European Union

When you parse the Paramount Leader’s video message to world leaders, any vestige of optimism begins to melt away

Mohammad Shtayyeh called on Berlin and other EU countries to formally recognise Palestine, arguing it would align with their support for a two-state solution

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IPI, in partnership with The Elders, cohosted a policy forum on “The UN at 80: Charting a Path for the Future of Multilateralism” on September 25th.

The multilateral system is facing its greatest crisis since World War II, creaking under the strain of disordered global power dynamics. The UN has long struggled with a host of threats to multilateral cooperation, including growing disregard for the rule of law, nuclear proliferation, the rise of nationalist policymaking, and backtracking on global climate action and efforts to promote gender equality. Now, in the face of unprecedented funding cuts, the UN is being forced to reduce costs while seeking to retain relevance and improve efficiency across its three pillars. Bold thinking and action are urgently needed for a fairer, more effective, and more responsive UN to emerge from this crisis.

At the event, The Elders introduced their new policy paper, speaking to the failures of the existing multilateral system and calling for bold reform. The paper advocates for renewing the international peace and security architecture, overhauling the international financial architecture, accelerating investment in global public goods, and selecting a woman as the next UN secretary-general. The Elders shared nine “calls to action” to drive forward the process of reform.

Read The Elders’ report>>

Opening Remarks:
H.E. Juan Manuel Santos, Chair of The Elders; former President of Colombia; and Nobel Peace Laureate

Speakers:
H.E. Mary Robinson, Member of The Elders; former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; and first woman President of Ireland
H.E. Helen Clark, Member of The Elders; former Prime Minister of New Zealand; and former Administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP)
Nudhara Yusuf, Co-Chair of the Coalition for the UN We Need

Moderator:
Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, President and CEO, International Peace Institute

The post The UN at 80: Charting a Path for the Future of Multilateralism appeared first on International Peace Institute.

Le gouvernement a autorisé, ce mercredi 24 septembre 2025, la réalisation des études techniques, économiques et financières, topographiques, environnementales et sociales relatives au développement de la filière bovine.

La filière bovine du Bénin est considérée comme un pilier stratégique de développement rural, de création d'emplois et de sécurité alimentaire. Le gouvernement béninois envisage donc de structurer une nouvelle organisation afin de faire face aux difficultés rencontrées dans l'expression de son plein potentiel. Il s'agit entre autres de la faible productivité du cheptel et les rendements limités, l'insuffisance d'infrastructures modernes d'engraissement, d'abattage, de transformation et de distribution ainsi que la fragmentation de la chaîne de valeur.
C'est dans cet élan qu'une société brésilienne spécialisée en la matière a été identifiée comme partenaire pour la réalisation des études techniques et économiques sur le site de la ferme d'élevage de l'Okpara.
« Les études topographiques quant à elles, sont confiées à l'Institut géographique national tandis que celles d'impact environnemental et social, qui s'étendront sur un premier périmètre de 20 000 hectares, seront conduites par une autre entreprise qui en a l'expertise », précise le gouvernement.

Marina HOUENOU (Stag)

The compromise would ban conservation varieties from being cultivated outside their regions of origin

Europe has a chance to catch up with the US through its Life Sciences Strategy and pharma overhaul, the health commissioner said

In a rare interview, Merkel defended her record on Russia, stood by her refugee policy, and praised long-time CDU rival turned Chancellor Friedrich Merz

A travers un communiqué en date du jeudi 25 septembre 2025, le directeur général de l'Agence nationale du Domaine et du Foncier (ANDF) alerte sur une fausse annonce de vente de parcelles dans plusieurs villes du Bénin.

L'ANDF n'a lancé aucune opération de mise en vente de parcelles dans les municipalités de Porto-Novo, Cotonou et Parakou. Selon l'Administration foncière et domaniale, il s'agit « de faux grossiers et d'une tentative d'escroquerie à grande échelle, orchestrée certainement par des individus, sans foi ni loi en quête de gains faciles ».

« L'Agence nationale du Domaine et du Foncier n'a pas une mission de promotion immobilière. Elle n'est pas dans le commerce de terrains ni dans l'intermédiation pour les transactions foncières et immobilières », informe le directeur Victorien Kougblénou. Elle en appelle à la vigilance et à la prudence de tous, pour échapper à ce piège grotesque. Selon l'administration foncière, toutes les mesures sont déjà prises pour identifier les auteurs de ces manœuvres.

The Danish EU Presidency presents a timely opportunity to elevate water resilience on the agenda and capitalise on it as a competitive advantage

“By delaying our 2040 target, the EU puts global climate ambition at risk,” the green lawmaker Lena Schilling said

The director general of the EU executive’s financial services division told MEPs that the proposed “reparation loan” to Ukraine would “mobilise” frozen Russian assets without affecting their “ownership” – and would thus fall short of confiscation

The European Defence Agency (EDA), NATO and the Portuguese Navy co-organised the 15th Robotic Experimentation and Prototyping using Maritime Unmanned Systems (REPMUS), the world’s largest event for testing unmanned maritime systems, held off the coast of Portugal. 

Running from 1 to 26 September in the waters south of Lisbon, the Portuguese-led exercise brought together 24 nations and tested some 300 uncrewed platforms across sea, air, and land domains.

It also marked the first time NATO’s military exercise ‘Dynamic Messenger’ was linked with REPMUS, combining operational training with experimental testing.

REPMUS/Dynamic Messenger 25 gave both militaries and industry the chance to trial robotics and artificial intelligence in real-world scenarios, including electronic jamming and dummy underwater mines.

“This was an opportunity to experiment on unmanned vehicles across all domains and in a real environment,” said Captain Nuno Palmeiro Ribeiro, Director of the Portuguese Navy Operational Experimentation Centre (CEOM). “What’s special about this zone is that we can do experimentation that is not possible elsewhere.”

Swarms, standards

Scenarios included Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) in coastal zones, electronic warfare in GPS-denied environments, and amphibious landings supported by robotic scouts and logistics drones. One highlight saw multiple uncrewed aerial vehicles performing ‘swarm’ operations, demonstrating the ability to operate autonomously in coordinated missions.

EDA, the EU agency tasked with strengthening defence cooperation among Member States, hosted seminars to highlight the importance of interoperability and ensuring allied and partner nations’ systems can work together. “Unmanned underwater vessels have different batteries, different chargers. We need to develop standards to improve interoperability and even interchangeability,” said Juergen Scraback, Head of EDA’s Maritime Domain Unit.

EDA is also establishing best practices. To address the lack of common regulations and safety procedures, the Agency is leading the Safety and Regulations for European Unmanned Maritime Systems (SARUMS) which provides a safety framework and guidance for design, operations, and legal compliance.

EDA has also supported a project to develop a swarm of biomimetic underwater vehicles for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (SABUVIS). EDA’s leadership in such projects emphasises its aim to accelerate Europe’s use of tested, mission-ready autonomous technologies in NATO and EU operations. 

 

Several start-ups supported by NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) used the event to test technologies for communications resilience, protecting undersea infrastructure and improving mine countermeasures. The Faculty of Engineering at the University of Porto and NATO’s Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation were also contributors.

Undersea warfare

The addition this year of Dynamic Messenger, led by NATO’s Allied Command Transformation and Allied Maritime Command (MARCOM), added a more operational dimension. While REPMUS focused on experimentation and integration, Dynamic Messenger provided a live operational framework, showing how new technologies can be deployed with NATO fleets.

More than 2,000 participants from 22 NATO nations took part, alongside observers from 13 other countries including Australia, Brazil, and South Korea. Ships from Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 also joined, highlighting the alliance’s focus on maritime readiness.

Unmanned systems are not intended to replace crewed forces, but to support them, taking on tasks such as high-risk reconnaissance or supply runs in contested environments.

With EDA now firmly embedded as a co-organiser in REPMUS, officials expect the annual event to continue serving not only as NATO’s largest unmanned systems exercise, but also as a platform for closer EU-NATO cooperation in defence technology. 

Dauer des Videos : 165'

Haftungsausschluss : Die Verdolmetschung der Debatten soll die Kommunikation erleichtern, sie stellt jedoch keine authentische Aufzeichnung der Debatten dar. Authentisch sind nur die Originalfassungen der Reden bzw. ihre überprüften schriftlichen Übersetzungen.
Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2025 - EP

NADA Austria and Others
Principles of Community law
Advocate General Spielmann: the publication on the internet of the name of any professional athlete who has infringed the anti-doping rules is contrary to EU law

Willkommen bei Rapporteur – vormals Europa Kompakt. Jeden Tag liefern wir Ihnen die wichtigsten Nachrichten und Hintergründe aus der EU- und Europapolitik. Das müssen Sie wissen: Kommission: Ursula von der Leyen sagt, die NATO solle russische Jets abschießen. Gaza: Ehemaliger palästinensischer Premierminister äußert Zweifel am Plan der „Gebergruppe“ der EU Zunächst befassen wir uns der […]

There is a modest global decline in hunger since 2022. While progress is seen in Asia and South America, hunger is rising in Africa and Western Asia. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Sep 25 2025 (IPS)

The 2025 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report shows a modest global decline in hunger since 2022, with 673 million people facing hunger in 2024, indicating a decrease of 22 million compared to 2022. While progress is seen in Asia and South America, hunger is rising in Africa and Western Asia.

This progress is nonetheless undermined by persistent food price inflation, particularly in low-income countries who were hit hardest by rising food prices, threatening vulnerable populations. The report emphasizes the need for stable markets, open trade and stronger policy coordination to secure healthy diets and reach the UN’s 2030 goals.

Isabel de la Peña, the country director for Cuba, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic for the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) spoke to IPS about the 2025 report and, the agriculture sector, rural populations, food and nutrition security in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region and the complex interplay of milestones and setbacks.

“The Latin America and the Caribbean region has reduced the incidence of hunger and food insecurity in the past four consecutive years and this is an important achievement. Hunger fell to 5.1 percent of the population in 2024, down from 6.1 percent in 2020,” she explained.

“And if you look at the past 20 years,” she continued, “Hunger had been steadily declining in LAC from 2005 to 2019. Then it peaked in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, hunger has been steadily declining and now it’s below pre-pandemic levels. Also, if you look at food insecurity, globally, LAC has experienced the greatest reduction in the prevalence of food insecurity in recent years.”

In 2024, hunger affected about 307 million people in Africa, 323 million in Asia and 34 million in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)—20.2, 6.7, and 5.1 percent of the population, respectively. Food insecurity has remained consistently higher in rural areas than in urban areas since 2022, with notable improvements in urban areas in Asia and across urban, peri-urban and rural areas in LAC.

Although the gender gap narrowed at the global level from 2021 to 2023, it increased slightly in 2024, with the prevalence of food insecurity remaining consistently higher among women than men, globally and across all regions. “LAC has the largest gender gap in prevalence of food insecurity as food insecurity among women is 5.3 percentage points higher than among men,” Peña said.

Further speaking about the paradox of food insecurity in rural areas where it is produced as food insecurity affects 28 percent in rural areas versus 23 percent in urban settings. IFAD invests in rural people to enable them to overcome poverty and achieve food security. Peña said approximately 33.6 million people suffer from hunger in LAC and that rural populations, rural areas and women are still the furthest left behind.

“This is an unacceptable reality,” she continued. “LAC has enormous agricultural production potential, and it’s also a net exporter of food. Even though the number of people affected by food insecurity this region fell by 9 million between 2023 and 2024, one in four people in the region is still affected by food insecurity.”

Globally, LAC has the highest cost of a healthy diet and approximately 182 million people in LAC cannot afford a healthy diet. In designing sustainable solutions, she emphasized the need to be alive to the disparities in the region.

She said the Dominican Republic faces a significant double burden of malnutrition as undernutrition coexists with high rates of overweight and obesity and, over 63 percent of the adult population is overweight or obese.

Cuba has traditionally maintained low levels of undernourishment of below 2.5 percent and, a low prevalence of stunting or chronic child malnutrition. Peña attributes the milestone to “universal social protection and food distribution systems. But in the last five years, there’s been a drastic reduction in the production of staple foods, and also a decreased availability and resources to import food. Families are now receiving fewer state rations.”

“Guatemala is one of the countries in the region with the worst food security and nutrition situation as one in two people are food insecure, and chronic child malnutrition or stunting affects 44.6 percent of children under five. This is the highest rate in the region and one of the highest in the world and it’s even higher when we look at indigenous peoples and rural populations,” she said.

Cautioning that chronic child malnutrition or stunting has long-lasting lifelong consequences as it can impair brain development, reduce school performance, productive capacity and ability to earn an income and ultimately limit a child’s future contribution to the social and economic development of their country.

“The Dominican Republic is a success story in terms of reducing hunger, as prevalence has fallen below 3.6 percent. It used to be almost 22 percent 20 years ago. Still, 18 percent of the population is food insecure, and 23 percent cannot afford a healthy diet,” she emphasized.

All the same, agricultural challenges in the Dominican Republic include a lack of proper irrigation due to poorly maintained irrigation systems, blocked waterways and declining groundwater levels. Further afield in the Island nation of Cuba, there is an over-dependence on imports, as the country imports 60 to 70 percent of its food requirements.

Overall, she stated that climate change is an increasing threat, disrupting food systems, agricultural productivity, and supply chains, further exacerbating “food insecurity and malnutrition as LAC is the second most exposed region in the world to climate change.”

“These extreme weather events and climate variability really reduce agricultural productivity. They affect yields, they damage crops, they can also disrupt supply chains, leading to food prices rise and healthy diets becoming less accessible,” she said.

Further highlighting the urgent need to invest in climate change adaptation, she spoke of the droughts induced by La Niña in between 2020 and 2023 in Argentina that resulted in a 35 percent drop in wheat production and a dramatic fall in exports leading to international wheat price spikes as Argentina is a major wheat exporter.

Peña emphasised that this backdrop is particularly concerning for IFAD and heightens the need to work with “small-scale farmers and poor households, because those are the ones that are more vulnerable to high food prices. And, poor households spend a larger share of the income on food, so they are more vulnerable to these fluctuations.”

Stressing that for small-scale producers, any kind of rise in food prices outweigh the potential gains that that they can obtain from selling their produce. Overall, other prevailing challenges in LAC are linked to low agricultural productivity, limited access to financial services, low technology adoption and the aging of rural populations as the youth migrate to urban settings.

“We need to redouble our efforts and focus on investments in the populations that are being left behind such as rural areas and women and this is really at the core of what IFAD does in LAC. We have over 26 projects in the region with an investment of USD2.5 billion between IFAD resources and co-financing,” she emphasised.

These projects aim at promoting food and agricultural production and tackling climate change with a special focus on rural populations, small-scale producers, women, and indigenous communities who are still the furthest left behind in the journey towards zero hunger.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Dauer des Videos : 135'

Haftungsausschluss : Die Verdolmetschung der Debatten soll die Kommunikation erleichtern, sie stellt jedoch keine authentische Aufzeichnung der Debatten dar. Authentisch sind nur die Originalfassungen der Reden bzw. ihre überprüften schriftlichen Übersetzungen.
Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2025 - EP

The Agriculture and Rural Development Committee adopted its position on Wednesday on a proposal to simplify the current EU common agricultural policy.
Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

The Agriculture and Rural Development Committee adopted its position on Wednesday on a proposal to simplify the current EU common agricultural policy.
Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP