugees.

More than 71 percent of the world’s international migrants find refuge in low to middle-income countries, which often face the most severe resource constraints and protection challenges. Marginalized groups are disproportionately affected: women and girls are especially vulnerable to gender-based violence and often lack access to related services; unaccompanied children face heightened risks of exploitation, abuse, and neglect; and persons with disabilities face elevated barriers to accessibility and increased exposure to discrimination.

Refugees and migrants have been found to experience greater exposure to health risks, in part driven by conditions that restrict movement and access to care, as well as persistent discrimination and language and cultural barriers. These challenges are exacerbated by ongoing conflict and climate-related disasters, leaving millions around the world increasingly vulnerable to infectious and chronic diseases, mental health issues, and dangerous living and working conditions.

“We cannot talk about refugee and migrant health without also addressing emergencies,” said Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, WHO’s executive director for health emergencies. “Whether it’s a conflict, a climate-related crisis, or an epidemic that forces movement, these crises expose the fragility of health systems and magnify the vulnerabilities of all those already at risk.”

On March 26, WHO launched its World Report on Promoting the Health of Refugees and Migrants: Monitoring Progress on the WHO Global Action Plan, establishing what it describes as the first global baseline for tracking progress toward inclusive, migrant-responsive health systems. Based on data from more than 93 Member States, the report highlights both a growing shift in national responses to migrant and refugee health needs and the persistent structural gaps that continue to hinder progress toward equitable access.

WHO found that out of the member states surveyed, only 42 percent reported having emergency preparedness and disaster reduction or response programs in place for migrant or refugee communities. Just 40 percent indicated that they provide training for health workers in culturally responsive care, while only 37 percent reported having systems to collect, monitor, and analyze migration-related health data—information that is rarely disseminated enough to support a more coordinated global response.

Discrimination remains widespread in low- and middle-income countries that host large numbers of refugees and migrants, with misinformation and disinformation continuing to fuel negative perceptions of these communities. Only 30 percent of surveyed countries reported having communication campaigns in place to counter these misconceptions and discriminatory language.

Anti-migrant sentiment remains particularly pronounced, with internally displaced persons, migrant workers, international students, and migrants under irregular circumstances being far less likely to access health services. Additionally, refugees and migrants are largely unrepresented in governance and decision-making processes that shape their access to health rights in most surveyed countries.

“The phenomena of displacement is unfortunately happening more frequently in countries with fragile systems, fragile economies and limited domestic resources,” said Dr Santino Severoni, head of WHO’s Special Initiative on Health and Migration and lead author of the report. “There is almost no mention of irregular migrants in those emergency plans and response or in disease risk reductions, there is no systematic approach in assessing the system to see how their system is really functioning, how efficient and effective it is. This is really a call for action to keep the promise of sharing a bit of responsibility in managing those emergencies.”

Over the past year, international support for refugee health has seen considerable declines. Figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) show that their 2025 response plan has secured only 23 percent of its USD 10.6 billion goal. The agency projects that this could cause over 12.8 million displaced persons to lose access to lifesaving health interventions this year.

Global responses have been polarizing. Some countries have adopted inclusive policies that support migrant communities—such as Chile— which has supplied municipal health councils for migrants and refugees with community representatives. Other countries, such as the United States and Canada, have cut health insurance coverage for undocumented migrants, forcing them to pay out of pocket for lifesaving care and increasing protection risks.

Through the report, WHO called for greater inclusion of refugee and migrant voices in decision-making processes, as well as improved coordination between governments. With a smoother flow of data between Member States, WHO will be able to more effectively shape health, employment, housing, and protection services.

WHO emphasized that responses should be specifically tailored to the needs of different migrant subgroups, while remaining committed to countering misinformation and discrimination through “evidence-based action.” Investment in refugee and migrant health systems has been found to deliver significant returns, fostering improved social and economic cohesion, revitalizing fragile health systems, and boosting global security, all while reducing long-term costs by promoting these communities to contribute back to society.

“The health of refugees and migrants is not a marginal concern: it is a defining issue of our time,” said Severoni. “By acting now, countries can ensure that refugees and migrants are not left behind, and that health systems are stronger, fairer and more prepared for the future.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Relying on foreign aid is bad for Africa’s health and it must stop if the continent is to enjoy health security. This was the collective view of government and corporate leaders meeting at the 58th session of the Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development in  Tangier hosted by the Economic Commission […]

By CIVICUS
Apr 2 2026 (IPS)

 
CIVICUS discusses Italy’s restrictive immigration policies with Eleonora Celoria, a researcher at FIERI (Forum Internazionale ed Europeo di Ricerche sull’Immigrazione), a research centre on migration, and a member of the Association for Legal Studies on Immigration (ASGI), an Italian legal organisation that defends migrants’ and asylum seekers’ rights through advocacy, public awareness and strategic litigation.

Eleonora Celoria

In late February, Italy’s migration debate intensified on two fronts. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government passed a bill tightening maritime border controls and expanding deportation powers. Meanwhile, a far-right petition calling for ‘remigration’ – a concept associated with Austrian activist Martin Sellner that advocates mass deportation of minorities – gathered enough signatures to force a parliamentary debate. Civil society warns that both developments violate international refugee law.

What are the main objectives of the new migration bill?

The bill introduces a 30-day naval blockade mechanism, extendable to six months, for ships deemed to pose a ‘serious threat to public order or national security’, including on the grounds of ‘exceptional migratory pressure’. It goes beyond European Union (EU) frameworks and is designed to restrict civil society organisations conducting search and rescue operations.

The blockade is really a prohibition on entering Italian waters, and ships that violate it would face fines of up to €50,000 (approx. US$ 57,000), with repeat offenders facing confiscation. Since civil society rescue vessels are the only ships making multiple trips in and out of Italian waters, they are the primary target. This is not simply a border management tool; it’s a deliberate escalation of state control over maritime arrivals.

More significantly, the bill would make the Italy-Albania protocol permanent: migrants intercepted at sea would be transported directly to Italian-run processing centres in Albania, bypassing Italian mainland ports entirely. Their asylum claims would be determined outside Italy’s jurisdiction. Because they never reach Italian soil, they wouldn’t access Italian legal protections or independent judicial review. The government is determined to use this mechanism. Albanian facilities held only 10 to 15 people due to adverse court rulings, but the government has recently ramped up transfers to take the number to around 80.

How does the bill change asylum and border management practices?

The bill focuses on criminalisation, deportations and removals rather than asylum procedures. It introduces stricter rules for immigration detention centres (Centri di Permanenza per i Rimpatri, CPRs), expands expulsion grounds to include minor criminal convictions and ramps up criminal penalties for people facing expulsion. This effectively criminalises irregular status itself.

Critically, the bill eliminates special protection, a form of national protection that Italian courts have frequently recognised for people who don’t meet narrow refugee criteria but face serious risks if they are returned. This has been one of the few remaining meaningful pathways to legal status. Stricter eligibility criteria would reduce judicial discretion, trapping more people in legal irregularity.

Finally, the bill implements the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, a package of EU laws overhauling asylum and border procedures across the bloc, which member states must transpose by 12 June. It does so through legislative delegation, giving the government wide discretion to enact implementing measures by decree. Italy’s approach is the most restrictive possible. The Albania externalisation model is the primary mechanism, prioritising rapid removal over thorough examination. Changes to asylum procedures will be determined through executive action, with limited parliamentary scrutiny.

What is remigration, and why does it concern civil society?

Remigration is a white supremacist concept that calls for the forced removal of immigrants, refugees and their descendants, including legal residents and naturalised citizens, on grounds of ethnicity, race or perceived failure to ‘assimilate’. It targets people for who they are, not what they have done, violating the non-discrimination principle that underpins human rights law and the rule of law.

What makes this dangerous is that remigration has moved from marginal to mainstream political discourse. A far-right petition on remigration has recently gathered enough signatures to force a parliamentary debate. When such concepts gain mainstream legitimacy, they push other parties towards increasingly restrictive policies. Italy’s current bills move precisely in that direction.

From a legal perspective, remigration violates international human rights conventions and Italy’s constitution, which guarantees non-discrimination and solidarity. A policy based on ethnic or racial identity would also be incompatible with Italy’s international obligations.

Where do these measures conflict with international law?

The measures create serious tensions with several binding legal instruments: the 1951 Geneva Convention, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and EU primary law including the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Expanded administrative detention in Italy and Albania risks being arbitrary where the legal basis is insufficiently precise or subject to inadequate judicial review. Documented conditions in Italian CPRs and foreseeable conditions in Albanian centres expose people to inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of Article 3 of the ECHR. The externalisation model creates a direct risk of violating the non-refoulement principle, the absolute prohibition on returning people to places where they face persecution.

The government will argue these measures align with the EU Pact. But alignment with the pact does not guarantee compatibility with the ECHR or the Geneva Convention. ASGI will respond with litigation, through individual cases and strategic cases targeting CPR detention and the Italy-Albania deal, and documentation of the human costs of these policies.

What risks do these policies pose for migrants’ and asylum seekers’ rights?

Under the proposed legislation, Italy would intercept boats and transfer rescued migrants to extraterritorial centres without assessing their health status, protection needs or vulnerabilities. Victims of persecution, torture and trafficking may never get to present their claims or be identified as needing protection.

The bill criminalises irregular migrants by allowing both administrative detention in CPRs and criminal imprisonment in prisons, a dual-track approach that multiplies the risk of fundamental rights violations and exposure to degrading conditions. Detention in existing CPRs is already documented as dangerous. Conditions in the Albanian centres, with minimal oversight and no independent monitoring, would predictably be worse.

The result is a system designed to process people quickly rather than accurately. Trafficking victims, torture survivors and people with severe mental health conditions — people who most need careful assessment and legal support — are unlikely to be identified and protected. Compressed timelines and limited access to lawyers amount to a serious restriction on the right to effective judicial protection.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

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SEE ALSO
Migration: Cruelty as policy CIVICUS | 2026 State of Civil Society Report
Greece: ‘New migration and asylum policies challenge the basic principles of refugee protection and the European legal order’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Minos Mouzourakis 26.Sep.2025
Italy: ‘No migration policy should be based on fear and punishment’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Valeria Carlini 17.Nov.2024

 

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