Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

8 November 1996
Graca Machel (left), former Minister of Education of Mozambique and the Secretary-General's appointed Expert on the Impact of Armed Conflict of Children, presents her report titled "The United Nations Report on the Impact of Armed Conflict of Children" to the Third Committee. Right is Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

By Mikiko Otani
TOKYO, Japan, Oct 23 2026 (IPS)

WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind. The United Nations was established with this commitment.

Children, while constituting nearly a third of humanity, are disproportionately affected by war. Yet, children’s voices are rarely heard and children are largely absent from peace processes.

From Machel to Security Council Resolution 2427

Graça Machel, thirty years ago, in her groundbreaking report “Impact of Armed Conflict on Children” already told the United Nations: “clearly the most effective way to protect children is to prevent the outbreak of armed conflicts”; “All people need to feel that they have a fair share in decision-making,” emphasizing that young people should be seen as “active participants in creating solutions, not just as victims”.

The need for child participation was emphasized in the Paris Principles and Guidelines on Children Associated with Armed Forces or Armed Groups (2007). While the participation of children received less attention in the original Machel report, it was highlighted as an important issue in the 10-year strategic review (2009), having an entire chapter devoted to “Children as Peacemakers”. This recognition was followed by Security Council resolution 2427 (2018), which called on Member States and the UN system “to ensure that the views of children are taken into account … throughout the conflict cycle”, and to fully incorporate and prioritize “empowerment” of children in the post-conflict recovery, reconstruction and peacebuilding processes, taking into consideration the views of children.

Participation: a child’s right and a driver of peace

Participation is a right of the child under the most widely ratified Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). Children must be heard and have their views given due weight in all matters that affect them, including in the conflict context. Children’s participation is critical for conflict prevention, their protection in the conflict, recovery, reintegration and reparation. Children can also play an important role in bringing divided, torn communities together, as catalysts for social cohesion and building peace.

The momentum has been building for a further call for participation of children. The Security Council heard the views of a former child soldier from Colombia (2018), a 15-year-old girl from Mali (2020), and an 18-year-old peacebuilding activist from Cameroon (2023). All three speakers called for the participation of children.

In this year of special importance for children affected by conflict, 30th anniversary of the creation of the children and armed conflict mandate by the UN General Assembly, the Human Rights Council strengthened the scope of the call for child participation in its resolution 61/21 devoted to the rights of the child affected by armed conflict. It invites States to ensure the meaningful participation of children affected by armed conflict in the design, implementation, follow-up and evaluation of policies and programmes throughout the conflict cycle, including conflict prevention, peace and post-conflict processes, including protection, justice, accountability, reparation and recovery.

This resolution is particularly significant. Twenty-four children aged 12-17 from 10 countries in conflict situations shared their views in a consultation with the European Union, one of the penholders, and many of their recommendations helped shape the resolution (Child Rights Connect, meeting report and Child Friendly Guide, 2026).

The children and armed conflict agenda, deeply embedded in the Convention on the Rights of the Child as a basis for the Machel report, established by the General Assembly, strengthened by the Security Council, is now complemented by the Human Rights Council from the child rights perspective. This is very much in line with the call of the UN Secretary-General’s Guidance Note (2023) for mainstreaming child rights throughout the whole UN system including the peace and security pillar.

Three recommendations for the next steps

First, UN mechanisms, States and civil society should support and strengthen partnership with children and young people to make meaningful participation of children a reality. Second, children should be included in the Conference commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Paris Principles to be convened by France with UNICEF in February 2027, highlighting the transformative role that children associated with armed forces and armed groups can play as rights holders and agents of change. Third, children’s participation should be supported in the global peacebuilding architecture and space, starting from the annual peacebuilding week in June 2027, the beginning year of the International Decade of Strengthening of Peace for Future Generations (2027-2036) proclaimed by the General Assembly resolution 80/269 (2026).

Dr. Mikiko Otani, widely recognized as an international human rights lawyer, is currently the President of Child Rights Connect, a Geneva-based global NGO network promoting child rights. She was the Chair of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (2021-2023) during her eight-year membership for two terms.

IPS UN Bureau

 

 

 

 

Boats in Villa Marina, Falcón State. Credit:Jujovar2010, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

By Francisco R. Rodríguez
DENVER, Colorado, USA, Oct 23 2026 (IPS)

 
Money chase

So, if Venezuela claims to be importing from the rest of the world roughly as much as it was exporting during those years, and the rest of the world confirms Venezuela’s story, then where could those additional $11 billion that presumably ended up in the bank accounts of Maduro’s cronies be?

Technically, there are some ways in which a country could spend as much as it earns and still have large sums go missing. The first obvious one is if there were $11 billion lying around to steal. Except we know there weren’t, because the Venezuelan government was broke and had all its international accounts frozen. Even the Central Bank didn’t have access to most of its international reserves at the time. And remember, the Times is telling us that these $11 billion were coming out of unpaid receivables. In other words, the oil was being sold, it was being loaded into ships, and the owners of these ships were promising to pay Venezuela for that oil but, according to the Times, never did.

Another possibility is that Venezuela was accumulating assets because someone was lending it money. But that explanation doesn’t pass the smell test either. Nobody in their right mind would have lent $11 billion to Venezuela in 2021 and 2022. The country was sanctioned, barred from issuing any type of debt in the United States, and even non-US investment funds wouldn’t go near it with a 10-foot pole. The country didn’t even have access to bank accounts where a loan of that size could be wired.

And, quite frankly, if, say, China or Russia had lent Venezuela $11 billion and somehow gotten those dollars to Venezuela, don’t you think the New York Times, or Reuters, or the Wall Street Journal, would have written a story about that? And, by the way, where is that $11 billion creditor trying to get their money back? No other Venezuela creditors seem to know about them, which is quite odd for a country that has just announced that it’s about to start restructuring its debt.

In sum, nobody lent Venezuela $11 billion in 2021–22 because anyone deluded enough to do so wouldn’t have been lending the money; they would have been giving it away. The country already had a debt that was well in excess of its capacity to pay, and country risk premiums were through the roof. The expected return on any Venezuela debt issuance in those years would have been zero.

Digging in

Now here it is actually worth stopping for a minute and looking carefully at the numbers in the country’s current account, because what the balance of payments data allows us to do is not just look at how much the country receives and spends in foreign exchange, but also where that money comes from and where it goes. And here the story gets interesting because, oddly enough, what these numbers seem to tell us is that the Venezuelan government did borrow around $11 billion (or, more precisely, $10.4 billion) in those two years. They also tell us that it accumulated some $14 billion in accounts receivable, precisely the ones that the New York Times is telling us were not paid.

So, say you had just come down from Mars, knew nothing about Venezuela’s pariah status at the time, and looked at these numbers. You would say: well yes, Venezuela borrowed $10 billion in those years and at the same time accumulated $14 billion in accounts receivable (that is, promises to pay in the future) for its oil sales. And if then, on your short trip from Mars, you picked up a copy of the New York Times and read it, you would say: well, it looks like of those $14 billion, around $11 billion never got paid.

So why does the country’s current account data get us these numbers that are so strange? Herein lies what I think is the resolution of the issue.

Below is a slide from a presentation prepared by PDVSA in late 2022, where it reports all of the oil that was sold between 2020 and 2022.[1] Note that $13.3 billion in invoices were ceded to the Republic. That’s actually a bit higher than the Times’ $11 billion because it includes 2020. In other words, the government was paying for its imports through oil shipments because it could not use international bank accounts as a result of US sanctions. Normally, PDVSA would have sold the oil, received dollars in payment, and sold those dollars to the Central Bank. Then the government would have gone to the Central Bank and bought dollars from it to pay importers.

Exhibit 1: November 2022 PDVSA Presentation Shows Receivables Ceded to Republic

Source: Ministry of Popular Power for Oil.

Since that mechanism could not be used, the government resorted to paying in-kind. It went to the importers and said: look, if you bring this much in imports into the country, we’ll let you go and collect from the people who bought our oil and who owe us money.

In fact, if you look at the decomposition of the supposed borrowing that the government did, you’ll find $6.3 billion of portfolio investment securities being issued by the government. And that rhythm of roughly $500 million per quarter continues until the end of 2025. That’s not because the government is issuing bonds. Believe me, if the government had issued a single bond, we would know about it (and whoever had bought that bond would have become the laughingstock of the securities world). But if you look at the fine print of the IMF’s Balance of Payments Statistics Manual, you’ll find that what characterizes portfolio investment is the fact that securities have to be negotiable. And this is precisely what Venezuela was giving importers: negotiable IOUs that they could exchange for oil receivables entitling them to receive payment for oil that Venezuela had sold.

We find a very direct statement of this in another slide of the PDVSA 2022 presentation, where the board states, in discussing cases of cesión de facturas (assignment of invoices) corresponding to shipments requested by the National Executive, that these were used to compensate debts with providers of the Republic.

There it is: we’ve found our mystery lender: importers who were being issued debt so that they could exchange them for oil shipments. So, when you see the balance of payments accounts say that the government was accumulating receivables and issuing debt, what you are really seeing is the way in which balance of payments statistics handle a practice that is as old as humanity: barter.

Oil and prejudice

Reality is often much more prosaic than what we want it to be. Government cronies did not walk away with $11 billion in unpaid oil shipments. What really happened is something much simpler: Venezuela didn’t have a way to pay in cash for the imports it needed, so it ended up paying with oil. And because PDVSA, the state-owned oil company, is legally distinct from the Republic, it did not directly collect on the shipments but rather transferred them to the Republic in payment of its tax and royalty obligations.

American journalist Sydney Harris once wrote that “we believe what we want to believe, what we like to believe, what suits our prejudices and fuels our passions.” And yes, the idea that Maduro’s henchmen walked off with $11 billion in oil shipments feeds well into many stereotypes of Venezuela under Maduro. Even if it sits awkwardly with the fact that he doesn’t seem to have money to pay for his defense in a Brooklyn court, most of us are predisposed to believe it.

Yes, Maduro’s regime was highly corrupt. No one puts that in doubt. But there is a long distance between recognizing its corruption and claiming that regime insiders walked away with half of the country’s oil exports. That image may fit a lot of political stereotypes and be useful for many political narratives. It just doesn’t fit the facts.

Francisco R. Rodríguez is a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (cepr.net) in Washington, DC and a professor and fellow at the University of Denver’s Korbel School of International Studies.

[1] I obtained this presentation two years ago from reporters who wrote stories on it and who asked me to see it to discuss their interpretation of it.

IPS UN Bureau

 

 

 

 

Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 23 2026 (IPS)

The international day for the eradication of poverty, commemorated last week, was a grim reminder that the UN will not achieve its highly-ambitious target of helping eradicate extreme poverty—”in all its forms”– by 2030.

According to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres eradicating poverty by 2030 requires urgent political will, massive investments, and a commitment to justice rather than charity.

But that is unlikely to happen by the targeted date?

UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters last week the message to donors is that there is a crucial importance towards focusing aid on eliminating poverty as much as possible.

“It’s a disgrace that so many people – really, hundreds of millions of people around the world – still face acute poverty. Because of that, and because there’s still such a large gap in the needs that are to be addressed, it’s unlikely that we’re going to meet the targets by 2030. But the Secretary-General, as you know, continues to push for determination. The idea being, as he puts it, that he is neither hopeful nor pessimistic, but determined. And that’s what we have to do in the fight against poverty.”

Guterres has described poverty as an “insult” to human dignity, a denial of fundamental human rights, and an issue of social justice.

In 2026, an estimated 826 million people (or 1 in 10 people worldwide) were living in extreme poverty. If current trends continue, 9% of the world’s population will still live in extreme poverty by 2030.

Richard Ponzio, Director of the Global Governance, Justice & Security Program and a Senior Fellow at the Washington-based Stimson Center, told Inter Press Service (IPS) ending poverty in all its forms everywhere by 2030 is Goal #1 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“While we saw tremendous progress on a similar Millennium Development Goal poverty alleviation effort from 2000-2015 — thanks in large part to advances in two large developing countries at the time (China and India) — we have seen less progress overall during the present period (2015-2030) for multiple reasons, including growing debt burdens, the COVID-19 pandemic, continued environmental degradation, and the drag on global economic growth stemming from tariffs and new major wars.”

Despite these obstacles, he pointed out, the Secretary-General and his UN system’s continued determination to fight acute global poverty merits the support and commensurate levels of commitment and determination by the world body’s 193 member states.

In the run-up to next September’s SDG Summit in New York, international efforts, including innovative developments strategies and new financing approaches, should be redoubled in support of the “No Poverty” SDG — while ensuring that steps to eradicate extreme poverty remain a central plank of an emerging Post-2030 Development Agenda, he declared.

Max Lawson, Oxfam International’s Head of Inequality Policy, told IPS extreme poverty can be ended by 2030—“but only if we radically reduce inequality.”

“Right now, for every new dollar of wealth created in the world, the richest one percent pocket 41 cents ―and the entire bottom half of humanity gets just a single cent. While everyday people are hit hard by rising prices, wars, and pandemics, billionaires have more than doubled their fortunes,” said Lawson.

According to one report, poverty has many dimensions. Its primary causes include unemployment, social exclusion, and the high vulnerability of certain populations to disasters, disease, and other crises that prevent them from earning a productive living.

The UN’s SDGs are a collection of 17 global goals and 169 specific targets adopted by UN Member States in September 2015 under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

These goals also include an end to worldwide hunger, the need for quality education, good health and well-being, among others.

Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director, The Oakland Institute, told IPS: “As we look for solutions to end poverty, we need to focus on the causes of poverty.”

The international day for the eradication of poverty should be the day to eradicate wars around the world, she argued.

Global military spending continues to rise. Trump’s proposed defense budget for 2027 – a record high of US$1.5 trillion, nearly doubling the 2023 budget – is in line with projections estimating global military spending could reach $6.6 trillion by 2035.

The buildup of the military industrial complex comes at the expense of common good. A small fraction of annual military budgets – less than $300 billion could help eliminate extreme poverty. $93 billion per year – less than 4% of yearly global military spending – could help address global hunger, she said.

Today, over half the world’s 1.1 billion poor live in conflict situations. War diverts necessary funds for public health, education, and social safety nets. Destruction and pillage of war manufactures poverty and then maintains it,” said Mittal.

Danielle Nierenberg, President and Founder, Food Tank, told IPS “determination is good but in order to be effective, we need to have courage.”

With the cutbacks to international aid including the systemic dismantlement of USAID, we need to stand up to those who the aid is a waste of money, she said.

Millions of people are dying unnecessarily when only a very small percentage of rich countries budgets could help save them. Aid benefits us all—it’s not only the moral thing to do, but it helps strengthen national security, declared Nierenberg.

Frederic Mousseau, Policy Director at the Oakland Institute, told IPS focusing on “donors” to address the poverty and climate crises that the world faces today is misdirected.

Poverty goes hand in hand with growing inequities and cannot be addressed separately. There is plenty of money to go around to solve both these crises.

According to Oxfam, US$9 trillion could be raised just from increasing taxes on the wealth and income of the top one percent richest people and the profits of 722 of the world’s biggest corporations.

As the wealth of the billionaires and the largest corporations keeps increasing to insane levels, there is no other way to address poverty than to tax it. The UN should lead the way on an international tax reform that will allow a redistribution of the wealth towards the poor and the adaptation to the climate crisis, declared Mousseau.

According to the SDG 2026 report, poverty has many dimensions. Its primary causes include unemployment, social exclusion, and the high vulnerability of certain populations to disasters, disease, and other crises that prevent them from earning a productive living.

Why should I care about other people’s economic situation?

There are many reasons, but the simplest is that as human beings, our well-being is deeply interconnected. Growing inequality hurts economic growth and undermines social cohesion. This raises political and social tensions and, in some circumstances, drives instability and conflict.

Why is social protection so important?

Strong social protection systems are essential to cushion the blow of economic shocks and prevent vulnerable families from falling into poverty.

While social protection measures did expand during the COVID-19 crisis, approximately 46% of the world’s population—about 3.8 billion people, including 1.4 billion children—remained entirely unprotected in 2023.

In response to the subsequent cost-of-living crisis, 105 countries and territories announced nearly 350 social protection measures between February 2022 and February 2023. However, 80% of these programs were only short-term. To truly achieve the SDGs, nations must build permanent, universal, and sustainable social protection systems for all.

The contribution of science to end poverty has been significant. For example, it has enabled access to safe drinking water, reduced deaths caused by water-borne diseases, and improved hygiene to reduce health risks related to unsafe drinking water and lack of sanitation.

• If current trends continue, 9% of the world’s population may still live in extreme poverty by 2030, and only one in five countries will succeed in halving their national poverty levels.
• In 2025, 7.9% of the global workforce (284 million workers) lived in extreme poverty, down from 11% in 2015.
• For the first time on record, over half of the world’s population receives at least one social protection benefit. Despite this milestone, 3.8 billion people remain completely uncovered.
• Development aid focused on poverty reduction has fallen sharply, erasing a decade of progress and returning to 2015 levels.
• Advanced economies spend a significantly higher share of government budgets on essential services (like education, health, and social protection) compared to emerging and developing nations.
• Guaranteeing basic social security floors in low- and middle-income countries requires an additional $1.4 trillion annually, equal to 3.3% of their combined GDP in 2024.

Source: The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2026

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

 

 

 

By External Source
Oct 22 2026 (IPS)

 
The world is getting hotter. And the consequences are already being felt.

From devastating floods and prolonged droughts to intensifying heatwaves, climate change is disrupting lives and livelihoods across the globe.

According to the World Meteorological Organization, the eleven years from 2015 to 2025 were the hottest ever recorded.

In 2025, global temperatures were approximately 1.43 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

And the human impact is growing.

UNICEF reports that more than 171 million students had their education disrupted by climate-related hazards in 2025.

Three-quarters of those affected lived in low- and lower-middle-income countries.

Now, a new United Nations Environment Programme report delivers another warning.

Its 2026 Emissions Gap Report concludes that temporarily exceeding the Paris Agreement’s 1.5-degree warming threshold is now unavoidable.

But how far temperatures rise, and for how long, still depends on decisions made today.

UNEP estimates that limiting this overshoot requires global greenhouse gas emissions to fall by 18 percent by 2030, and 45 percent by 2035, compared with 2025 levels.

Current national climate commitments fall far short.

Yet solutions exist.

Renewable energy, cleaner transport, energy efficiency and stronger climate policies can reduce emissions.

And investment in climate adaptation can help protect vulnerable communities from worsening impacts.

On October 24th, International Day of Climate Action draws attention to the urgent need for collective action.

The challenge is no longer simply to prevent warming.

It is to limit the damage, protect lives and build a more resilient future.

Because every fraction of a degree matters.

IPS UN Bureau

 

 

 

 

By Shahiduzzaman
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Oct 22 2026 (IPS)

Bangladesh has earned global recognition for reducing deaths from cyclones and floods. Early warning systems, cyclone shelters, embankments and community preparedness have transformed the country’s disaster response. Yet another climate crisis is receiving far less attention: the economic damage climate change is quietly inflicting on households, farmers, workers, businesses and public finances.

Shahiduzzaman

The question is no longer whether climate change is costing Bangladesh. It clearly is. The real question is how much we are losing, who is paying the price and whether the country is doing enough to prevent these losses.

The uncomfortable reality is that Bangladesh still lacks a comprehensive annual system for calculating climate induced microeconomic damage. Losses are recorded separately through agricultural damage, disaster assessments, health costs, infrastructure destruction, lost working days, business interruption, declining household income and climate induced migration. As a result, much of the country’s real climate bill remains invisible.

Available evidence shows that the cost is already enormous. The World Bank estimates that tropical cyclones cost Bangladesh around US$1 billion annually. It has also warned that a severe flood could reduce national GDP by as much as 9 percent, while climate change could cause around one third of agricultural GDP to be lost by 2050. As many as 13.3 million people could become internal climate migrants by 2050 because of climate related pressures on agriculture, water and land. The economic burden is no longer limited to cyclones and floods. Extreme heat is emerging as a major source of economic loss. A 2025 World Bank assessment found that heat related physical and mental health conditions resulted in an estimated 250 million lost workdays in Bangladesh in 2024. The resulting economic loss was estimated at between US$1.33 billion and US$1.78 billion, equivalent to around 0.3 to 0.4 percent of GDP.

This should fundamentally change how Bangladesh understands climate damage. A disaster does not have to destroy a house, factory or bridge to cause economic loss. When extreme heat reduces the productivity of a construction worker, garment worker, farmer, transport worker or street vendor, the economy loses output.

The hidden climate bill therefore extends far beyond physical destruction.

Consider a farmer in coastal Bangladesh. Rising salinity may gradually reduce agricultural production. The immediate result is lower household income. But the consequences do not end there. A family may sell livestock, borrow money, reduce food consumption or withdraw children from school. Eventually, one or more family members may migrate to Dhaka or another city.

A climate shock that begins in a field can therefore become a problem for the labour market, housing, education, health services and urban infrastructure.

The same chain of losses occurs during floods. A small shopkeeper can lose inventory. A transport worker can lose several days of income. A factory may remain physically undamaged but stop production because roads are submerged or workers cannot reach their workplace. Households may spend their savings on repairs instead of education, healthcare or investment.

At the same time, the government must spend more on emergency relief, damaged roads, embankment repair, reconstruction and public health.

Climate change therefore creates a double burden: private income and productive assets are lost while public expenditure increases.

This is why Bangladesh urgently needs a national climate loss accounting system. It should systematically measure household and productive asset losses, agricultural and fisheries damage, lost income and working days, health and productivity costs, business interruption, supply chain disruption, displacement and loss of human capital.

Such a system would tell policymakers not simply how much a cyclone or flood costs in physical damage, but how much income ordinary citizens lose and how much economic activity Bangladesh sacrifices.

This is particularly important because a large share of Bangladesh’s workers remain in informal employment. Agricultural labourers, construction workers, transport workers, street vendors and small entrepreneurs often have limited access to paid leave, insurance or social protection. When a flood, cyclone or heatwave prevents them from working, their income can disappear immediately.

Climate change is therefore also an inequality crisis.

A wealthier household may be able to repair its home, relocate temporarily or pay medical expenses. A poor household may have to sell productive assets or take on debt. For families living close to the poverty line, one climate shock can erase years of economic progress.

Bangladesh has taken important steps toward adaptation. Its National Adaptation Plan for 2023 to 2050 identifies major adaptation priorities and recognises the enormous investment required to protect people, livelihoods and development. (UNDP) But the gap between ambition and implementation remains a serious concern.

The first major gap is data. Bangladesh cannot effectively manage climate related economic damage without knowing its full scale. The government should publish an annual National Climate Economic Loss Report covering households, agriculture, businesses, labour productivity, health and public infrastructure.

The second gap is institutional coordination. Climate adaptation cannot remain primarily the responsibility of environmental or disaster management agencies. Climate risks must be integrated into agriculture, finance, labour, health, housing, transport, industry, education and urban planning.

The third gap is prevention. Bangladesh has become relatively successful at responding after disasters, but prevention deserves much greater economic priority. A resilient drainage system that prevents repeated business disruption may be more valuable than repeatedly repairing flood damage. A climate resilient crop can protect rural income for years. A heat resilient workplace can preserve thousands of working days.

The fourth challenge is finance. Bangladesh cannot meet its enormous adaptation needs through public budgets alone. International climate finance, concessional financing, private investment, insurance and innovative financial mechanisms will all be necessary.

International experience offers useful lessons. The Netherlands demonstrates how flood protection can be integrated into long term spatial planning, infrastructure and water management. Its experience shows that flood resilience can be treated as an economic strategy rather than simply an emergency response.

Singapore offers another important lesson, particularly for Bangladesh’s cities. Its approach to rising temperatures combines urban greenery, heat modelling, climate sensitive planning and protection of vulnerable populations. Dhaka could similarly treat trees, shaded public spaces, cool buildings, drainage and water management as economic infrastructure rather than merely environmental amenities.

Bangladesh can also build on its own success. Its cyclone warning system and community preparedness programmes demonstrate that locally rooted approaches can deliver remarkable results. The same principle should now be applied to protecting livelihoods, small businesses, agriculture and workers.

Most importantly, adaptation should be judged by economic outcomes. Instead of simply reporting how much money is spent on a climate project, the government should measure how many jobs are protected, how much income is safeguarded, how many working days are preserved and how much future economic loss is avoided.

The real climate bill is not simply the cost of rebuilding a bridge after a flood. It is the farmer who produces less for years because of salinity. It is the worker who loses productive days because of extreme heat. It is the small entrepreneur whose capital disappears in a flood. It is the child whose education is interrupted because household income collapses. It is the family forced to migrate after losing its land.

When millions of such individual losses accumulate, they become a national economic crisis.

Bangladesh has demonstrated that it can protect its people from the deadliest consequences of climate disasters. The next challenge is to protect their livelihoods and economic future.

The country cannot manage what it does not measure. It is time to move from simply counting disasters to counting lost income, lost jobs, lost working days, damaged productive assets and the GDP that climate change prevents Bangladesh from generating.

The objective should not simply be to calculate how much climate change costs Bangladesh. It should be to determine how much Bangladesh can save by investing in resilience today.

Climate adaptation is no longer merely an environmental responsibility. For Bangladesh, it is an investment in GDP, employment, poverty reduction, human development and long term economic security. The climate bill is already being paid. The failure is that we still do not know its full size.

The author is the Editor and CSO of News Network.

IPS UN Bureau

 

 

 

 

UNESCO is growing its environmental DNA, or eDNA, expedition programme. This ambitious and cost-effective project can give usable ocean data in a couple of weeks using a small number of seawater samples collected by citizen scientists.

Estado Zulia - Venezuela. Credit: Breddyjgalvis, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

By Francisco R. Rodríguez
DENVER, Colorado, USA, Oct 21 2026 (IPS)

If you’ve been around Venezuelans for long enough, you know that we tend to speak in superlatives. We have the best baseball players, the most beautiful beaches, the tastiest arepas, and the wickedest dictators. But even being used to the scale of our superlatives didn’t quite prepare me for what I read in the May 5 edition of The New York Times, in a story called “In Venezuela, Trump Vowed to Show Accountability. Oil Deals Linger.” The story tells us that a network of shell companies controlled by Carlos Malpica (who is widely believed to be Maduro’s bagman) embezzled $11 billion of the country’s oil wealth in 2021 and 2022. In the Times’ words: “for every two dollars that Venezuela earned selling oil earlier this decade, one dollar was stolen, internal documents and official statistics show.”

Francisco R. Rodríguez

The story is written by Anatoly Kurmanaev, a veteran of Venezuela reporting and one of the most meticulous and careful reporters that I have ever known. As usual, Anatoly’s access to sources and ability to uncover crucial information is impressive. For example, he tells us about how a China-registered company linked to Malpica was allowed to sell oil received from Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA on highly favorable terms that included paying the national development bank in local currency. His story provides us with an exceptional window into the practice of Venezuelan corruption under Maduro.

However, it is one thing to document the practice of corruption and another to argue that half of the country’s oil revenues were stolen. That conclusion is inconsistent with what we know about flows of currency into and out of Venezuela. Put simply, $11 billion of oil revenues could not have been stolen because if they had, Venezuela would not have been able to buy the goods that we know it purchased from the rest of the world.

The claim that half of oil revenues in 2021–22 were lost to corruption rests on a specific assumption: that if Venezuela’s state-owned oil company did not receive direct payment for its exports, the money must have been stolen. That interpretation misses one important fact. During this period, Venezuela was highly sanctioned, could not access bank accounts, and was paying for many of its imports directly with oil. That PDVSA did not directly receive cash payment on billions of dollars in receivables is not evidence of corruption; it is evidence of barter.

The mother of all kleptocracies

The claim that $11 billion were stolen is staggering because it would represent by far the largest corruption scandal ever uncovered. To take one example: the largest ever kleptocracy investigation, that for Malaysia’s 1MDB scandal, has been alleged to have diverted $4.5 billion over a seven-year period in a country whose GDP was approximately $270 billion a year. That works out to about 0.2 percent of Malaysian GDP over that period. Were the New York Times’ $11 billion figure correct, it would represent roughly 8 percent of Venezuela’s GDP over the period — approximately 32 times the size of the Malaysian graft relative to its economy. And if you take into account that estimates suggest that every dollar of oil revenue generates about 4 dollars of non-oil activity, you would reach the conclusion that the costs of Maduro’s alleged corruption was around 40 percent of Venezuelan GDP — several orders of magnitude higher than the cost of corruption found in numerous quantitative cross-national studies (and that[s even without counting the money other people were stealing). This would make Venezuela by far the mother of all kleptocracies.

The Times’ $11 billion number, if true, has major implications for the debates about Venezuela. For a long time, proponents of maximum pressure sanctions have argued that we shouldn’t worry about their detrimental effect on the country’s economy because the real cause of Venezuela’s collapse is corruption. That argument has always been strongly flawed: there’s no reason why corruption, mismanagement, poor policies and sanctions can’t all have contributed to the collapse. That said, if it were true that half of Venezuela’s oil income was being brazenly stolen, then the idea that external constraints are at most a secondary cause of Venezuela’s economic malaise acquires a greater ring of truth.

Reality check

Yet the story that Maduro’s henchmen stole $11 billion has a deep problem. If that money had really vanished, then Venezuela would not have been able to pay for the goods that it imported in those years.

In 2021 and 2022, Venezuela sold $26 billion in oil shipments, or an average of $13 billion a year. In addition, it generated another $11 billion in non-oil exports, of which a large part is mining, and received around $7 billion in remittances. That means the country received total foreign currency inflows of $44 billion in those two years. Now here’s the rub. We also know that the country was paying around $44 billion in imports of goods, services, and income payments to the rest of the world over the same two years. In fact, for 2021 and 2022 combined, the country’s foreign currency revenues exceeded its spending by just $0.04 billion. This difference, also known as the current account balance, was essentially zero. It means the country was spending as much money as was coming in, which makes sense for a country that had no assets to run down and no one to lend it money.

In sum in 2021–22, Venezuela was living paycheck to paycheck. And when you’re doing that, it’s very hard for half of your paychecks to go missing without you and everyone around you noticing.

Table 1: Venezuela Current Account Statistics, 2021–2022

Source: Own construction using balance of payments data from Venezuelan Central Bank.

Now you might say: wait a minute, if the money was stolen, then maybe it didn’t come in at all, and instead of those $44 billion we would have had $55 billion in foreign currency earnings. Except that the New York Times story tells us that the oil was sold and invoiced, and that PDVSA never directly received payment for it. But if that’s true, then we know they must have been registered as exports. That’s how balance of payments statistics are built: you count an export when it is sold and invoiced, not when it is paid for.

But what if the Central Bank is lying? What if it’s just claiming that Venezuela sold $26 billion in oil to hide evidence of the corruption? Or what if it’s inflating import numbers with the same purpose?

Certainly, that would not be beyond them. And, in fact, we know there are circumstances under which over-invoicing of imports distorts balance of payments statistics. But that tends to happen in different conditions — for example, when there are exchange controls and people claim to be importing more than they really are.

To check this, I put together data reported by Venezuela’s 31 most important trading partners. Scaling up to the economy’s total trade, I estimate total goods imports of $23 billion for 2021–22, quite close to the Central Bank’s $24 billion.[1] I also looked at estimates of exports from physical oil shipments constructed by independent agencies.[2] Again, the numbers match up with what the Central Bank is telling us.

Francisco R. Rodríguez is a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (cepr.net) in Washington, DC and a professor and fellow at the University of Denver’s Korbel School of International Studies.

[1] The calculation assumes that the share of trade with these partners remained stable between 2012 and 2021.

[2] Average oil exports from Venezuela in 2021 and 2022 were 627,000 and 616,500 barrels per day, respectively, according to data from Reuters and Refinitiv Eikon. Using these export volumes, the BCV’s implied sales price for Venezuelan oil would be $47.0 and $68.1 per barrel in 2021 and 2022, respectively, implying a discount of 10 percent on average relative to OPEC’s Merey price for those years. This is consistent with evidence that Venezuela sold some of its oil at a lower price than that of the market reference reported to OPEC (see, e.g., this story based on internal PDVSA reports and this New York indictment in a corruption case with direct numbers reflecting discounts on PDVSA sales). For Venezuela to have had a sizable current account surplus, the BCV would have to be understating its oil exports — but this would imply either substantially higher export volumes than those calculated by Reuters/Refinitiv Eikon based on tanker loading data, or that Venezuela was selling its oil at a substantially higher price. Both appear highly implausible.

IPS UN Bureau

 

 

 

 

The Sámi, Europe's last recognised Indigenous community, continue to have their livelihood and lifestyle threatened. Credit: Johan Mikaelsson/IPS

By Johan Mikaelsson
SÁPMI, Norway, Oct 21 2026 (IPS)

The Sámi, Europe’s last recognised Indigenous community, have faced threats to their existence throughout history. Norway, in 2024, apologised for its forced assimilation policy following the findings of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission report, and in September 2026 Sweden has recently been told to do the same.

Despite the growing understanding of how their culture and economic livelihoods have been threatened, their precarious lifestyle is again under threat, ironically from something that is usually considered positive: the ‘green revolution’.

Kautokeino, in Norway’s far north, feels like a capital of Sápmi, the homeland of the Sámi people. The region is associated with the Scandinavian mountain range and the vast territories traversed by reindeer. Much of it lies above the Arctic Circle, stretching across Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula in Russia.

In Kautokeino, 95 percent of the population are Sámi, and Northern Sámi is the main language. One in every two inhabitants owns reindeer. So does municipal council leader Anders S. Buljo, who once worked full-time in reindeer herding, a livelihood his son has since taken over.

“Right now, the reindeer are in the higher mountains closer to the coast and out on the islands,” Buljo explains, standing on a hilltop with a 360-degree view across the vast landscape.

In September, the reindeer move inland to their winter grazing grounds. The Sámi were once nomadic, following the reindeer’s seasonal movements across the landscape. Reindeer herding remains deeply intertwined with Sámi culture, and both reindeer-herding Sámi and those who rely on hunting and fishing maintain a strong connection to nature.

Beyond the houses clustered in the settlement, the landscape is largely untouched: tens of kilometres of tundra and rolling hills dotted with low trees, marshes, lakes and flowing streams. Rounded, barren mountains stretch towards the horizon, where higher peaks remain covered in snow and ice throughout the year.

The reindeer were once wild, hunted by the Sámi with bows and arrows and spears. Traces of trapping pits, used for thousands of years, can still be found in the terrain.

Over time, the Sámi began gathering reindeer into herds at certain times of the year, separating them and slaughtering selected animals. As the Sámi were brought under state administration, Sámi reindeer-herding communities were established. Each has hundreds or thousands of reindeer, yet the obstacles facing the livelihood continue to mount.

“Wind power, mines and holiday villages are taking up more and more space. At least here, tourism is manageable, as there are no large ski resorts,” says Buljo.

Forestry, agriculture, mining, construction, hydropower, snowmobile trails, ski-lift systems and a growing network of roads and railways are increasingly affecting Sápmi. Helicopters ferry hunters and skiers into the mountains, and skiing from mountain peaks by helicopter is permitted in Sweden.

“It is incredible how little people know about the Sámi and Indigenous peoples, especially further south. We need to build understanding,” Buljo says.

The wind farm at Fosen is a telling example. In 2021, Norway’s Supreme Court ruled that the wind turbines built there were illegal because they infringed on the reindeer herders’ right to practise their culture.

“They build first and ask questions afterwards. The courts established that it was a human rights violation. But the wind turbines are still there,” Buljo says.

Like Indigenous peoples across the Americas, nation states forcibly displaced the Sámi through violence and legislation.

“This continued into the 1970s. We see similar tendencies even today, as the Fosen case shows.”

Anything associated with the “green transition” is often presented as inherently positive. Yet beneath the rhetoric lie the economic interests of states and corporations.

“How green is the transition, really? When the last ore has been extracted from the mountains and the last peak has been fitted with a wind turbine, there will be no reason to stay,” Buljo says.

His municipality can nevertheless influence the direction of development and, for example, prevent mines from opening.

“In 2019, the Supreme Court recognised reindeer husbandry as a traditional use of the land, improving its legal position. And we have come a little further in Norway than in Sweden and Finland.”

In 1979, Karesuando in Sweden’s far north hosted the Davvi Suvva festival, which brought together Indigenous people from around the world. In the opening speech, preserved in the documentary We Are All Brothers and Sisters, Oula Näkkäläjärvi, spokesperson for the Sámi, said:

“We, Indigenous people, have one thing in common: we want to live in harmony with nature, and we can.”

That conviction remains. Yet technological progress and economic growth are transforming lives everywhere, with profound consequences for Indigenous peoples. The price of “development” is an escalating climate crisis. Above the Arctic Circle, the changes are increasingly visible: milder winters, warmer summers and shrinking glaciers. Flora and fauna are being affected in front of us.

Norway and Denmark are among the 24 countries that have ratified the International Labour Organization’s Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169). Neither Sweden nor Finland has signed this key instrument for the protection of Indigenous rights.

The genocide of Indigenous peoples in North America began with colonisation and continued well into the 20th century. Neither the United States nor Canada has ratified ILO Convention 169. In the Nordic countries, the Sámi did not put up armed resistance. Living dispersed across the region, they were gradually pushed off lands they had inhabited for millennia.

In Norway, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission worked from 2018 to 2023. Alongside an official apology to the Sámi people, concrete measures have been taken. Finland’s Sámi Truth and Reconciliation Commission published its report in December 2025. In Sweden, the Truth Commission for the Sami People presented its report on 30 September 2026.

The auditorium at Mid Sweden University in Östersund was filled. Hundreds of Sámi had travelled from across Sápmi to witness a historic moment, one that many hoped would mark the beginning of something new.

“Sweden’s assimilation policy has been very successful,” says Marja-Kristin Skum, her remark edged with irony.

Skum is Sámi, a reindeer owner, teacher and language researcher at the Sámi University of Applied Sciences in Kautokeino. As part of the Truth Commission’s work, she interviewed people willing to share their experiences. Most were between 60 and 70 years old, but even children gave testimony. The accounts leave little doubt that state policies have left deep scars.

“Here is the truth. But what does reconciliation look like? This is not just about us Sámi. The majority population and the state also have work to do. How are we to repair all the damage that has been done? This wound has never healed,” Skum says.

Although policies in Norway, Finland and Sweden have differed, the three countries face many of the same questions about their past and present. Liv Inger Somby, rector of the Sámi University of Applied Sciences in Kautokeino, travelled more than 1,000 kilometres to Östersund to attend the presentation of the Swedish report, which calls for “an official apology, compensation, and national redress for historical injustices.”

“Of course, what is happening in Sweden is being followed in Norway, too. We essentially have no borders in Sápmi, and we need to keep working across national boundaries. It is very important that we stand strong together,” Somby says.

From the 18th century onwards, farmers from southern Sweden were granted land in the north, where timber, silver, iron ore, gold and other natural resources awaited exploitation. From the 1950s onwards, numerous hydropower plants with huge dams were built, submerging large areas of land under water.

Well into the 20th century, the Sámi were prevented from speaking their own language and forbidden to practise their religion and spirituality, both deeply intertwined with nature and the landscape. In the 2020s, Sámi culture is experiencing what some describe as a “boom”, with growing visibility in film, literature and music and recognition in the cultural sphere.

Ol-Ánte Sikku, chairman of The Gaaltije Foundation, a South Sami cultural centre and museum in Östersund, reflects on what comes next.

“A truth commission cannot be repeated, and its report cannot simply be put on a shelf. Something has to come of it. If it does not happen now, it never will,” he says. Sikku also notes that the political and social climate has become harsher since the commission began its work.

“With mining and resource exploitation, the ‘green transition’, defence, rearmament and space initiatives, Sámi interests can be seen as obstacles.”

When political leaders suggest, implicitly or explicitly, that the Sámi are standing in the way of development, they fuel hostility.

Whether Sweden’s Truth Commission will lead to concrete action remains to be seen. Its report now passes into the hands of a new government. Sweden held a parliamentary election on 13 September, but negotiations to form a government may take time.

A possible left-green-centre coalition is expected to place greater emphasis on environmental protection than the outgoing right-wing government. Economic interests, however, continue to carry considerable weight.

The pressure on Sápmi is intense. Proposals and applications range from extensions to ski-lift systems to large wind farms and mines. Even foreign companies can obtain permits for test drilling. Sweden is often described as a country covered in forest, but 90 percent is managed land, planted with spruce or pine and harvested after 80–120 years.

There is a Sámi saying: “If the Sámi take care of the reindeer, the reindeer take care of the Sámi.”

Today, this relationship involves far more than the practical work of herding. For Sámi reindeer-herding communities, it also means a constant struggle through legal and administrative processes, with documents to read, prepare and respond to.

The recently approved establishment of another mine near Kiruna is a case in point. The project will affect the Gabna Sámi reindeer-herding community, once again restricting the reindeer’s ability to move freely through the landscape.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

 

 

 

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By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 21 2026 (IPS)

In recent months, Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis has severely deteriorated, with the UN reporting record-high levels of acute malnutrition and hunger. Compounded by rampant human rights violations, limited access to basic services, and persistent barriers to humanitarian aid, the UN warns that conditions could considerably worsen in the coming months.

The latest figures from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) show that approximately 15.9 million people—32 percent of the analyzed population—are currently facing Crisis-levels of hunger (IPC Phase 3) or worse. Of those, roughly 3.4 million face Emergency-levels of hunger (IPC Phase 4), just one step away from the highest level, which could entail the onset of famine.

IPC projects that food insecurity could surge from November to April during the winter lean season. As agricultural activity slows down, unemployment remains widespread, and harsh weather hinders aid delivery and basic services, IPC estimates that nearly 19.2 million people—including 10 million children—could face Crisis-levels of hunger or worse, with 5 million at risk of Emergency-levels of hunger.

The World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warn that food assistance, agricultural support, and healthcare operations must be scaled up ahead of the winter season. WFP Country Director John Aylieff stressed that the “window to act” is rapidly closing if families are to survive the winter “with dignity.” Meanwhile, FAO Representative Richard Trenchard underscored that creating dependable income is essential in preparing communities to withstand future shocks.

Ashish Damle, Save the Children’s Country Director in Afghanistan, warned that the country is trapped in a “deadly” hunger crisis with “no end in sight,” as humanitarian needs rise while critical aid funding dries up. Young people are projected to bear the heaviest burdens, as roughly 4.04 million children under five will require treatment for acute malnutrition in 2027—a 9 percent increase from 2026. Severe acute malnutrition is forecast to surge by 16 percent in the coming year, rising from 942,000 in 2026 to 1.1 million in 2027.

With winter approaching, Damle stressed that harsh weather conditions will make survival even harder for children already facing acute malnutrition.“Our doctors and nurses witness the devastating consequences of the hunger crisis every day: malnourished children arriving at our clinics, mothers going hungry so their families have something to eat, and parents desperately seeking help as their children’s health deteriorates,” said Damle.

Despite recent rainfall improvements and promising harvests, widespread unemployment and weak purchasing power still keep adequate nutrition out of reach for most families, even when it is available. Conditions are compounded by the return of over 1.2 million Afghans from Iran and Pakistan in 2026, further stretching already limited resources.

“I saw firsthand that this crisis is not simply about whether food exists, but whether people can afford it, whether they can earn an income, access basic services, or whether they have anything left to fall back on when the next shock comes,” said Olga Cherevko, Spokesperson for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). She added that years of conflict, economic instability, and climate shocks have severely eroded community resilience, leaving families with little capacity to adapt to new shocks.

Cherevko highlighted the Taliban’s systematic exclusion of women and girls from education and public life as a primary driver of the crisis. Figures from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) show that Afghanistan stands to lose up to 20,000 women teachers and 5,400 female health workers by the end of the decade. She emphasized that barring women and girls from society has alarming implications for access to healthcare, dietary diversity, education, and the ability to sustain livelihoods.

On October 15, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) issued a report detailing the persistence of human rights abuses between July and September. During this period, UNAMA documented over 50 cases of women arrested or detained relating to the hijab. Women continue to be barred from accessing health clinics and markets without a male guardian (mahram).

The mission also recorded around 443 cases of arbitrary detention and 97 instances of ill-treatment over minor infractions such as hijab violations, trimmed beards, skipped prayers, and listening to music. It further documented public corporal punishments of 28 individuals, including six women, and the detention of 14 former security force members, with at least four others killed.

Beyond individual rights, Afghanistan has also experienced a severe breakdown of civic space conditions over the past year, marked by the arbitrary suspension of multiple media outlets without clear reasons or opportunities for appeal. New legislation enacted in August bans all demonstrations and protests, effectively silencing civilian dissent across the country.

Cherevko emphasized the need for sustained, expanded humanitarian aid while calling for strategic investments in long-term resilience. She highlighted agriculture, rural livelihoods, local markets, employment, water systems, and health services as key areas for investment, stressing that expanding opportunities for women in the workforce is essential in building communities that are less dependent on emergency assistance.

“We cannot keep asking humanitarian aid to compensate indefinitely for the absence of economic opportunity and essential public services. We must act before winter, not after families have exhausted their options,” said Cherevko.

Ground operations remain significantly constrained due to persistent funding shortfalls. According to OCHA, as of mid-September, the agency had received just 31 percent of the funding needed to support Afghanistan’s 21.9 million vulnerable people. Earlier in August, WFP warned that these shortfalls had forced nutrition programs to scale back when they are needed the most, leaving more children at risk of being malnourished.

Despite these shortfalls, the UN and its partners continue to work on the ground to deliver emergency and essential services, reaching roughly 8.3 million people with at least one form of assistance between January and July.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

 

 

 

By James Alix Michel
VICTORIA, Seychelles, Oct 21 2026 (IPS)

When you grow up on a small island, the ocean is not scenery. It is your neighbour, your livelihood, and the measure of time itself. For decades, as I walked the beaches of Seychelles, I watched the subtle shifts that scientists were warning the world about. The tide crept a little higher up the sand each year. After a warm season, vibrant coral gardens turned ghost-white. Storms that once belonged to rare memory began arriving with unsettling regularity.

James Alix Michel

For a long time, when leaders from small island developing states spoke of these things in great conference halls, we were listened to with polite sympathy. Our plight was treated as tragic, yes, but distant—a problem for small dots on the map, far from the capitals of global power.

No one can afford that illusion anymore.

What began on our island shores has arrived at the heart of every continent. The floods that submerge towns, the relentless heatwaves across Asia and the Americas, the droughts parching African farmlands, and the wildfires darkening the skies of the northern hemisphere all tell the exact same story. Small islands were never a separate case; we were simply the planet’s early warning system. Today, the alarm bell is ringing in every home. No nation, however vast its territory or deep its treasury, can build a wall high enough to shut out a warming world.

Next month, from 9 to 20 November, world leaders and negotiators will gather on the Mediterranean coast in Antalya, Türkiye, for the 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31). The summit carries an unusual and promising diplomatic architecture: Türkiye will host the gathering and hold the Presidency, while Australia leads the negotiations, fresh from partnering with Fiji and Tuvalu to host the Pre-COP meetings in the Pacific. Having Pacific island voices help shape the road to Antalya is a welcome sign.

Yet as the countdown begins, the overarching question hanging over COP31 is not whether the world can draft another eloquent communiqué. It is a much simpler, sharper question: will we finally keep our promises?

Türkiye’s Presidency has rightly framed Antalya as an “Implementation COP”. That label must mean something in practice, because the global climate process is facing a profound test of trust. Across the Global South, and especially among small islands and least developed countries, there is a deep and justified fatigue. Summit after summit produces historic pledges—on cutting emissions, on adaptation funds, on compensating for loss and damage—only for those commitments to stall in a maze of bureaucracy and broken timelines.

Trust in international diplomacy is not built by the grandeur of a pledge made before television cameras. It is built when resources actually reach the fishing village rebuilding its sea wall, or the farmer adapting to shifting rains. If Antalya is to restore faith in multilateralism, three imperatives must guide the leaders gathering there on 11 and 12 November.

First, climate finance must move from paper to people. For too many vulnerable countries, accessing climate funds feels like running an obstacle course designed for them to fail. Initiatives like the new Climate Implementation Bridge—developed by the Presidency and the UN Development Programme to connect national climate plans with real financing—are a step in the right direction. But we need speed, simplicity, and scale. Adaptation and loss and damage funding are not acts of charity from the rich to the poor; they are investments in global stability.

Second, we cannot talk honestly about climate resilience without confronting the crushing burden of sovereign debt. It is a cruel paradox of our time that the nations which contributed least to global emissions are forced to borrow heavily just to rebuild after climate disasters they did not cause. How can a government invest in a green transition or coastal defences when its revenues are swallowed by debt servicing?

We already know that innovative solutions exist when there is political courage. In Seychelles, we pioneered the world’s first sovereign debt-for-nature swap designed for ocean conservation, alongside the world’s first sovereign Blue Bond. We showed that you can relieve fiscal pressure while legally protecting vast stretches of marine territory. What small islands proved on a modest scale must now become a standard tool of the international financial system.

Third, the ocean must move from the margins of climate negotiations to the very centre. For too long, the ocean was treated as a silent victim of climate change rather than our greatest ally in stopping it. The sea covers more than 70 percent of our planet, absorbs the vast majority of excess heat, and locks away immense quantities of carbon in its mangroves, seagrass meadows, and marine ecosystems.

COP31 has dedicated a thematic day on 18 November to oceans, coastal resilience, and the blue economy. That is encouraging, but the ocean cannot be confined to a single day on the calendar. Protecting marine biodiversity, unlocking blue carbon finance, and connecting the UNFCCC process with the new High Seas Treaty (BBNJ) are essential if we want to keep the 1.5-degree goal alive.

During my years in public life, and in the years since, I have learned that leadership is ultimately tested when the gap between words and reality grows too wide to ignore. We are at that moment now.

In Antalya, small island states will once again raise their voices with clarity and determination. We will speak of our reefs, our coastlines, and our children’s heritage. But make no mistake: we are not pleading only for ourselves. The ocean that washes the shores of islands is the same ocean that regulates the climate of London, Istanbul, Sydney, and New York.

The tide is rising for all of us. COP31 is our chance to show that humanity can rise to meet it—not with another round of promises, but with the courage to deliver.

James Alix Michel is a former President of Seychelles, a Blue Economy pioneer and a champion of ocean protection.

IPS UN Bureau

 

 

 

 

Credit: UN Photo/Luke Powell

By FAO and WFP
KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct 20 2026 (IPS)

Nearly 40 percent of the population of Afghanistan is projected to face high levels of acute food insecurity this winter, and cases of acute malnutrition are expected to soar during 2027, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned.

This is according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis, which projects that approximately 19.2 million people (38% of the population) will face high levels of acute food insecurity during the November-April lean season, which lasts through the winter. This is an increase from 17.4 million projected for the same period a year earlier.

An estimated five million of those who are acutely food insecure will be facing emergency levels of hunger (IPC Phase 4) – double the number projected for April-September 2026 – meaning immediate food assistance and urgent emergency agriculture support are needed to prevent deaths and total livelihood collapse. The most severe classifications are projected in Badakhshan, Badghis, Daykundi, Ghor, Samangan, Sar-e-Pul and rural Ghazni.

Acute malnutrition is beginning to define the crisis in Afghanistan with mothers and children at the forefront. Malnutrition cases are expected to increase by nearly 10 percent compared to 2026 to four million. One-quarter of these are expected to be severe and life-threatening. Prevention and treatment services are lagging well behind despite cases increasing, leaving women and particularly children more exposed.

The crisis in Afghanistan is being driven by several shocks that are affecting Afghan families and the humanitarian response. More than 1.2 million Afghans have been forced to return home from Iran and Pakistan this year, adding pressure to already overstretched communities. Border closures and disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and other critical trade routes are also driving up prices for basic goods. At the same time, dramatic funding shortfalls are limiting humanitarian assistance just as needs are growing. All these issues are converging to drive hunger and malnutrition higher, particularly as winter approaches.

Improved harvests have not restored families’ access to nutritious food

Favorable rainfall supported crop production and pasture recovery in 2026, benefiting many farming households. The anticipated El Niño season could also bring above-average rainfall, helping replenish water sources, restore pasture and support winter and spring crops. Timely agricultural support could help farmers turn favorable conditions into food and income, but rainfall alone will not secure the next harvest. High fertilizer and agricultural input costs and low crop prices may force poorer farmers to plant less or use fewer inputs. Wetter conditions also increase the risk of localized flooding, erosion, crop damage and plant and animal disease.

However, improved harvests and greater food availability are not necessarily translating into improved food security. Persistent unemployment means many families who do not grow their own food cannot afford a nutritious diet, even when food is available. Winter will bring fewer opportunities for agricultural work, further reducing incomes and increasing the need for humanitarian assistance.

Scale up support before needs deepen further

FAO and WFP are calling for urgent funding to scale up food assistance, emergency agricultural support, and malnutrition prevention and treatment. Support must reach families before winter restricts access to vulnerable communities and farmers miss critical planting windows. Afghanistan cannot afford another year of worsening hunger and malnutrition.

Richard Trenchard, FAO Representative in Afghanistan:

“This year’s strong harvest shows what Afghan farmers can achieve. But for a parent with no steady income, nutritious food in the market can still be out of reach for their family. The drumbeat of shock and crisis is relentless, but we know progress is possible. Past experience shows that timely, targeted food and emergency agricultural assistance can bring acute food insecurity down. Helping families grow or afford nutritious food for their children can also help prevent malnutrition long before children need treatment. We need to scale up these practical solutions now, act ahead of foreseeable shocks and invest in processing and local agribusinesses that connect farmers to markets and create jobs. Families need support to get through this winter and opportunities to earn a dependable living that helps them withstand the next shock.”

John Aylieff, WFP Country Director in Afghanistan

“Hunger and malnutrition are tightening their grip on Afghanistan’s families, pushing more people towards the brink just as resources to respond are running short. This crisis is increasingly being defined by the gap between growing needs and shrinking funding. We still have a window to act, but it is closing fast. With urgent support, families can get through the winter with dignity. Without it, many will face impossible choices no parent should have to make.”

IPS UN Bureau

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

High food and transport costs, scarce work and declining humanitarian assistance are squeezing families’ access to food as winter approaches.

Members of the Kabul Critical Thinking Movement conceal their identities to minimise the risk of being identified and facing reprisals from the Taliban. Credit: Learning Together.

By External Source
PARWAN, Afghanistan, Oct 20 2026 (IPS)

Afghan women have resorted to online protests as their only available recourse, even though the risks of being caught are high and carry enormous consequences.

Dawn has not yet fully broken over the quiet streets of Parwan. The morning air carries the stillness of the early hours, and the footsteps of a few passersby are the only sounds that break the silence.

In one of the town’s more modest homes lives 28-year-old Gulsuum (name changed), who is effectively living two lives.

To her neighbors, she is a quiet young woman who goes out to buy food, lives with her family, and tries to lead an ordinary life. Yet behind this facade is a person fighting, under a pseudonym, for the education, freedom, and human dignity of Afghan women.

"Sometimes I wonder if we will ever see the results of our efforts, if this path is worth all the fear and uncertainty. But whenever I think of the girls who have been denied the right to go to school, I know I must go on. If we stay silent today, the next generation might lose even the hope of protesting"

She uses the name Gulsuum to protect her identity. Her fears, hopes, and life story, however, are entirely real.

Gulsuum lives with her father, mother, aunt, and two brothers in a residential area of ​​Parwan province. Her unmarried aunt has long been an integral part of the family.

 

Only her aunt knows Gulsuum’s secret

Her aunt has not only kept Gulsuum’s secret but has also supported her during her most difficult moments. She lets Gulsuum use her mobile phone when needed, keeps an eye on the situation, and warns her immediately if she senses danger.

Gulsuum’s biggest worry is her older brother. The reason lies in his traditional views: he considers women’s protests dangerous. Gulsuum is certain that if her brother found out about her activities, he would take away her phone, restrict her movements, or send her to live with relatives in another province.

Before the Taliban returned to power, Gulsuum studied law and taught at a private school. Back then, her life revolved around books, pens, and the voices of her students.

“My entire life was bound up with books, writing, and the classroom. I believed that Afghanistan’s future would be built by girls who could transform society through knowledge and education, not weapons.”

After the Taliban returned to power, universities and girls’ schools across Afghanistan were shut down one by one. The private school where Gulsuum taught ceased operations, and her own studies came to an end as well.

Gulsuum’s gaze drifts to the corner of the room, where her university books still sit on the shelf.

“My books are still there, but there is no longer a classroom, no students, and no dream I can pursue the way I used to.”

Gulsuum says she remained silent during the first few months, fearing arrest and that her family would be put in danger.

“But whenever I heard about the arrests of female protesters or girls being denied an education, I asked myself: Is silence, too, a form of surrender?”

That question changed the course of her life.

“Two years ago, a university friend introduced me to the Kabul Critical Thinking Movement. At first, I only followed the movement’s statements and writings. Gradually, I began participating in its online meetings under a pseudonym, and later, I became one of its active members.”

Most of the movement’s activities take place on its official Facebook page, where statements, campaigns, and public messages are published.

 

Even a small mistake could endanger everything

To protect their identities, members never share material on their own social media accounts. Instead, they record images and videos independently and submit them for publication via the movement’s official page. Pseudonyms are used to protect the identities of those involved.

Many images and videos are recorded indoors or in locations with few or no other people present. Members wear face masks, sunglasses, and black chadari robes to minimize the risk of being identified.

Gulsuum explains that every action requires careful planning and an assessment of potential risks, as even a single protest could lead to consequences for both her and her family.

“Every decision I make, every phone call, and every message I send could have serious consequences. My phone is protected by multiple passwords. I carefully manage messages, photos, and anything else that could put me in danger. I never reveal the identities of other members or where we meet to anyone. Even a small mistake could endanger my life and the lives of my family members.”

Gulsuum says she sometimes wonders whether her brothers, who browse through her phone, have found out about her activities.

“A moment later, I realize nothing has happened. They were just scrolling through social media. But those few minutes feel like hours to me. Fear has become a part of my everyday life.”

Once, while walking through the city, she noticed a Taliban pickup truck a few blocks behind her. She told a passing woman she was thirsty and was invited into her home for tea. The vehicle was still nearby when she left, but she was relieved to learn that Taliban members had rented a house in the neighborhood a few days earlier. The truck had nothing to do with her.

“I could breathe again, and I realized that sometimes fear paralyzes us long before any danger is even in sight. Every unknown call, every suspicious glance, and every unexpected question brings a new wave of fear. But I don’t think fear should define the lives of Afghan women.”

Despite fear, activism continues

Despite her fears, Gulsuum has not given up her activism.

“Sometimes I wonder if we will ever see the results of our efforts, if this path is worth all the fear and uncertainty. But whenever I think of the girls who have been denied the right to go to school, I know I must go on. If we stay silent today, the next generation might lose even the hope of protesting.”

The chadari robe she wears at demonstrations is more than just a garment.

“Every evening, I tuck it away in the corner of my room. Whenever I hide it, it feels as though I am concealing a part of my identity, my dreams, and my true life from the eyes of others.”

Gulsuum’s voice is calm, devoid of hesitation.

“I believe that no voice raised for justice goes to waste. Change may not happen today. But if no one speaks, there is no hope for tomorrow.”

“What matters most to me is that the world knows Afghan women, even under the most intense pressure, continue to stand up for freedom, justice, and human dignity. Our voice may be quiet, but it will never be silenced.”

Gulsuum’s story is not that of just one woman. It reflects the lives of thousands of Afghan women and girls, caught between fear and hope, continue the fight for education, freedom of choice, and human dignity.

Beneath the black chadar worn for safety, her voice still rings out. It is quiet, yet unwavering. Despite everything, that voice has not been silenced.

Excerpt:

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

Decisions about ending one’s life are often complex, reflecting a combination of medical, psychological, social, and personal considerations. Credit: Shutterstock

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Oct 20 2026 (IPS)

People who choose to end their lives through voluntary assisted dying typically face terminal, incurable, or debilitating conditions that cause severe physical or psychological suffering.

Research on requests for medical assistance in dying and euthanasia shows that most individuals seeking these options have advanced, irreversible illnesses or incurable, debilitating conditions that cause severe suffering or diminish their autonomy, dignity, or the ability to engage in meaningful activities.

Despite becoming legally permitted in an increasing number of countries, voluntary assisted dying remains controversial. The debate centers on a fundamental tension between respecting personal autonomy and relieving suffering, on the one hand, and protecting human life, on the other

Although physical pain is an important factor, psychological, existential, and quality-of-life concerns also play major roles in decisions to end life. These include losing independence and physical abilities, losing control over bodily functions, depending on others for basic care, and fearing future pain, suffering, and distress during the final stages of an illness.

Eligibility requirements for medical assistance in dying vary by jurisdiction. Where access is restricted to terminally ill patients, individuals generally must have a prognosis of six months or less to live.

Other jurisdictions permit access under different eligibility criteria. Applicants generally must demonstrate decision-making capacity and make a voluntary, informed request. Independent medical assessments are generally required, and many jurisdictions impose waiting periods or other safeguards.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), cancer, and other serious illnesses are frequently associated with requests for voluntary assisted dying. Other requests involve advanced cardiovascular and lung diseases, as well as neurodegenerative conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.

Cancer, particularly when advanced and no longer responsive to treatment, can also involve severe pain, weakness, loss of function, and other debilitating symptoms. Other requests for voluntary assisted dying include terminal illnesses such as advanced cardiovascular and lung diseases and neurodegenerative conditions, such as Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.

Severe physical pain or psychological distress that cannot be adequately relieved through standard medical or palliative care may lead some people to consider ending their lives. However, the reasons for requesting voluntary assisted dying generally extend beyond physical pain alone.

Loss of autonomy, including the inability to engage in meaningful activities, care for oneself, or maintain personal dignity, may strongly influence these decisions. Some individuals also fear increasing dependence on family members or caregivers, losing control over basic aspects of daily life, or experiencing further deterioration in their quality of life.

Decisions about ending one’s life are often complex, reflecting a combination of medical, psychological, social, and personal considerations. For some individuals, the prospect of prolonged deterioration or increasing dependence may be as important as the symptoms of the underlying illness.

Consequently, requests for voluntary assisted dying generally require careful assessment of an individual’s medical condition, decision-making capacity, wishes, and available alternatives, including palliative and hospice care.

When people actively choose the timing and manner of their death, their choices generally fall into three primary categories, each governed by different legal frameworks, medical protocols, and procedures.

These categories differ principally in who administers the life-ending medication, whether the person must take the medication themselves, and whether the choice involves voluntarily forgoing food and fluids rather than receiving life-ending medication (Table 1).

Source: Compassion & Choices.

The first category is medical aid in dying (MAID), also known as physician-assisted dying or, in some jurisdictions, death with dignity. MAID allows a mentally capable, terminally ill adult who meets specific legal requirements to request and self-administer prescribed medication intended to end their life. In many U.S. jurisdictions where MAID is legal, eligibility generally requires a terminal illness with a prognosis of six months or less, although specific requirements vary by jurisdiction.

The emphasis on self-administration is an important distinction between MAID and voluntary euthanasia. Under MAID, the individual—not a physician or other health professional—takes the medication, retaining control over the timing of the final act. Depending on the jurisdiction, safeguards may include repeated requests, confirmation of the diagnosis and prognosis, assessment of decision-making capacity, and other measures to ensure the decision is voluntary and informed.

MAID is generally intended for people who meet specific legal eligibility requirements. It is not a general option for anyone experiencing suffering or wishing to die. Each jurisdiction determines who qualifies, what medical assessments are required, how requests must be documented, and what waiting periods and other safeguards apply.

The second category is voluntary euthanasia. Unlike MAID, which involves self-administration, voluntary euthanasia occurs when a healthcare professional administers medication intended to end the patient’s life at the individual’s explicit and competent request, typically to relieve otherwise intolerable suffering. It is legally permitted in several countries and jurisdictions, although eligibility requirements, procedures, and safeguards vary considerably.

The third category is voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (VSED). For people who do not qualify for MAID or live where MAID or voluntary euthanasia is unavailable, VSED may be another end-of-life option. It involves a voluntary decision to stop consuming food and fluids, eventually resulting in death. Medical and palliative care may be provided to relieve discomfort during the process.

Voluntary assisted dying is legally permitted in a growing number of countries. In 2026, some form of the practice is legal in approximately 16 countries. Estimates indicate that more than 30,000 people die each year through voluntary assisted dying in jurisdictions where the practice is permitted.

Nearly 5% of the world’s population, or more than 400 million people, live in countries or areas where some form of voluntary assisted dying is legal. These jurisdictions include Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and Uruguay.

In the United States, Illinois and New York recently joined 11 other states and the District of Columbia in permitting medical aid in dying (MAID) under specified conditions. Nearly one-third of the U.S. population lives in a state where the practice is permitted.

About 60% of U.S. adults consider MAID acceptable or do not view it as a moral issue. Opinions differ by political party, however. About 75% of Democrats compared with 50% of Republicans consider the practice morally acceptable.

Across many regions, including North America, Europe, and Australia, international opinion polls generally find majority support for voluntary assisted dying. A cross-sectional survey of physicians in 17 countries also found nuanced but generally supportive views of physician-assisted death when strict safeguards are in place.

Methods of administering medication also vary across jurisdictions. In Switzerland, individuals self-administer the medication, usually by swallowing a liquid. In Québec, Canada, physicians or nurse practitioners administer it, usually intravenously. In Australia, both self-administration and practitioner administration are permitted.

The laws governing voluntary assisted dying differ considerably across countries and jurisdictions. Nevertheless, the medical conditions and personal circumstances associated with requests for assisted dying tend to show similar patterns across regions and over time.

People with ALS, for example, have been found to have the highest rate of voluntary assisted dying, often several times those of cancer patients. Cancer patients, in turn, are more likely to access voluntary assisted dying than people with other illnesses, such as lung or heart disease. However, cancer remains the most common diagnosis among assisted dying cases, largely because it affects far more people than these other conditions.

Voluntary assisted dying accounts for a relatively small share of all deaths in countries where it is permitted, generally 1% or less in countries such as Germany, Spain, and Switzerland. In other countries, the proportions are considerably higher. Around 2023, assisted dying accounted for 5.4% of deaths in the Netherlands, 4.7% in Canada, and 3.6% in Belgium.

The number of voluntary assisted deaths has increased substantially in some countries. In the Netherlands, for example, the number has reportedly increased threefold since 2002. In Canada, the number initially increased rapidly before growth slowed; assisted dying now accounts for nearly 5% of all deaths.

Despite becoming legally permitted in an increasing number of countries, voluntary assisted dying remains controversial. The debate centers on a fundamental tension between respecting personal autonomy and relieving suffering, on the one hand, and protecting human life, on the other (Table 2).

Source: British Medical Association (BMA).

Arguments in favor of voluntary assisted dying emphasize patient autonomy, relief from suffering, dignity at the end of life, regulatory safeguards, and reduced burdens on families. Arguments against it stress the sanctity of life, risks to vulnerable people, the potential for a “slippery slope”, concerns about medical ethics, and the importance of palliative care.

In sum, voluntary assisted dying is legally permitted in a growing number of countries and jurisdictions, and its use has increased substantially in many of them. Nevertheless, voluntary assisted dying remains a sensitive, controversial, and deeply personal issue, even where it is legally permitted.

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

Tanzania’s vice-president inspects a drainage channel in Dar es Salaam as authorities step up preparations for heavy El Niño rains expected during the October–December rainy season. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS

By Kizito Makoye
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, Oct 20 2026 (IPS)

Nearly three decades have passed, but Japhet Gimbi still remembers the rain.

He was a Form 2 student in Tabora, western Tanzania, when the 1997 El Niño flooded the town. As the rain kept falling, fewer students made it to school. That was a super El Niño, one of the strongest on record. Since then there have been five other events including the 2014-2016 “super El Niño”.

“It just kept raining. Day after day, the rain wouldn’t stop,” Gimbi, who now lives in Dar es Salaam, recalled.

But his strongest memory is of food running short at home.

“We would only eat Ugali without vegetables,” he said.

At Kwihara village, Hatibu Halfan remembers the same season differently. He was a 27-year-old farmer when the rains initially seemed a blessing. His rice crop flourished.

Then the ground became waterlogged. Cassava and sweet potatoes rotted. Homes in low-lying areas flooded.

Twenty-nine years later, East Africa is again preparing for “super” El Niño. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) expects it to intensify toward the end of 2026, with forecasts showing a nearly 100 percent chance of persisting through February 2027. But WMO cautions that a strong El Niño does not necessarily mean severe impacts in every country.

For East Africa, the concern is heavy rain. The October-to-December season is crucial across much of the region, with forecasts pointing to wetter-than-normal conditions that could bring floods, landslides, infrastructure damage, and disease outbreaks. In parts of Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi, the season delivers up to 40 percent of annual rainfall.

The East African Community (EAC) Partner States are calling for more predictable, accessible and grant-based climate finance as they prepare to take a common regional position to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31) in Antalya, Türkiye, next month.

They plan to call on developed countries to meet their public climate finance obligations, triple adaptation finance by 2035, improve direct access to climate finance, and provide greater support for adaptation and loss and damage, all without increasing the debt burden on vulnerable countries.

“The common COP31 messages further call for the full capitalisation of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, direct access to its resources by national institutions and support for both economic and non-economic losses. The EAC is also calling for full funding of the Santiago Network, which provides technical assistance to countries vulnerable to loss and damage, as well as stronger cooperation on disaster risk reduction and early warning systems.

The common position calls on developed countries to meet their public climate finance obligations, triple adaptation finance by 2035, improve direct access to climate finance and provide greater support for adaptation and loss and damage without increasing the debt burden of vulnerable countries.

In Dar es Salaam and other fast-growing cities, however, the danger is not simply how much rain falls. It is where it falls—and who lives in its path.

In Southern Africa, the concern is drought, with its impacts on food security, the potential for wild fires, and water shortages. The country will use its participation at the COP31 to ask for increased adaptation finance.

Cities at Risk

“The main impacts we should expect from floods range from possible loss of lives and the number of people displaced, damaged houses, waterborne diseases, loss of employment, and disruption of livelihoods,” Romanus Opiyo, Policy and Engagement Lead for Sustainable Urbanisation at the Stockholm Environment Institute, told IPS.

In Dar es Salaam, neighbourhoods have expanded along rivers, valleys and low-lying land where housing is relatively affordable but drainage and other basic services often lag behind population growth.

Among the places Opiyo identifies as particularly exposed are Tandale, along the Sinza river system, and Jangwani, in the Msimbazi valley.

“The most vulnerable are the urban poor, especially those living near riparian areas such as those settlements in low elevations and near riparian areas,” he said.

Flooding does not affect all city residents equally. Low-income households living on daily earnings often have few savings, little or no insurance and limited options for moving somewhere safer.

A Dar es Salaam resident clears vegetation and debris from a drainage channel as communities prepare for heavy rains associated with El Niño. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS

When Drains Become Sewers

In crowded settlements, blocked drains sit alongside pit latrines, rubbish and open sewers. Floodwater can carry all three through homes and streets.

WMO’s regional outlook warns that excessive rainfall could increase water- and vector-borne disease while damaging roads and disrupting access to health and nutrition services.

Lessons From 1997

The 1997 El Niño brought torrential rain and widespread flooding across East Africa.

By February 1998, about 10 million people across the region needed emergency assistance, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

Tanzania suffered extensive damage to roads and railways. Communities were cut off, crops and food stocks were lost and relief efforts were hampered by damaged infrastructure.

The effects, however, varied from place to place. Rain replenished water supplies and improved pasture in some areas, and national food production rebounded in 1998. But hundreds of villages were isolated, and thousands of people were left homeless. FAO and the World Food Programme estimated that about 300,000 Tanzanians would still need targeted food aid.

Since 1997, East African cities have expanded rapidly into wetlands, river valleys and other flood-prone land. Riverbanks have been settled and open ground replaced by roads, buildings and concrete.

Opiyo says weak development control is worsening the risk.

“The major gap remains the allocation of adequate resources (finance, human, and infrastructure resources) to deal with the problem,” he said.

Tanzania Prepares

Tanzania has begun preparations for the October-to-December rains, with forecasters warning that a very strong El Niño could bring heavier rainfall to much of the northern coast, northeastern highlands, Lake Victoria basin and northern Kigoma.

The government has activated a National Emergency Plan and issued 13 directives, ordering authorities to identify high-risk areas, designate emergency shelters, clear drains, prepare rescue equipment and strengthen measures against disease and damage to infrastructure.

The government estimates that 730 billion Tanzanian shillings could be required to implement activities before, during and after a major El Niño emergency. The figure is an estimate of potential requirements, not money already set aside. The 2026/27 budget provides 10 billion shillings for activities under the plan across sectors.

Community flood mapping, identifying households that may need help evacuating, clearing drains and establishing safe routes can also reduce risks.

Beyond El Niño

Seasonal forecasts describe probabilities, not individual storms, and WMO stresses that even a very strong El Niño does not guarantee catastrophic impacts everywhere.

But the problem will outlast El Niño: each rainy season exposes many of the same neighbourhoods.

Rivers overflow and drains clog. Households move possessions onto beds, raise furniture on bricks and wait for the water to recede.

Opiyo says recurring flooding in informal settlements is also an urban-planning problem.

“The informal urban community’s vulnerability requires a collaborative approach in terms of data, creative and inclusive methodology and honest dialogue to address the recurring problem.”

Nature-based measures include protecting wetlands and river corridors, restoring vegetation and preserving areas where floodwater can spread without reaching homes.

But in cities where safe land is expensive, telling people not to live beside rivers does little for families who cannot afford to live anywhere else. Clearing a drain may reduce flooding this season; it does not resolve insecure housing, weak sanitation or the absence of affordable serviced land.

In 1997, Gimbi watched his classmates disappear from school as the rains continued and food ran short at home. Halfan watched his rice flourish before waterlogged fields began destroying other crops.

Twenty-nine years later, governments have better forecasts, satellite observations, flood maps and early-warning systems.

They can see the rain coming.

The question is whether the people living closest to the water will be safer when it arrives.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

 

 

 

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Iyá Patrícia d’Xangô (Mãe Patrícia) and her husband, Ogan Cézar d’Oxalá (Cézar Paulo Fogolari), cleaning their religious site three months after the mudslide in 2024.

By Carla Ruas
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil, Oct 19 2026 (IPS)

In 2024, as floodwaters approached Lutalo Canti’s home in Porto Alegre, Brazil, he lifted some furniture off the floor and left in a hurry. Extreme rainfall in the country’s southern region had caused local rivers to overflow. The flooding would eventually reach more than 400 municipalities and impact over 2 million people.

When waters finally receded, Canti, 61, was shocked to see the damage to his house, which also served as a terreiro—a sacred space for the practice of Afro-Brazilian religions.

These beliefs, which date back to enslaved Africans and their descendants, have around 1.85 million followers in Brazil, per the latest national census. Terreiros are at the heart of these traditions, serving as spaces where religious leaders honor deities and spiritual entities.

Between water damage, sewage contamination, and mold, he estimates losses to the house around US$15,000 (R$80,000). About half the damage was to his home, and the rest to religious objects, including ceremonial clothing and sacred figures.

Lutalo Canti estimates flood losses of around US$15,000 to his home and terreiro, which is pictured here before the flood. Credit: Lutalo Canti

Two years later, Canti still hasn’t recovered everything lost and feels largely left out of donations and other recovery efforts. “We have received no help. Nothing,” he told IPS. He blames religious racism.

A new study shows that Canti is not alone. Since the floods, researchers from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) and the region’s Council of Terreiro People have been surveying the regional terreiros. The findings, which are just now being published, document widespread reports of discrimination during and after the disaster.

“Terreiros experienced severe religious racism,” said Cláudia Pires, one of the researchers involved in the study. “That includes difficulties accessing food and water, lack of access to their own spaces, as well as delays or a complete lack of response from public authorities to their needs.”

Immediately after the disaster, out of 711 terreiros surveyed, almost all (94.1%) reported structural damage—with more than half of those completely destroyed.

In the months that followed, more in-depth interviews with 241 terreiro leaders indicated an ongoing crisis. Follow-up data shows that more than 80% of those leaders reported emotional harm and forced displacement.

As they struggled to recover, many of them suspended religious gatherings for months, while 3.5% closed permanently. “That was the saddest finding for us,” said Tanara Furtado, a co-author of the study. “It may seem like a small number, but it represents the disappearance of history, ancestry, and traditions. For Afro-Brazilian religions, that is profound.”

Lutalo Canti lost religious objects, including ceremonial clothing and sacred figures, in a severe flood. Credit: Lutalo Canti

Barriers to Receiving Aid

The study shows discrimination reports beginning in the early days of the disaster.

While many flood victims were evacuated to shelters, Afro-Brazilian religious practitioners often did not feel welcome in these spaces. “When people saw their guias (sacred necklaces), they were treated badly,” Furtado said. “Many ended up staying in friends’ and relatives’ homes, sometimes 25 people sharing a house with a single bathroom and no running water.”

And even as donations poured in from across Brazil, several reported much of that aid failed to reach them.

In a telephone interview, Pai Valdir de Oxalá, 55, recalled the challenges of accessing basic supplies. The babalorixá, or Afro-Brazilian religious leader, is the president of the Council of Terreiro Peoples of the State of Rio Grande do Sul (CPTERGS).

After his own terreiro was flooded in the municipality of Guaíba, he arranged for an out-of-state organization to send food, water, and other supplies to around 400 followers of nearby terreiros.

“When the truck arrived, they noticed our religion and refused to leave the donations unless I said a Christian prayer,” he recalled. “This goes against my beliefs and is an aggressive form of religious racism. But I had no choice. People didn’t have what to eat, drink, or wear. So I prayed.”

Iyá Paty de Xangô, also known as Mãe Patrícia, says she continued to face discrimination long after the disaster. The floods triggered a landslide that buried her religious site in the municipality of Feliz. The property includes several residences, ritual spaces, and a library.

“We submitted more than 40 official requests to city hall asking for help,” she said. “Even though we are a public-utility institution, it took them two months to come over with machinery, while other private properties were being cleared.”

In 2024, a technical report by Brazil’s Federal Public Defender’s Office (DPU) concluded that the local government showed “resistance to providing emergency assistance and repairing the damage” at her site. The document also found that public authorities had been “selective in providing assistance to religious entities.”

At the time, the municipality of Feliz attributed the delay in assistance to the scale of the disaster. In a letter, officials stated that they did “not have sufficient personnel and machinery to respond to all requests immediately.”

Patrícia eventually turned to the courts. In July 2025, she sued the municipality, the state government, and the owners of a neighboring property, seeking measures to protect her site from future landslides.

Religious Racism in a Changing Climate

Baba Hendrix, a theologian and babalorixá spiritual leader, argues that the climate crisis is amplifying vulnerabilities that have long existed in these communities. “This is simply the continuation of a historical process,” he said. “Since at least the 19th century, Afro-Brazilian religious traditions have faced persecution.”

He believes the root of this racism lies in Brazilian society’s extreme “Christian-centrism,” which he says has led to intolerance toward other religions. He also points to longstanding anti-Black racism. “When Christian-centrism and racism converge, they produce this religious racism that we are seeing.”

Hendrix says this discrimination now spans across many parts of society. “We have faced persecution from the police to the medical establishment,” he said. “Laws against quackery and charlatanism were even created specifically to persecute Afro-Brazilian religious traditions.”

The UFRGS study suggests these experiences remain widespread. Of the 241 religious leaders interviewed, 70.8% said they had suffered religious racism from neighbors, public authorities, police, Evangelicals, Catholics, and others. Of those, 47% said they experienced it frequently.

Researchers argue that this discrimination has in turn made these communities more vulnerable to climate disasters. Pires said many terreiros have been pushed to peripheral areas that are overlooked in city planning. “When it rains, these peripheral areas end up being sacrificed,” she said. “I think sacrifice is a very important word here.”

Super El Niño

As a powerful El Niño brings more extreme weather to southern Brazil, the researchers continue monitoring terreiros across the region. Since August, almost 100 have reported damage related to extreme weather.

“This is our new normal,” said Furtado. “We have terreiros that were affected by the 2024 floods and are already being affected again by winds, rains, and floods.”

In the municipality of Canoas, babalorixá Júlio César Santos, 47, has been watching the weather closely. In 2024, his terreiro, where he practices Umbanda among other Afro-Brazilian traditions, was completely submerged. Nearly two years later, the space remains unfinished, despite more than US$15,000 (R$80,000) spent on repairs.

“When it rains, I get very nervous,” he said. “It’s a fear that stays with us.”

Santos has thought about leaving his house due to the risk of future flooding but says he does not have the funds to buy a new home. He was found ineligible for a housing assistance program for flood victims. “It’s not as simple as finding another house,” he said. “I need land and access to nature to practice my religion.”

He also needs the approval of orixás—spiritual deities—to move his terreiro to another location. “It is the orixá who will choose,” he said. “It is not me, Júlio, who decides.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

 

 

 

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By CIVICUS
Oct 19 2026 (IPS)

 
CIVICUS discusses the persecution of Uyghurs and activism in exile with Rushan Abbas, an Uyghur American activist, founder and executive director of Campaign for Uyghurs and chair of the Executive Committee of the World Uyghur Congress.

Rushan Abbas

On 31 August, the World Uyghur Congress urged the United Nations (UN) and states to step up pressure on China over its treatment of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region. Its call came two months after a new ‘Ethnic Unity Law’ took effect as part of a broader push to impose a single national identity. The date also marked four years since a landmark UN report found that abuses in the region may constitute crimes against humanity. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch estimate that over a million people have been detained in harsh conditions in ‘re-education’ camps since 2017.

Why did you leave Xinjiang?

I was born in Ürümchi, Xinjiang’s regional capital, during the Cultural Revolution. I started my activism as a student at Xinjiang University, where I co-organised pro-democracy protests in 1985 and 1988. In 1985, we mobilised over 20,000 students from seven universities, institutes and technical schools across the city. We demanded equality and an end to the forced sterilisation of Uyghur women and to nuclear testing in the region.

Those years brought a brief period of openness, but retaliation against the organisers came quickly. I was interrogated and, although I graduated with the highest academic honours, my job offer was withdrawn. All my prospects were denied. So in 1989, I left for the USA to pursue higher education and look for freedom and democracy.

Has danger followed you into exile?

It has, and it hit my family directly. In the early 1990s, as soon as I started working with US politicians, my father, a high-level academic in Ürümchi, lost his job at 59 in retaliation for my advocacy. In 2018, just days after I spoke publicly at the Hudson Institute, a Washington DC think tank, about the mass detentions, Chinese authorities abducted my sister Gulshan Abbas. She’s a retired physician, a mother of two and a grandmother of four, and she had never been political.

In December 2019, Chinese state media outlet CGTN denied my sister existed and accused me of making up cases and spreading rumours overseas. In December 2020, the authorities finally acknowledged Gulshan had been secretly sentenced to 20 years in prison, obviously on fabricated charges. Her case is one of the clearest examples of how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses kin punishment and transnational repression to silence Uyghurs. My sister turned 64 this June. She’s still in a Chinese prison because I exercised my freedom of speech. We have no picture or video of her. No one has been able to visit her and we have received no independent report on her health or wellbeing.

I quit my job after Gulshan’s detention to campaign full time for her freedom and for the Uyghurs suffering what’s effectively an ongoing genocide. Transnational repression has followed me ever since, in the form of cyberattacks, defamation, fabricated court documents, harassment and intimidation. A video appeared on YouTube calling for my execution and that of my husband, Abdulhakim Idris. I have received emails asking what colour rifle I would prefer to be shot with. After I published my memoir, fake books claiming to tell my life story appeared on Amazon. My organisation, Campaign for Uyghurs, has experienced persistent cyberattacks. My case is not unique. Uyghurs in the diaspora and those who speak out continue to suffer transnational repression.

Why does the Chinese government target Uyghurs?

The Chinese government targets us because of our distinct ethnic identity and heritage and because we are the owners of the land we inherited from our ancestors. Our Muslim faith and our culture and language stand in the way of Beijing’s absolute control. Our faith in God, rather than the CCP, as the ultimate authority threatens the regime. This fear drives the regime to try to erase our culture and beliefs.

Economic interests are also at stake. The Uyghur region is rich in natural resources, including coal, natural gas, petroleum, rare earths and critical minerals such as uranium. It accounts for 20 per cent of the world’s cotton, 35 per cent of its solar-grade polysilicon, used in solar panels, 10 per cent of its aluminium and PVC production and 70 per cent of China’s tomato production.

Geography matters too. The region connects China with Central Asia and the Middle East and is a gateway to Africa and Europe, including the Balkans. Once the heart of the ancient Silk Road, it now hosts four of the six major Belt and Road Initiative land routes, part of China’s global infrastructure programme. This makes it key to China’s economic and geopolitical ambitions. The result has been ever-tighter control and securitisation, which has escalated into full-fledged genocide.

What does this persecution look like?

The CCP imposes forced labour, mass arbitrary detention and imprisonment, mass surveillance and restrictions on cultural and religious life. In 2025, there were 3.36 million forced labour transfers and over a million children were placed in state-run boarding schools, where they are raised cut off from their cultural heritage. The Uyghur language is banned in schools. Uyghur books and religious texts have been burned. Uyghur women are subjected to forced abortion, sterilisation and marriage to men from the dominant Han ethnic group.

China’s government claims these policies bring stability, but stability for who? This is a system where the government exercises unchecked power to detain, punish, silence and watch people for their beliefs, their identity and their demands for human dignity.

How is Campaign for Uyghurs pushing for accountability?

We document abuses, bring evidence to policymakers and international institutions and support Uyghur-led advocacy. Central to our work is equipping Uyghur women and young people in the diaspora with the knowledge and practical skills to lead advocacy efforts. We have run around 20 advocacy workshops worldwide, and we are proud to see a new generation of young Uyghur activists taking the lead.

We also work with civil society groups, interfaith organisations, think tanks and universities to turn evidence into tangible policy action. Our campaigns have contributed to US laws, including the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020, and our coalition-building has helped put the Uyghur crisis on the political agenda.

With investigative partners, we exposed Volkswagen’s sham audit and its attempts to conceal links to state-imposed forced labour. We worked with The New York Times to reveal that cotton from the Uyghur region was used to make the viral Labubu dolls manufactured by Pop Mart. This work connects evidence from the ground with public scrutiny and action.

Why has there been so little international action since the UN’s landmark 2022 report?

China has enormous economic and political leverage. Many governments and companies are reluctant to jeopardise diplomatic, trade and investment ties, or have simply been pressured into silence. Such is China’s influence that the UN refused to debate human rights abuses in the Uyghur region.

There is also an often underestimated propaganda problem. China has spent years building a global media apparatus. It uses state broadcasters, partnerships with foreign media outlets, sponsored trips for journalists and influencers and coordinated messaging to drown out credible research and human rights reporting. China does not necessarily need the world to believe its propaganda. Creating doubt and making people hesitate to act can be enough.

Time is another obstacle. Every day without meaningful consequences normalises abuses, and a human rights crisis becomes the accepted status quo.

What should governments and the UN do?

Lawmakers should pass legislation to address transnational repression, ban products made with state-imposed forced labour and provide stronger protection for Uyghurs seeking refuge.

Governments should use existing sanctions tools, including the Global Magnitsky Act, which allows sanctions on individual human rights abusers, to hold officials responsible for the genocide accountable.

Governments should also refuse to extradite Uyghurs to China. No one should be sent back to a country where they may face genocide.

Governments and international institutions must keep individual cases and the broader human rights crisis on the agenda. They should keep existing official genocide determinations in place and secure the release of political prisoners such as my sister. Human rights should never be treated as secondary to broader relations with Beijing.

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
Transnational repression: a world without refuge CIVICUS Lens 03.Sep.2026
China: ‘The Ethnic Unity Law means there is one acceptable way to be Chinese’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Gulchehra Hoja 30.Jul.2026
Transnational repression: ‘China feels emboldened to globalise its political red lines’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Barbora Bukovská 19.May.2026

 

 

 

 

Top: Annual Meetings of the IMF and the World Bank inside the Queen Sirikit Convention Center in Bangkok Credit: (IMF photo/N.Karlin).
Bottom: Opening of the People’s Assembly.

By Isabel Ortiz
BANGKOK, Thailand, Oct 19 2026 (IPS)

Bangkok hosted two summits last week. Inside the Queen Sirikit Convention Center, more than 15,000 finance ministers, central bank governors and CEOs of the world’s largest banks and corporations attended the Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. They flew in business class and slept in five-star hotels to talk about growth, inflation and public spending, and thus to decide the destiny of billions of people they will never meet. Outside, hundreds of social movements and civil society organizations held the People’s Assembly, for the 99% whose voice would not be heard. They flew economy and often shared modest rooms. The first was the summit of money and power. The second, the summit of the rest of us.

Isabel Ortiz

These are turbulent times, marked by crises that are not natural but man-made: war, energy shocks, cost of living crisis, debt crisis, climate crisis, inequality crisis, many aggravated by the Trump administration. Inside the convention center, instead of working to solve these crises, the IMF and the World Bank told countries to be “resilient” and to build “buffers”, that is, to cut public spending now to survive the next crises. Rich countries were told to “take some pain today for growth tomorrow” and low-income countries, in the IMF Managing Director’s own words, “may be forced to cut much-needed development spending”. In other words, accept the man-made disaster, and make the people pay for it with more austerity, cuts to wages, pensions and public services. Only military spending is spared, as a “competing spending priority” to be accommodated, and Europe’s rearmament is counted as growth.

The IMF report World Economic Outlook lifts global growth to 3.1% for 2026 on the back of investment in artificial intelligence (AI), a boom confined to only a handful of countries and a technology the IMF itself says will affect 40% of jobs worldwide, and that a third of jobs in high-income countries are at risk to be replaced by IA.

Both institutions presented private finance as the engine of development: the World Bank’s Development Committee agenda in Bangkok was centered on mobilizing private capital with public guarantees. In plain language, subsidizing large corporations with public money while prescribing cuts to the public services ordinary people depend on.

No communiqué was agreed in any ministerial committee. The corridor talk was how far both institutions have bent to the will of Washington: directors replaced (at the World Bank by private sector executives, most with no development experience); work on climate and gender shelved; and, above all, the chainsaw of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency applied worldwide, with the myth that tax cuts for the wealthy and austerity cuts that impoverish the working and middle classes are necessary.

Outside the convention center, the story was completely different. The People’s Assembly worked through the alternatives in over 50 sessions to formulate a new system accountable to people and planet, not to the 1%. Behind them stand nearly 400 million people: 200 million small farmers of La Via Campesina, 191 million workers of global unions, and tens of thousands of civil society organizations. There were protests in Bangkok, and in more than 150 cities across 38 countries, including Argentina, Congo, Germany, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Uganda and the United Kingdom, with people marching peacefully under banners such as “We are the 99%” or “Tax elites and corporations” reflecting the aims:

• Tax the 1% not ordinary people: Progressive taxes on wealth, large corporations and big tech, and an end to tax havens, with an equitable UN tax convention, instead of consumption taxes and other taxes squeezing the working and middle classes.
• End austerity cuts: Public services and social protection for all; fund the right to health, education, social security, housing, water, instead of privatization and public private partnerships that shift costs to people.
• Debt justice: No country should cut health or education to pay creditors as happens in 51 countries today; audit and cancel illegitimate debts, end IMF surcharges and loan conditions, and a UN framework convention on sovereign debt instead of restructurings run by creditors.
• Climate justice: Make polluters pay, phase out fossil fuels, and a just transition.
• Democratize global economic governance: The IMF and World Bank are not the solution but part of the problem, as a few rich countries (and their corporations) hold most of the voting power (and only the US has a veto); move decisions on debt, tax and finance to the UN, where every country has one vote.
• Gender justice: Women are half of the world population but just an afterthought for policy makers, gender-responsive policies and budgets, public services, redistribution of care work.
• Decent jobs: Employment respecting international labor standards and living wages, union rights and protection for migrant workers.
• Food sovereignty, fair crop prices for farmers, agroecology instead of agrobusiness, land rights for indigenous peoples and small farmers, and rights guaranteed by the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants.
• Industrialization of developing countries, oriented to domestic and regional markets, instead of exporting raw materials and importing everything else.
• No more corporate impunity, promotion of private finance and privatization: public services can be funded by taxing the 1%, a binding UN treaty on business and human rights, and fair trade rules instead of investor-state arbitration that lets corporations sue governments.
• AI: Slow down and put AI under public control, binding public regulation of AI covering data harvesting, manipulation of public opinion, job destruction, civil liberties and environmental damage.
• Stop authoritarianism and the far-right: Defend civic space, Human Rights and democratic institutions against the authoritarian turn of governments.
• Peace and an end to the militarization that diverts budgets from social spending to rearmament, and an end to occupation and genocide in Palestine.

Another world is possible, and last week it was formulated a short distance from the IMF/World Bank convention center. Finance ministers must now choose whom they serve: the millions of citizens who elected them, or the 1%, by bending to pressure from the IMF and the World Bank that deepens inequality.

Isabel Ortiz, Director, Global Social Justice, was Director at the International Labor Organization (ILO) and UNICEF, and a senior official at the UN and the Asian Development Bank.

IPS UN Bureau

 

 

 

 

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UNICEF unloads emergency humanitarian supplies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in response to the Ebola outbreak. The shipment includes protective equipment, hygiene kits, medicines, and medical supplies to support frontline health workers and nearly 100,000 people. Credit: UNICEF/Ndomba Mbikayi

By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, Oct 16 2026 (IPS)

An Ebola death last week in Kenya is highlighting the urgency of Africa’s public health emergency preparedness and how the continent’s governments are committing their national budgets to the health sector.

The Kenya case is serving as a call to arms in the fight against Africa’s public health emergencies and how locally coordinated efforts are adequately equipped to contain the spread of communicable diseases.

“Health emergency preparedness gives us a head start, and Kenya has put important outbreak control measures in place,” Janabi said in a 6 October media brief, which was in stark contrast to concerns raised in the DRC that life-saving medical supplies only arrived ten days later from neighbouring countries, effectively allowing Ebola to leave a trail of death.

As the disease surges at its north Kivu epicentre in the Democratic Republic of Congo, questions have returned about how the shuttering of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has devastated public health emergency responses across Africa.

Last week, Doctors Without Borders warned that the current Ebola strain was spreading so fast for emergency health workers “it was like fighting a megafire,” further raising concerns over how the DRC and neighbouring countries will tackle the crisis amid increasingly limited resources.

Despite being often cited as having vast mineral wealth, the DRC’s Ebola response has been plagued by an under-funded health sector where international humanitarian agencies are struggling to provide basic medical care.

As the new Ebola strain took root in the DRC’s east, Amadou Bocoum, CARE International’s DRC Country Director, lamented that “with proper funding, we would have had prepositioned stock and begun distributing critical supplies like PPE from day one, but instead, we started with nothing and lost 10 days.”

These funding concerns would be raised weeks later by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) at the 76th Session of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa in Addis Ababa in August.

UNECA noted that “Africa’s health financing model remains structurally fragile,” with governments failing to allocate adequate budgets for the health sector.

African governments and other health sector players have already raised alarm over the Trump Administration’s decision to ice the USAID, which triggered a continent-wide shortage of anything from condoms to malaria and HIV/AIDS drugs.

At the WHO Regional Committee conference, UNECA raised concerns that “external health assistance was down almost 30 per cent,” and as Ebola spreads, the effects of that deficit are being felt with catastrophic consequences.

The impact of the reliance on overseas development assistance was made clear by Aboubakri Diaw, who leads UNECA’s Sustainable Financing Initiative, who told the gathering that “Africa does not have a reform deficit. It has a sustainable financed-reform deficit.”

“Health financing strategies sit on shelves. Insurance schemes are legislated but struggling to be capitalised. Benefit packages are defined but not costed into medium-term expenditure frameworks. A reform without a budget line does not constitute a policy,” Diaw said.

Yet it is a commitment African governments made in 2001 at the Abuja Declaration to allocate 15 percent of national budgets to health, but countries have fallen short, with some allocations ranging between as little as 2 percent and 12 percent, according to the World Health Organisation.

To address the public health funding crisis, UNECA says what remains crucial is “a fundamental reset in how African governments and their finance ministries fund health systems” in a continent where millions lack access to and cannot afford basic medical care.

“External aid covered more than 30 per cent of health expenditure, and in some 13 countries the ECA has looked at, households pay more for health than their own governments do,” Diaw said, adding that “many countries on the continent now spend more on servicing debt than on public health.”

Amid these challenges and competing public spending priorities, it is not yet clear how governments will navigate these new public health funding realities, as pressure from international lending institutions for African countries to repay billions of loans still remains.

Analysts however see the funding crisis as part of Africa’s broader political architecture where short-term planning by sitting governments prioritises projects closely linked to the election cycle.

“Governments have to balance health against infrastructure, security, education, social protection and other priorities,” said Pakhani Mhazo, a public health researcher based in  South Africa.

“However, health preparedness often produces benefits that are not immediately visible to voters. For example, if you invest in disease surveillance, laboratories and emergency systems and successfully prevent an outbreak from becoming a crisis, there is no obvious event that voters can see as the result of that investment,” Mhazo told IPS.

Meanwhile, without any clear or immediate sources to fill the funding gaps left by international aid, African governments have their work cut out, and as Claver Gatete, UNECA Executive Secretary, reminded African ministers during the High-Level Forum on Sustainable Health Financing in April this year, “Health is not expenditure; it is investment – in people, in productivity and in prosperity.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

 

 

 

Singer-songwriter Yusuf ‘Cat Stevens’ Islam speaks during the closing session of the Global Tipping Points Conference in Kuala Lumpur. Credit: Zofeen T. Ebrahim

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 16 2026 (IPS)

With the city enveloped in a cloak of haze, the urgency of tackling the climate crisis could hardly have been clearer as the four-day Global Tipping Points Conference 2026 drew to a close at Malaysia’s Sunway University on Thursday.

At the conference, speakers stressed the need for humanity to remain within planetary boundaries, or the “safe operating space”.

Crossing these boundaries could have catastrophic consequences, warned Professor Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and one of the conference organisers.

He highlighted the dangers of triggering irreversible changes in major Earth systems. Some of the bulwarks have already been breached, manifesting themselves in the form of collapsed ice sheets, bleached corals, shrinking wildlife habitats and the slow death of rainforests.

Dong Wang’s park in Bangkok. Credit: Zofeen T. Ebrahim

‘Tipping points’ conference brings together climate scientists, activists, and finance gurus; highlights success stories from around the world

All of this threatens food security, causes displacement, damages human health and destabilises economies.

With plenty of reasons to be pessimistic – social and political polarisation, rising inequality and poverty, and wars among them – the message was nevertheless one of urgency rather than despair. “The science has matured, evidence is there… it is time for action… that’s the natural step,” said Sultan Nazrin Shah of Perak.

But there is another side to the tipping-point story.

Professor Timothy Lenton, chair of Climate Change and Earth System Science at the University of Exeter and one of the organisers, spoke about “positive tipping points.” Lenton, who has studied tipping points since the 1990s, argued these could help societies move towards more sustainable futures. Citing Pakistan’s solar boom and Norway’s rapid adoption of electric vehicles, he pointed to transformative shifts that can happen within a relatively short period.

But protecting ecosystems is as important as technologies, said Acehnese forest conservator Farwiza Farhan, while making a compelling case for the protection of the Leuser Ecosystem – a tropical rainforest reserve in Sumatra and one of the last places on Earth where tigers, elephants, rhinos and orangutans coexist in the wild.

Others turned to imagining the future. Anab Jain, co-founder of London-based Superflux, described Mitigation of Shock, an immersive installation set in a fictional 2050. Visitors enter an imagined apartment shaped by a future in which some of the most severe impacts of climate change have already occurred. More than 100,000 people have visited it since 2017, she said.

Professor Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, broadened the discussion to social, economic and political tipping points. If these systems tipped in the wrong direction, he warned, they could trigger a “cascade of devastating consequences.”

Planetary changes and social, economic and political conditions are deeply interconnected, said Sachs, making cooperation essential to averting disaster. He repeatedly pointed to poverty and inequality as forces that could deepen instability but argued that all was not lost. The tools for change – economic wellbeing, social inclusion, environmental sustainability, and peace and cooperation among nations – already exist, he said.

Discussions also covered deforestation, land-use change, governance failures and the rise of artificial intelligence. Turning tools into action, however, requires money, policy and political will.

“But where’s the money?” many asked, urging encouragement for supportive policies and a pipeline of “bankable projects” that protect nature, so that economic incentives favour regeneration over extraction. One such approach came from Dr Ralph Chami, founder of Blue Green Future, who outlined his concept of “regenerative GDP”, i.e. recognising the value of “living nature” and accounting for it on the balance sheet.

Timothy Lenton explaining the positive tipping points. Credit: Zofeen T. Ebrahim

“Why kill the goose that lays the [golden] egg?” he asked, contrasting a living coral reef in the Maldives – which provides a habitat for fish and plays a role in the marine carbon cycle – with a bleached one that can threaten both tourism and fisheries.

But money and markets are only part of the equation. Dr Jemilah Mahmood, executive director of the Centre for Planetary Health at Sunway University, insisted on channelling youth energy. “Give them space at policy [discussions], send them to COPs not as tokenism, but let them negotiate. It’s their future,” she said.

As an example of what young people can achieve, Mahmood pointed to Pacific Island law students whose campaign helped bring climate change and human rights before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Their efforts contributed to a landmark advisory opinion in July 2025, clarifying states’ legal obligations on climate change. Climate litigation and the role of legal action in holding governments accountable also featured in the wider conversation.

The highlight of the conference was definitely the success stories from around the world that offered the most tangible hope.

For example, Chinese urban planner Dong Wang, who specialises in sponge cities and ecological planning, shared a low-cost, low-maintenance and replicable project in the heart of Bangkok – the transformation of a former tobacco factory into the 102-acre Benjakitti Forest Park, to which more than 200 bird species have since returned.

Eva Gladek of Metabolic, who spoke about NetZeroCities, showed how 17 old houseboats in Amsterdam were retrofitted with clean technologies and transformed into energy-efficient offices and workspaces.

Mumbai-based Sheela Patel, director of the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres, drew on five decades of work with people living in informal settlements to highlight another kind of urban resilience. Through the ‘Roof Over Our Heads’ campaign, women supported by young professionals are helping make homes more resilient to rain, strong winds and extreme heat.

And these efforts are not simply one-off experiments. Patel said the work has been documented and shared, with more than 100 labs established across 20 countries to help communities test and replicate solutions. Gladek, meanwhile, is helping 100 European cities work towards climate neutrality.

The thought-provoking conference had opened on a note of faith, with Sultan Nazrin Shah speaking of humanity’s responsibility to care for the planet, which he said “comes with privilege and obligation” but is “not a burden to be feared”.

It ended on a rather philosophical and spiritual note, with British singer-writer Yusuf ‘Cat Stevens’ Islam urging people to become the change rather than expecting the world to change. “Never stop being a child, as there is light in their eyes and they see hope,” he said, also stressing the need to bring spirituality into education. “Look how the curriculum has been colonised.”

For positive tipping points to hold, science alone will not be enough, concluded Mahmood. It will also need the voices of those whose futures are at stake.

Note: Published with the permission of Dawn.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

 

 

 

UN DESA Assistant Secretary-General Bjørg Sandkjær (right) and Rashmi Banga, Chief of the Development Research Branch, brief journalists at UN Headquarters on the launch of the 2026 World Social Report, emphasizing the need for social inclusion as economic, digital, and climate transformations widen existing divides. Credit: UN DESA / P. Vasic

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 16 2026 (IPS)

The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) new report, which addresses the rapid global transformations driven by artificial intelligence (AI), demographic shifts, climate change, and conflict, highlights the widening disparities in employment, social inclusion, and access to services.

The report titled The New Economics of Social Inclusion: Making Transformations Work for All was released on October 5.

Despite decades of progress in income, health, and education that drove development worldwide, the report warns that millions of people risk falling behind. Drawing on data collected over 25 years and across 168 countries, this year’s edition introduces a new Socially Inclusive Transformation (SIT) dashboard, which examines how a nation’s economic, digital, and energy transformations align with social and economic inclusion.

“On one hand, rapid transformations are reshaping our world: digital technologies, artificial intelligence, renewable energy, and the demographic and economic transition,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres during a press briefing at the UN Headquarters coinciding with the report’s release. “On the other hand, these transformations are not working for all. Poverty and deprivation are widespread. Billions are locked out of opportunities because of income, gender, age, disability, ethnicity, or many other fault lines that undermine equality.”

In 2025, UN DESA found that roughly 58 percent of workers were informally employed, while approximately 27 percent of young women aged 15 to 24 were neither employed nor in education or training programs. The same year, UN DESA estimated that around 26 percent of the world’s population, or 2.2 billion, still lacked internet access. Roughly 730 million people lacked access to electricity. The report underscores that even among digitally connected communities, affordability and service quality continue to hinder meaningful participation.

Between 2000 and 2024, the agency reported that more than 50 countries experienced rising income inequality, including in 23 high-income countries. These gaps continue to stifle productivity and weaken community resilience to economic shocks from technological shifts, climate disasters, and geopolitical tensions.

Marginalized groups—including women and girls, youths, disabled persons, migrants, and Indigenous peoples—disproportionately experience limited access to essential resources, economic opportunities, and decision-making processes.

Rashmi Banga, Chief, Development Research Branch, Economic Analysis and Policy Division at UN DESA, stressed that transformations do not automatically translate into inclusion. She noted that none of the top five best-performing countries in transformation, specifically Malta, Ireland, the U.S., Singapore, and China, rank among the top five in inclusiveness, which mainly consist of European countries. The report reveals that numerous African countries continue to fall behind, especially with the proliferation of new digital technologies and the energy transition.

The report highlights the compounding climate crisis as a major driver of social exclusion, noting that approximately 887 million of the 1.1 billion people living in multidimensional poverty are also exposed to at least one major climate hazard. These impacts are most pronounced in regions entrenched in humanitarian crises, where communities have the fewest resources to adapt, significantly threatening long-term economic resilience.

Guterres warned that cascading global shocks, such as the Middle East crisis, are compounding existing threats through rising food, fertilizer, and fuel prices, resulting in more than 100 countries lowering their gross-domestic product forecasts this year alone.

UN DESA also identifies the growing digital divide driven by artificial intelligence as a major threat to social inclusion. While the report shows AI’s potential in enhancing agricultural productivity and generating meaningful gains for rural communities, it warns that significant threats remain. Entire communities with limited affordable, digital connectivity, coupled with insufficient digital skills, risk falling further behind.

Bjørg Sandkjær, UN DESA’s Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination, told reporters that AI often reproduces “biases that exist in the world today” during hiring processes. She warned that this has severe implications for employment, particularly for women.

Banga added that equitable and effective AI governance is critical in preventing these biases and fostering economic and social inclusion. She highlighted India and China as examples of countries implementing AI education into school curriculum, while France has established access to digital infrastructure as a legal right.

Additional data from the report reveals that delaying social inclusion carries a “measurable economic cost.” UN DESA estimates show that if investments in social protection mechanisms are delayed by another decade, countries could face a potential decline in economic output by roughly 12 percent compared to countries that invested early. Conversely, efforts to include young people in employment could raise national GDP by 9.6 percent over the next decade.

“Inclusive societies are more productive, resilient, and prosperous,” said Guterres. “The report urges investments in education, job creation, and skill training, so all people can benefit from technological advancements and the growth of new industries. It calls for inclusive institutions and policymaking to ensure all voices are represented, and it advocates equity-focused approaches to labor markets and taxation to open opportunities for all people, no matter who they are or where they live.”

Banga emphasized that national investments alone cannot achieve adequate social inclusion without strong international cooperation. Multilateral support is pivotal in expanding fiscal space, providing long-term development financing, and widening access to digital infrastructure. Sandkjær called on governments to reframe social inclusion not only as an economic imperative, but as a strategic investment in long-term stability, resilience, and productivity. She also urged for greater integration of social commitments into macroeconomic planning.

“As transformations gather pace, there is no time to be lost by bringing social commitments into the heart of economic policymaking; we can unleash a virtuous cycle of greater inclusion and stronger growth,” said Sandkjær.

IPS UN Bureau Report