France

"The major problem behind anonymity is toxicity," argues digital governance minister

Stéphane Séjourné tells Euractiv there's a risk of massive blockage at a time the EU needs to integrate

INFO LE FIGARO - Pour Mathieu Darnaud, président du groupe LR au Sénat, la proposition de loi déposée lundi devrait inciter le gouvernement à oser une réforme centrée sur l’efficience d’environ 2000 structures aux contours parfois flous.

ENTRETIEN - Pour le vice-président exécutif des Républicains, les orientations annoncées par l’Espagne en matière de politique migratoire constituent un appel d’air à l’immigration illégale contraire aux orientations européennes.

Roberta Metsola opened the session by marking the 40th anniversary of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster and remembering Iranian prisoners Narges Mohammadi and Nasrin Sotoudeh.

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Roberta Metsola opened the session by marking the 40th anniversary of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster and remembering Iranian prisoners Narges Mohammadi and Nasrin Sotoudeh.

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Le président de la République a critiqué lundi les partisans d'une ligne dure avec l'Algérie, à l'occasion d'une visite d'hôpital dans l'Ariège où il a regretté que l'intégration des praticiens étrangers relève encore du casse-tête administratif.

DÉCRYPTAGE - L’issue de la réunion des membres de la commission d’enquête, qui voteront pour ou contre la publication du rapport final, est particulièrement incertaine. Elle déterminera pourtant l’utilisation qu’il sera possible de faire de ce rapport.

Les guides français Mathéo Jacquemoud et Samuel Equy ont battu samedi 26 avril le record de l'aller-retour entre Chamonix et le sommet du Mont Blanc (4.806 m) à ski, en 4 heures 41 minutes 24 secondes.

Plusieurs prisons subissent depuis lundi 26 avril des blocages à l'appel du syndicat de surveillants pénitentiaires Ufap-Unsa pour demander des mesures d'urgence contre la surpopulation carcérale et les sous-effectifs.

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

MEP Daniel Freund will hold a press conference on Wednesday at 10.00, on Parliament’s assessment of the European Commission’s management of the EU budget in 2024.
Committee on Budgetary Control

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

MEP Daniel Freund will hold a press conference on Wednesday at 10.00, on Parliament’s assessment of the European Commission’s management of the EU budget in 2024.
Committee on Budgetary Control

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Vendredi dernier, Donald Trump a annoncé une prolongation de trois semaines du cessez-le-feu entre Israël et le Liban. Un accord encore imparfaitement respecté, mais qui accorde aux populations libanaises un peu de répit après des semaines de bombardements.

Ce cessez-le-feu apparait comme imposé par Washington au Premier ministre israélien, Benjamin Netanyahou, fragilisé par une contestation croissante au sein de l’opinion israélienne. Parallèlement, ces discussions marquent un tournant : il s’agit des premières négociations directes entre Israël et le Liban depuis plus de 40 ans, alors même que les deux États ne se reconnaissent pas officiellement.

Ces échanges pourraient-ils ouvrir la voie à une reconnaissance d’Israël par le Liban, comme le souhaitent les États-Unis ? La question reste entière, alors que près de 6 % du territoire libanais demeure occupé par l’armée israélienne. Autre élément marquant : la France, pourtant alliée historique du Liban, a été écartée des négociations sans réelle réaction. Que révèle cette mise à l’écart sur l’état réel du partenariat entre Paris et Beyrouth ?

En réalité, l’issue du conflit dépasse largement le cadre bilatéral. Elle dépendra en grande partie des discussions entre les États-Unis et l’Iran, notamment autour du détroit d’Ormuz, toujours sous tension.

Dans ce contexte, quelles perspectives pourraient se dessiner pour le Liban, alors que ce dernier est confronté à une crise politique profonde, à l’affaiblissement de ses institutions et à des déplacements massifs de population ?

Mon analyse dans cette vidéo.

L’article Liban : une situation très volatile est apparu en premier sur IRIS.

Frontispiece of Tom Paine’s Common Sense

By Peter Costantini
SEATTLE. USA, Apr 27 2026 (IPS)

This is the third part of a three-part commentary. Read Part 1: No Kings? Meet King Don and King John – Part 1 of 3,   Part 2 of 3

Whose head?

In foreign relations, as in immigration, King Don the Con appears to be channeling King John the Bad and often surpassing him.

However, our wannabe monarch should consider one more exemplar, this one fictitious: Lewis Carroll’s Red Queen could be another spiritual ancestor of the Golden Emperor. After all, his Bling Dynasty has been a creature of fiction more than fact.

Carroll wrote in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland:

“Let the jury consider their verdict.” the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.
“No, no!” said the Queen. “Sentence first—verdict afterwards.”
“Stuff and nonsense!” said Alice loudly. “The idea of having the sentence first!”
“Hold your tongue!” said the Queen, turning purple.
“I won’t!” said Alice.
“Off with her head!” the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved.

As we’ve seen, King Don has demonstrated a similar disdain for legal niceties. “Sentence first—verdict afterwards” could be the motto of much of his foreign policy as well as immigration enforcement. He often skips indictment, trial, and verdict, and jumps straight from accusation to carrying out the sentence.

There is one striking difference between the two monarchies, though: the Red Queen’s courtiers understood that she was not playing with a full deck, and so they ignored her ranting. The Golden Emperor’s toadies are too cowardly to tell him that he’s acting increasingly unhinged, and have become immune to shame about their North Korea-like sycophancy. A possible exception is “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth, who may be even more deranged than his boss. His speeches sound like they’re written by a B-grade action-movie screenwriter torqued on crank. Economist Paul Krugman said in an interview that some people in the Pentagon are calling him the Secretary of War Crimes.

In the summer and fall of 2025, Trump marshalled a massive armada of ships, air power and troops in the southern Caribbean. The official name was Operation Southern Spear, and they were clearly positioned to threaten Venezuela. But while they were waiting to carry out the eventual abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro Moros, Trump reportedly ordered them to unleash military strikes against small boats that he said were smuggling drugs.

Instead of ignoring the President, as the Red Queen’s courtiers did, Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio obediently began extrajudicial executions of civilians in small boats. The victims reportedly included sailors, fishermen, bus drivers, laborers, and possibly some small-time smugglers.

The Defense Department reportedly confirmed to Congress that as of March 17 the U.S. military had killed at least 157 people in military strikes on 47 alleged drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. More strikes have allegedly occurred since, raising the death toll to at least 163 people.

As an Elizabethan connoisseur of royal mayhem might have put it: “As flies to wanton boys are we to King Don. He kills us for his sport.”

If Trump had wanted to make a serious case to the world that he was actually combatting drug smuggling, he could have ordered normal policing operations: intercept and impound the boat, display the packets of drugs and weapons captured, perp walk the smugglers and publicize their indictments and convictions. However, the his government has not publicly presented evidence that drugs were being smuggled or that the crews were connected with drug cartels or terrorists.

U.S. forces did not give the boats or crews a chance to surrender. They simply blew them (and any evidence of their alleged crimes) to smithereens. In one case, they reportedly slaughtered two survivors of an initial strike who were still clinging to the wreckage. Some boats were apparently carrying more people than would be needed for a crew, so perhaps some were just passengers. In another strike in which two survivors were rescued, they were not arrested by the U.S., but instead returned to their respective countries, Colombia and Ecuador. This was an improbable outcome if they were in fact smugglers or terrorists.

Here’s the lowdown: regardless of whether the crews or passengers were smuggling anything, they were civilians. Even if a war had been in progress, it would have been illegal under international and U.S. military law to kill non-combatants. But this was not a war with a foreign government, nor an attack on the U.S. by terrorists. Given that many of the strikes killed four or more people, the customary threshold for mass homicide, the operation should be investigated as serial mass murders.

Even before the strikes began, the senior Judge Advocate General (JAG, a military lawyer) at the U.S. Southern Command in Miami questioned the legality of the strikes and voiced concerns that they could amount to extrajudicial killings, NBC News reported. This JAG’s opinion was reportedly overruled by more senior officials.

Many other military lawyers and other officials also voiced concerns about the strikes’ legality up their chains of command. The “Former JAGs Working Group”, formed by victims of Hegseth’s earlier mass firings of JAGs, issued a statement that it “unanimously considers both the giving and the execution of these orders, if true, to constitute war crimes, murder, or both.”

Questions about the operation’s legality also apparently troubled the head of the U.S. Southern Command. Admiral Alvin Holsey abruptly announced that he would step down from his post in December, without offering any explanation for his decision. But the New York Times reported that Holsey, too, had expressed concern about the legality of the killings. This brought him into conflict with Hegseth and the White House. Ultimately, Hegseth pushed out the Admiral.

Six Democratic members of Congress who are veterans made a video that simply told serving military members: “Our laws are clear: You can refuse illegal orders.” This is advice commonly given to soldiers. Trump responded hysterically on Truth Social: “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”, and reposted another user: “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!” [Buchanan 11/20/2025]

Trump reserved his nastiest blast of vitriol for the only U.S. senator in the group, Mark Kelly of Arizona, a retired Navy combat pilot and astronaut. Defense Secretary Hegseth moved to demote and censure Kelly and reduce his retirement pay. In February, a federal judge temporarily blocked the demotion and criticized Hegseth for trying to punish a veteran and member of Congress for First Amendment-protected speech. Ironically, the attacks on Kelly seem to have supercharged his political fund-raising and helped establish him as a credible Democratic presidential candidate for 2028.

The rationales for killing civilians on small boats followed an opportunistic trajectory: first frame the strikes as tools to intimidate Maduro, then claim to be interdicting drug smuggling to save American lives. Next up the ante to fighting narco-terrorists. Finally, admit that the main goal of the whole operation was to take back oil from Venezuela that somehow belonged to the U.S.

After the abduction of Maduro, the usefulness of boat strikes to intimidate the now deposed president, if it ever existed, should have expired. But since then, Trump has continued to claim he is protecting U.S. citizens from “narco-terrorists” by destroying small boats.

The U.S. Southern Command claims with each strike that it is targeting boats along “known smuggling routes” that U.S. intelligence has identified. But it has yet to provide evidence that these boats were actually carrying drugs – perhaps because it is hard to collect it when the boat is blown to bits remotely from the air. And whether or not smuggling goes on along those routes, people living on the coasts of Latin America use small boats for public transportation, carrying legal goods, fishing, and many other purposes. Unsurprisingly, some may follow the same routes that smugglers use (as I have witnessed traveling in a small passenger panga on the Caribbean).

As the case of the Venezuelan deportees established, Venezuela is not a major drug producer; it serves primarily as a conduit for illicit substances produced elsewhere in South America and bound for European markets, not the U.S. Furthermore, in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, the main drug being moved is cocaine, which is rarely fatal for users. The fentanyl that Trump flagged as responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in the U.S. is produced almost exclusively in Mexico and smuggled into the U.S. from there.

As a congressional interrogator at a hearing on the strikes asserted, any amounts of drugs the strikes may have destroyed were insignificant, and are having no impact on the volume or price of drugs entering the U.S.

Furthermore, small boats are only one of numerous modes of drug transport from South to North America and Europe. Drug enforcement has been playing Whac-A-Mole for a half-century with submersibles, commercial shipping, air freight, small planes, drones, tunnels, parcel post, package express, U.S. citizen travelers, and the list goes on. Despite high-profile drug seizures, arrests of drug lords, and spasms of violence, drug markets keep calm and carry on. Meanwhile, fatal overdoses, almost exclusively from fentanyl, spiral upward.

And narco-terrorism? Sorry, but in the non-fiction world, organized crime and terrorism are fundamentally different beasts.

Big drug cartels resemble legal transnational corporations in many ways. Their main purpose is to make money – and then they have to launder it, which also requires business acumen. They have vast decentralized networks that include voluntary and involuntary sub-contractors and investors. They spin off subsidiaries in different countries. They can be very violent when competing over plazas, treating migrants as a profit center, or responding to attacks by governments, but usually they want to run their businesses without visibility or drama. The most successful organized crime executives have been the cagey facilitators and deal-makers.

Occasionally, when the gangs have become stronger than the police forces, governments have had to use the military to confront them. But only patient use of law enforcement tools like the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act and socio-economic programs to offer foot soldiers ways to get out of the life can ultimately disentangle their roots from society.

On the other hand, organizations that practice terrorism use violence or the threat of it for political, social, or ideological purposes. They want to visibly menace and destroy their enemies, and they are not primarily concerned with making money.

Many political movements from the American Revolution onward have practiced terrorism – in that case against Tory sympathizers with the British crown. And as in most wars, the British army also practiced terrorism against civilian colonists. Whether a given armed group is classified as terrorists or freedom-fighters generally depends on which side of the conflict the observer stands.

Organized crime may sometimes pursue socio-political objectives, and terrorists may sometimes use illicit activities to fund themselves. But defending against each phenomenon requires very different approaches. The Global War on Terror and the War on Drugs have both been long-running failures because neither terrorism nor organized crime can be eliminated militarily.

When King Don calls an organization “narco-terrorists”, he is simply slapping a label on it that gives him legal cover for using military force to blow things up and kill innocent bystanders. (“Oopsie!”, as his buddy Bukele might say with a smirk.) And as a bonus, the violence may distract his followers from his rich stew of corruption, juicy emoluments and tender pardons garnished with a soupçon of Epstein.

Despite the smoke screens, international efforts to hold Trump responsible for serious human rights violations have begun in a few venues.

A panel of experts convened by the United Nations Human Rights office in September 2025 concluded that the boat strikes violated the right to life under international law and the law of the sea. Their statement asserted: “International law does not allow governments to simply murder alleged drug traffickers. Criminal activities should be disrupted, investigated and prosecuted in accordance with the rule of law, including through international cooperation.”

The U.S. had accused the Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua of mounting “an ‘invasion’ or ‘predatory incursion’ of the U.S., at the behest of the Venezuelan Government.” But the experts found that “There is no evidence that this group is committing an armed attack against the U.S. that would allow the U.S. to use military force against it in national self-defence.”

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an organ of the Organization of American States, also held a hearing on the boat strikes in March. It heard testimony from several human rights organizations and the U.S. government. “We are doing everything in our power to hold the Trump administration responsible for its egregious violations of both U.S. and international law”, Jamil Dakwar of the ACLU testified. “These extrajudicial killings,” said Angelo Guisado of the Center for Constitutional Rights, “were poorly veiled cover to justify the illegal overthrow of the Venezuelan government, as admitted by White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.” A State Department spokesman responded: “The IACHR lacks the competence to review the matters at issue.” He also accused the Commission of interfering in domestic litigation.

The Trump administration has not released the names of the slain. But a few families have come forward to identify their loved ones. Human rights groups are representing two of them seeking redress from the government.

Although we have focused on the boat strikes as Trump’s most literal implementation of “Off with their heads!”, the operation that they were supposedly a warm-up for – the ousting of Venezuela’s president – also resulted in pointless and illegal bloodshed.

On January 3, 2026, Trump cried “Havoc!” and let slip the dawgs of Delta Force. The U.S. invaded Venezuela, abducted its president, Nicolás Maduro, and charged him in a U.S. court with heading a drug-smuggling cartel and illegally possessing firearms. During the operation, U.S. officials estimated that at least 75 people were killed by U.S. forces. The Venezuelan defense minister later said that 83 were killed and more than 112 injured by U.S. forces. He confirmed that the operation killed 47 of its personnel, and the Cuban government said that 32 of the dead were Cuban citizens. Some reports have suggested that additional civilians may have been killed.

As mentioned previously, an investigation by U.S. intelligence services had already found that the Venezuelan government did not direct or cooperate with Tren de Aragua, and was instead generally hostile towards the gang. So whatever his other faults, Maduro was evidently not a drug lord.

These charges also beg the question of how a president who is the commander-in-chief of an army and under protection of a presidential guard can be guilty of illegally possessing firearms. Stay tuned to Maduro’s trial in federal court in New York City for more details.

In any case, just for the record, it is generally illegal under international law for one country to invade another, kill its citizens, and capture or assassinate its leaders.

To understand Operation Southern Spear, it may help to compare the capture and abduction of Maduro with Trump’s pardon of Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras, who was convicted in a U.S. court of large-scale drug trafficking and imprisoned. His brother Tony had already suffered the same fate.

Trump’s pardoning of JOH at the same time he was detaining Maduro on similar charges was widely seen as contradictory. But on the contrary, the message was eloquent: the law means nothing, and King Don the Con doesn’t care if friends break it. All that matters, even if you’re a convicted narco, is that you shamelessly genuflect to him and declare undying fealty.

Despite U.S. criticism of the Maduro government, the abduction of the Venezuelan president left his vice-president in charge as the temporary president, and did not remove any other high officials from the existing Venezuelan government. So much for régime change.

In an outburst of candor, Trump confirmed afterwards that his main motivation was to force Venezuela to give back “our oil” to the United States. This was apparently done under what he calls the “Donroe Doctrine”. The reality was that since long before Maduro, Venezuela had expropriated the assets of some foreign oil corporations, as many developing countries have done. But Trump conveniently omits the backstory that foreign oil companies had originally expropriated Venezuela’s oil from Venezuela. This was fueled by concessions from dictators in the first half of the 20th Century. [Wolfe 1/9/2026]

Treachery, lechery, mendacity and cruelty? Sorry, King John the Bad: in immigration, foreign policy and many other domains, King Don the Con has elevated those qualities far above your crude medieval badassery.

Kings and laws

When the New York Times asked Trump if there were any limits on his global powers, he replied: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me. … I don’t need international law.”

It is true that Trump has a finely calibrated moral compass. The problem is that it always points to himself.

Conservative jurist J. Michael Luttig laid out the challenge starkly: “Once more, we must ask, as Lincoln did, whether a nation so ‘conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,’ can long endure. …We have been given the high charge of our forebears to ‘keep’ the republic they founded a quarter of a millennium ago. If we do not keep it now, we will surely lose it.”

The millions of partisans of No Kings and other resistance initiatives are working overtime to organize the massive and diversified political insurgency necessary to throw King Don the Con into the toxic waste dump of history and to re-establish something resembling the rule of law. Some of the political opposition seems to be slowly awakening from its torpor and showing signs of life. However, if the MAGA fever has not broken by 2028, I fear that our democracy and human rights will be languishing in hospice.

The last word goes to Tom Paine, the sharp-tongued English pamphleteer who lit a fire under colonial revolutionaries in 1776 with Common Sense: “[A]s in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.”

 

This is the third part of a three-part commentary. Read Part 1: No Kings? Meet King Don and King John – Part 1 of 3, Part 2 of 3

About the author

 

AMENDMENTS 1 - 166 - Draft report Interim report in view of the consent procedure on a broad package of agreements to consolidate, deepen and expand the bilateral relations with the Swiss Confederation
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Christophe Grudler

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

AMENDMENTS 1 - 166 - Draft report Interim report in view of the consent procedure on a broad package of agreements to consolidate, deepen and expand the bilateral relations with the Swiss Confederation
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Christophe Grudler

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

A worker operates a geothermal pipeline at the Laudat plant in Dominica, part of a clean energy project supported by the Global Environment Facility. The project illustrates the kind of system-wide transition GEF-9 aims to scale across small island developing states. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
SAINT LUCIA, Apr 27 2026 (IPS)

The gap between global environmental ambition and real-world progress is widening, with less than five years left to meet key climate and biodiversity targets.

Against that backdrop, attention is increasingly turning to how international environmental finance can deliver faster, deeper change on the ground.

Earlier this month, nations pledged $3.9 billion to the Global Environment Facility (GEF) for its latest funding cycle, known as GEF-9, running from July 2026 to June 2030.

The new cycle is being positioned as part of the response to lagging global environmental action. The GEF will aim for an important upscaling of conservation efforts across terrestrial and marine environments and, importantly, will also aim to influence and transform how economies produce, consume and develop.

What GEF-9 Is Trying to Change

The Global Environment Facility is the world’s largest multilateral environmental fund, supporting developing countries to meet commitments under multilateral environmental agreements on climate change, biodiversity, land degradation, chemicals and ocean governance.

That comprises six global environmental agreements, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity.

But officials say GEF-9 reflects a shift in thinking, adding that incremental environmental action is no longer enough to keep pace with accelerating ecological decline.

“The global community has set very ambitious goals for 2030 and, regrettably, we are nowhere close to achieving them,” said Fred Boltz, Head of Programming at the GEF. “As a consequence, the shared environmental challenge we now face is to manage a changing Earth system to sustain a healthy planet for healthy people.”

In this context of change and uncertainty, existing approaches have reached their limits.

“Upscaling conventional solutions is not sufficient to address our planetary-scale, existential challenge,” Boltz said.

From Projects to Systems Transformation

At the core of GEF-9 is a deliberate shift toward what the organisation describes as “systems transformation”, consistent with the GEF Integrated Programs (IPs) which are an important complement to funding traditional environmental projects that are necessary but not sufficient to address planetary challenges.  Systems transformation through the GEF IPs aims to change underlying incentives, institutions and pathways that currently drive climate change, ecosystem and biodiversity loss, land degradation, and pollution.

Rather than treating environmental damage as a series of isolated problems, the GEF IPs are built around the idea that economies themselves must be reshaped to operate within ecological limits. That includes the major systems that determine environmental outcomes at scale: food systems and agriculture, urban development, production supply chains, and land, water and ocean use.

The approach reflects what GEF describes in its strategic framework as a response to “accelerating global environmental crises” and the need for a more integrated response that aligns multilateral environmental agreements and development efforts.

“In addition to conserving the most important areas, restoring degraded ecosystems and preserving the adaptive capacity of our Earth, we must urgently focus on transforming human production and consumption practices,” said Boltz, pointing to the scale of change required to meet global environmental targets.

Under GEF-9, this shift is being operationalised through four linked pathways.

The first is expanding and diversifying environmental finance, including through blended finance models that combine public funding with private investment to close persistent financing gaps.

The second is embedding nature more directly into national development planning, ensuring environmental priorities are not treated as stand-alone goals but integrated into economic decision-making, fiscal policy and sector planning.

The third focuses on what the GEF calls “valuing nature in the economy”, including internalising the value of nature in economic designs and decisions, mobilising private capital, and aligning investment flows with environmental agreements through tools such as natural capital accounting and nature-positive value chains.

The fourth is broader “whole-of-society” engagement, which places Indigenous peoples, local communities, civil society, youth and women more centrally in the design and implementation of environmental programmes. The GEF considers that, as stewards of the Earth, all of them must take part in its conservation while also benefiting from the wealth of nature.

Taken together, these approaches reflect what the GEF describes as a shift toward nature-positive development. This is where economic growth and environmental protection are no longer treated as competing priorities but as interdependent goals.

Rather than funding isolated conservation projects, GEF-9 is therefore designed to operate across entire landscapes and seascapes, recognising that ecosystems, economies and communities are deeply interconnected and must be managed as such.

A Shift in How Environmental Finance Works

A key change under GEF-9 is how environmental action will be financed.

The fund is expanding its use of blended finance by combining public funding with private investment to unlock significantly larger flows of capital.

While earlier cycles used this approach in limited ways, GEF-9 is expected to scale it up as part of a broader strategy to close persistent environmental financing gaps.

Boltz said the focus is now on upscaling and transformative change rather than incremental gains.

“We are really focusing on transforming human production and consumption practices and operating at a scale in the conservation of ecosystems that enables planetary adaptation to a changing climate and to unrelenting human demand for ecosystem goods and services,” he said.

New financial instruments, including outcome-based bonds and nature-linked investment mechanisms, are also expected to play a greater role in attracting long-term private capital.

What It Looks Like on the Ground

In practice, the shift is already visible in energy transitions in small island states.

In Dominica, geothermal energy development supported through GEF-linked financing is expected to replace around 65% of fossil fuel-based electricity generation.

The impact goes beyond emissions reductions.

For island economies dependent on imported fuel, such transitions can reduce energy costs, ease fiscal pressure and improve resilience to global price shocks.

“This systems transformation benefits the environment in Dominica and benefits the global community by reducing greenhouse gas emissions while also ensuring lasting human benefits for the people of this island nation, in turn increasing the likelihood of success and sustainability for those investments,” Boltz said.

GEF-9 approach. Graphic: IPS

Integration Replaces Silos

Another defining feature of GEF-9 is integration across sectors and across the GEF “family of funds” – a shift away from treating the conservation of biodiversity, land and ecosystems, marine and freshwater systems, chemicals and waste management, and climate change mitigation and adaptation as separate sectors with distinct investments and isolated efforts.

Instead, projects are increasingly being designed to address these challenges together, reflecting the reality that environmental systems do not operate in isolation.

The approach is driven by both efficiency and impact. Combining interventions is expected to deliver multiple benefits at once, while avoiding fragmented efforts that can undermine long-term results.

Under this model, a single intervention can generate overlapping gains across different environmental priorities. Mangrove restoration, for example, can strengthen coastal protection against storms, support biodiversity habitats and store carbon. Sustainable agriculture initiatives can improve food security while also reducing pressure on soils, forests and freshwater systems.

The approach is also linked to broader GEF-9 priorities around scaling impact across landscapes and seascapes, rather than limiting action to protected areas or project boundaries. That includes managing ecosystems as connected systems, where upstream land use, coastal resilience and marine health are interdependent.

Boltz said this shift reflects how environmental pressures are actually experienced by countries on the ground.

“Countries face a spectrum of environmental challenges that do not neatly fall into different categories and the GEF must operate and support the achievement of lasting environmental outcomes in this reality,” he said.

Focus On Vulnerable Countries and Communities

The new cycle also places stronger emphasis on countries and communities most exposed to environmental risks, reflecting greater equity in how global environmental finance is distributed.

Small island developing states and least developed countries are expected to receive a larger share of resources under GEF-9, alongside increased support for Indigenous peoples and local communities who are often on the frontlines of conservation but historically underfunded.

Boltz said this shift is now embedded in the fund’s programming priorities, including a formal commitment to expand Indigenous-led environmental action.

“We have committed to an aspirational target of 20% of GEF financing to support Indigenous peoples’ efforts in environmental stewardship across the GEF family of funds. We have also significantly expanded a dedicated financing instrument to support Indigenous peoples’ stewardship. That has increased fourfold. It was 25 million in GEF-8. It’ll be 100 million in GEF-9.”

He added that the increase reflects growing recognition that environmental outcomes are stronger when local and Indigenous communities are directly resourced and involved in decision-making, particularly in areas such as forest management, land, water and ocean stewardship and biodiversity protection.

What Success Will Look Like

By 2030, success under GEF-9 will not be measured only by financial commitments or project delivery.

Instead, it will be judged by whether structural changes begin to take hold, whether energy systems become cleaner, ecosystems more resilient and economies less damaging to nature.

Boltz said the benchmark is long-term transformation.

“Success looks like maintaining the core elements of what is necessary for a vibrant and resilient planet,” he said, pointing to shifts in the conservation of large marine, terrestrial and freshwater systems and transformations in food systems, supply chains, and urban development.

Why It Matters Now

With global environmental targets under increasing pressure, GEF-9 represents a test of whether international finance can move at the speed and scale required to influence real-world systems.

The initial $3.9 billion commitment pledged by GEF donors in April secures the financial foundation for the next cycle, but it also raises expectations about delivery.

For countries already experiencing the impacts of climate change, particularly small island states, the question is no longer about ambition.

It is about whether systems can be reshaped quickly enough before environmental thresholds are crossed.

Note: The Eighth Global Environment Facility Assembly will be held from May 30 to June 6, 2026, in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
This feature is published with the support of the GEF. IPS is solely responsible for the editorial content, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of the GEF.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');

  

 

Related Articles

• Inside the Funding Model Behind Kenya’s Tana Delta Restoration Project
• Guardians of the Sea: How GEF Small Grants Program Enables Young Volunteers Take the Lead in Sea Turtle Conservation
• Artisanal Miners in Western Kenya Move Away From Mercury

Excerpt:

The Global Environment Facility’s new $3.9 billion funding cycle aims to accelerate environmental action by shifting from individual projects to system-wide environmental transformation.

Monday 27 April

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP