Afrique

By UN Women
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 26 2026 (IPS)

International Women’s Day 2026 comes at a defining moment: Women and girls have never been closer to equality, and never closer to losing it. Legal protection against domestic violence has expanded in many countries. Yet, the rights of women and girls are being rolled back in plain sight, and across the world, women still do not enjoy the same legal rights as men.

On 4 March, ahead of the 70th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70), UN Women will launch a report warning that the systems meant to protect women and girls are failing, leaving millions exposed to discrimination, violence and impunity as backlash against gender equality intensifies and violations of fundamental rights rise worldwide.

From 9–19 March, the world will gather at United Nations Headquarters for CSW70 – the United Nations’ largest annual forum dedicated to gender equality and women’s rights. What happens at CSW influences laws, policies, funding and accountability across countries and generations.

This year’s focus is clear: rights, justice and action for all women and girls.

CSW70 is a defining test: whether the world choses to act together and deliver equality before the law for all women and girls or allow injustice to persist with impunity. UN Women calls on governments, partners, institutions and communities everywhere to stand up, show up and speak up for rights, justice and action – so all women and girls can live safely, speak freely and exist equally.

Meanwhile, four years into the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, more than 5,000 women and girls have been killed and 14,000 injured, with 2025 being the deadliest year yet – and the real toll likely far higher.

As the war intensifies and energy attacks cripple daily life, a third crisis is tightening its grip on women and girls: collapsing funding for women-led and women’s rights organizations, the very lifeline keeping women and girls alive, protected and supported.

As humanitarian needs surge, women’s rights and women-led organizations across Ukraine are being driven toward collapse, with deep funding cuts dismantling front-line protection systems and forcing lifesaving services for women and girls to scale back or shut down.

A new UN Women report, The Impact of Foreign Assistance Cuts on Women’s Rights and Women-Led Organizations in Ukraine, documents the scale of the funding crisis and its impact on the lives of women and girls.

One in three women’s rights and women-led organizations surveyed warn they may only survive six months or less with current funding levels. Due to cuts in 2025 and 2026, women-led organizations in Ukraine are projected to lose at least USD 52.9 million by the end of the year.

Women’s rights and women-led organizations surveyed warn they will be forced to stop life-saving services to at least 63,000 women and girls in need in 2026. Those hit first and hardest are those already most at risk: women and girls in front-line and rural areas, older women, women-headed households, and women and girls with disabilities will be cut off from protection, humanitarian aid, and recovery at a time of escalating danger.

As shown in the report developed by the Gender in Humanitarian Action (GiHA) Working Group in Ukraine – co-chaired by UN Women, NGO Girls and CARE Ukraine – the effects of the funding cuts are compounded by a growing nationwide energy crisis and an increase in attacks.

While Ukrainian women’s organizations continue to deliver on their mandates, their operational capacity, access to populations in need, and the well-being of their staff are severely impacted by energy cuts. This is especially urgent today when millions of Ukrainians are deprived of essential services, including electricity, heating and water.

“Women’s organizations in Ukraine are the first to stand with women and girls in crisis – and the force behind sustaining protection, dignity and hope. The current funding cuts are severing their life-saving operations. While UN Women continues to work with and invest in women’s organizations in Ukraine, more sustained funding is needed so that they can keep delivering essential services”.

“This is the only way women and girls can have a full and meaningful role in shaping gender-responsive recovery and building a just and lasting peace,” said UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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The General Assembly adopted a resolution in 2012 granting Palestine the status of non-member observer State in the United Nations. Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 26 2026 (IPS)

The 193-member General Assembly, the highest-ranking policy-making body at the United Nations, is most likely to elect Palestine as its next President in an unprecedented move voting for a “non-member observer state”—a state deprived of a country to represent.

The Secretariat has received three nominations for the position of President of the General Assembly beginning mid-September. In accordance with the established regional rotation, the President of the 81st session will be elected from the Asia-Pacific Group.

The election will be held on June 2, with three nominations so far: Md. Touhid Hossain (Bangladesh), Andreas S. Kakouris (Cyprus) and Riyad Mansour (Palestine).

According to geographical rotation, it will be the turn of the Asia-Pacific Group to nominate a candidate– with the final election by the General Assembly.

The current front-runner, according to diplomatic sources, is Palestine. In virtually all UN resolutions relating to Palestine, it has continued to receive an overwhelming majority of votes in the General Assembly.

The political support for Palestine among member states has always remained constantly strong. And the election of Palestine will also defy a hostile White House.

In November 2012, the General Assembly voted to upgrade Palestine to a “non-member observer state” with a majority of 138 votes in favor, 9 against, and 41 abstentions.

• Votes in Favor (138): Supported by a majority of UN member states.
• Votes Against (9): Canada, Czech Republic, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia (Federated States of), Nauru, Palau, Panama, and the United States.
• Abstentions (41): Countries that did not vote for or against.

Last December the General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a draft resolution reaffirming the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, including the right to an independent State of Palestine.

The draft resolution was approved by a majority of 164 member states (out of 193), with eight countries voting against it, namely Israel, the US, Micronesia, Argentina, Paraguay, Papua New Guinea, Palau, and Nauru.

Nine countries abstained: Ecuador, Togo, Tonga, Panama, Fiji, Cameroon, the Marshall Islands, Samoa, and South Sudan.

Dr Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco and director of Middle Eastern Studies, told IPS a broad international consensus in support for the establishment of a viable independent Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, and naming a Palestinian as the next president of the UN General Assembly would send a strong message to the Israeli government and its supporters in Washington that the State of Palestine, now recognized by 164 of the UN’s 193 states, should be treated like any other nation.

It would also underscore that Palestine is represented by the Fatah-led Palestine Authority, not by Hamas, which forcibly seized power in Gaza in 2007, he said.

“If Palestine is elected to the General Assembly presidency, the position would likely go to Riyad Mansour, a U.S.-educated diplomat who currently serves as the country’s UN ambassador”.

Mansour, he pointed out, has spent most of his life in the United States, has worked with Youth4Peace and other groups promoting peacebuilding, has no association with terrorism, and is generally considered a moderate.

“Nevertheless, his selection will likely result in an angry backlash from Washington, which opposes any formal role by anyone representing Palestine”.

In 2017, during his first term, the Trump administration blocked the appointment of former prime minister Salam Fayyad, also a well-respected moderate and reformer, from leading the U.N. political mission in Libya to try to end that country’s civil war simply because he was Palestinian, declared Dr Zunes.

Dr Ramzy Baroud, a Palestinian-American author and editor of The Palestine Chronicle, told IPS
two international campaigns are unfolding simultaneously: a US-led effort aimed at legitimizing Israel while it is still actively attempting to exterminate the Palestinian people, and a General Assembly–championed track aimed at legitimizing Palestine, Palestinian rights, and the Palestinian struggle.

The push to elect Palestine as the next UN General Assembly president — though the State of Palestine remains an observing member and lacks actual sovereignty on the ground — is taking place against this stark backdrop: one campaign normalizing and shielding a genocidal state, the other seeking to affirm the rights and political standing of a dispossessed nation, he pointed out.

“Nothing could be more immoral than Washington’s attempt to rehabilitate Israel diplomatically amid genocide. And nothing could be more just than the effort by Palestine’s allies to anchor Palestinian rights within international legitimacy” he said..

Yet a difficult question remains: while the US is gradually chipping away at Israel’s isolation, is much of the international community offering Palestinians little more than symbolic victories?, he noted.

“If the legitimization of Palestine at the General Assembly is to move beyond symbolism, it must translate into concrete recognition of Palestinian territorial rights, sovereignty, and freedom. Legitimacy must not remain rhetorical; it must become political and material,” Dr Baroud argued.

“This requires that the UN General Assembly states that support Palestine in international forums carry that support onto the ground — by isolating Israel diplomatically, severing ties, imposing sanctions, and adopting meaningful accountability measures. While some states have taken such steps, others continue to pursue a precarious “balance,” appeasing Washington and Tel Aviv while paying lip service to Palestine.”

Palestinians are winning what Richard Falk, the former UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, has called the legitimacy war. But legitimacy as an intellectual or moral category is not enough. At this historical juncture, it must be transformed into enforceable political reality — into sovereignty, protection, and freedom on the ground, said Dr Baroud.

“We hope that the continued centering of Palestine at the UN and across global institutions strengthens the growing current of solidarity worldwide. More importantly, we hope that symbolic recognition will soon give way to decisive and tangible action,” he declared.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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