Africa

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South Africa extend head coach Rassie Erasmus' contract until the end of the 2031 Rugby World Cup.

The US president hopes that a peace deal will pave the way for greater American investment in the resource-rich region.

Kenya becomes the first African country to secure US health funding since cuts to foreign aid by Trump.

Kenya becomes the first African country to secure US health funding since cuts to foreign aid by Trump.

The UN General Assembly in session. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias

By Anwarul Chowdhury
NEW YORK, Dec 5 2025 (IPS)

From its inception, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) has been engaged in improving its working methods, mindful of, as early as in 1949, “… the increasing length of General Assembly sessions, and of the growing tendency towards protracted debates”.

Since the leadership of legendary Ambassador Samir Shihabi of Saudi Arabia as President of the General Assembly (PGA) during the 46th session in 1991 and thereafter, the Assembly’s agenda has included a dedicated item on the revitalization of the work of the Assembly and its Main Committees.

Since the 60th session in 2005, under the guidance of its articulate and forward-looking President, Ambassador Jan Eliasson of Sweden, the Assembly has established the Ad Hoc Working Group on the revitalization of the work of the General Assembly. Its mandate was to “to identify ways to further enhance the role, authority, effectiveness and efficiency of the General Assembly”.

Till now, more than 200 outcomes have been recorded in 30 different areas. The incumbent President of the landmark 80th session, Annalena Baerbock of Germany has now taken the initiative to move forward substantively on this perennial exercise of the world’s most universal multilateral body.

Election of a Woman as the Next Secretary-General

I would strongly suggest that her forward-looking leadership would restore the operational credibility of the United Nations by including in its revitalization exercise the role of the Secretary-General, facilitating the election of a woman as the next Secretary-General, transparency of the UN’s budgetary processes, addressing the current and future liquidity crises, and meaningful inclusivity of civil society in the Assembly’s work.

The role, functions and leadership of the Secretary-General need special attention of the Assembly as the appointing authority. The 75th PGA in 2020 Volkan Bozkir has rightly identified that “the Secretary-General is the engine and the transmission system”.

It is unfortunate that questions have been raised about the reticence of the Secretary-General in getting his hands dirty and in getting more proactively involved in and in mobilizing his senior management team towards ending the ongoing global conflicts and wars and promoting peace and reconciliation.

In a recent op-ed, a former UNICEF Deputy Executive Director and a longtime UN watcher Kul Chandra Gautam even exhorted the SG “not to hide behind the glasshouse at Turtle Bay and go beyond invisible subtle diplomacy to more visible shuttle diplomacy.”

After choosing nine men successively to be the world’s topmost diplomat, I strongly believe that the United Nations should have the sanity and sagacity of electing a woman as its next Secretary-General.

In its resolution A/79/372 adopted as recently as on 5 September this year, the Assembly in its paragraph 42(c) says that “ Noting with regret that no woman has ever held the position of Secretary-General, encourages Member States to strongly consider nominating women as candidates” and it also asserted in its paragraph 42(k) that “The Secretary General shall be appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council, in accordance with Article 97 of the Charter”.

The same resolution (79/327) committed the UNGA “ … to the continued implementation of … its resolution 76/262 of 26 April 2022 on the veto initiative, to enhance the work of the General Assembly, taking into account its role on matters related to the maintenance of international peace and security …”. In the current exercise, this area, of course, needs further attention and elaboration.

Transparency and accountability are essential in the budget processes of the UN.

Two other areas which need more scrutiny are extra budgetary resources received from Member States and consultancy practices including budgetary allocations for that by the Organization. Special attention in these areas is needed to restore the UN’s credibility and thereby effectiveness and efficiency for the benefit of the humanity as a whole.

Future financial and Liquidity crises

Tough decisions needed to avoid future financial and liquidity crises needed genuine engagement by all sides, yes, ALL sides, in particular the major “assessed” contributors.

Peacekeeping operations also face increasing liquidity pressure as the outstanding contributions for that area are reported to be $3.16 billion. These accumulations have been building up for some years. Why was no extra effort made by all sides well ahead of time to avoid the recurrent panic about the Organization’s liquidity crises?

Today’s financial and liquidity crisis is not caused by recent withholding of payments by a few major contributors for political reasons. Outstanding contributions for UN’s regular budget reached $2.27 billion last month.

At the UN, though the “process is an intergovernmental one and thereby Member States-driven”, absence of civil society involvement would seriously undermine the role and contribution of “We the Peoples …”. PGA Bozkir asserted that “civil society is the pillar of democracy, and we must, after some time, find a way that civil society is (re)presented here”.

Enhancing the UN’s credibility

Also, I am of the opinion that a formalized and mandated involvement of and genuine consultation with the civil society would enhance the UN’s credibility. The UN leadership and Member States should work diligently on that without fail for a decision by the on-going 80th session of the General Assembly.

Under the bold, upbeat and clear-sighted leadership of the incumbent PGA Annalena Baerbock whose proactive and forward-looking role has already drawn wide appreciative attention, the international community needs to wish her best of luck in this very important endeavor to revitalize the apex body of most universal multilateral entity – the UN General Assembly – in a positive way.

For that, now is the time to discuss and to decide on the urgent, focused and meaningful areas of action. The UN’s long-drawn revitalization efforts in reality should not end again in the repetitive regularity of an omnibus of redundancy.

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury is former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the United Nations; Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the UN; Initiator of the UNSCR 1325 as the President of the UN Security Council in March 2000; Chairman of the UN General Assembly’s Main Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Matters and Founder of the Global Movement for The Cultural of Peace (GMCoP

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

By Stephanie Hodge
NEW YORK, Dec 5 2025 (IPS)

Let’s just say the quiet part out loud: the UN is not reforming because it suddenly woke up one morning inspired by efficiency. It’s reforming because the Organization is broke. Not metaphorically broke. Not diplomatically broke. Actually broke. The kind of broke where arrears sit at $1.586 billion and everyone pretends that’s just an unfortunate bookkeeping hiccup instead of the fact that the lights are flickering.

So, the Secretary-General stands before the Fifth Committee and announces a slimmed-down 2026 budget, thousands of posts vanished, a payroll moved across continents, and a brave new era of administrative consolidation.

And everyone nods because what else can you do when you’re trying to keep a 1945 institution upright on a 2025 income stream? But the truth is far simpler than the polished speech: this is not bold reform. This is the UN tightening its belt to the last notch and pretending it’s a fashion choice.

The real solution is embarrassingly practical.

First, Member States have to pay what they owe. That’s it. That’s the root. You cannot starve an institution of a billion and a half dollars and then evaluate it for underperformance. You can’t expect the UN to deliver peacekeeping, human rights, climate action, oceans, cyber governance, gender equality, humanitarian assistance, and the rest of the alphabet of global problems when its bank account is emptier than its inbox during August recess.

Second, Member States need to stop adding new mandates while ignoring the ones already sitting unfunded in the corner like neglected houseplants. You cannot keep handing the UN new global responsibilities and then act surprised that the staff who once ran these mandates are now buried in work or—more likely—gone.

Third, the UN needs to do what every other global institution did a decade ago: consolidate the administrative empires. Forty different HR units. Forty different procurement interpretations. Forty flavours of “policy exceptions.”

This is not a sign of diversity; it’s a sign of institutional sleepwalking. One payroll system. One procurement backbone. One HR servicing model. That is what real efficiency looks like, not cutting the travel budget until only three people can attend a conference on another continent.

Fourth, move the repetitive administrative work to lower-cost duty stations. Not because it’s trendy, but because it’s rational. Shift the paperwork, not the expertise.

Relocate the forms, the workflows, the endless approvals—not the chemists, the human rights lawyers, the peacebuilders, the environmental scientists, the country advisers. Protect the people who actually deliver.

And finally, digitize the system so staff aren’t drowning in PDFs like some tragic archive-themed Greek myth. Half the UN’s memory is lost every time someone retires because it lives in Outlook folders from 2011. If the UN is going to survive, it needs modern, automated systems, not heroic acts of manual labour disguised as institutional knowledge.

None of this is glamorous. None of this is the stuff of commemorative plaques. But it is real. It is possible. And it is necessary.

The SG insists these cuts will not affect mandate delivery. But let’s be honest: no institution on earth can do more with less indefinitely. At some point, it simply does less. The only question is whether we choose what gets dropped or whether it drops itself.

UN80 has been sold as a transformation, but it is really a house-keeping operation performed with the water already turned off. If Member States want a functioning UN—one that can actually deliver on the mandates they vote for—they need to pay their dues, stop loading the wagon, and let the Secretariat modernize without political micromanagement.

That is the rice and the beans. Everything else is garnish.

And What About All Those Agencies?”

Whenever the Secretary-General announces a grand reform — especially one involving massive cuts, relocations, and talk of agility — there’s always one unspoken question hanging in the air like incense in a cathedral: And what about all those agencies?

Because let’s be honest, the UN family is not a family so much as a complicated set of second cousins who share a last name but not a bank account. The SG can trim 18% of Secretariat posts, merge payroll, consolidate admin, and talk about efficiency until New York freezes over — but the agencies?

They watch from the balcony like disinterested aristocrats at an estate auction, whispering: “Poor Secretariat… hope they manage.”

In reality, UN80 puts every agency on notice — not officially, not publicly, but structurally.

Here is the quiet truth:
If the Secretariat collapses under arrears, the agencies feel it next.

They pretend they won’t. They talk about voluntary contributions, earmarked funding, trust funds, vertical funds, and country programmes as if that protects them. But the whole UN system is tied together like one of those old wooden chairs: take out the wrong leg and suddenly the “independent” agencies wobble.

UNDP will smile and say its revenue base is safe — but the second the Secretariat starts relocating services to Bangkok and Nairobi, guess who also taps those services? UNDP. And UNICEF. And UN Women. And UNEP.

Everyone wants the cheaper admin backbone, until it becomes overcrowded like a budget airline terminal in August.

UNESCO and FAO will make statements about their distinct governance structures, but they’re already stretched so thin that one more global conference could snap them like linguine. WHO will keep its aura of authority, but even they know that when the Secretariat starts consolidating payroll and procurement, the agencies follow sooner or later, kicking and screaming in their Geneva offices while quietly drafting transition plans.

WFP will insist it is different because it is operational. But operational agencies depend on global rules, global oversight, global HR, global justice systems — all housed in the Secretariat that just had 3,000 posts shaved off like a sheep at shearing season.

The Specialized Agencies always pretend they are immune until someone tries to harmonize systems, and then suddenly every executive head wakes up in a cold sweat muttering “gateway compliance” and “IPSAS alignment.”

What about UNHCR? They run on emergencies and adrenaline. They know exactly what this means: more work, fewer resources, and donor expectations rising faster than sea levels.

And the irony?

Every agency will publicly congratulate the SG on “courageous reform” while privately updating their risk registers with words like systemic, interdependency failure, and catastrophic liquidity contagion.

Because the truth is this:
If the Secretariat downsizes, everyone else eventually tightens their belt.

Not because they want to, but because global funding follows global politics, and global politics right now looks like a group of countries fighting over who forgot to pay the electricity bill.

So, what happens to all those agencies?

They watch the Secretariat shrink and hope the tide doesn’t reach their floor.

But the tide always reaches the next floor. Always.

UN80 is not just an internal reform. It’s the start of a system-wide reckoning.

A warning shot that the era of infinite mandates and shrinking wallets is over.

In the end, even the agencies know the rice-and-beans truth:

If Member States don’t fund the UN, the whole family — not just the Secretariat — goes hungry.

Stephanie Hodge, MPA Harvard (2006), is an international evaluator and former UN advisor who has worked across 140 countries. She is a former staffer of UNDP (1994-1996 & 1999- 2004) and UNICEF (2008-2014). She writes on governance, multilateral reform, and climate equity.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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When going home after school, Monica Ben not only takes with her a pen and exercise books but also a lantern to light the dark room and completes her daily homework in Mashonaland East province. Known as the Chigubhu lantern, a Shona name for a bottle, this portable light was made using recycled materials by […]

A nuclear test is carried out on an island in French Polynesia in 1971. Credit: CTBTO

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 5 2025 (IPS)

President Donald Trump’s recent announcement to resume nuclear testing rekindles nightmares of a bygone era where military personnel and civilians were exposed to devastating radioactive fallouts.

In the five decades between 1945 and the opening for the signature of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996, over 2,000 nuclear tests were carried out all over the world. The United States conducted 1,032 tests between 1945 and 1992.

According to published reports and surveys, it was primarily military personnel who participated in U.S. nuclear weapons testing. The U.S. government initially withheld information about the effects of radiation, leading to health problems for many veterans.

And it was not until 1996 that Congress repealed the Nuclear Radiation and Secrecy Agreements Act, which allowed veterans to discuss their experiences without fear of treason charges.

Although a 1998 compensation bill did not pass, the government has since issued an apology to the survivors and their families.

Some civilians were exposed to radioactive fallout from early nuclear tests, like the Trinity test in New Mexico. And like atomic veterans, these civilians also suffered from long-term health effects due to their exposure to radiation, the reports said.

Dr. M.V. Ramana, Professor and Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security Director pro tem of the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, told IPS one doesn’t know exactly what kind of nuclear tests might be conducted.

Even though the United States has not ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, in 1963, it did sign and ratify the “Treaty banning nuclear weapon tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water,” commonly known as the Partial Test Ban Treaty.

Since then, he pointed out, all of its nuclear tests have been conducted underground. There are two kinds of environmental dangers associated with underground nuclear tests. The first is that radioactive contamination may escape into the atmosphere, either at the time of the explosion or more gradually during routine post-test activities.

“More than half of all tests conducted at the Nevada Test site have led to radioactivity being released to the atmosphere. The second is that the radioactivity left underground makes its way over a long period of time into groundwater or to the surface.”

In 1999, he said, scientists detected plutonium 1.3 kilometers away from a 1968 nuclear weapons test in Nevada. In addition to these environmental dangers, the greater danger is that if the United States resumes nuclear weapon testing, then other countries would follow suit.

“Already, we have seen calls to prepare to resume testing from hawks in other countries, such as India.”

Decades ago, Ramana pointed out, when the US government planned to test nuclear weapons at Bikini atoll, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) said, “What should be vaporized is not an obsolete battleship but the whole process of the manufacture of the atomic bomb.”

“That statement is still relevant. We should be shutting down the capacity to build and use nuclear weapons, not refining the ability to carry out mass murder,” declared Dr. Ramana.

Meanwhile, in the five decades between 1945 and the opening for signature of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996, over 2,000 nuclear tests were carried out all over the world.

• • The United States conducted 1,032 tests between 1945 and 1992.

 

• • The Soviet Union carried out 715 tests between 1949 and 1990.

 

• • The United Kingdom carried out 45 tests between 1952 and 1991.

 

• • France carried out 210 tests between 1960 and 1996.

 

• • China carried out 45 tests between 1964 and 1996.

 

• India carried out 1 test in 1974.

Natalie Goldring, Acronym Institute’s representative at the United Nations, told IPS that President Trump’s threat to resume US nuclear testing is remarkably shortsighted and dangerous, even by his impulsive and reckless standards.

“President Trump seems to be making the incorrect assumption that the US government always gets the last move in foreign policy. He attempts to conduct foreign policy by issuing pronouncements, rather than engaging in the hard work of policymaking and diplomacy or even ensuring that his actions are legal.”

In this case, he is apparently assuming that the US government can unilaterally decide to resume nuclear testing without prompting the same actions from other countries, she said.

Proponents of permanent nuclear weapons development and nuclear weapons testing claim that testing preserves the reliability of the arsenal and sends a message of US strength to potential adversaries.

“But the United States already has a robust testing program to ensure the reliability of its nuclear weapons. Rather than demonstrating strength, a US return to nuclear weapons testing could be used as a justification to do the same by other current and prospective nuclear weapons states. In effect, it could be a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

As William Broad recently reported in the New York Times, part of the challenge of interpreting President Trump’s pronouncement on nuclear testing is that it’s not clear what he means. Does he mean full-scale, supercritical testing, or is he talking about testing that produces an extremely small explosion, such as hydronuclear testing?

Either way, the US government would be breaking the testing moratorium that it has observed since 1992, she pointed out.

“Nuclear testing has ramifications and costs in many areas, including human, political, economic, environmental, military, and legal. States with nuclear weapons tend to focus on the perceived military and political aspects of these weapons.”

But they frequently ignore the profound human, economic, and environmental costs for those who were soldiers or civilians at or near test sites or in the areas surrounding those sites. Little attention or funding has been provided to survivors or to cleaning up the land poisoned by nuclear testing, said Goldring.

Rather than resuming nuclear testing, those funds could be used to help remedy the effects of past tests, including reducing some of the human and environmental costs.

Instead of threatening to resume nuclear tests and risking that other countries with nuclear weapons will follow our dangerous example, President Trump could take more constructive actions.

One immediate example is that the last nuclear arms control agreement between the US government and Russia, New START, expires early next year. This agreement limited the number of deployed nuclear weapons for both the United States and Russia and contained useful verification provisions that are unlikely to continue when the agreement expires.

It’s probably too late to negotiate even a simple follow-on agreement, but the US and Russia could still commit to maintaining New START’s limits, said Goldring.

If President Trump really wants to be the peacemaker he claims to be, he could commit the United States to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

The TPNW is a comprehensive renunciation of nuclear weapons programs; States commit themselves not to develop, test, produce, acquire, possess, stockpile, use, or threaten to use nuclear weapons.

“Rather than taking us backwards, as President Trump proposes to do, we need to move forward.”

In 1946, Albert Einstein wrote, “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

The TPNW offers a way forward out of this predicament. Testing will perpetuate and exacerbate the human, environmental, and economic costs, among others, she said.

This article is brought to you by IPS NORAM, in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International, in consultative status with the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By Busani Bafana
PRETORIA, Dec 4 2025 (IPS)

Nature is a double-edged sword for global business. A groundbreaking report will reveal how businesses profit from exploiting natural resources while simultaneously impacting biodiversity.

An incisive scientific assessment, the Business and Biodiversity Report, set to be released by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) probes the impact and dependence of business on biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people.

Business and Biodiversity

This report, the first of its kind, examines the ways in which business benefits from nature and the ways in which global business operations impact nature. Representatives from 152 member governments are expected to approve it at the IPBES’ 12th Plenary session in the United Kingdom in February 2026.

Speaking at a media briefing ahead of the report launch, IPBES Executive Secretary Luthando Dziba said the assessment was commissioned by member governments for them to understand global business relationships with biodiversity. The report is to strengthen the knowledge to support the efforts of global businesses that are dependent on biodiversity and that also impact biodiversity.

“Biodiversity decline also represents a major risk for businesses,” Dziba said, highlighting that there are huge economic risks associated with biodiversity, whose loss is ranked among the top 10 global risks to business.

Dziba noted that the report is set to help businesses understand and measure how they depend on as well as how they impact biodiversity, which can determine actions they take to reduce their impacts on nature.

“Governments have an interest in understanding how other sectors impact biodiversity but also how they depend on biodiversity,” Dziba said. “Considering the unprecedented rates at which biodiversity is declining, this should hopefully be a wake-up call that presents significant risks, for instance, for businesses if biodiversity that they depend on is in such a dire state.”

Governments can design policies and regulations to create an enabling environment for companies to act sustainably by understanding how businesses benefit from and affect biodiversity, according to Dziba.

IPBES, an independent intergovernmental body established to strengthen the science-policy interface on biodiversity and ecosystem services, had published several scientific assessments over the years. The assessments have provided policymakers with up-to-date knowledge on the current  situation and challenges relating to nature, biodiversity, and nature’s contributions to people.

Biodiversity Loss: a Loss to Business

IPBES’ seminal publication, the Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, released in 2019, found that 1 million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction, many within decades. Changes in land and sea use, direct exploitation of organisms, climate change pollution, and invasive alien species are the leading causes of changes in nature.

Nature provides several ecosystem services, like pollination, water purification, climate regulation, and raw materials for business, which make trillions of dollars in value globally. At the same time, global businesses have a negative impact on nature through mining, agriculture production, manufacturing, and gas and oil exploration.

The World Economic Forum has warned that 50 percent of the global economy is threatened by biodiversity loss, calling for a radical change from destructive human activity to a nature-positive economy.

The World Economic Forum’s New Nature Economy Report II, warns about the risks of destroying nature, stating that “USD 44 trillion of economic value generation—over half the world’s total GDP—is potentially at risk as a result of the dependence of business on nature and its services.”

The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2022 ranked biodiversity loss as the third most severe threat humanity will face in the next  decade.

In 2024, IPBES launched two reports that highlighted the importance of tackling the biodiversity crisis to unlock business and innovation opportunities. Swift action on protecting biodiversity could generate USD 10 trillion and support over 390 million jobs by 2030, according to IPBES. Failing to act on climate change adds at least USD 500 billion a year in more costs to achieving biodiversity goals.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Johanna Choumert-Nkolo, third from right, speaking during a panel discussion at the Global Development Conference 2025 in Clermont-Ferrand, France. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS

By Athar Parvaiz
CLERMONT-FERRAND, France, Dec 4 2025 (IPS)

During the Global Development Conference 2025, development experts and researchers kept warning that low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) were being pushed into a wave of digital transformation without the basic statistical systems, institutional capacity, and local context needed to ensure that AI and digital tools truly benefited the poor.
Among the prominent voices shaping this conversation were Dr. Johannes Jütting, Executive Head of the PARIS21 Secretariat at the OECD, and development economist Johanna Choumert-Nkolo, who has over 15 years of research and evaluation experience. IPS interviewed both Jutting and Choumert-Nkolo following the conference, which concluded about five weeks ago, about the issues surrounding digitalization in LMICs.  Following is the summary of their responses.

How is Data the Weakest Link?

Much of the conversation around AI’s potential in the Global South centers on the promise of improved governance. But for Jutting, whose organization has been working on AI and data, there is a widening gap between the capacities of countries in the Global North and those in the Global South.

AI, he said, offers enormous potential. “For lower-income countries in particular, the production side is promising because AI can reduce the very high costs of traditional data collection. By combining geospatial data with machine learning, for instance, we can generate more granular and more timely data for policymaking, including identifying where poor populations live,” Jutting told IPS.

“But real challenges remain. Many low-income countries lack the fundamental conditions required to make use of AI. First, connectivity: without it, there is no practical AI application. Second, technical infrastructure such as data centers and reliable data transmission. Third, human capacity and skills, which require sustained investment. And fourth, governance and legal frameworks that must be updated to reflect new technologies,” he said.

There are also clear risks, particularly concerning confidentiality, privacy, and the fact that most large AI models are trained on data from the Global North, he told IPS and added that this creates potential biases and limits their usefulness for national statistical offices in the Global South.

Data collection processes, such as censuses and household surveys, are expensive, slow, and operationally difficult. According to him, many national statistical offices lack the workforce, training, and budget needed to maintain regular, reliable data production.

The challenge, he emphasized, is not simply technological.

“Digital transformation is not just a technology issue. It is a change management issue, a capacity development issue, a skills issue, and a political will issue.”

Dr. Johannes Jütting, second from right, speaking during a panel discussion at the Global Development Conference 2025 in Clermont-Ferrand, France. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS

Divide Within the Global South and Fiscal Constraints

While global debates often frame digital inequality as a problem between rich and poor nations, Jütting believes the more serious divide is emerging within the Global South itself. He argues that some LMICs are sprinting ahead while others fall further behind, a divergence he calls “one of the most worrying trends in development today.”

“What I see is a divide inside the Global South,” he said. “Countries like Rwanda, Kenya, the Philippines and Colombia are advanced—sometimes more advanced than OECD members. But others like Mali, Niger, and several small island states, are completely left behind.”

This divide is not only visible in connectivity and infrastructure but also in institutional readiness, technological skills and even access to basic demographic data. In some countries, he said, governments still lack reliable records of how many people are born each year or how many people live within their borders.

“How can we talk about fancy AI models when basic population data is missing?” he asked. “We have to start with the fundamentals.”

He also cautioned that development agencies may inadvertently widen this divide by focusing on “low-hanging fruits” that yield quick, measurable results, instead of supporting long-term system-building in fragile countries.

“There is donor fatigue, and funding is shrinking,” he said.

So, how do we move forward? First, Jutting said, every country needs a strong national strategy for the development of statistics (NSDS). This strategy must be fully aligned with national development plans, he said and added that only then can we ensure financing is efficient, coordinated, and aligned with country needs as well as international monitoring requirements, such as the SDGs or Africa’s Agenda 2063.

“Second, viable financing models will require greater domestic resource mobilization. Governments must be convinced to invest in their own data systems—and this requires demonstrating tangible impact.”

And third, he said, donors need to align their spending more effectively. “Our recent work on gender data financing shows a major disconnect: while gender equality funding is increasing, funding for gender data is not. This mismatch risks wasting money and undermining progress.”

He believes that there has to be a change on both fronts: national governments must allocate more domestic resources, and donors must invest in data in a more strategic, coherent, and results-oriented way.

Complexity of Measuring Digital Impacts

While Jütting focused on institutions and governance, Choumert-NKolo approached digitalization through the lens of climate resilience, human behaviour and evidence generation. Unlike many policy conversations that foreground tools and technologies, she emphasized the complexity of understanding real-world impacts.

“Digitalization is reshaping economies at a very fast pace,” she told IPS. “From a climate perspective, we need to understand what this means, both in terms of opportunities and risks.”

Her main concern is the long-term and layered nature of digital impacts. A digital tool deployed today may influence decisions in ways that take years to fully materialize.

“You never know how a tool will be used until people start making decisions with it,” she said. “Understanding behavioural change is complex, and attribution to one digital tool is extremely difficult.”

Despite these challenges, she emphasized that digital tools have significant potential to support climate adaptation. Farmers facing unpredictable weather patterns can benefit from climate information services delivered through mobile platforms. Communities vulnerable to storms or floods can receive alerts even through basic SMS networks. Such tools, she said, can save lives.

But she urged caution in assuming digital tools are universally accessible or understood.

“We must remember that not everyone can read or act on digital messages,” she said. “Literacy and accessibility gaps remain large in many countries.”

Her research experience in East Africa reinforced the importance of context. Mobile money, she said, became a major success story precisely because it solved local problems and fit local cultural and economic realities. But not every challenge requires a digital solution.

“Sometimes nature-based or low-cost solutions work better. The key is context. We must understand what problem we are trying to solve and whether digital tools are the right fit.”

She believes the way forward lies in identifying local needs, drawing from existing evidence and piloting new solutions where knowledge gaps remain. “There is a lot of hype around digitalization,” she said. “We need more comparative evidence on what works best in each setting.”

A Future That Must Be Shaped Carefully

One theme emerged with clarity from both experts: Digital transformation can support inclusive development, but only if countries invest in strengthening their statistical systems, building institutional capacity and grounding innovation in local realities.

“We need more and better data for better lives,” Jütting said. “But we must ensure the poorest countries are not left behind in this digital wave.”

Choumert-NKolo echoed that sentiment. “Digital tools offer huge opportunities,” she said. “But they must be rooted in context, evidence and local needs.”

For LMICs navigating the uncertainties of climate change, economic pressures and technological disruption, these warnings are timely. Digital transformation can be a powerful equalizer—or a new source of exclusion. The difference, experts said, will depend on whether governments and development partners prioritize the foundations that make digital inclusion truly possible.

• “Travel (for reporting this story) to the Global Development Conference was supported by GlobalDev, the research communications platform of the Global Development Network (GDN). The 2026 Global Development Conference was organized in partnership with other members of the Pôle clermontois de développement international (PCDI)—Foundation for Studies and Research on International Development (FERDI) and Centre for International Development Studies and Research (CERDI). Reporting and research remain independent.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe September 2025

By Annalena Baerbock
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 4 2025 (IPS)

For seventy-eight years, the question of Palestine has been on the agenda of this General Assembly, almost as long as the institution itself.

Resolution 181 (II) was adopted by the General Assembly on November 29 1947 – laying the foundation for the Two State Solution and calling for the establishment of both an Arab State and a Jewish State in Palestine.

But while the Jewish State, the State of Israel, is a recognized Member State of the United Nations, the Arab State, the State of Palestine, is not.

Seventy-eight years later, Palestine has still not been admitted to the UN as a full Member.

For 78 years the Palestinian people have been denied their inalienable rights – in particular, their right to self-determination. Now, it is high time that we take decisive action to end this decades-long stalemate.

The atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7th set off one of the darkest chapters in this conflict. Two years of war in Gaza have left tens of thousands of civilians killed, including many women and children. Countless more have been injured, maimed, and traumatized for life.

Communities are starving; civilian infrastructure is in ruins; almost the entire population is displaced. Children, mothers, fathers, families like us.

The hostages who have been finally released and reunited with their loved ones are slowly recovering from captivity under extremely dire conditions, while other families are mourning over the returned bodies. Again, children, fathers, mothers, families like us.

And while the horrors of Gaza have dominated the news for two years, settlement expansion, demolitions and increased settler violence in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem continue to undermine the prospects for a sovereign, independent, contiguous and viable Palestinian state.

Palestinian communities are bifurcated by the rapid expansion of settlements. Movement, communication and access to essential services and livelihoods are severely restricted for Palestinians by checkpoints, confiscations and demolitions.

While in my previous capacity, I visited a small village in the West Bank to actually meet with Palestinian farmers and teachers who wanted to show me what settlement expansion and settler violence meant for their daily lives.

As we stood on a hillside overlooking their farmland, a drone from an Israeli settlement began hovering above us, circling in the air, monitoring what we were doing and probably saying.

We know what happens when foreign people and cameras are no longer there. It’s not just a drone watching; it’s outright violence, including farmers being attacked as they try to go to work, as they try to harvest.

Beyond the violence itself are the daily indignities confronting the residents of the West Bank, including children getting to school or thousands of pregnant women rushing to hospital to receive care or give birth, only to be stopped at checkpoints or by road closures.

All that has happened in the last two years has all underlined what we have known since decades. The Israeli–Palestinian conflict cannot be resolved through illegal occupation, de jure or de facto annexation, forced displacement, recurrent terror or permanent war.

This only adds to grievances and fuels the flames of conflict.

Israelis and Palestinians will only live in lasting peace, security, and dignity when they live side by side in two sovereign and independent states, with mutually recognized borders and full regional integration –

As outlined in the New York Declaration, which is indeed a ray of hope, and the adoption of Resolution 2803 in which the Security Council endorsed the “Comprehensive Plan to End the Conflict in Gaza”.

We see unfortunately again on a daily basis that these are only words on paper if we do not deliver. We need to ensure that the ceasefire is consolidated and becomes a permanent end to hostilities. Since this ceasefire at least 67 children have been killed; and again, we see children being left without parents, or left in the rubble.

This has to end.

And as we brace for the increasing cold in New York ourselves, imagine what winter means for the people of Gaza: tents collapsing under rain, families shivering without shelter, children facing the night with nothing but thin fabric between them and the wind, and countless people still going to sleep hungry.

If we want to live up to our commitments, we need humanitarian agencies, on the ground without hindrance and without excuse.

And we need to ensure that humanitarian aid is delivered throughout all Gaza in a full, safe, unconditional and unhindered manner, in full accordance with international humanitarian law and humanitarian principles. And this includes delivery through UNRWA.

And as outlined in the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the obligations of Israel in relation to the presence and activities of the United Nations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, allowing UNRWA to fulfil its mandate and continue operations there is not merely a gesture of goodwill, it is a legal obligation.

Both the General Assembly and the Security Council have been consistent on the parameters that must guide any peaceful resolution of the conflict. So, we know what we have to do.

These parameters are again reiterated in the draft resolution before this Assembly today, relating to the New York Declaration, which was endorsed by a vast majority of Member States, and identified a comprehensive and actionable framework including tangible, timebound and irreversible steps for the implementation of the Two-State-Solution, in particular that resolution underlined that Gaza must be unified with the West Bank. There must be no occupation, siege, territorial reduction, or forced displacement.

It underlines that Hamas must end its rule in Gaza and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority.

It makes clear that the Palestinian Authority must continue implementing its credible reform agenda focusing on good governance, transparency, fiscal sustainability, fight against incitement and hate speeches, service provision, business climate and development.

And it calls on the Israeli leadership to immediately end violence and incitement against Palestinians, and immediately halt all settlement, land grabs and annexation activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. It makes clear that it has to end the violence of the settlers.

As diplomats we all know this is hard diplomatic work. And therefore , I want to be frank and clear.

The quest for peace, stability and justice in the Middle East needs our United Nations. It needs this Assembly to play a meaningful role.

It requires every Member State to walk the talk: to engage in this process, to uphold the United Nations Charter, to adhere to international law, and the promise this institution made to all the people of the world eighty years ago.

Let us recall once more: self-determination, and the right to live in one’s own state in peace, security, and dignity, free from war, occupation and violence, is not a privilege to be earned, but a right to be upheld.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

Annalena Baerbock In her address as President of the UN General Assembly