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From Castel Gandolfo to Campidoglio: Call for Human Dignity to Be at the Heart of the AI Revolution

Fri, 07/24/2026 - 14:16

The Global Nobel Laureates Assembly on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear War brought together more than 200 of the world’s most authoritative figures on peace and artificial intelligence. Here the 'The Rome Declaration for a Disarmed and Disarming Peace' was signed in the main council chamber in Rome's city hall Campidoglio. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri/INPS Japan

By Ariel F. Dumont
ROME, Jul 24 2026 (IPS)

After two days of debate at an international conference devoted to the challenges of artificial intelligence (AI), nuclear war and global security, Nobel laureates, former heads of state and government, scientists, human rights defenders, religious leaders and representatives of civil society adopted a joint declaration, calling for it to be based on human dignity.

Inspired by Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas and signed in the halls of the Capitol, Rome’s city hall, this text states that artificial intelligence cannot be left solely to military or commercial interests. It also calls for international cooperation based on human dignity, the development of global AI governance and the continuation of efforts towards nuclear disarmament.

As major powers are investing increasingly substantial sums in the development of AI, participants considered that humanity stands at a genuine crossroads. The choices that will be made will have a decisive impact not only on tomorrow’s geopolitical balances but also on the future and place of human beings in a world where decisions could increasingly be entrusted to artificial intelligence.

This point was highlighted by Rome’s mayor, Roberto Gualtieri, the master of ceremonies of this meeting, organised by the Global Nobel Laureates Assembly on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear War, who described it as historic.

The declaration, named “The Rome Declaration for a Disarmed and Disarming Peace”, was signed on Thursday, July 16.

For Rome’s mayor, “the crucial issue, both at the global and local levels, is technological development, which must be inspired by fundamental ethical principles: respect for individuals, equality among human beings and democratic responsibility in the name of the common good.”

Gualtieri also stressed that today, more than ever, “the world needs an international coalition capable of promoting a new model of development combining economic growth, social justice, human rights and environmental protection”, thus echoing Pope Leo XIV’s call for “a disarmed and disarming peace”.

A few hours earlier, Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, had warned against the development of autonomous weapons.

“The idea that decisions to kill could be made by machines is repugnant to us.”

Delegates at the Global Nobel Laureates Assembly on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear War pose in the main council chamber in Rome’s city hall Campidoglio. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri/INPS Japan

According to Callamard, the danger does not lie in an artificial intelligence that would suddenly become conscious but rather in the decision to delegate to it responsibilities that belong exclusively to moral judgement.

“It is not that the machine decides that it will become the boss; it is we who programme these systems,” she explained.

For the head of Amnesty International, the growing integration of AI into military operations represents a major change. These systems can already analyse enormous quantities of data, identify targets and recommend strikes, while gradually reducing the need for human intervention.

Beyond autonomous weapons, the Callamard reminded the world that it must pay close attention to the implications of the progressive integration of AI into what the military calls, in its jargon, the “kill chain”, meaning the process from target identification to the conduct of an operation.

“Even when a human being officially retains the final decision, the growing dependence on automated systems profoundly changes the way military operations are prepared and conducted,” Callamard stated, adding that these technologies rely on immense volumes of data that may themselves be altered.

“Analyses and recommendations can be biased because they are based on data that themselves carry these biases. We must remain attentive to the risks arising from erroneous or discriminatory decisions in contexts where the consequences can be irreversible.”

Another danger: the multiplication of force. Thanks to artificial intelligence, a single operator could simultaneously supervise dozens, or even hundreds, of drones or other autonomous systems, considerably increasing military capabilities.

“These technological developments are taking place within a broader context of strategic competition between states. We are living in a period when many governments are seeking military hegemony,” Callamard concluded.

Beyond military issues, several speakers also insisted on the geopolitical consequences of this technological revolution. Romano Prodi, former president of the European Commission and former Italian prime minister, estimated that the growing rivalry between the United States and China considerably complicates the emergence of genuine international regulation.

In an increasingly fragmented world, Prodi warned, no nation will be able to address alone the challenges linked to artificial intelligence, global security or the control of ever more powerful technologies.

These words anticipated the essence of the final declaration, according to which international cooperation is now an indispensable condition for preventing artificial intelligence from fuelling a new arms race and widening geopolitical fractures.

The discussions also focused on the economic and social consequences of this technological revolution. In the world of work, the sudden arrival of AI is already raising many concerns, particularly regarding the professional future of younger generations and the profound transformation of several professions in the coming years.

The programme brought together a number of leading international figures, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Chief Advisor to Bangladesh Muhammad Yunus; Yoshiyuki Nagaoka, Executive Director of the Office of Public Affairs at Soka Gakkai; Filipino journalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa; Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard; and several scientists and nuclear experts.

Research published by King’s College London shows that a study carried out on hundreds of millions of job advertisements across 39 countries reveals an average 6.1% decline in job offers in professions most exposed to automation, while the remaining positions require increasingly specialised skills.

Ultimately, what will remain of this conference and of the Rome Declaration? The main point to remember is that participants accept the development of artificial intelligence and do not believe it should frighten us. On the contrary, they consider that this technology can become a powerful driver of progress – provided, however, that it remains at the service of humanity. The ball is therefore in the court of states and their leaders, who must above all place human dignity at the forefront.

The real question is no longer only what artificial intelligence will make possible, but rather what limits societies and humanity as a whole will choose to set for it before the imperatives of power permanently override collective responsibility.

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

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Categories: Africa, European Union

The Houthis Don’t Need to Close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to Strangle the Suez Canal

Fri, 07/24/2026 - 07:18

Satellite image of the Red Sea, the Bab el-Mandeb strait being at the bottom right opening. Credit: Wikimedia/NASA

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 24 2026 (IPS)

With regional friction between Iran and the Gulf monarchies escalating, Houthi leadership in Yemen has proclaimed a total maritime blockade against all vessels linked to Saudi shipping. While this declaration does not constitute a verified military obstruction of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, it significantly heightens the risk of volatility at the Red Sea’s southern gateway, potentially severing the primary arterial link to the Suez Canal.

The embargo is already being framed as more than a simple ban on Saudi-flagged vessels. In messages sent to shipping companies navigating the Strait, the Houthis warned against any activities at Saudi ports, including by non-Saudi-flagged ships, saying that vessels could be targeted “in any location.” This is significant as Saudi Arabia’s maritime infrastructure managed 331 million tonnes of freight in 2024—a volume roughly equal to 12 million fully laden 20-foot containers.

Within days of these threats being made, five ships have been recorded turning around after heading towards the Bab el-Mandeb passage. Among these ships, the Xin Long Yang, a VLCC loaded at Yanbu and bound for Qinzhou, China, carrying 2 million barrels of Saudi crude, initially reversed north towards the Suez Canal. The vessel later reversed course again, choosing to resume its original route heading south towards Bab el-Mandeb.

Additionally, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said that two Saudi oil tankers, named Encelia and Layla, were targeted for their “violation of the blockade decision issued by the armed forces.”

Jeddah Islamic Port, the Kingdom’s principal commercial gateway on the Red Sea, received 3,805 vessel calls in 2024, more than any other Saudi port. Yanbu has become Saudi Arabia’s critical Red Sea oil-export network, where crude is moved from eastern fields using the East–West pipeline before being loaded onto tankers. With the Strait of Hormuz severely disrupted, the Red Sea corridor is no longer simply an alternative route: it is Saudi Arabia’s critical remaining maritime outlet to Asian markets.

Saudi Arabia’s Yanbu port was loading approximately 4 million b/d in mid-July, close to 4 percent of daily global oil demand. Disruptions at Bab el-Mandeb would also affect the Suez Canal, which carried approximately 22 percent of global seaborne container trade in 2023 and acts as the link between European and Asian markets. Of the cargo which transits through Bab el-Mandeb, 3.97 million b/d of crude passed through its gates in March, according to Kpler.

If the Houthis can continue to enforce their threat and create enough uncertainty, even selective attacks on some vessels can increase wartime insurance costs and undermine security guarantees, which could push carriers to reroute around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa.

Credit: Maximilian Malawista

For an Asia–Europe container voyage, rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope can add roughly 3,000 to 3,500 nautical miles and approximately seven to ten days of sailing time. This also increases the cost of the voyage, heightening fuel costs, requiring more vessel capacity to maintain scheduled services, and exposing cargo to higher insurance premiums. The World Bank has estimated that the additional fuel bill alone could reach USD 1 million for a round trip. Analysis by the OECD put the wider cost increase at USD 1.7 million for a medium-sized container ship on an Asia–Europe round trip—roughly an increase of USD 272, or 19 percent, for one standard 40-foot container.

In late 2023, similar Houthi threats, which led to selective attacks against commercial vessels, led major carriers to avoid the Red Sea passage and use the alternative route around the Cape of Good Hope. In just three months, by mid-February 2024, UNCTAD had recorded 586 container vessels taking the longer route around Africa, while container tonnage moving through the Suez Canal had simultaneously fallen 82 percent. Spot rates—the price of booking a container on short notice—also rose by 256 percent during the same period on voyages from Shanghai to Europe.

The Suez Canal in Egypt. Credit: Unsplash/Samuel Hanna

For Yemen, the consequences could be especially severe. The country relies on imports for more than 90 percent of its staple foods, including about 90 percent of its wheat and all of its rice requirements. Much of that supply enters through the ports of Aden and Hodeidah. The World Food Programme estimates that 18.2 million people in Yemen require humanitarian aid, being in dire need of humanitarian assistance and protection services.

Even considering that the Houthis formally exempt humanitarian cargo from the embargo, an escalation of insecurity can delay vessels and raise freight and insurance costs, deterring commercial shipping lines from calling at Yemeni ports. Humanitarian aid will not be nearly enough to replace the normal commercial flow of food and fuel, which affects Yemeni civilians first, who are already facing hunger and economic collapse.

The central question is not whether the Houthis can permanently seal Bab el-Mandeb. It is whether they can make the route risky enough that insurers, carriers, and oil traders abandon it themselves.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa, European Union

What Development Looks like in Myanmar Today

Fri, 07/24/2026 - 07:15

Investments in jobs, basic services and community infrastructure can reduce the pressures that drive displacement in Myanmar. Credit: UNDP Myanmar

By Norimasa Shimomura
YANGON, Myanmar, Jul 24 2026 (IPS)

When asked what development looks like today, a community leader in Kalaw township points to these fields. Once destroyed by a typhoon, they are now productive again. What began as emergency food assistance in the first month was followed by UNDP support in the community—seeds, training, debris removal, support to microbusinesses and small infrastructure—backed by the Republic of Korea, Norway and Switzerland. One year on, the fields sustain three annual production cycles—rice and flowers—with more resilient practices and higher yields. “This is what development looks like to us,” he says.

Communities in Myanmar today are not facing a single crisis. They are facing many, and layered on top of one another, recurring over time. Conflict, insecurity, economic uncertainty, market volatility and climate- and disaster-related shocks do not occur in isolation. Global crises are placing added pressure on already-stretched humanitarian and development financing. Together, these dynamics reinforce one another, creating a cycle that is harder to break. These protracted, compounding crises are reshaping the country’s social and economic fabric and putting communities under enormous stress.

Myanmar shows why separating humanitarian action from development no longer fits reality. Relief keeps people alive, but it will not on its own restart livelihoods, steady local services, increase risk preparedness or reduce the pressures that drive displacement. The smarter play is to link emergency support to a continuum of recovery, stabilization and longer-term development, backing community systems and local markets so today’s spending also buys a more durable future.

A crisis that feeds on itself

Myanmar is fragmented: conflict in too many areas, economic freefall in others, and climate shocks across the country—from floods and droughts to rising temperatures and environmental loss. But these pressures are connected. When livelihoods collapse, people move. When insecurity rises, local economies contract. When disasters hit, already-fragile services give way. Families then face hard trade-offs; taking on high-interest debt, moving to precarious urban fringes, attempting risky migration, or turning to illicit markets.

For many, participation in informal, and sometimes criminal economies is less a choice than a last resort. Others flee, often towards cities such as Yangon. But urban areas are already under strain. In peri-urban Yangon, poverty rates are estimated to be around 50 percent, and new arrivals stretch housing, services and jobs further, deepening vulnerability and inequality. Women shoulder this burden most heavily, with women-headed households in peri-urban areas more likely to have lower incomes, depend on precarious and poorly paid employment, and facing heightened safety concerns.

This is how the crisis sustains itself. Conflict and violence breed insecurity; insecurity forces people from their homes and pushes some into illicit economies; displacement fractures livelihoods and the resulting economic hardship reinforces instability. And so the cycle continues.

The limits of a humanitarian-only response

Myanmar has received humanitarian aid for decades. It remains essential. People need immediate support for food, shelter and protection. But the challenges Myanmar faces today are not only humanitarian. They are structural and long-term. When support can only be planned and financed in short cycles, it can help people survive, but without enabling them to rebuild livelihoods, restore services or reduce future risk. This can create dependence on humanitarian aid without a clear exit.

The question is no longer whether humanitarian support is needed—it clearly is—but whether it is sufficient on its own, and how development can help build resilience. To break the cycle, investments must also focus on recovery, livelihoods, risk preparedness, access to finance and local systems. The bridge between humanitarian action and development must be deliberately built. UNDP in Myanmar has designed a new phase of its Community First Programme backing community-led solutions that can absorb shocks now while laying foundations for medium- and longer-term development.

Where the bridge matters most

There are three areas where this bridge is critical.

By combining community-based approaches with more targeted economic interventions, it is possible to offer a more comprehensive response in a protracted crisis. Credit: UNDP Myanmar

First, livelihoods and early recovery. Investments in jobs, basic services and community infrastructure can reduce the pressures that drive displacement. When people have viable ways to earn a living, they are less likely to move out of necessity. This also reduces the burden on humanitarian systems and can be an immediate stabilizing factor.

Second, local systems and community capacity. Even in constrained contexts, support to community-level structures can have a powerful effect. It enables people to manage their own recovery, strengthens local decision-making and builds a sense of ownership. It helps communities to think longer term and create some community wealth. These are the building blocks of future governance.

Third, economic alternatives to illicit activity. When large parts of local economies in some regions operate in grey or black markets, the implications go beyond livelihoods, they affect national and regional security. Creating alternatives—through job creation, support to small businesses and financing—gives people options. It reduces reliance on illicit networks, lowers risks of exploitation and opens pathways for more sustainable economic activity. These directly affect stability within Myanmar and across its borders.

Navigating a complex funding landscape

Despite the clear need to bridge humanitarian and development approaches, funding structures often work against it. In Myanmar, much of the available funding is still categorized as humanitarian. This creates challenges for organizations with strong development expertise, which must adapt their language and delivery models to fit short-term funding criteria.

At the same time, partner expectations are evolving, but not always consistently. Some continue to fund purely humanitarian outputs. Others expect development impact from humanitarian interventions. Still others fund development but want to demonstrate humanitarian impact.

This creates a fragmented landscape: humanitarian funding for humanitarian results, humanitarian funding seeking development impact, development funding framed as humanitarian and, more rarely, development funding investing directly in long-term results.

Navigating this requires flexibility and clarity of purpose. Development actors must be able to articulate the longer-term impact of their work, even when operating in a humanitarian context. The value lies precisely in that distinction: connecting immediate interventions to sustained recovery and future stability.

A window of opportunity

There are signs of change. Some partners are beginning to recognize that continued investment in short-term relief, without parallel investments in recovery and livelihoods, is not sustainable.

This creates an opportunity. By combining community-based approaches with more targeted economic interventions—jobs, enterprise development, access to finance, climate and energy solutions—it is possible to offer a more comprehensive response in a protracted crisis context, one that addresses both immediate needs and underlying drivers of crisis. But this window may not remain open indefinitely. As other actors reposition and global priorities shift, the space for shaping this agenda could narrow.

Looking ahead

Myanmar’s challenges are complex but the direction of response is clear. Humanitarian aid remains indispensable. But on its own, it cannot break cycles of crisis that are structural and self-reinforcing.

Bridging humanitarian action and development is how people regain agency. It is how communities stabilize. And ultimately, it is how countries begin to move beyond crisis—not just survive it.

Norimasa Shimomura is UNDP Resident Representative in Myanmar.
Source: UNDP

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa, European Union

Hunger in Latin America Keeps Falling – Now Healthy Diets Must Become Affordable

Thu, 07/23/2026 - 20:33

Latin America and the Caribbean has the world’s most expensive healthy diet. Credit: Max Valencia / FAO

By Máximo Torero
ROME, Jul 23 2026 (IPS)

Hunger is falling across most of Latin America and the Caribbean. The region’s next challenge is harder: ensuring that everyone can afford a healthy diet, not merely enough calories to survive.

The regional hunger rate fell for a fifth consecutive year in 2025, reaching a record low of 4.8 percent, down from the pandemic peak of 6.1 percent in 2020. About 32 million people faced hunger, more than 1 million fewer than in 2024 and 7.5 million fewer than in 2020. Moderate or severe food insecurity, which includes people forced to skip meals or eat less, also fell to 22.9 percent, below its 2015 level of 23.4 percent. The region’s share of the world’s hungry has remained at about 5 percent for 15 years.

This progress was not accidental. It reflects sustained investment in agricultural productivity and stronger social protection, including the cash transfer and school feeding programs developed by Brazil and Mexico.

Poor roads, limited rail networks, inadequate cold storage, unreliable energy, inefficient markets and post harvest losses raise costs as nutritious food moves through storage, processing, transportation, wholesale and retail

The countries recording the largest gains differ greatly, but their policies reveal a consistent pattern. Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Guyana and Uruguay have reduced hunger below 2.5 percent, the level below which the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reports the estimate simply as “less than 2.5 percent.” Since the mid 2000s, Peru has cut its rate from 17.9 to 5.7 percent; Bolivia, from 27.6 to 19.5 percent; Colombia, from 11.0 to 4.1 percent; and Panama, from 14.8 to 4.7 percent.

These findings, from the 2026 edition of The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, show that hunger falls when agricultural, economic and social policies reinforce one another. Social protection preserves purchasing power. Agricultural investment raises productivity. Rural infrastructure connects farmers to markets. School meals and cash transfers protect vulnerable families while creating demand for locally produced food.

The gains, however, remain fragile and uneven.

The 2026 Middle East crisis poses a less uniform threat here than in Africa or Asia. Latin America and the Caribbean produces more crude oil than it consumes, and some energy exporters could benefit from higher prices. But this regional average conceals the exposure of many Central American and Caribbean economies that depend heavily on imported fuels and remain vulnerable to rising energy, fertilizer, transportation and food import costs. The crisis will create winners and losers within the region, not leave it untouched.

The sharpest divide is in the Caribbean. Its hunger rate edged up to 16.6 percent in 2025, nearly five times the rate in South America, while moderate or severe food insecurity reached 52 percent, the highest of any subregion.

Haiti is the most extreme case. Its hunger rate rose from 47.7 to 51.4 percent, and more than half the population faces acute food insecurity. Haiti is the only country in the Americas, and one of five globally, where people face catastrophic levels of hunger. Armed violence, institutional breakdown, economic decline and climate shocks are erasing years of development, even without a formally declared war.

But hunger captures only one dimension of deprivation. The cost of a healthy diet reveals a larger structural problem.

Latin America and the Caribbean has the world’s most expensive healthy diet. In 2025, it cost an average of 4.91 purchasing power parity dollars per person per day, compared with 4.35 in Africa, 4.33 in Asia and 3.64 in Northern America and Europe. In the Caribbean, the cost reached 6.04 purchasing power parity dollars, the highest of any subregion, compared with 4.66 in Central America.

Because regional incomes are higher on average, the share of people unable to afford a healthy diet, 25.7 percent, remains far below Africa’s 66.1 percent and has been declining since 2021. But averages again conceal severe deprivation. In Haiti, 88.9 percent of people cannot afford a healthy diet.

Latin America and the Caribbean has therefore made genuine progress against calorie deprivation. But sufficient calories are no longer its only, or even its largest, food challenge. A diet that prevents hunger does not necessarily prevent anaemia, child stunting, obesity, diabetes and other forms of malnutrition. A healthy diet requires adequate fruits, vegetables and animal source foods, yet that diet costs more here than anywhere else.

The region’s high diet costs are driven particularly by vegetables and by what happens after food leaves the farm. Poor roads, limited rail networks, inadequate cold storage, unreliable energy, inefficient markets and post harvest losses raise costs as nutritious food moves through storage, processing, transportation, wholesale and retail. This is not simply a production problem. It is a midstream problem.

The policy response must therefore be more precise than simply spending more on agriculture. Broad farm subsidies will not repair broken supply chains. Governments should invest in horticultural productivity, rural roads, rail connections, cold chains, storage, packhouses, reliable energy, wholesale markets and competitive transportation. These investments would reduce losses, expand supply and lower the price of fruits, vegetables and other nutrient rich foods.

Sequencing also matters. Expanding school meals, cash transfers or food vouchers before supply can respond may raise local prices and exclude the consumers these programs are intended to support. Investment in production and supply chains must precede, or at least accompany, measures that stimulate demand.

A decade ago, Brazil, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Colombia might have appeared to be unrelated success stories. We now know that their gains came from deliberate investments in social protection and agricultural productivity.

Making healthy diets affordable will require the same determination, directed this time toward the infrastructure, logistics and markets that move nutritious food to consumers. The immediate priority is to extend the region’s progress to the Caribbean and, most urgently, to Haiti.

Latin America and the Caribbean has shown that hunger can fall. It must now prove that a healthy diet need not remain a privilege.

Excerpt:

Máximo Torero is the Chief Economist of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Categories: Africa, European Union

Food and Transport Costs through Strait of Hormuz Remain High, Burdening Vulnerable Economies

Thu, 07/23/2026 - 19:51

Amir Saeid Iravani, Permanent Representative of Iran to the United Nations, addresses the Security Council high-level debate on the safety of global waterways, amid growing concerns over threats to shipping and freedom of navigation, held on April 27, 2026. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 23 2026 (IPS)

Prior to the latest round of hostilities between the United States and Iran, freight traffic had been increasing in the Strait of Hormuz, and negotiations were underway for a new agreement to fully restore trade through this channel.

According to UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), energy markets were likely to bounce back to normal pre-conflict levels faster than that of food, public finance, and transport, leaving many vulnerable economies worse off. UNCTAD research shows a change from about 125 daily ship transits through the Strait of Hormuz in 2026, January 1st through February 27th, to a drop of around 10 daily transits from February 28th through June 14th during the conflict, marking a 92 percent decrease in overall transit ability.

According to UNCTAD and the Strait of Hormuz monitor, levels on June 2nd recorded around 40 ship transits, with an average of 60 through the days after signing the MOU (The Memorandum of Understanding signed by both US and Iranian delegations). This represents roughly half of pre-conflict transit levels.

Source: Author’s visualizations using data from Strait of Hormuz Trade Tracker (WTO)
Note: Daily outbound shipments represent AIS-traceable crude oil tanker departures from the Strait of Hormuz to destinations outside the Persian Gulf. Additionally, this graph is roughly similar to overall shipments of LNG, fertilizer, and Agricultural products through the same period.

Following the closure of the Strait, the daily price of crude oil jumped to USD 120 per barrel, then averaged around USD 100 per barrel throughout the conflict. The daily price of crude oil fell to USD 70 per barrel upon the signing of the MOU, roughly returning to pre-conflict levels. However, following the latest escalations and the breaking of the MOU, crude prices have risen again to approximately USD 100, indicating that agreements to cease conflicts can quickly bring prices down significantly, if agreed to once more.

On the contrary, the IGC Grains and Oilseeds Freight index (GOFI), indicates a slow decrease of the heightened costs of transporting both grains and oilseeds by sea (e.g., Wheat, Corn, Barley, Sorghum, Soybeans, Rapeseed (canola), Sunflower seed), across 68 key exporting origins in the regions of the United States, The European Union, Canada, the Black Sea region, Brazil, Australia, and Argentina.

Source: Author’s visualizations using data from the International Grains Council (IGC).
Note: The index is normalized so that 100 represents the average grain and oilseed freight rate on January 1, 2013. During the conflict, the index rose to approximately 190, representing a 90 percent increase relative to the base value and a 30 percent increase from the beginning of the conflict on February 28, 2026.

As a result of the heightened price of grains and oilseeds, among other agriculture components, UNCTAD says, “Past input price shocks remain a risk to future food security,” laying out the cycle in which costs can amount:

This process has exposed 61 vulnerable economies to dual impact of higher oil and cereal import prices. (e.g., wheat, rice, corn, barley, oats, sorghum, millet, rye) These countries consist of 35 least developed countries and 26 small island states, with seven of those countries being both least developed and small island developing states.

According to UNCTAD, the pressure is “sharpest for economies that rely heavily on imported fuel”, citing an example in Cabo Verde where net imports of oil and petroleum products averaged 24.6 percent of GDP within recent years. This dependence on fuel imports means that those extra costs can quickly make food prices, electricity, transport, and public finances more expensive.

Source: Author’s visualizations using data from UNCTADStat.
Notes: Orange countries are small island states, and blue countries are least developed countries (LDCs).

Yemen was also cited to be at high risk, with analysis showing that net imports of cereal and cereal products averaged 10.8 percent of GDP. For countries like Yemen dealing with conflict, hyperinflation, debt pressure, and limited public financing, a higher import bill for grain compounds an already declining situation.

Source: Author’s visualizations using data from UNCTADStat.
Notes: Orange countries are small island states, and blue countries are least developed countries (LDCs).

UNCTAD analysis indicates that a real increase of food cost by just 5 percent is associated with a higher risk of child wasting (a life-threatening form of acute malnutrition), especially among poor children and children living in rural landless households.

While restoring full trade through the strait is a necessary step to recovery, this will not undo the aftermath that higher import bills, delayed shipments, and higher priced food and energy have on the global economy, especially vulnerable economies.

“The policy task is therefore broader than reopening a route. Vulnerable economies need support to manage higher import bills, protect households from food and fuel shocks, and invest in systems that reduce exposure before the next disruption hits household budgets,” said UNCTAD, indicating the importance for vulnerable economies to develop supply chain resilience, sustainable systems, and have less reliance on concentrated international trade for vital goods such as food and energy, among financial support from the international system.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa, European Union

Human-Caused Climate Change, Not El Niño, Drives Most Coral Bleaching Events – Research

Thu, 07/23/2026 - 10:13

The reef surrounding Namotu Island, Fiji, has experienced serious coral bleaching caused by increasing ocean temperatures. Credit: Beau Pilgrim / Climate Visuals

By Kizito Makoye
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, Jul 23 2026 (IPS)

Every morning, as the Indian Ocean retreats from the reef off Zanzibar’s Jambiani village, Chiku Chande steps into the knee-deep lagoon carrying bundles of seaweed seedlings. Years of farming these waters have taught her about every channel and coral outcrop. But lately, the corals that once glowed in brown and gold have become chalky white.

“You don’t need anyone to tell you these changes,” Chande tells IPS. “We see it with our own eyes. The coral has lost its colour.”

Like many families in Jambiani, the 48-year-old grandmother depends on the reef. It shelters her seaweed farm from crashing Indian Ocean waves, supports fish stocks and brings tourists to the village. As the corals bleach and slowly die, she worries about the future.

Chande has watched the reef change year after year. Scientists say her observations mirror what is happening across the world’s tropical oceans.

Scientists long regarded El Niño – the natural warming of parts of the Pacific Ocean that disrupts weather patterns globally – as the main driver of mass coral bleaching

A new study led by Climate Central and published in Oceanography concludes that human-induced climate change has driven every global coral bleaching event over the past four decades. The researchers found greenhouse gas emissions have warmed the oceans so much that El Niño now acts mainly as a trigger rather than the root cause.

“Our study shows that without climate change, coral bleaching would be a rare and isolated event, and global mass coral bleaching simply would not occur,” says Andrew Pershing, Climate Central’s chief programme officer and the study’s lead author.

2026-2027 projected bleaching risk map. A report published in Oceanography argues that nearly every global coral bleaching event over the past 40 years would not have occurred
without human-caused climate change. Credit: Oceanography

Corals bleach when unusually warm water forces them to expel the microscopic algae that provide most of their food and give them their vibrant colours. If temperatures quickly return to normal, corals can recover. But prolonged heat starves them and can kill entire reef ecosystems.

To determine how much of that warming came from human activity, researchers compared today’s sea surface temperatures with computer simulations of a world unaffected by greenhouse gas emissions. They then assessed whether bleaching would still have occurred under those cooler conditions.

Their analysis showed that every global bleaching event since 1998 – including those in 1998, 2010, 2014-2017 and the ongoing event that began in 2023 – required human-caused warming to push ocean temperatures beyond bleaching thresholds. Although El Niño coincided with many of those events, the study found they would not have become global bleaching episodes without decades of warming driven by fossil fuel emissions.

Women seaweed farmers in Zanzibar’s Jambiani village receive guidance while tending seaweed farms in the shallow lagoon, where warming seas have also left nearby coral reefs increasingly bleached. Scientists say human-caused climate change, rather than natural climate cycles, has driven every global mass coral bleaching event on record. Credit: Muhidin Michuzi

The findings have particular implications for Tanzania.

The country’s 1,400-kilometre coastline, which includes the reefs surrounding Zanzibar, Pemba and Mafia islands, supports fisheries, tourism and thousands of coastal livelihoods. Healthy reefs also protect beaches and coastal settlements by absorbing up to 97 percent of incoming wave energy, reducing erosion and storm damage.

As reefs deteriorate, fish populations decline, tourism suffers and coastlines become increasingly vulnerable to flooding and erosion.

Similar pressures are happening across tropical reefs worldwide. Although coral reefs cover less than one percent of the ocean floor, they support roughly a quarter of all marine species and generate an estimated US$2.7 trillion annually in ecosystem services through fisheries, tourism and coastal protection. The Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network estimates the world lost about 14 percent of its coral between 2009 and 2018 as repeated marine heatwaves left reefs too little time to recover.

Recent ocean temperature records suggest the pressure is intensifying.

According to the Copernicus Marine Service, June 2026 was the warmest June on record for global sea surface temperatures, while marine heatwaves covered about 82 percent of the world’s oceans by the end of the month. Because the oceans absorb more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases, marine heatwaves are becoming more frequent and severe, increasing the likelihood of coral bleaching.

The Climate Central researchers project that by 2028 human-caused warming will outweigh El Niño’s influence in every coral reef region worldwide. Bleaching, they say, will increasingly reflect persistently warmer oceans rather than unusually strong natural climate cycles.

Using the same attribution methods, the researchers also assessed bleaching risk during the developing 2026-2027 El Niño. They found that while the climate pattern could still trigger bleaching in some regions, human-caused warming would account for most of the risk, particularly in the southern Caribbean, the Pacific coasts of Central and South America, and parts of East and Southeast Asia.

Globally, the monthly average sea-surface temperature for the extra-polar ocean (60°S–60°N) was the highest for June, exceeding the previous record set in June 2024 by just 0.01ºC. This partly reflected the development of strong El Niño conditions in the equatorial Pacific, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service. Credit: ECMWF/Copernicus Climate Change Service

The study challenges the long-held assumption that bleaching is mainly a response to natural climate cycles. Researchers say bleaching can no longer be viewed as an occasional event linked to natural climate cycles; scientists say it is increasingly becoming a recurring consequence of steadily warming oceans.

“By isolating the effect of climate change, our study shows that the fate of reefs is closely tied to how much carbon pollution goes into the atmosphere. Protecting reefs from overfishing and pollution is very important. We need as many thriving reef areas as possible. Even during severe events, there are often pockets of coral that persist. These areas can be the source for recovery in the short and long term,” Pershing tells IPS

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that even if global warming is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, up to 90 percent of the world’s coral reefs could disappear by mid-century. At 2 degrees Celsius of warming, losses could reach 99 percent.

Chande does not speak in terms of climate attribution. She only knows the reef looks different from when she began farming seaweed. Researchers say the bleaching she has witnessed reflects a much deeper shift: oceans that have steadily warmed over decades because of greenhouse gas emissions.

“When I was younger, the corals were full of colour and fish,” she said. “Now everything looks white. I worry about what is happening to the sea,” she says.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa, European Union

Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity: Nobel Laureates Call for Global Safeguards

Tue, 07/21/2026 - 13:57

Global Nobel Laureates at the Assembly on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear War held last week in Rome. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri/INPS Japan.

By Ariel F. Dumont
BORGO LAUDATO SI’, Italy, Jul 21 2026 (IPS)

“I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.” By bringing the supercomputer HAL 9000 to life in his 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, American director Stanley Kubrick created one of the most powerful symbols of the fear of artificial intelligence (AI) escaping human control.

Fifty-eight years later, that question is more relevant than ever. It was precisely this issue that brought together more than 200 international figures for three days of discussions in the exceptional setting of Borgo Laudato Si’, located within the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, where Pope Leo XIV is currently staying.

Organised by the Global Nobel Laureates Assembly on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear War, the conference set out to reflect on “the future of international security, the governance of emerging technologies, disarmament and the building of an economy of peace”.

Yoshiyuki Nagaoka, Executive Director of the Office of External Relations at Soka Gakkai and Executive Director of the Ikeda Center for Peace, Learning, and Dialogue. Credit: Ariel F. Dumont/IPS

The programme brought together a number of leading international figures, including former Italian Prime Minister and former President of the European Commission Romano Prodi; Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Chief Advisor to Bangladesh Muhammad Yunus; Yoshiyuki Nagaoka, President of the Ikeda Center for Peace, Learning, and Dialogue and Executive Director of the Office of External Relations at Soka Gakkai; Filipino journalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa; Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard; and several scientists and nuclear experts.

The assembly was officially opened by Monsignor Fabio Baggio, under-secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

In his welcoming address, he immediately established the central thread of the discussions by stressing that “peace is not simply the absence of war but an order founded on justice, mutual trust, respect for the rule of law and the inviolable dignity of every human being.”

The central idea was clear: regulating artificial intelligence has become imperative if peace – and ultimately humanity’s very survival – is to be preserved. AI is now integrated into military systems, dramatically increasing the risks of proliferation, cyber warfare and high-intensity conflicts, with the potential to undermine global stability and respect for ethical principles.

Although the speakers sometimes differed in their analyses, reflecting their diverse backgrounds, they all converged on one essential conclusion. Artificial intelligence should not be feared, but that certainly does not mean it should be given free rein until it becomes another HAL 9000. On the contrary, most participants stressed the urgent need to establish safeguards before potential abuses become impossible to control.

Karen Hallberg, Argentine physicist and president of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. Credit: Ariel F. Dumont/IPS

This concern was voiced in particular by Karen Hallberg, the Argentine physicist specialising in condensed matter and president of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. AI, she argued, is a “dual-use” technology, much like nuclear energy itself. While nuclear fission has led to extraordinary advances in energy production and medicine, it has also made atomic weapons possible.

“Artificial intelligence has the same ambivalence. It can certainly contribute to scientific research, medicine and even the monitoring of international commitments. However, its integration into nuclear weapons systems could usher in a period of dangerous uncertainty,” she warned.

Hallberg also stressed that one of the greatest risks would be to allow algorithms to intervene in processes related to the command and control of nuclear weapons – for instance, analysing satellite imagery, interpreting military situations or contributing to decisions whose consequences could prove irreversible for the future of humanity.

“I am not afraid; I am concerned. And it is precisely this concern that should give us the determination to act before it is too late,” she said, calling on governments to apply the precautionary principle before technology outpaces political regulation and leads to an irreversible drift.

A concern that Nagaoka shares, albeit from a different perspective, is that artificial intelligence is not inherently dangerous. Everything, he argued, depends on how humanity chooses to use it.

“The question ultimately comes back to humanity itself, which has the choice of becoming either more selfish or more compassionate.”

Nagaoka placed particular emphasis on the responsibility of younger generations, who are growing up in an environment where digital tools occupy an ever greater place and where the risk of isolation continues to increase. Humanity’s greatest challenge, therefore, is not to reject AI but to learn how to use it without abandoning the uniquely human capacity for judgement.

“We must preserve our conscience and our wisdom when making decisions,” he said, reminding participants that education and critical thinking will remain the best safeguards against a technology capable of influencing both individual and collective choices.

“I recently heard on television the story of an 86-year-old Japanese woman faced with the painful decision of ending life support for her seriously ill husband. She chose to seek advice from ChatGPT rather than from her family.”

For Nagaoka, the issue is not to condemn such a choice but rather to reflect on these new forms of dialogue emerging in societies where machines may increasingly become trusted interlocutors at the most important moments of human existence.

This reflection on human responsibility echoed the concerns raised by Maria Ressa, winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for her defence of freedom of expression and her fight against disinformation.

Peace is not simply the absence of war but an order founded on justice, mutual trust, respect for the rule of law and the inviolable dignity of every human being.
Throughout the discussions, she repeatedly highlighted the risks AI poses to the future of democracy, including the accelerating spread of false information, the large-scale manipulation of public opinion and the concentration of power in the hands of a limited number of technology companies.

“AI is not simply an issue of innovation. It concerns the very functioning of democratic societies,” Ressa insisted.

But it was undoubtedly Yunus who delivered the conference’s most far-reaching criticism by shifting the debate onto economic ground. The Bangladeshi economist, founder of the Grameen Bank and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize offered a profoundly humanist critique that challenged the very foundations of AI’s use within contemporary capitalism.

“The main problem is not simply the possible disappearance of certain jobs, but the growing concentration of wealth,” Yunus said.

Artificial intelligence, he warned, risks reinforcing a model in which a handful of companies control technologies, data and income, while an ever larger share of the population is excluded from economic participation.

“It could deprive people of their livelihoods, their dignity and their ability to remain independent,” he argued.

The future, he said, cannot be an economy in which artificial intelligence replaces human beings. Instead, it must be based on participation, entrepreneurship and the sharing of opportunities.

His message to political leaders around the world was unequivocal: AI must not become an instrument for concentrating power but rather a tool placed at the service of everyone.

And now what? At the end of these discussions, one certainty emerges: there can be no turning back. Artificial intelligence is now part of our world. Humanity should not fear it, nor should it regard it as tomorrow’s greatest enemy. But several fundamental questions remain unanswered: Who will control this technology, according to what rules, and in the service of what kind of society?

More than half a century after HAL 9000, the real threat may not be that a machine could become human. It may be that human beings gradually renounce what defines them most: their capacity to decide, to judge and to assume responsibility for their own choices.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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

Categories: Africa, Balkans Occidentaux

Global Value Chain Trade Reaches Historic Highs, Despite Push for Reshoring

Tue, 07/21/2026 - 09:07

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 21 2026 (IPS)

Despite rising geopolitical tensions, trade restrictions and calls to bring production back to domestic shores, the global economy remains more interconnected than it may appear. Trade through global value chains (GVCs) reached historic levels in 2024, according to a new report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

GVCs, the cross-border production networks through which countries exchange materials, services and intermediate inputs used to produce goods and services, accounted for roughly 17 percent of global GDP in real terms between 2022 and 2024. This is up from approximately 16 percent before the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.

The findings stand to challenge expectations that the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical tensions would have on the campaign of de-globalization. GVC trade expanded rapidly before the Global Financial Crisis and later stabilized at historically high levels. Nevertheless, in 2024 inflation-adjusted GVC trade remained close to its 2022 peak, even as total global trade declined slightly from its 2022 level.

The distinction between real and nominal figures is particularly important following years of elevated inflation and volatile commodity prices. Rising prices can inflate the apparent value of international trade without representing an actual increase in the volume of goods and services exchanged. The OECD’s inflation-adjusted figures indicate that cross-border production itself has remained historically high.

Beneath that overall stability, however, industries have moved in markedly different directions. Manufacturing and transportation remain among the sectors most dependent on internationally sourced inputs.

Coke – a carbon-rich fuel produced from coal and primarily used in steelmaking – refined petroleum products, water and air transport, information and communication technology, electronics, rubber, plastics, chemicals, basic metals and motor vehicles all recorded GVC trade exceeding 35 percent of their gross output in 2024, indicating their heavy reliance on cross-border production networks.

While gains were recorded in those sectors, the motor vehicle industry became less internationally integrated over the period examined, falling from the sixth-most internationalized sector in 2011 to tenth in 2024, being overtaken by chemicals, air transport and electronic equipment.

Pharmaceuticals moved in the opposite direction. Despite increased policy attention toward strengthening domestic medical supply chains following the COVID-19 pandemic, pharmaceutical production became more dependent on internationally sourced inputs between 2011 and 2024.

GVC participation also increased notably in air transport and warehousing, highlighting the continued importance of globally connected logistics networks in supporting production.

The differences illustrate the uneven nature of supply-chain reconfiguration: while some industries have reduced their reliance on foreign inputs, others have become increasingly integrated into cross-border production networks.

The same pattern is visible across national economies. Of the 80 economies examined by the OECD, 49 had a higher share of foreign value added embedded in their exports in 2024 than in 2011.

Across the economies examined, countries generally relied more heavily on foreign inputs to produce their exports than they contributed inputs to exports produced elsewhere. For example, a country importing foreign-made components to manufacture and export a car is participating backward in a GVC. A country supplying steel that is then used to manufacture and export that car elsewhere is participating forward.

These patterns vary depending on the structure of each economy. Large economies such as the United States, China and Brazil are generally less reliant on foreign inputs because more of their production can be sourced domestically. Major commodity exporters such as Norway and Kazakhstan, meanwhile, rank highly in forward participation because their domestically-produced energy and raw materials become inputs in production and exports elsewhere.

Yet, increased GVC participation does not necessarily mean companies are simply buying more supplies from abroad.

Between 2019 and 2024, China, Japan, the United States and the European Union all became more reliant on foreign value in their exports. However, the OECD found that this was not primarily because companies shifted toward foreign suppliers. Instead, these economies increasingly produced and exported goods and services that themselves relied more heavily on international supply chains.

For example, an economy could begin sourcing more car parts domestically but simultaneously increase its exports of cars, which depend heavily on globally connected production networks. Its individual supply chains may become more domestic, while its overall economy becomes more integrated into global production.

The findings suggest that efforts to bring parts of production closer to home can therefore occur alongside deeper global economic integration.

Trade flows – the movement of goods and services across borders – only captures part of that interconnectedness. Multinational companies (MNCs) also operate and produce directly in foreign markets through foreign affiliates — companies they own or control outside their home country.

If a German MNC owns a factory in the United States, that American operation is a foreign affiliate. Products it manufactures and sells within the United States would not count as international trade, as they never crossed a border, yet the factory remains part of the German company’s global production network.

In 2023, foreign affiliates generated approximately USD 25.6 trillion in output, equivalent to one-quarter of global GDP and only slightly below the USD 26.6 trillion value of total world trade in goods and cross-border services.Together, MNCs and their foreign affiliates accounted for roughly 35 percent of world gross output in 2023 but only 60 percent of world exports, demonstrating their outsized role in international trade.

The geography of MNC production is also gradually broadening. While companies headquartered in OECD economies still controlled nearly 85 percent of foreign-affiliate output in 2023, the share of production involving non-OECD companies operating in non-OECD markets, nearly doubled from 4.9 percent in 2011 to 9.3 percent.

The report’s findings suggest that globalization is not simply retreating in the face of geopolitical fragmentation, rather global production is being reorganized across industries, companies and countries. Supply chains may be shifting, diversifying and adapting to new risks, but the networks connecting the global economy remain deeply entrenched and central to the production of goods and services.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa, Balkans Occidentaux

From the General Assembly to Harlem: Mandela’s Call to Action Endures

Tue, 07/21/2026 - 08:48

Nelson Mandela, the former President of South Africa, addresses a press conference at UN Headquarters in New York in December 1991. Credit: UN Photo/John Isaac

By UN News
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 21 2026 (IPS)

Sixty-seven minutes. That is how long volunteers spent serving lunch to people experiencing food insecurity at Refettorio Harlem in New York City last week – one for every year Nelson Mandela gave to public service.

Diplomats stood alongside city officials and neighbourhood volunteers, dishing out plates rather than platitudes, in a small but pointed answer to a question the UN spent Monday asking in more formal terms: what does Mandela’s legacy actually demand of us now?

That question sat at the centre of the General Assembly’s commemoration of Nelson Mandela International Day, where the focus fell squarely on poverty and inequality – and on whether the world is living up to the example Mandela set.

Courtenay Rattray, Chef de Cabinet of the Secretary-General, addresses the General Assembly on the observance of the annual Nelson Mandela International Day. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

‘The wrong choices’

Secretary-General António Guterres, speaking through his Chef de Cabinet, Courtenay Rattray, did not mince words.

Mandela understood that the world’s deepest problems come from human decisions – and can therefore be undone by different ones, Mr. Rattray said.

Right now, he warned, the world is doing the opposite: pouring resources into militaries while poverty and development needs go underfunded. “There is something deeply wrong when we spend more on the instruments of destruction and death than on the tools of development and peace,” he said.

South African journalist and broadcaster Redi Tlhabi, addresses the General Assembly on the observance of the annual Nelson Mandela International Day. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

Beyond the myth

The sharpest words of the morning came from South African journalist Redi Tlhabi, the observance’s keynote speaker, who pushed back against the softened, reconciliatory image of Mandela that has settled into global memory.

She called him the “Inconvenient Mandela” – a man who stayed principled through imprisonment rather than negotiate his way out of it.

“Only free men can negotiate,” she quoted him telling his captors in 1985, when he was offered freedom in exchange for renouncing the struggle.

Reconciliation, she argued, was never where Mandela started. Justice was. “He never asked his oppressed to become comfortable with injustice. He asked the world to become uncomfortable with injustice,” she said.

Ms. Tlhabi turned that history into a direct challenge for today’s diplomats, pointing to the decades-long stalemate over reforming the UN Security Council – including the case for a permanent African seat – as proof that talk without risk changes little. “What are you prepared to risk for justice?” she asked the room.

General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock addresses the General Assembly on the observance of the annual Nelson Mandela International Day. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

Remembrance into action

Annalena Baerbock, President of the General Assembly, opened proceedings by insisting that Mandela Day must mean more than a moment of reflection. The point, she said, is to honour his legacy “not only through remembrance but through action.”

Volunteers from the United Nations and the diplomatic community preparing and serving meals at Refettorio Harlem to mark Nelson Mandela International Day. Credit: United Nation/Beatriz D’Alessand

That is where Harlem comes back in. The Refettorio Harlem meal service was one of a series of volunteer projects the UN ran with city partners to mark the day, and it gave literal shape to Ms. Baerbock’s point.

Shaffiou Assoumanou, representing Mayor Mamdani’s office for International Affairs, put it plainly: “History won’t judge us by the words we take, but by the actions we take.”

It was a modest event by UN standards – no cameras in the General Assembly Hall, no resolutions attached. But it echoed the same argument running through the day’s speeches: that Mandela’s fight against poverty and exclusion was never only an institutional project.

It played out in neighbourhoods, in shared meals, in the everyday choice to show up. Sixty-seven minutes at a time.

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa, Balkans Occidentaux

Global AI Governance Cannot Wait As the Digital Divide Widens

Mon, 07/20/2026 - 18:30

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres addresses the opening session of the Global Dialogue on AI Governance, Geneva, Switzerland. Credit: UN Photo/Irina Popa

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 20 2026 (IPS)

Throughout July 2026, various United Nations (UN) bodies and global experts have underscored the need for increased comprehensive artificial intelligence (AI) governance. Although AI yields significant potential gains for global development, persistent structural barriers continue to impede equitable access and deepen the digital divide.

From July 6 to 7, the UN convened the first session of the Global Dialogue on AI Governance, featuring a presentation of the inaugural report of the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI. The conference included testimonies from global experts and leaders who emphasized the rapidly accelerating nature of AI, warning that without adequate guardrails and transparency measures, entire communities risk falling behind.

“Artificial intelligence is advancing at runaway speed. A technology that can reshape economies, transform the world of work, sway elections and tilt the balance of security is being deployed faster than anyone— including the people building it— can keep up,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the Opening Session of the dialogue on July 6th.

“The technologies we trust most— in aviation, in medicine, in nuclear energy and beyond— earned that trust because we acted to hold their makers to account. If AI is to be powerful, it must be governed. If AI is to be trusted, those who build it must be accountable. If AI is to be global, it must be fair. And if AI is to serve the future, it must not consume the future,” he added.

According to Guterres, AI holds immense potential to accelerate medical advancements, revolutionize educational systems, strengthen food production, and revitalize local economies, all of which would drive progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Despite this, widening gaps in development have been recorded across communities in lower-income countries, particularly in the Global South.

On July 17, Guterres spoke at the World AI Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, urging governments and stakeholders to invest in international cooperation and monitoring efforts to ensure equitable access to AI’s benefits. Guterres noted that an alarming “one-third of humanity” remains offline, with the vast majority of technical expertise and investment disproportionately concentrated in only a few countries and companies

“Hundreds of billions of dollars of private investment flood into artificial intelligence – while many developing countries receive just a trickle,” said Guterres. “AI risks pushing the world towards even greater inequalities … greater divides in income, in opportunity, in security … greater gaps between North and South.”

At WAIC, Guterres outlined three main priorities that are to be taken in advancing global AI governance: making AI more environmentally sustainable, establishing critical safety guardrails, and expanding capacity across developing countries. Underscoring the need for AI testing and risk management to be firmly based in the principles of international law, he confirmed that over 20 countries, including China, have agreed to contribute to a UN-supported Global Network for Exchange and Cooperation on AI Capacity Building to assist developing countries navigate this transition.

Throughout the conference, many UN experts emphasized that human rights must remain the cornerstone of all AI decision-making processes, ensuring that final judgments are always made by human beings. Guterres also called for major AI companies to disclose their environmental footprints and commit to a full transition to renewable energy by 2030.

AI has the potential to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy by optimizing power efficiency and significantly reducing waste. Several nations, including China, are already leveraging these technologies to increase their annual reliance on renewable energy.

Several developing countries in the Pacific have taken steps to reclaim agency over AI, implementing frameworks that prioritize sustainability and ensure that they remain in control regarding the technology’s development and use. For example, the Kingdom of Tonga has expanded commercial 5G access and conducted a Digital Readiness Assessment to examine risks and potential gains when coordinating governance strategies. Similar assessments have been undertaken across Samoa, Vanuatu, and Fiji.

The Kingdom of Tonga is reshaping its government services around a digital-first model by implementing AI tools that will assist citizens in interacting with the state in their own language. In Kiribati, AI monitoring technologies in fisheries have helped in recovering approximately US$2 million in illegal fishing fines.

“These are real wins, but they are wins within a system the Pacific did not design. The region already knows what it means to be on the wrong side of a divergence, in climate, in trade, in debt vulnerability,” said Kanni Wignaraja, UN Assistant Secretary-General and UNDP Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific.

“AI follows the same logic at greater speed. The difference is that the rules of AI are still being written, which means the divergence is not yet locked in. That window will not stay open for long. The time for the Pacific to shape the outcome is now, not once the frameworks are agreed, and the tools are already being deployed.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa, Balkans Occidentaux

Changing Age Distributions of Populations

Mon, 07/20/2026 - 15:04

Population ageing, including the point at which older adults outnumber younger people, is a global demographic phenomenon. Credit: Shutterstock

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

In many countries, older adults (aged 65 and above) now outnumber younger individuals (under the age of 18), reflecting a significant demographic transformation known as demographic ageing.

The shift in a population’s age structure is becoming increasingly common around the world and is primarily driven by declining fertility rates and rising life expectancy. As populations age, societies face a range of economic, political, and social challenges.

Economically, an ageing population can lead to labor shortages, slower economic growth, and a shrinking tax base. These changes can make it more difficult for governments to finance pensions, healthcare systems, and other public services.

At the same time, the growing number of older adults increases demand for specialized healthcare services, including geriatric care, assisted living, and the treatment of chronic illnesses, placing additional strain on healthcare systems.

To promote sustainable growth and social equity, governments should seek to balance the needs of older adults with those of younger generations, ensuring that public resources support both present well-being and future development

Politically, as people live longer and represent a larger share of the electorate, older adults may gain greater political influence. Their increased voting power can shape government spending priorities, potentially leading to a larger share of public funding being allocated to pensions, healthcare, and retirement benefits, while comparatively less is invested in education, childcare, and programs that support younger generations.

Overall, demographic ageing is reshaping societies worldwide, creating both opportunities and challenges. These developments require governments to adopt balanced policies to ensure economic sustainability and intergenerational equity.

In the middle of the 20th century, older adults accounted for 5% of the world’s population of approximately 2.5 billion, while young people comprised 41%. At that time, the median age of the global population was 22 years. By the end of the 20th century, the world’s population had grown to 6.2 billion, although the age distribution changed only modestly.

In 2000, older adults represented 7% of the global population, while young people represented 36%. Meanwhile, the median age increased to 25 years, indicating a gradual ageing of the global population.

Despite the rapid growth of the world’s population during the second half of the 20th century, the proportion of older adults increased at a much slower pace. These changes mark the early stages of global demographic ageing, characterized by a gradual increase in the share of older adults and a corresponding decline in the proportion of younger people (Table 1).

Source: United Nations.

By 2026, the world’s population had reached approximately 8.3 billion. At the same time, young people accounted for an estimated 29% of the global population, while older adults represented about 11%, and the median age had risen to 31 years. By 2078, these two age groups are projected to account for equal shares of the global population, which is expected to reach 10.3 billion, with each group accounting for approximately 22% of the total population (Figure 1).

Source: United Nations.

In 2026, approximately 50 countries and territories have a higher proportion of older adults (aged 65 and above) than young people (under the age of 18). This demographic pattern is most common in the more developed countries, which tend to have lower fertility rates and longer life expectancies.

In Italy and Japan, for example, the proportion of older adults (aged 65 and above) is roughly twice that of young people (under the age of 18). Similarly, European countries such as France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland also have substantially larger shares of older adults than young people (Figure 2).

Source: United Nations.

Demographic ageing, together with the changing proportions of older and younger populations, has significant economic, social, and political consequences.

Among the most important effects of demographic ageing are shrinking workforces, a growing proportion of retirees, rising dependency ratios, increasing pension expenditures, mounting healthcare costs, shifting political and budgetary priorities, and adapting institutions to the needs of ageing populations.

As populations age, more retirees receive pension benefits for longer periods, while a relatively smaller workforce contributes to the pension systems. Consequently, fewer workers are required to support a much larger non-working population, placing substantial pressure on public finances and social security systems. In response to labor shortages associated with shrinking workforces, many governments have introduced policies that encourage older adults to remain in the labor market for longer.

Healthcare expenditures also rise as populations age. Older adults typically require more medical care than younger people because they are more likely to experience chronic diseases, multiple health conditions, and complex healthcare needs.

As a result, demand for healthcare services such as rehabilitation, dialysis, dementia care, and long-term care continues to increase. In many countries experiencing rapid demographic ageing, governments and families face growing financial and caregiving responsibilities to support an expanding older population.

Meeting the care needs of an ageing population often creates tension over responsibility between governments and families. Governments may expect family members to assume primary responsibility for caring for older adults, while families frequently believe that governments should provide greater support and resources to meet the needs of their ageing relatives.

Some conservative and authoritarian governments argue that extensive public spending on elder care generates limited economic returns because older adults are viewed primarily as recipients of care rather than contributors to economic productivity. As a result, these governments often contend that rising healthcare and long-term care expenditures for older adults may constrain economic growth and advocate limiting public investment in these services.

Similarly, many conservatives and some policymakers often believe that caring for older adults should be the responsibility of individuals and their families, with the private sector playing a greater role rather than government in delivering care and support.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), common health conditions associated with older age include hearing loss, cataracts, back and neck pain, osteoarthritis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), diabetes, depression, loneliness, dementia, and mobility limitations. Many older adults experience several of these health conditions at the same time, making their healthcare needs more complex and requiring coordinated, long-term management.

Older adults who require long-term care are disproportionately women aged 80 years and older who live alone. This group is particularly vulnerable to social isolation which is associated with poorer mental and physical health outcomes, including increased risks of depression, cognitive decline, chronic illness, and reduced quality of life.

In contrast, young people are more likely to face health issues such as injuries from road traffic accidents, falls, drowning, violence, self-harm, depression, anxiety, substance use disorders, asthma, and maternal health conditions.

Population ageing, particularly the increasing prevalence of chronic health conditions and the growing demand for long-term care, has significant implications for government policies and public programs that affect people of all ages. As these trends intensify, they place growing pressures on public resources and influence electoral priorities, shaping decisions about healthcare, social services, education, and public spending.

As older adults make up a larger share of the voting population, governments often place greater emphasis on policies that address the needs of these older adults, particularly pensions and healthcare. As policy priorities shift, investment in areas that primarily benefit younger generations – such as education, infrastructure, and long-term economic development – may decline.

Demographic ageing also presents difficult fiscal and political challenges. Governments may need to consider measures such as raising taxes, reducing pension benefits, increasing the retirement age, or implementing other fiscal reforms to ensure the long-term sustainability of public finances.

However, governments often delay implementing these reforms because they are politically unpopular. As a result, financial pressures on pension and healthcare systems continue to grow, increasing the risk of substantial funding shortfalls, or, in some cases, insolvency if reforms are postponed for too long.

Population ageing, including the point at which older adults outnumber younger people, is a global demographic phenomenon. As this demographic transformation continues across countries, governments face the ongoing challenge of adapting their economic, political, and social institutions to meet the needs of different age groups – particularly younger and older generations – while maintaining fiscal sustainability and promoting intergenerational equity.

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

Categories: Africa, Balkans Occidentaux

Efficiency Becomes the World’s ‘First Fuel’ as Leaders at IEA Conference Chart Course for Cleaner, More Secure Energy Future

Mon, 07/20/2026 - 13:08

Delegates at the 11th Annual Global Conference on Energy Efficiency, organised by the International Energy Agency (IEA). Credit: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS

By Umar Manzoor Shah
SRINAGAR, India, Jul 20 2026 (IPS)

As geopolitical tensions, rising electricity demand and climate pressures reshape the global energy landscape, more than 600 energy ministers, chief executives, financial leaders and policy experts gathered in Montreal, deliberating upon how to deliver at an unprecedented scale.

The 11th Annual Global Conference on Energy Efficiency, organised by the International Energy Agency (IEA) on July 7, focused on transforming a global commitment into practical action. Delegates sought ways to meet an ambitious international target of doubling the annual rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030, a goal widely viewed as essential for strengthening energy security while cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Speaking during the conference, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol described energy efficiency as the world’s “first fuel”, calling it the fastest, cheapest and cleanest resource available to countries seeking greater resilience amid growing uncertainty.

Birol reminded delegates that the global energy system has experienced only three major disruptions in recent decades. The oil crises of 1973 and 1979 fundamentally reshaped global energy policy. More recently, the supply chain disruptions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine exposed the vulnerability of international energy markets.

Against that backdrop, he argued, improving efficiency is no longer simply an environmental objective but a matter of national security and economic stability. Growing geopolitical risks around strategic shipping routes, including the Strait of Hormuz, reinforce the urgency of reducing dependence on volatile energy supplies.

“We are in an age of rapid technological change,” Birol said, urging governments and industries to move beyond declarations and begin implementing large-scale solutions.

Throughout the two-day conference, participants repeatedly emphasised that technology alone will not deliver the transformation. Success, they said, depends on closer cooperation between governments, investors and private industry.

One of the conference’s central outcomes was the launch of the Montreal Collaboration Framework, an initiative designed to strengthen coordination between policymakers, financial institutions and businesses. The framework aims to overcome one of the biggest barriers facing energy efficiency projects, fragmented decision-making that often prevents otherwise viable investments from moving forward.

Executives participating in CEO roundtables acknowledged that many companies continue to pursue isolated efficiency upgrades that deliver only modest savings. Such projects frequently fail to attract significant investment because their financial returns appear too limited when evaluated individually.

Industry leaders instead advocated bundling multiple efficiency improvements into larger investment packages.

Rather than replacing a single motor or upgrading one heating system, companies can combine electricity savings, industrial heat recovery, cooling improvements and digital monitoring into integrated projects that generate stronger financial returns and attract institutional financing.

Another recurring theme was the growing importance of data.

Representatives from major industrial technology companies including Schneider Electric and Danfoss argued that many businesses still rely on broad estimates of their energy consumption instead of detailed operational information.

Without precise data, they warned, companies struggle to identify where the greatest efficiency gains can be achieved.

Delegates highlighted artificial intelligence, predictive analytics and digital monitoring systems as increasingly important tools for optimising industrial operations, reducing waste and lowering operating costs.

Representatives from Deutsche Bank argued that traditional investment decisions remain too heavily focused on initial capital expenditure. Instead, investors should assess projects through the lens of total cost of ownership, accounting for decades of lower energy bills, maintenance savings and reduced operational risks.

Such an approach, participants said, makes many efficiency investments substantially more attractive than they initially appear.

The conference also examined one of the energy transition’s newest challenges.

Rapid growth in artificial intelligence and digital services is driving an unprecedented expansion of data centres, creating soaring electricity demand worldwide.

Rather than viewing AI solely as a source of higher consumption, delegates argued that technological innovation can help solve its own energy challenge.

Companies showcased advanced cooling technologies, including liquid cooling and evaporative systems, capable of dramatically reducing the electricity needed to maintain modern data centres.

These innovations, participants said, demonstrate that rising digital demand does not necessarily have to translate into proportionally higher energy consumption.

Beyond technology and finance, speakers repeatedly stressed that energy efficiency must also serve broader social goals.

Yasmin Abraham, representing the Kambo Energy Group, reminded delegates that low-income communities often experience the highest energy costs while having the fewest resources to improve efficiency.

“Communities know the challenge,” she said. “Communities are closest to that challenge but furthest from the resources.”

Governments, she argued, must ensure that efficiency programmes reach vulnerable households rather than benefiting only wealthier consumers and large corporations.

Canada used the conference to announce an expansion of its Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program, which will provide energy efficiency retrofits to approximately 35,000 low- and middle-income households without upfront costs.

Officials described the initiative as an example of how public policy can reduce emissions while improving affordability and living conditions for ordinary families.

Despite widespread optimism, delegates acknowledged that achieving the 2030 efficiency target remains a formidable challenge.

Global energy demand continues to grow as economies expand, industries electrify and artificial intelligence accelerates electricity consumption. Meeting climate commitments while ensuring affordable and reliable energy will require unprecedented coordination across governments, financial institutions and private industry.

Still, the prevailing mood in Montreal remained pragmatic rather than pessimistic.

Participants agreed that the technical solutions largely exist. What has often been missing is coordinated implementation, sufficient investment and political determination.

By the conference’s conclusion, delegates appeared united around a common conviction that energy efficiency should no longer be treated as a secondary climate policy but as the foundation of future energy systems.

“With the launch of the Montreal Collaboration Framework and renewed commitments from governments, industry and financial institutions, the conference sought to transform efficiency from an often overlooked policy objective into the central pillar of global energy security, economic competitiveness and climate action,” Abraham said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa, Balkans Occidentaux

Communities vs. Datacentres

Mon, 07/20/2026 - 11:51

People collect signatures against the construction of a massive Mitsui Fudosan datacentre in Hino City, Tokyo, 19 April 2026. Credit: Yasushi Wada/The Yomiuri Shimbun via AFP

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Jul 20 2026 (IPS)

Few things unite Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters with the Democratic Party’s progressive wing, but datacentres are one of them. Across the USA, communities are joining forces across the political divide to oppose developments few want but governments seem determined to impose.

Michigan residents are among those who’ve come together across party lines to oppose plans for over a dozen datacentres. Polling shows just 28 per cent of the state’s population support the proposals. Local communities are fighting back, and similar struggles are unfolding across the world.

Datacentre impacts

Datacentre construction is booming, driven by AI use, demanding increasing computing power that requires huge amounts of electricity and water for cooling.

A single question to an AI chatbot can use 10 times more energy than a conventional search. Generating an AI image takes around a thousand times more energy than generating text. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that datacentre electricity demand will double by 2030.

In Utah, despite thousands of objections, authorities recently approved one of the world’s largest datacentres. It will need more power than the entire state currently uses. The development will construct a gas-fired plant.

AI growth is driving the construction of such gas-powered plants, meaning that more datacentres cause more greenhouse gas emissions. According to the IEA, coal is currently the top energy source for datacentres and over half of all current datacentre power comes from fossil fuels. The agency expects renewables to eventually provide a bigger share of growing needs, but warns that datacentre demand is driving growth for fossil fuel-generated electricity.

Tech companies once pledged to be climate leaders, but that no longer rings true. Google promised to become net zero by 2030, but its greenhouse gas emissions leapt 48 per cent from 2019 to 2023 as it embraced gas-fired electricity for datacentres. In Mumbai, India, two coal plants due to close in 2024 have had their operational life extended to meet demand from Amazon datacentres. Last December, Irish authorities decided that datacentres can keep using fossil fuel electricity for six more years. The UK intends to burn gas to power over 100 planned new datacentres.

Fossil fuel corporations lobby for datacentres almost as hard as tech companies, because they help perpetuate a destructive business model otherwise threatened by the shift to renewables. Fossil fuel corporations were among Donald Trump’s top campaign backers, and they’re benefiting from his administration’s rollback of regulations and ambition to achieve ‘unchallenged global technological dominance’.

Water supplies are coming under greater strain. One large datacentre can use as much daily water as a town of 50,000 people, yet datacentres are being built in some of the world’s driest regions. Amazon plans to open new datacentres in Aragon, Spain, even as the regional government seeks European Union help for drought. Similar concerns surround plans for one of the world’s biggest datacentres in the United Arab Emirates.

Civil society resistance

The struggle against tech companies and their lobbying riches is an unequal one, but civil society is mounting an increasingly credible response.

Climate litigation is an established civil society tactic, and recent research indicates that lawsuits are an emerging response to datacentre developments, with recent examples in Ireland, the UK and the USA. Civil society groups are also filing objections in planning processes, including one recently lodged against a huge proposed datacentre in Cape Town, South Africa.

Legal action by two UK organisations forced the developer of a huge new datacentre in Buckinghamshire to commit to binding environmental impact mitigation measures. Lawsuits are also exposing how datacentre impacts are often understated and inadequately measured. A 2022 case forced Google to publish accurate water consumption figures for an Oregon datacentre.

Protests and campaigning are bringing successes. In 2023, protests driven by a recent drought forced Google to change plans for a datacentre to reduce water use in Uruguay. Similar protests in Chile caused Google to pause its plans. As of last year, public pressure had led to over US$42 billion worth of datacentre projects being changed, delayed or cancelled in Europe, and US$77 billion worth in the USA.

In the USA, civil society groups have forged alliances with sub-national administrations to develop stronger local environmental and accountability standards. While established politicians aren’t listening, there are signs that US local politics are shifting. Some candidates opposed to datacentres have won, and several local administrations have introduced bans or moratoriums.

Campaign successes are bringing new threats. US industry lobbyists have smeared activists as agents of foreign influence determined to sabotage the country’s technological supremacy. US government documents show a growing focus on what they call ‘anti-technological extremism’, suggesting that security forces may be gathering intelligence on campaigners, and peaceful protesters could be targeted for surveillance on national security grounds.

Tech companies that are driving datacentre development often present themselves as free speech champions. They should prove it by ensuring that wherever they develop, people are able to protest, and hold them to environmental standards. There’s widespread public opposition and no shortage of people bearing the climate and environmental costs of the datacentre boom. Their voices must be heard.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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

Categories: Africa, Afrique

Palestine Must Not Disappear

Mon, 07/20/2026 - 11:21

Elders meet with Danny Seidemann, founder of Terrestrial Jerusalem, to discuss the E1 settlement plan and Jerusalem’s holy sites. Credit: Maya Levin / the Elders

By the Elders
LONDON, Jul 20 2026 (IPS)

We have just concluded a visit to the West Bank, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon. From all that we have witnessed and heard, our inescapable conclusion is that the government of Prime Minister Netanyahu, and in particular Ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, aim to make Palestine disappear physically, economically, culturally and politically. Yet other governments either are choosing not to see this or lack the will to take meaningful concerted action.

While the population in Gaza is forcibly pushed into an ever-smaller pocket of land amid destruction and deplorable humanitarian conditions, annexation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem is occurring in plain sight. The Government of Israel’s systematic attacks on UNRWA are intended to de-legitimise the rights of Palestinian refugees. Hate speech and incitement to violence by ministers are dehumanising Palestinians and creating a dangerous enabling environment for ethnic cleansing to take root.

We have spoken to mothers, fathers and children who are living under occupation and whose lives and dignity are oppressed in every sense. This is a collective denial of humanity.

We refuse to abandon the vision of the Israeli and Palestinian peoples living alongside each other in mutual peace and security.

Self-determination is the right of Palestinians, but the current Government of Israel aims to deprive them of it permanently. Ultimately, occupation, annexation, and forced displacement leading to ethnic cleansing will also destroy the long-term prospects for Israel’s own peace and security.

We recognise that Israel has long-standing and legitimate security concerns. These have been heightened since the Hamas terror attacks of 7 October 2023 which we have unequivocally condemned.

Those concerns cannot be addressed through occupation and aggression, but only through inclusive political solutions and a genuine path to Palestinian self-determination. Many Israeli security experts share this view.

We are alarmed by the growing settler violence and the severe pressure on services provided by the Palestinian Authority – caused mainly by the Government of Israel’s unjustified withholding of Palestinian tax revenues. These are inflicting ever greater hardship on Palestinians.

Only two states living side by side in peace, with clearly negotiated borders and mutual recognition, can give security to Israelis and Palestinians alike. Peace depends on two-state security.

This will be possible only by stopping Israel’s actions and the impunity that facilitates them from the horrors of the genocide which has unfolded in Gaza and the ongoing annexation of the West Bank to the illegal US-Israeli war on Iran. The same applies to the IDF’s continuing military incursions into, and occupation of parts of Southern Lebanon: innocent civilians are being killed and hundreds of thousands of Lebanese have been uprooted from their land.

International handwringing and regret will be of no value to Palestinian men, women, and children if the E1 settlement proceeds to cut through the West Bank and seals off East Jerusalem, or when the sustained deprivation and shrinking of Gaza – already one of the most densely populated areas of the world – renders normal life impossible.

We applaud the Palestinian and Israeli human rights organisations which are shining a light on state-sanctioned abuses against Palestinian detainees. We welcome the growing criticism of settler terror attacks – often with the complicity of the IDF – against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank.

When Israeli society at large recognises both the fundamental injustice of Israel’s nearly 60-year-long occupation of Palestinian territory and the Palestinians’ right to dignity and self-determination there can be a just and lasting peace.

The same message applies to Israel’s traditional partners and allies, particularly the European Union. We support the efforts of those EU Member States which are already proposing robust actions on trade and sanctions against Israel, including suspension of the trade pillar of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. Most immediately, the EU must ban all trade with the West Bank settlements which it has long agreed are illegal. The EU has a responsibility to uphold international law; without taking decisive action it is complicit in these injustices.

The UN Security Council must act to ensure that the path forward is firmly grounded in international law.

Palestine must not disappear. Leaders must accept responsibility and act now.

Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

Graça Machel, Founder of the Graça Machel Trust, Co-founder and Deputy Chair of The Elders 

Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and former head of the UN Development Programme

Hina Jilani, Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and co-chair of the Taskforce on Justice

IPS UN Bureau

Excerpt:

A statement by Mary Robinson, Graça Machel, Helen Clark and Hina Jilani following their visit to the Middle East, 11-16 July 2026.

Categories: Africa, Afrique

The Oil Market Absorbed the War Shock, but Buffers Are Running Low

Fri, 07/17/2026 - 20:46

Credit: liujunrong/iStock by Getty Images - Source: IMF

By Jean-Marc Natal and Azim Sadikov
WASHINGTON DC, Jul 17 2026 (IPS)

The largest disruption to the global oil market in decades should have sent prices soaring. But after spiking at the start of the war in the Middle East, crude prices soon settled in a range of $90 to $100 per barrel, much lower than many had feared. Why didn’t prices climb higher? The answer is that a combination of factors helped cushion the initial blow. But much of that room has now been used up.

There are plenty of reasons why oil should have become cripplingly expensive. The war effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off some 20 million barrels a day of crude oil and refined products, a fifth of global consumption. Gulf producers redirected what they could. Saudi Arabia sent oil through its pipeline to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. The United Arab Emirates pushed its Fujairah port, outside the strait, close to capacity. Even so, these workarounds offset only a fraction of lost Hormuz volumes.

Beyond crude, refined product output in the gulf region dropped significantly, hitting diesel and jet fuel hardest—products in which the region accounts for about 10 percent of global supply.

By the end of May, more than 1.1 billion barrels of crude—equivalent to about 10 days of typical global consumption—had not reached the market. At the same stage of the disruption, the shortfall exceeded those of the 1973 oil shock, the Iran-Iraq war, and the Gulf War.

Three shock absorbers

How did the global system absorb a disruption of this scale? In the days before the war, supply was running about 2 million barrels a day above demand, providing a head start. In the March-May period, three factors helped close the gap:

Recovery won’t be instant

Before the most recent escalation of tensions, the US-Iran framework agreement to reopen the strait sent prices sharply lower, in large part because stranded oil on tankers in the Gulf could rapidly return to the market. Still, much remains uncertain—including when freedom of navigation through the world’s most critical oil chokepoint will be effectively restored, and how quickly shipping, insurance, and operator confidence will follow.

Industry estimates suggest it will take two to three months before a significant share of oil flows can resume following a full reopening of the waterway. A longer-term concern is that prolonged production halts could cause permanent output losses, especially where financing to restart wells is scarce.

Whenever supply begins to recover, the oil deficit will close only gradually, drawing inventories closer to operational minimums—the level below which the physical system itself begins to bind.

Lessons for policymakers

Energy shocks still bite. What cushioned the initial blow this time is that energy markets had room to maneuver and absorb it. As tensions flare again in the Strait of Hormuz, that room is now smaller and shrinking further as spare capacity has been deployed, demand has compressed, and inventories have been drawn down. Unless inventories are replenished, the world will start from a weaker position when the next shock comes.

For policymakers, three lessons stand out:

Energy markets’ flexibility and prompt policy actions bought the global economy time. An enduring US-Iran agreement would create an opening to restore supply. But significant efforts are still critically needed to increase the resilience and diversification of energy supply and prevent oil shocks from destabilizing the global economy.

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa, Swiss News

SERBIA: ‘We Are Becoming an Electoral Autocracy, a System Where the Government Cannot Lose’

Fri, 07/17/2026 - 20:08

By CIVICUS
Jul 17 2026 (IPS)

CIVICUS discusses the prospects for elections in Serbia with Rasa Nedeljkov, Programme Director at the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability, a civil society organisation that monitors electoral processes and the rule of law in Serbia.

Rasa Nedeljkov

Following mass protests demanding restoration of the rule of law, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić announced on 27 June that he would resign within weeks and call early presidential and parliamentary elections. However, many in civil society are suspicious, with no date yet set for elections and the potential for Vučić to retain power by becoming prime minister. The ruling Serbian Progressive Party has moved to dismantle the conditions for fair competition. Civil society organisations that demand accountability and monitor elections face legal harassment, police raids and smear campaigns. Serbia’s path to European Union (EU) membership has stalled as its government deepens ties with China and Russia.

How has President Vučić responded to demands for elections?

Vučić committed to holding early elections in 2026 under pressure from over a year of mass protests. His announcement came with no date for dissolving parliament or his resignation, amid speculation that he could return as prime minister.

Vučić has deliberately dragged his feet because he wants to ensure that when they happen, his party cannot lose. Meanwhile, the government has systematically worsened conditions for elections. Independent media are being suffocated. University professors who supported student protests are being fired. Justice officials who show independence are being replaced by more obedient ones. Hate campaigns against civil society, journalists, opposition parties and students are intensifying. The plan has been transparent: call elections only once the environment is so controlled that they cannot bring real change.

This strategy reveals the fundamental collapse of democratic standards in Serbia. Democracy requires genuine competition, and competition is genuine only when the government can lose. Vučić is building the opposite, putting in place a system where elections are empty rituals that rubber-stamp predetermined outcomes. Every month of delay has bought time to consolidate control and eliminate remaining spaces for independent voices.

What are the challenges with elections in Serbia?

Elections are being voided of substance through the systematic disregard, misuse and selective enforcement of laws and rules, all with the goal of turning elections into empty rituals.

We are witnessing harsher voter intimidation, more elaborate political clientelism, more brazen abuse of public resources and increasingly overt violence on election day. Our observers have been physically attacked, with police looking on.

Elections are still held, but the quality of the process is severely damaged. Electoral corruption takes countless forms, including interference in elections by organised crime and capture of institutions. And it’s protected by impunity. The state apparatus refuses to prosecute it.

Serbia is becoming an electoral autocracy. Unlike democracies, where governments lose elections, in electoral autocracies only opposition parties can lose.

How is the government attacking civil society?

Fourteen months ago, police raided our office and remained on-site for 28 hours, copying almost 10,000 pages of financial documents. This was turned into a spectacle for state-controlled media, which branded us a ‘criminal gang of foreign mercenaries money-laundering millions of dollars’. Three other civil society organisations in Belgrade were raided on the same day. We still haven’t heard from the prosecutor’s office, and we are certain our papers were perfectly clean.

Yet the assault continues through narrative and threat. Senior ruling party officials and pro-government media regularly label us as behind-the-scenes organisers of a ‘colour revolution against Serbia’. We live in constant uncertainty, never knowing if another raid or something worse is coming. The strategy is clear: to exhaust civil society financially and psychologically and make donors and partners fear any association with us. It’s institutional intimidation dressed in the language of law enforcement.

Can protests bring lasting institutional change?

The protests are the best thing that has happened to Serbia in a long time. Sparked by the collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad in November 2024, which killed 16 people, they began as a student-led demand for accountability and grew into a nationwide movement. Our society had sunk into political apathy, a feeling that there was no alternative, not even a slight possibility of change. The endurance of Serbian people in demanding the restoration of the rule of law, in the face of growing repression and toxic propaganda, has been remarkable. Society has been evolving politically, showing more solidarity and resilience. People have begun to imagine that change is possible.

At the same time, the protests have made painfully visible how deep state capture runs, and how far Serbia is from having accountable institutions. How do you translate months of mobilisation into lasting change? Nobody has a complete answer. When we get there, the transition will be complex and exhausting. We should closely watch neighbouring Hungary. Viktor Orbán’s and Vučić’s styles of authoritarian, grand-corruption-driven rule are very much alike. However, Hungary is an EU member, which may make a big difference.

We believe it’s important that this period, rather than the moment elections are officially called, be used for preparation, including by recruiting and training people to serve as election observers and members of polling boards, and building the logistics needed to cover polling stations nationwide. The goal has to be readiness, so whenever elections are called, the infrastructure of oversight is already in place.

What’s the role of the EU in Serbia’s democratic future?

Serbia needs more international support and pressure, and the EU is the most crucial lever. Neighbouring countries are making progress towards EU membership. Serbia is stuck. Without the EU perspective, all potential outcomes for Serbia look murky.

Our current government is far closer to China and Russia than to Europe, as its propaganda and rhetoric make abundantly clear. It wants only the financial benefits of EU membership, not the accountability that comes with it. It wants EU money without EU standards. That’s not a sustainable position, but without stronger international pressure, it may be the path Serbia remains on.

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
Serbia: ‘Social media are more trustworthy than much of official media, a disturbing sign of state capture’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Marija Babić 29.Jun.2026
Serbia: ‘We haven’t inherited democracy, so we’ve had to reinvent it ourselves’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Mihajlo Matković 06.Dec.2025
Serbia’s suspicious election CIVICUS Lens 26.Jan.2024

Categories: Africa, Swiss News

As Gold Prices Soar, Communities Pay the Price in Poisoned Rivers, Vanishing Forests and Organized Crime

Fri, 07/17/2026 - 13:50

An Indigenous community leader, Jackeline Mendoza Díaz, addresses participants during the webinar “Gold’s Dark Web: The Hidden Price of a Booming Market” on June 25, speaking about the devastating impacts of illegal and poorly regulated gold mining on Indigenous lands, forests and local communities. The webinar brought together community leaders, investigators, civil society organisations, financial experts and policymakers to discuss how soaring gold prices are accelerating environmental destruction, organised crime and human rights abuses. Credit: FERN

By Kizito Makoye
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, Jul 17 2026 (IPS)

The sweltering heat inside a London conference hall did not deter Indigenous leader Jackeline Mendoza Díaz from condemning the sheer destruction of the Peruvian Amazon. Her voice occasionally trembled with emotion but delivered a strong message — painting a picture far removed from the glittering gold bars traded in the world’s financial capitals.

Behind the rising price of gold, she said, lie poisoned rivers, razed forests and Indigenous communities jostling to defend their ancestral lands from the rising wave of illegal mining.

In her Asháninka community, she said, rivers that once sustained life no longer provide edible fish. Women trek for hours searching for clean water, while community leaders who speak out against encroachment increasingly do so at personal risk.

“Our rivers are being contaminated with mercury. When the rivers are contaminated, the fish become contaminated as well, and we indigenous people depend on these rivers for our survival,” Díaz told participants during a webinar that brought together Indigenous leaders, environmental advocates, investigators, bankers and policymakers to discuss the growing crisis of illicit gold.

Her testimony offered a glimpse into a global phenomenon that experts say is accelerating, as gold prices fuel environmental destruction, organized crime and corruption across continents

Behind the soaring value of gold lies a darker reality, visible in remote forests, fragile river systems and marginalised communities globally.

A recent report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC) warns that illicit gold has become one of the world’s most consequential criminal markets, functioning as an “accelerant economy” that fuels conflict, corruption, environmental crime and organised criminal networks worldwide.

The report says rising gold prices have enabled criminals to control entire supply chains.

For nearby communities, the consequences are dire.

“We are defenders of the forests and defenders of life. Yet because of this, Indigenous defenders are often attacked, and many of us are even killed for protecting our people, our territories and our way of life,” said Diaz.

Forests Falling, Rivers Dying

In Ghana, where illegal mining has become a national crisis, environmental campaigner Daryl Bosu described a country caught up in a moral dilemma to balance the worth of the precious metal with environmental woes.

“Ghana is Africa’s largest gold producer, and gold remains one of the most important pillars of our economy,” Bosu said. “However, alongside these economic benefits, we have witnessed an alarming increase in illegal and poorly regulated mining activities.”

The environmental consequences, he warned, have been severe.

“Many of our forest reserves have suffered extensive degradation. Rivers and water bodies that serve millions of people have become heavily polluted.”

Across gold-producing regions, forests are rapidly being cleared to dig mining pits, roads and processing kilns. Once mining begins, toxic substances often contaminate rivers and groundwater aquifers.

According to the GI-TOC report, illicit gold mining frequently paves the way for illegal logging, wildlife trafficking and land grabbing. Dirty money is increasingly being invested in cattle ranching that destroys critical forest ecosystems.

Mercury’s Silent Toll

While deforestation often captures public attention, experts say mercury pollution remains one of the most devastating but least visible consequences of artisanal and small-scale gold mining.

Speaking exclusively to IPS during the recent Global Environment Facility (GEF) Assembly in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, Monika Stankiewicz, Executive Secretary of the Minamata Convention on Mercury, warned that mercury contamination continues to threaten millions of people living in mining communities.

“Mercury contamination does not stop at the mining site,” Stankiewicz told IPS.

“It enters rivers and ecosystems, affecting fish, soil and water sources locally.”

For families dependent on fishing and farming, the consequences can be profound.

“Reduced food safety and food security, loss of income from contaminated natural resources, and long-term degradation of ecosystems they depend on,” she explained.

Mercury exposure can trigger neurological damage, memory loss, tremors, respiratory illnesses and reproductive health complications. Children are particularly vulnerable.

The impacts extend far beyond mining sites themselves.

Mercury released into the environment can travel vast distances through atmospheric circulation. Indigenous communities in the Arctic, for example, are experiencing mercury contamination despite having no mercury-intensive mining activities in their territories.

Following the Money

Yet environmental damage represents only one side of the illicit gold equation.

Several participants stressed that illicit gold is fundamentally a financial crime issue.

Julia Yansura, programme director, Environmental Crime & Illicit Finance, FACT Coalition, said billions of dollars earned through environmentally damaging mining activities continue to enter legitimate financial systems without scrutiny.

“What we are discussing today is not merely an environmental issue,” she said. “It is also a financial crime issue.”

Traditional responses have focused heavily on police raids and military operations targeting miners.

But according to Yansura, such interventions often fail because they focus on low-level actors while leaving intact the financial networks that sustain illegal mining.

“A more effective approach would focus on following the money,” she said.

The GI-TOC report supports that assessment, warning that criminals increasingly control entire gold supply chains.

The report also identifies growing use of cryptocurrencies and gold-backed stablecoins as emerging mechanisms for laundering illicit proceeds outside traditional anti-money laundering frameworks.

London’s Hidden Role

Much of the webinar focused on the responsibilities of major financial centres.

A coalition of 35 civil society organisations has urged governments gathering at the UK Illicit Finance Summit to recognise that gold has evolved beyond a commodity into what they describe as a strategic vehicle for organised crime, sanctions evasion and corruption.

The coalition notes that London remains the world’s largest over-the-counter gold trading hub, handling approximately 70 percent of global OTC gold trading volumes.

Because illicit gold frequently passes through multiple countries and refineries before reaching financial markets, campaigners argue that financial centres can no longer treat illegal mining as a problem confined to producer countries.

“The solution cannot come only from mining countries,” Yansura said. “It must also come from the financial centres where profits are ultimately laundered and legitimated.”

The coalition is calling for mandatory due diligence requirements, stronger beneficial ownership transparency, enhanced scrutiny of gold traders and robust anti-money laundering obligations across the entire gold supply chain.

A Crisis Outpacing Regulation

Sophia Pickles of the GI-TOC warned that existing international frameworks have failed to contain the evolving nature of illicit gold markets.

“There has undoubtedly been progress,” she acknowledged. “However, our recent research shows that criminal activity linked to gold mining is expanding.”

According to the GI-TOC report, voluntary responsible sourcing standards are insufficient against increasingly sophisticated criminal networks. Information gaps, weak customs oversight and opaque financial transactions continue to provide opportunities for illicit gold to enter legitimate markets.

Researchers argue that current approaches remain too narrowly focused on artisanal mining and conflict zones while overlooking broader vulnerabilities embedded throughout global supply chains.

Among the report’s key recommendations are legally binding due diligence requirements, stronger oversight of international bullion centres, mandatory transparency measures and enhanced scrutiny of financial institutions.

Searching for Solutions

Despite the scale of the challenge, Stankiewicz believes progress is possible.

Under the Minamata Convention, countries with significant artisanal and small-scale gold mining sectors are required to develop national action plans aimed at reducing mercury use and protecting communities.

The results, she says, are encouraging.

Countries are increasingly adopting mercury-free technologies, strengthening regulations and formalising parts of the mining sector.

Beyond the Gold Rush

As the webinar drew to an end, panellists emphasised that illicit gold is not just a mining issue but an environmental, health, governance, human rights and financial crime crisis.

For Mendoza Díaz and communities living on the edge of gold extraction, the message was crystal clear.

“We are not just defending our land and our territories; we are defending life itself and our ecosystem.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa, Swiss News

Renewed Hostilities in the Strait of Hormuz Threaten to Compound Global Supply Chain Costs

Fri, 07/17/2026 - 05:10

Map of the Strait of Hormuz. Credit: Wikimedia/Goran_tek-en

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 17 2026 (IPS)

A continuation of hostilities within the Strait of Hormuz is once again threatening one of the world’s most critical supply chain arteries, posing another wave of disruption which could choke the global energy, shipping and commodity markets. With roughly a quarter of global seaborne oil trade transiting through the Strait, alongside significant flows of liquefied natural gas and fertilizers, further constraints on commercial traffic could send new cost pressures cascading through supply chains that have yet to absorb the full effects of the earlier conflict.

Unlike the initial disruption, this latest escalation is hitting an already elevated and damaged cost base. U.S. President Donald Trump had proposed a 20 percent charge on cargo transiting the Strait, a plan he abandoned on July 14th after pressure from Gulf allies. At a current crude oil price of roughly USD 85 per barrel, a 20 percent levy on all cargo would amount to an additional USD 17 per barrel, around 17 times Iran’s previously proposed USD 1 per barrel toll.

Yet, the larger challenge remains whether an assurance of safety through the Strait can really be guaranteed. While Washington has promised to safeguard commercial vessels attempting to transit, multiple vessels have been struck by Iranian forces, including the UAE-flagged supertankers Mombasa and Al Bahiyah on July 12th. Both vessels have a capacity of roughly 2 million barrels of oil, placing the potential value of a full cargo at roughly USD 171 million before insurance, maintenance and transit costs are considered.

If continued attacks deter vessels from transiting the Strait, constrained oil flows could combine with increased insurance premiums and higher transport costs, pushing additional expenses through global supply chains and eventually onto consumers.

These effects are already visible when examining vessel movements. On July 15th, a total of five transits were recorded, three inbound and two outbound, with one of those ships being Iranian-flagged outbound. Daily throughput in deadweight tonnage (DWT) stood at 130,311 DWT, or just 1.27 percent of the 10.3 million DWT pre-conflict daily average. Meanwhile, approximately 450 vessels remain waiting to transit the Strait, including 120 tankers, 180 bulk carriers and 150 other vessels.

War risk premiums, the additional fees charged to insure vessels operating within conflict zones, have skyrocketed from a 0.15 percent pre-conflict rate to 5 percent, a more than 33-fold increase. Very large crude carriers (VLCCs) can be valued from USD 130 million to more than USD 170 million, meaning a five percent premium could add an additional cost of USD 6.5 million to USD 8.75 million per voyage. For a VLCC carrying 2 million barrels, that would amount to roughly USD 7.5 million, compared with approximately USD 2.225 million under Iran’s proposed USD 1-per-barrel toll combined with pre-conflict war-risk premiums.

However, the compounding effects extend beyond oil. Data from the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Strait of Hormuz Trade Tracker shows that while crude oil shipments had begun to recover marginally, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and fertilizer-related shipments remain at a virtual standstill, with zero outbound shipments currently recorded. Renewed escalations risk further restricting already depressed commodity flows, with approximately one-third of the world’s seaborne fertilizer trade and one-fifth of global LNG transiting through the Strait.

Using a volume index in which 100 represents average volume levels, the WTO recorded a volume index of 25.69 for LNG on July 5th, following nearly four months in which shipments were recorded on only four other days. Fertilizer-related shipments showed greater resilience, recording a volume index of 97.62 on June 23rd. However, no further fertilizer-related shipments have been recorded, leaving the trade flow at a standstill for more than three weeks.

These restrictions could be particularly damaging for energy- and food-importing economies, notably developing countries that spend significant shares of national income on essential imports of energy and food. Simultaneous increases in fuel, transportation, and agricultural inputs risk creating a broader inflationary shock. Higher fertilizer costs can increase agricultural production costs, while elevated energy and shipping expenses raise the cost of transporting goods from exporters to importers, leaving consumers exposed to several layers of the same disruption.

The disruption has also carried a significant human cost. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has warned against continued commercial transit through the Strait, with IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez urging shipowners, operators, and flag States, along with all relevant authorities to “avoid exposing seafarers to unnecessary danger by transiting the Strait.” At the same time, the United States has announced that it will resume a naval blockade targeting vessels transiting to and from Iranian ports. Iran, meanwhile, has framed its control over the Strait as a national security issue and has threatened that it will remain closed “until the end of America’s evils.”

At its 137th session, the IMO Council reaffirmed that the right of transit through straits used for international navigation “should not be threatened, impeded, denied, hampered, impaired or suspended,” reiterating that any measures taken by coastal states to regulate traffic in vital shipping lanes should be done in accordance with IMO regulations under the International Convention on the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS). The Council also stated that traffic through the Strait must “remain free of any tolls and charges, in accordance with international law, including the IMO Convention.”

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned that “Reports on the closure of the Strait of Hormuz are very alarming for their impact on human rights far beyond the region,” describing the Strait as “a vital lifeline on which millions are reliant.”

The dangers are also being borne directly by seafarers trapped in the Persian Gulf. Of approximately 20,000 seafarers stranded by the crisis, around 11,000 have been evacuated through an IMO-supported initiative. However, evacuation operations have reportedly been paused since June 25, leaving thousands still stranded.

The economic consequences of the initial disruption were already substantial before this latest escalation. According to the World Bank, global energy prices rose by 24 percent following the conflict’s onset, with fertilizer prices projected to rise by more than 30 percent in 2026. Renewed hostilities in the Strait now threaten to compound these pressures, demonstrating how insecurity within a narrow stretch of water can transmit costs across global supply chains, from ships at sea to businesses, households and economies around the world.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa, Swiss News

Three years of War in Sudan: A Crisis the World Can’t Ignore

Fri, 07/17/2026 - 05:07

UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk visit to the Al Afad IDP camp, in Sudan. Credit: Anthony Headley/OHCHR

It has been three years since the start of war in Sudan. Survivors and human rights defenders struggle to keep human rights a reality as millions of lives have been impacted by violence, displacement and silence.

By UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
GENEVA, Jul 17 2026 (IPS)

Three years into the war in Sudan, survivors and human rights defenders are struggling to respond to overwhelming needs amid widespread violence, displacement, and limited global attention. As horrific violations and abuses intensify and those documenting them become targets, calls for accountability and sustained international engagement grow more urgent.

“The violations are severe: torture, rape, and other forms of sexual violence affecting women, men, and children,” said Dr. Nahid Jibrallah, founder and director of the SEEMA Centre for the Protection of Women and Children, a Sudanese civil society organization that has spent years supporting those affected by violence.

SEEMA Centre, now based in Kampala, Uganda, due to the war, provides medical, psychosocial, and legal and social assistance to Sudanese victims of torture in Uganda, as well as to their family members, with the support of the UN Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture. Through the project supported by the Fund, it expands its services to Sudan to provide critical services and support to victims of torture, leveraging its experience and expertise to document and report on violations, advocate for accountability, and provide targeted services to those affected.

The Fund is issuing a special call for emergency applications for Sudan in response to the surge in needs of survivors.

While Sudan has endured periods of conflict over decades, the current war which began in April 2023, has reshaped the country in devastating ways.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, recalled in a statement during his recent visit to Sudan, that he was shocked by accounts of extreme brutality, including atrocity crimes.

“I heard harrowing stories from survivors who witnessed the killing of their loved ones, and from women who had been subjected to gang rape and other forms of torture,” he said.

The conflict has also driven Jibrallah and her team to flee the country, so they are now working from Uganda.

“Torture is used as a weapon to control communities, including sexual abuse and also trafficking,” she said.

She said her colleagues at SEEMA Centre and other frontline groups, haven’t been spared the brunt of war. The war has created not only a humanitarian emergency, but a protection crisis for those trying to respond. She said that doctors, lawyers, health personnel, and human rights activists have been threatened, detained, tortured, and even killed for carrying out their work. The very people documenting violations and supporting survivors have become targets themselves.

The scale of suffering is unlike anything they have faced.

“Unfortunately, we cannot respond to this high level of need,” Jibrallah said. “The need is overwhelming, complicated, and spread across areas where even access is a challenge.”

“What we need is not to compromise human rights for any political agenda,” Jibrallah said. “We do not want resources to go to fuel the war or to mask human rights violations.”

UN Human Rights in Sudan

Sudan is now facing the world’s largest displacement crisis. Since the conflict began in April 2023, an estimated 14 million people have been forced from their homes, both within Sudan and across its borders.

“What makes Sudan’s crisis even more alarming is its invisibility. The world is not watching closely enough, but we are here, despite insecurity and access restrictions,” said Li Fung, UN Human Rights’ Representative in Sudan, on the staggering human cost of the Sudan conflict.

UN Human Rights has continued to monitor, document and analyze serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, despite access and security constraints. This work not only informs protection, humanitarian, and political responses today, but preserves vital evidence for future accountability and access to justice for victims and their families.

Civilians continue to endure the most horrific violations and abuses, forced displacement, trauma, and a dire humanitarian situation. Through its engagement on the ground, the Office is documenting violations, listening to survivors and communities, working with civil society and community networks, and bringing their voices to the attention of the world to press for action to end the war.

To this end, Jibrallah emphasised that documenting violations is essential and stressed the need for accountability: “It is very important to ensure accountability and to study this data, and to ensure that this will not happen again. It should be used for sustainable peace.”

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa, Swiss News

Taliban Use Dress Code to Justify Arbitrary Arrests of Women

Thu, 07/16/2026 - 14:19

“It is no longer clear what is allowed and what is not. Uncertainty keeps people in their homes. The city has fallen silent, and businesses are struggling.” Credit: Learning Together.

By External Source
HERAT, Afghanistan, Jul 16 2026 (IPS)

One morning in June, Halima (name changed), went to the market in Herat, her hometown in western Afghanistan, with her mother. She was wearing a long coat and a surgical mask covering her face. She could not have imagined that just a few minutes later she would be sitting in prison.

Vehicles from the Ministry of the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, or morality police, arrived at the market right after Halima and her mother. According to Halima, female employees of the ministry began arresting women without asking any questions. Cars waiting nearby took the detainees away.

“Everything happened quickly. Some tried to escape, while others were terrified. We did not understand on what basis the Taliban selected those to be arrested.”

Halima says that some of the women arrested were wearing burqas that covered both their faces and bodies. Like Halima, some were wearing long coats and face masks. Still, the morality police seized her.

“My mother cried and begged them not to take me. She was threatened with a one-month prison term, along with corporal punishment and a fine, if she tried to prevent my arrest. No one dared to come and help, even though my mother yelled.”

Women were being arrested, kicked and beaten, humiliated and mocked. Taliban troops stood by their SUVs, watching as their female colleagues grabbed the women. They grabbed those whose clothing did not conform to the Taliban’s concept of dress code

The phones of the arrested girls and women were confiscated. There were about 30 of them, and all were taken to a so-called shelter run by the Department of Labor and Social Affairs. It houses both single women and newly arrested women. None of them were allowed to contact their families. The next morning they were transferred to a prison.

The women’s wing of the prison was dirty and poorly equipped. Fear and uncertainty filled the minds of every prisoner.

“I sat in a corner and looked at my fellow prisoners: young girls, middle-aged women, and mothers who were worried about their children. There were about 60 of us. Everyone was either wearing a burqa or wearing what I thought was appropriate clothing. Yet, each of us was imprisoned because we supposedly did not follow the dress code,” says Halima.

The next day she was released. At home, her mother hugged her and they both cried. Halima was told that her father had paid 16,000 Afghanis (about 220 euros) for his daughter’s release. In addition, the family had to sign a guarantee that none of the women in the family would go out again without proper clothing.

After returning home, nothing felt the same. Halima’s brothers were furious and claimed that she had tarnished the family’s honor by going to prison.

“As if I had committed a crime! But I still believe that I did nothing wrong,” she says.

“Fear has become a part of my life. I will never forget those two nights in prison. I kept wondering whether all my fellow prisoners had been released and whether others had been arrested after us. I wondered what would happen to the women and girls of this country,” says Halima.

“I can’t go out like I used to. I’m always afraid when I leave home. I keep thinking about what will happen if I’m arrested again.”

Halima is not alone in her experiences. The Taliban have recently begun enforcing the dress code for women in Herat more strictly.

In early June, mosques in the city announced stricter regulations, and reports of the arrests of women and girls across the city began spreading on social media. The arrests have raised concerns, sparked protests and heightened security across the province.

According to the UN, at least 30 women were arrested in Herat over the first weekend of June.

Suhaila (name changed) remembers the moment when anger and powerlessness led many in Herat to protest.

The day before the protests, Suhaila went shopping at the market. Earlier that day, the imam of the local mosque had announced a new Taliban order: women who violated the dress code would be arrested and imprisoned without the possibility of appeal.

Suhaila’s father believed that the threats from the authorities should be taken seriously and that her daughter should not go out without full-body clothing. Suhaila followed her father’s advice and dressed as instructed, but still experienced something at the market that she will never forget.

“As soon as I arrived at the market, I sensed an unusual atmosphere of confusion. Women were moving restlessly from one side of the market to the other, and many were trying to do their shopping and leave as quickly as possible.”

Then it started happening. Women were being arrested, kicked and beaten, humiliated and mocked. Taliban troops stood by their SUVs, watching as their female colleagues grabbed the women. They grabbed those whose clothing did not conform to the Taliban’s concept of dress code.

“I wanted to scream and protest, but I was at the market with my little sister. I held her tightly to me and just cried. I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, they would take us, too.”

Zainab did not escape.

That evening, Suhaila joined a WhatsApp group for young people in her neighborhood, where they discussed what had happened. The group had dozens of messages about the arrests. Some shared photos and stories of what had happened, while others shared personal experiences of family members.

Soon, the group began dicussing the possibility of organizing a protest. Some warned that protesting would lead to more arrests and perhaps even deaths. Others believed that remaining silent in the face of injustice would rob people of their self-respect.

Suhaila decided to join the protests. She wanted to give a voice to the girls and women whose arrests she had witnessed. In the morning, she left for the agreed-upon meeting point without telling her father about her plans and despite her mother’s objections. The protesters began chanting slogans demanding women’s rights to education, work, and freedom.

The protest grew quickly but did not last long. Suddenly, Taliban SUVs approached the crowd from several directions and surrounded it. The protesters were beaten, and the Taliban opened fire. Desperate screams could be heard everywhere, and people looked for shelter wherever they could. Some were injured, while others tried to help them.

Among those arrested were also Suhaila’s friends.

“Zainab did not escape. The last time I saw her was when she was forced into a Taliban car. No one has heard from her since,” Suhaila says.

“We do not feel safe even in our homes. The Taliban are going from street to street looking for protesters,” Suhaila says of the atmosphere after the protests.

Fear is everywhere. Women no longer want to go to the market, and many families leave their homes only when forced to.

It is no longer clear what is allowed and what is not. Uncertainty keeps people in their homes. The city has fallen silent and businesses are struggling.

Shakoor (name changed) believes that it is not just a question of women’s clothing.

“Girls and women have a special status in this city. Arresting a woman or publicly humiliating her is considered an attack on the dignity and honor of the family. That is why the reaction has been so strong, and this time men have also demonstrated.”

The local Taliban administration believes that tightening the dress code for women protects social values.

Governor Noor Ahmad Islamjar believes the protests are the result of misunderstandings and outside influence. In a television interview, he reminded the public that demonstrations are not allowed.

The Taliban regime says the women arrested will be released after receiving a warning, their families will be notified, and they will be required to sign a pledge to follow the dress code. However, not all families know what has happened to their loved ones.

One of them is Suhaila’s friend, Zainab. Her family has not heard from her since her arrest.

Categories: Africa, European Union

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