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One of the biggest hidden threats to ocean health comes from biofouling — the accumulation of algae, barnacles and microorganisms on ships’ hulls that can transport invasive species across oceans. Credit: Aaron Smulktis/Unsplash

By Kizito Makoye
MAFIA ISLAND, Tanzania , May 14 2026 (IPS)

Under the warm waters off Tanzania’s Mafia Island, marine scientist Asha Mgeni hovers above a coral reef she has studied for years. Small fish dart through the currents. To most divers, the reef appears pristine. But Mgeni notices something unusual.

Tucked between coral branches are invasive organisms disrupting the reef’s natural growth and species, which were not there before, she says.

“We know these reefs,” she tells IPS. “When something new appears, it stands out immediately.”

For communities along Tanzania’s coastline, coral reefs are ecological treasures. They cradle fish stocks, soften the blow of crashing waves and support coastal economies increasingly threatened by climate change and environmental degradation.

Scientists say one of the biggest hidden threats comes from biofouling — the accumulation of algae, barnacles and microorganisms on ships’ hulls that can transport invasive species across oceans. For decades, ballast water was considered shipping’s main pathway for spreading invasive aquatic species. But maritime experts now say biofouling can no longer be ignored.

“Ballast water has certainly, historically at least, been considered the primary vector for IAS introductions,” says Will Griffiths, Project Technical Analyst at the International Maritime Organization. “However, the role played by biofouling in this regard has become more recognised in recent years, with some studies suggesting that in some locations, such as parts of Hawaii and New Zealand, it may have been the primary vector.”

Fish vendors wait for the arrival of the day’s catch along the shoreline in coastal Tanzania, where fishing sustains thousands of livelihoods. Marine scientists say invasive aquatic species linked to international shipping could disrupt fisheries and threaten food security for vulnerable coastal communities. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS

As global shipping expands, marine experts warn that invasive species are spreading through trade routes, disrupting ecosystems and threatening biodiversity. Scientists and regulators say biofouling can transport  marine organisms and pathogens across ecosystems, threatening fisheries and coastal economies.

“It is also worth noting that biofouling can represent a great species richness in terms of species transported by ships and also, therefore, potential pathogens,” Griffiths tells IPS.

Mwanahija Shalli, a professor of Marine and Coastal Resources Management at the University of Dar es Salaam, says marine biodiversity underpins livelihoods for millions of coastal residents through fisheries and tourism.

“Invasive aquatic species threaten ecosystems and fisheries by displacing native species,” she says. “If we fail to manage biofouling, we undermine important conservation efforts.”

A broad alliance led by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) is stepping up efforts to confront a major environmental threat from shipping: the spread of invasive aquatic species through biofouling.

Port and maritime officials inspect a vessel at the Port of Dar es Salaam as part of efforts to monitor the environmental risks posed by invasive marine species spread through global shipping routes. Experts say biofouling on ship hulls has become a growing threat to marine biodiversity and coastal economies. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS

Known as the GloFouling Partnerships Project, the initiative aims to help countries strengthen regulations, improve monitoring systems and build technical capacity to reduce the transfer of invasive species through international shipping. The project supports  efforts to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals — particularly the target to conserve and sustainably use oceans, seas and marine resources — while delivering climate benefits through improved vessel efficiency and lower emissions.

Scientists say organisms nestled on ship hulls increase drag, forcing vessels to burn more fuel and produce more emissions.

“Biofouling changes the affected ships’ hydrodynamics and increases drag, meaning there is increased fuel consumption and thus increased greenhouse gas emissions,” Griffiths says. “This can also be a major issue when fouling is on the ship’s propellers, which, due to shape, require specialist cleaning.”

He says biofouling can also interfere with vessel operations.

“There is also some anecdotal evidence to suggest fouling can cause blockages in seawater intakes, affect engine performance and even firefighting systems in extreme cases, which further increases fuel consumption,” he says.

Andrew Hume, Senior Environmental Specialist at the Global Environment Facility, says the initiative builds on earlier international efforts to control invasive species transported through ballast water.

“The GloFouling project builds on a long-standing partnership between the GEF UNDP and the IMO to address shipping impacts on the marine environment,” he says.

According to Hume, the project closes a major gap by targeting hull biofouling, another key pathway for invasive species transfer.

“Keeping ships’ hulls free from just a thin layer of slime could reduce a ship’s greenhouse gas emissions by up to 25 per cent,” Hume says.

A cargo ship enters the Port of Dar es Salaam, one of East Africa’s busiest maritime gateways. As shipping traffic increases, scientists and regulators are raising concerns about biofouling — the buildup of marine organisms on ship hulls that can transport invasive species across oceans. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS

Marine scientists warn that invasive aquatic species can dramatically alter ecosystems, outsmart native organisms and damage fisheries that support coastal livelihoods. The issue is  raising international concern as governments struggle to balance burgeoning maritime trade with the protection of ocean ecosystems. Griffiths says the international community has made substantial progress regulating ballast water through the Ballast Water Management Convention, but biofouling controls still lag behind.

“An important aspect to consider is that there is a robust international legal framework for managing ballast water, whereas at the international level biofouling provisions are, for the moment, recommendatory and only a few countries have biofouling regulations,” he explains.

Across East Africa, rising cargo traffic has increased concern about shipping’s ecological footprint. Similar efforts are underway globally. Indonesia estimates improved biofouling management could generate up to USD 7 million annually through healthier reefs, lower fuel consumption and reduced port maintenance costs.

In Peru, authorities are building a national aquatic biodiversity database to help scientists detect invasive species before they spread along the coastline.

“Collaboration in the project enabled the authorities to develop a national aquatic biodiversity catalogue providing the baseline knowledge to detect invasive species early and undertake rapid response,” Griffiths says.

In Fiji, the results are impressive.

“Fiji reported that as a result of the GloFouling dry dock training, they had improved the technical capacity of local personnel and gained access to resources to upgrade local facilities,” Griffiths says, adding that the programme had strengthened confidence among local maritime operators and enhanced Fiji’s position in the regional maritime services market

Meanwhile, Mauritius is encouraging private-sector investment in technologies designed to protect fragile marine ecosystems. Over the past six years, countries participating in the GloFouling initiative have moved toward stricter regulation and greater regional cooperation.

Australia and New Zealand have already introduced fully enforceable national regimes requiring clean hulls, biofouling management plans, record books and inspections consistent with the IMO’s 2023 Biofouling Guidelines. Griffiths says Brazil has emerged as a leader among developing nations.

“Brazil is the newest and most explicit adopter, directly embedding the 2023 guidelines into mandatory port state law,” he says. “Unlike the IMO’s voluntary approach, however, Brazil sets an explicit enforceable standard: vessels must arrive with no more than microfouling.”

The project has also expanded into maritime training and private-sector cooperation. Through the Global Industry Alliance, companies are testing hull coatings and cleaning technologies to limit the spread of invasive species.

“One of the project’s most transformative impacts has been creating a collaborative platform where technology innovators, regulators and industry leaders jointly develop and implement solutions for biofouling,” Griffiths says.

The alliance, initially created to support the project, has since evolved into a permanent collaboration. Griffiths says the group is expanding research into hull inspection technologies and the environmental impacts of antifouling coatings.

“The continuation of the GIA and its ongoing studies offers exceptional value as a driving force for industry innovation, standard-setting and knowledge dissemination,” he says.

Hume says the initiative builds on earlier GEF-supported efforts that led to the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments in 2004. He says the programme has since helped develop the IMO’s 2023 Biofouling Guidelines and supported pilot projects in 12 countries.

Hume says the GEF is preparing a second phase of investment aimed at helping more countries implement the IMO’s 2023 Biofouling Guidelines and strengthen international cooperation.

“The objective is to strengthen national and institutional capacity of developing countries to implement the guidelines in order to reduce invasive species and lower greenhouse gas emissions,” he says.

A second phase of investment expected before June  aims to strengthen national capacity, expand implementation and advance discussions toward a legally binding global framework on biofouling management. Although the GloFouling project officially concluded in May 2025, Griffiths says efforts are continuing through training programmes, technical studies and industry partnerships designed to maintain momentum ahead of anticipated binding international regulations by 2030.

Experts say cleaner hulls not only reduce the spread of invasive species but also lower fuel consumption and carbon emissions. However, scientists caution that poorly managed hull-cleaning practices can release chemicals and microplastics into marine environments.

Back on Mafia Island, Mgeni says the changes beneath the water are often subtle before they become irreversible.

“Once invasive species establish themselves, it becomes much harder to restore the balance,” she says.

For communities that depend on reefs for food, tourism and protection from storms, the battle against biofouling is becoming a fight to protect the ecosystems and livelihoods that depend on the ocean.

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.

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Opening plenary session, INC 5.2 of the global plastics negotiations, Palais des Nations, Geneva, 5 August 2025. Credit: Craig Boljkovac

By Craig Boljkovac
GENEVA, May 14 2026 (IPS)

Norway’s reported decision to review and place on hold aspects of its funding to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) should be understood as more than a budgetary matter. It is a political signal. It is also a warning that the global plastics treaty negotiations may now be approaching the point at which governments must decide whether the present UNEP process can still deliver the treaty they promised, or whether a different pathway is required.

There should be no misunderstanding. Norway has been one of the strongest supporters of an ambitious global plastics treaty. It co-leads, with Rwanda, the High Ambition Coalition. It has also been the largest listed contributor to the INC process, with UNEP’s donor table showing more than USD 7.2 million in contributions received from Norway as of 25 March 2026.

Its apparent decision to pause or review funding therefore cannot be dismissed as marginal. It comes from a country that has invested politically and financially in the process and that has consistently positioned itself on the side of ambition.

That is precisely why the signal matters.

If Norway is now forcing a moment of reflection, it may be doing the negotiations a service. A process that cannot conclude, cannot decide, and cannot distinguish between genuine compromise and procedural obstruction needs more than another round of careful facilitation. It needs political clarity.

The original mandate was not ambiguous. In March 2022, the United Nations Environment Assembly agreed to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment, addressing the full lifecycle of plastics, with the aim of completing the work by the end of 2024. That deadline has passed.

The fifth session in Busan did not produce a treaty. The resumed fifth session in Geneva did not produce a treaty. INC-5.3 in February 2026 was essentially an organizational session, including the election of a new Chair. We are now looking toward INC-5.4, possibly at the end of 2026 or in early 2027.

At some point, the numbering itself approaches the point of absurdity. INC-5.4 is not a normal negotiating milestone. It is the fourth attempt to complete the fifth session of a process that was supposed to conclude in 2024. This is not multilateral patience. It is clearly a form of procedural dysfunction.

None of this is intended as disrespect toward Ambassador Julio Cordano of Chile, the newly elected Chair of the INC. On the contrary, he has taken on one of the most difficult environmental negotiations in recent memory.

He inherited a fractured process, an absurdly complicated text, deeply polarized delegations, and an increasingly visible divide between countries seeking a full-lifecycle treaty and those seeking a narrower waste-management instrument. This is despite his stated and admirable determination to get the treaty “over the line.”

The difficulty, however, is that all indications suggest that the Chair is pursuing a highly neutral, process-oriented path. That is understandable. A Chair in this setting is expected to maintain confidence across the room, including among delegations whose positions are far apart. But neutrality is not the same as progress.

At a certain point, a too-neutral process can become a shield for those who prefer no outcome, or only the weakest possible outcome. And his treatment of observers, despite recent indications that he will take their views more fully into consideration, still leaves much to be desired in a UN system that contends to be as broadly inclusive as possible.

The gap between the Like-Minded countries and the High Ambition Coalition is not a drafting problem. It is a political problem. One group of countries wants an agreement that addresses the full lifecycle of plastics, including production, design, hazardous chemicals, products, trade, waste, finance and implementation.

Another group seeks to confine the treaty largely to downstream waste management, recycling and national discretion. These are not merely different textual preferences. They are different theories of the treaty. The mandate for the negotiations clearly states that the former, not the latter, is what should be pursued.

If the process continues to treat these positions as equally bridgeable, it will continue to reward delay. Consensus can be a tool for legitimacy. But in this process, it is increasingly at risk of becoming a veto mechanism for the least ambitious actors.

The result is predictable: more informal consultations, more revised texts, more late-night sessions, more statements of disappointment, and still no treaty.

This is why Norway’s move deserves, at minimum, a measure of credit. It has introduced a hard political question into a process that has become too comfortable with postponement. If countries are serious about concluding a meaningful treaty within UNEP, they should do so now. Not after another “informal” round. Not after another partial session. Not after INC-5.5 or INC-5.6. Now.

But if they are not prepared to do so, then high-ambition countries should begin preparing an alternative. The obvious precedent is the Ottawa Process on anti-personnel landmines. When the established disarmament machinery could not deliver a comprehensive ban, a coalition of like-minded governments, supported by civil society and international organizations, moved outside the blocked forum and negotiated a treaty among those prepared to act.

The Mine Ban Treaty was opened for signature in Ottawa in December 1997 and was later (after agreement was reached) brought back into the broader UN treaty system.

That example is important because it shows that moving outside a blocked UN process is not necessarily anti-UN. It can be pro-multilateralism. The Ottawa Process did not reject international law; it created it. It did not wait for the least ambitious actors to become ready. It allowed the most ambitious actors to move first and then invited others to join.

A plastics “Ottawa Process” would not need to start from zero. The UNEP negotiations have already generated years of technical work, draft text, legal options, coalition positions, scientific input and stakeholder engagement. A like-minded process could take the strongest elements from that work and use them as the basis for an agreed treaty text.

Participation could be open to all states, but on the basis of a minimum level of ambition: full lifecycle coverage; legally binding obligations; controls on problematic products and chemicals of concern; a necessary focus on supply chains; credible implementation financing; and reporting and review mechanisms.

The next stage should therefore be framed as a final test. INC-5.4 should be treated as the last credible opportunity for the UNEP process to produce a treaty that reflects the mandate adopted in 2022.

If that session produces only another procedural continuation, or a weak agreement stripped of lifecycle measures, production-related provisions, and meaningful controls on chemicals and products, then high-ambition countries should move immediately toward an Ottawa-style diplomatic track.

The plastics crisis is not waiting for the INC process to resolve its internal contradictions. Plastic production continues to grow, in accordance with targets set by like-minded countries. Waste continues to leak into rivers, oceans, soils and food systems. Communities continue to bear the health and environmental costs. The purpose of the negotiations was to respond to that reality, not to create an indefinite process for describing it.

Norway’s funding decision may therefore prove useful if it forces governments to confront the obvious. Either the UNEP negotiations now become serious, political and outcome-oriented, or the countries that are serious about ending plastic pollution should create a pathway of their own.

That would not be a failure of multilateralism. It may be the only way left to save it.

Craig Boljkovac is a Geneva-based Senior Advisor with a Regional Centre for the Basel and Stockholm Conventions, and an independent international environmental consultant with over 35 years of experience in relevant fields. His opinions are his own. He has participated in several INCs and related meetings for the global plastics agreement.

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Parliamentarians from Africa, Asia, and the Arab world gathered to assess pledges made at last year’s TICAD9 summit in Yokohama. Credit: APDA

By Hisham Allam
CAIRO, May 14 2026 (IPS)

The word heard most often at a two-day parliamentary forum in Cairo last week was not “commitment”; it was “follow-up.” And the difference mattered.

Parliamentarians from Africa, Asia, and the Arab world gathered 28–29 April not to renew pledges made at last year’s TICAD9 summit in Yokohama, but to ask what had actually been done. The answer was uneven, and delegates said so plainly.

The meeting, organised by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) and the Forum of Arab Parliamentarians on Population and Development (FAPPD) with support from UNFPA, the Japan Trust Fund, and IPPF, focused on sexual and reproductive health, universal health coverage, youth investment, and gender equality. It convened against a difficult backdrop: shrinking donor budgets, deepening demographic pressure across Africa, and a persistent gap between legislation and delivery.

Japan’s Makishima Karen, a member of the House of Representatives, Vice Chair of the Japan Parliamentarians Federation for Population, and former Minister for Digital Affairs, set the tone early. “Once a conference is finished, it’s no longer the finish – we should follow up the outcomes and the concrete actions,” she told IPS on the sidelines.

Makishima was direct about where progress begins. “Wherever you live or wherever you are born, the right to live healthily is a human right,” she said. “That is why I focus on the necessity of universal health coverage (UHC) for all.” She argued that UHC cannot be achieved without bringing finance ministries into the conversation: “The understanding of the Minister of Finance is necessary. We are encouraging ministries of finance to join the process.”

On what actually drives change at the community level, she was equally clear: “When mothers cannot read, it must be difficult for their communities to live healthily and safely. Education of women and girls is essential to protect the next generation.”

She also raised a dimension of the agenda that often goes unstated: the role of digital tools. Drawing on her background in digital governance, she argued that technology is not a separate track but integral to delivery: “With one smartphone, every person can access information, check their own data, and have the ability to control it. That is part of democracy.”

Meeting chairs set the tone, demanding asking for action, not new pledges, at a recent two-day forum in Cairo. Credit: APDA

On the wave of aid cuts hitting development programmes globally, she did not deflect. “I believe in the necessity of multilateral organisational frameworks; otherwise, it is very difficult to continue the necessary programmes in each region.” The longer-term answer, she said, is not to wait for donors to return. “Within five or ten years, each government should take on the responsibility to continue these programmes. We must have a very long-term perspective.”

Tanzania’s Jackson Kiswaga, MP, offered the clearest example of what domestic ownership can look like. His country, with 71.5 million people, 60 percent under 24, growing at nearly three percent a year, has been moving fast. In 2023, Tanzania passed the Universal Health Insurance Act, integrating reproductive health services into mandatory coverage spanning formal and informal sectors. A dedicated Youth Ministry was established under the President’s Office. A national scholarship programme has since supported over 400 girls in science education, with measurable reductions in early marriage and pregnancy.

“Institutional innovations are models for other countries,” Kiswaga said. “Strong partnerships in the health sector are key to ensuring sustainability.”

Morocco’s Soukaina Lahmouch, MP, offered a sharper warning. Her country enacted landmark legislation against gender-based violence in 2018, but seven years on, implementation has stalled. Procedural complexity, weak enforcement, and cultural resistance, particularly in domestic violence cases, have blunted the law’s impact.

“Women in Morocco still suffer discrimination and exclusion,” she said, “despite the progress made.” She called on TICAD to support not just the drafting of laws but their enforcement through court reform, rural health infrastructure, and access to financing for women.

Parliamentarians were reminded that the outcomes from Cairo would be reported to the Global Conference of Parliamentarians on Population and Development in Tokyo 2027. Credit: APDA

Two other delegates raised pressures that seldom receive equal billing. Tunisia’s Ezzeddine Tayeb, MP warned that his country’s rapidly ageing population is straining its pension system and called for a comprehensive law guaranteeing the rights of elderly citizens, including enforceable standards for long-term care. Algeria’s MP Khaled Bourenane placed the forum’s agenda inside Africa’s continental trajectory: a population heading toward 2.5 billion by 2050, with over 20 million people displaced by climate events annually. Demographic challenges at this scale, he argued, cannot be addressed in silos.

JICA representative Yo Ebisawa pointed to Egypt as a live test case. In 2017, Egypt ranked the third globally in out-of-pocket health spending as a share of household budgets.

Since passing its Universal Health Insurance Law, the country has been rolling out coverage across all 27 governorates, targeting completion by 2030. So far, six million people across six governorates have been enrolled. In Port Said, the share of households facing catastrophic health expenditure has fallen by 40 percent. Japan has backed the rollout with a $400 million development policy loan and an $8 million joint JICA-WHO project providing equipment and training, including for facilities serving Sudanese refugees and medical evacuees from Gaza.

APDA Vice Chair Prof. Kiyoko Ikegami closed the first day with a pointed reminder: the outcomes from Cairo will be reported to the Global Conference of Parliamentarians on Population and Development in Tokyo 2027. The chain of accountability, she said, must hold.

Whether the commitments made in Cairo translate into budget lines, legislation, and services – that is the only measure that counts.

Note: The meeting was organised by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) and the Forum of Arab Parliamentarians on Population and Development (FAPPD). It was supported by the Japan Trust Fund (JTF), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Arab States Regional Office (ASRO),  and the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), in collaboration with the African Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development (FPA).

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Tisza Party Leader Péter Magyar speaks to a crowd of supporters in Siófok, a town in Somogy County, southwestern Hungary, after leading a landslide election victory in April. Credit: SNRTZ

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Australia, May 13 2026 (IPS)

Péter Magyar, leader of the pro-democratic centre-right Tisza Party, which recently swept into power on an unstoppable wave of hope for change, has now been sworn into office as Hungary’s new Prime Minister.

After a decade and a half of increasing authoritarian governance by the former Fidesz regime, led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the pro-democracy movement in the central European nation delivered a democratic rebound at the general election held on 12 April.

“I will not rule over Hungary; I will serve my homeland,” the 45 year old Magyar pledged during the taking of the oath of office ceremony in the Hungarian parliament on 9 May. The formal beginning of a new era in the country was followed by a massive public festival dedicated to freedom and democracy in the streets of Budapest, Hungary’s capital. The celebration took place nearly a month after the Tisza Party leader stood in front of jubilant crowds as the election result became clear to declare, “Today the Hungarian people said yes to Europe. They said yes to a free Hungary.”

The new Tisza government, which secured a supermajority of 141 of 199 parliamentary seats, has promised a roll back of the democratic decline that occurred during the Orbán era. After being elected into power in 2010, the Fidesz regime steadily stifled opposition and dissent by manipulating the electoral system, eroding the independence of the judiciary and media, threatening government critics and undermining the work of civil society organisations.

Péter Magyar (L), Leader of the Hungarian Tisza Party, and Viktor Orbán (R), Leader of the Fidesz Party, at a European Parliament Plenary Session in Brussels, 9 October 2024. Credit: European Union/Alain Rolland

“The election results have opened the door to exercising public power within appropriate constraints. Checks and balances may be revived, social participation can have a greater role, and the constant attacks against NGOS and the independent press may cease,” Gábor Medvegy at the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union in Budapest told IPS.

These were the expectations of many Hungarians 37 years ago, when the nation severed ties with its Communist past. Located west of Romania and south of Slovakia and Ukraine, Hungary lived under Soviet-aligned rule from 1947 to 1989 when it began the transition to a multi-party democracy. It then became a member of NATO in 1999 and the European Union (EU) in 2004.

But the next generation after this moment of immense political and social change witnessed the gradual loss, rather than gain, in democratic rights, as Orbán implemented policies in line with his vision of “illiberal democracy”. Four years ago, the European Parliament declared that Hungary had become an ‘electoral autocracy’ which undermined the rule of law, freedom of expression, religion and association while failing to address corruption. According to Transparency International, the nation has a poor corruption perception score of 40/100. And soon it was penalised for its autocratic tendencies when the EU withheld billions of euros in funding.

The possibility of a political alternative emerged two years ago when Magyar, who held positions in the Fidesz Government, resigned to join the opposition. He remains a deeply patriotic leader speaking to Hungarian interests, but he has also articulated a clear commitment to change. The Tisza Party’s manifesto, ‘A Functioning and Humane Hungary,’ outlines a vision of accountable governance, return to the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary and media and a renewed fight against corruption, while also improving public services and addressing the cost of living and rural disadvantage. At present the nation’s public spending on health is about half the EU average and its preventable mortality rate of 333 per 100,000 people is well above the EU average of 168, reports the European Commission.

The party’s focus on core voter concerns and strong policies is likely to have been a factor in the high voter turnout of 77 percent and strong youth participation in the April poll. An estimated 30 percent of the country’s population of 9.7 million people are aged under 30 years, and media reports claim that 65 percent of voters in this age group were Tisza supporters.

And the new government has made a rapid start on its policy promises.  Negotiations with the EU have begun to re-establish democratic norms in Hungary and secure the release of the withheld funding. “What is important is the economic development in Hungary,” Dr Anton Shekhovtsov, Visiting Professor at the Central European University in Vienna, told IPS. “If Magyar is able to de-block the EU funding that was withheld for a few years now, the economic situation will hopefully improve.” It will also be important to enable Hungarian industries to thrive in order to boost the domestic economy, he added.

But, to achieve this, the new government will have to address nepotism in state institutions and key public office posts. “Essentially Hungary, under Orbán, is a captured state. The power of Fidesz has penetrated state institutions very deeply. So the task for Tisza is now to drain the swamp, get rid of the deep state,” Shekhovtsov emphasised.

Democracy more widely in Europe could also benefit from the influence of Hungary’s new leadership. The EU’s support of Ukraine, following the Russian invasion in 2022, was impeded by the Fidesz government’s repeated alignment with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Orbán opposed the bloc’s Russian sanctions and, in February, vetoed a critical 90 billion euro loan to Ukraine after a damaged pipeline halted the supply of oil from Russia. However, Hungary lifted its veto by 23 April, with oil flows resuming, and approved the EU’s next round of sanctions on Russia.

“Unlike Orbán, Magyar has no ties to Russia and, therefore, his government will not be subordinated to Moscow and its interests,” Bálint Madlovics, research fellow at the Central European University in Budapest, told IPS. He has also “clearly framed Ukraine as a victim of aggression, strongly opposing any external pressure on Kyiv to cede territory”.

However, on migration, another regional issue, Hungary’s new prime minister made it clear in the months before the election that he opposes illegal migration and intends to maintain the southern border fence which was constructed in 2015 to prevent unauthorised migrants from entering the country. Although Hungary may need to alter its stance when the EU’s new migration and asylum agreement, which requires member states to contribute to the regional responsibility for managing refugees, is implemented in June.

Yet, arguably, the new government has, in a short time, begun to build confidence with its own people and with other European nations that are committed to a democratic region.  In the long term, strengthening civic rights and liberties and improving equality are crucial for the new Hungary, Medvegy said. And “we must help ensure that people are not merely spectators of politics but active participants,” he emphasised.

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A residential building in Beirut, Lebanon, lies in ruins. Credit: UNICEF/Fouad Choufany

By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, May 13 2026 (IPS)

Violence has metastasized into humanity’s baseline condition. Yet international institutions remain paralyzed by vetoes and rivalry, offering hollow declarations while dehumanization becomes normalized. Coordinated action, not gestures, is desperately needed.

Global violence today is metastasizing, not contained; over 180,000 violent events reported globally by the International Institute for Strategic Studies signal a world in which conflict has become a baseline condition rather than an exception. More than 130 armed conflicts now rage—over twice the number of 15 years ago—shattering infrastructure, tearing apart social fabric, and normalizing dehumanization as a political weapon.

Women and children bear the brunt: hundreds of millions live within range of armed clashes, with millions of preventable deaths and lifelong trauma caused not only by bullets and bombs but by hunger, disease, and gender-based violence unleashed by war’s chaos.

Yet the UN system and the world’s democracies appear increasingly paralyzed—trapped in vetoes, geopolitical rivalries, and hollow declarations—offering gestures of concern rather than the coordinated, enforced accountability this modern plague of violence so desperately demands.

The global escalation of violence is a structural crisis rather than an aberration—one that reveals the failure of international institutions, exposing the normalization of suffering across political, economic, and societal dimensions.

The proliferation of violence signals not just an increase in armed confrontations but a breakdown in the very mechanisms meant to constrain conflict, rendering dehumanization a routine tool of power, as demonstrated in the following.

The Philosophical Angle

Violence represents the collapse of legitimate political authority and the rise of impotence masquerading as force. Hannah Arendt’s foundational insight remains essential: “Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence appears where power is in jeopardy, but left to its own course, it ends in power’s disappearance” (On Violence, 1970).

This speaks directly to today’s proliferation of conflicts, which indicate not state strength but institutional failure, where violence substitutes for the consent and legitimacy governments can no longer command. The resort to violence signals the exhaustion of political dialogue and the absence of legitimate power structures capable of resolving disputes.

Economic Disenfranchisement

Economic drivers are critical accelerants of contemporary violence through resource competition, commodity exploitation, and systemic inequality. Slavoj Žižek’s concept of systemic violence captures the pervasive economic roots: “Therein resides the fundamental systemic violence of capitalism, much more uncanny than the direct pre-capitalist socio-ideological violence: this violence is no longer attributable to concrete individuals and their ‘evil’ intentions, but is purely ‘objective,’ systemic, anonymous.”

The greed-driven exploitation of natural resources—from diamonds in Sierra Leone to oil in Venezuela and cobalt and other conflict minerals in the Democratic Republic of Congo—finances rebellions and turns conflict into a profitable enterprise. Economic deprivation, geoeconomic confrontation through weaponized tariffs and sanctions, and commodity price shocks directly shape military capacity and conflict outcomes.

The Political Compulsion of Violence

Political violence emerges not merely from divergent interests but from the deliberate choice to pursue objectives through coercion rather than negotiation. The paralysis of the UNSC and democratic institutions reflects what Arendt identified as bureaucratic tyranny: “In a fully developed bureaucracy, there is nobody left with whom one can argue, to whom one can present grievances, on whom the pressures of power can be exerted. … everybody is deprived of political freedom, of the power to act… where we are all equally powerless, we have a tyranny without a tyrant.”

This captures the international community’s inability to enforce accountability—vetoes and geopolitical rivalries create a structural void where violence thrives unchecked. Political fragility and weakening institutions, seen in Syria and Myanmar, make societies vulnerable to breakdown, radicalization, and violent dissent.

Societal Fragmentation

Societal conditions create climates where violence becomes normalized through inequality and the erosion of social cohesion. Thomas Hobbes’s bleak assessment of unconstrained human nature remains relevant: in the state of nature, “the life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” While Hobbes described a pre-political condition, his insight applies to societies where governance collapses and fear dominates, conditions now afflicting millions living within range of armed clashes.

Social norms that accept violence as conflict resolution, combined with economic inequalities and a lack of community participation, create environments where aggression flourishes. This normalizes dehumanization, where, as in Nigeria, Israel and South Africa, gendered violence, ethnic tensions, and historical grievances fuel recurring cycles of brutality.

Nationalism, Repression and State Complicity

State-level factors amplifying violence include the failure to address ethnic marginalization, resource competition, and the absence of functional governance. Walter Benjamin warned of violence’s relationship to law and state power: “There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism” (On the Concept of History, 1940).

This observation underscores how national institutions perpetuate violence through their foundational structures and exclusionary practices. Nations repeatedly falling victim to civil and international wars demonstrate governments’ inability to recognize and address destabilizing issues like political, religious, or ethnic marginalization. The weaponization of state apparatus through totalitarian mobilization of violence destroys the very space where political thinking and resistance might occur, as demonstrated in China and Eritrea.

Religious Instrumentalization

Religion, when co-opted by political actors or stripped of its ethical core, becomes a potent catalyst for violence, sanctifying exclusion and legitimizing brutality. Sectarian divides—whether in the Middle East, South Asia, or parts of Africa—transform identity into a battlefield where compromise is heresy and annihilation becomes duty. René Girard’s insight is instructive: “Religion shelters us from violence just as violence seeks shelter in religion.” When faith is manipulated to justify power or grievance, such as in India, Israel or Iraq, it ceases to restrain violence and instead consecrates it, deepening cycles of retribution and rendering conflicts existential rather than negotiable.

The convergence of these dimensions explains why violence has become a baseline condition rather than an exception. Several measures must be considered to de-escalate global violence. Although effecting change is extremely difficult, every effort must still be made, provided the public leads the charge through sustained protest, continuous advocacy, and relentless pressure on policymakers to enact change.

Reform UN Security Council Veto Power

Governments must constrain veto authority by restricting its use in cases involving genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Permanent members should abstain when directly involved, transforming the veto from obstruction into accountability and addressing institutional paralysis that enables unchecked violence.

Establish Functional Early Warning Systems

International bodies should implement systems linking detection to preventive action, closing the warning-response gap. These must integrate predictive analytics, local expertise, and cross-border coordination to anticipate violence months before eruption, enabling timely diplomatic and humanitarian intervention.

Address Economic Inequality and Insecurity

Governments should implement policies that reduce income inequality—including wage increases, tax reform, and financial assistance—aimed at addressing violence triggers. Targeted lending, job creation, and redistributive policies alleviate financial strain that fuels conflict and crime, making structural prevention more effective than reactive measures.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is President of the Institute for Humanitarian Conflict Resolution.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Anis Chowdhury
SYDNEY, May 12 2026 (IPS)

The Republic of Korea (Korea), Vietnam and Bangladesh are on three different rungs of the development ladder. While Korea is a member of the rich nations’ club, i.e., the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Bangladesh is still a least developed country (LDC); and Vietnam is in the middle.

Anis Chowdhury

However, their initial conditions had significant similarities – they all emerged from devastating wars, and were at the bottom of the development ladder until the late 1960s. They were among the world’s poorest countries struggling to feed a large population, rapidly growing, exceeding 2.5% per annum with per capita GDP less than US$300 in the early 1970s while facing the challenges of reconstruction and rebuilding. Thus, they had to depend heavily on foreign aid.

But relative policy independence vis-à-vis donors, among other factors, played a crucial role in separating their development trajectory. Development succeeded in countries that maintained policy independence despite their heavy aid dependence.

Aid dependence and policy independence

Being among the world’s poorest countries, all three had to depend heavily on foreign aid. For example, foreign aid financed around 74% of Korea’s imports on average during 1953-1960, and proceeds from the sales of aid goods (e.g., food aid under the PL480 programme of the US, packaged as “Food for Peace”) constituted on average 38.4% of government revenue.

US aid to Korea was “huge”, contributing about 80% of foreign aid during 1945-1975. Korea received nearly as much economic aid from the US as ALL of Africa during 1946-1978. Excluding military aid, the US economic at its peak was 21% of Korea’s GDP, and financed about 50% of government expenditure.

Source: The World Bank

Yet, the Korean government maintained considerable policy independence regarding the use of aid funds. While the US aid agency insisted on providing non-project assistance for macroeconomic stabilisation rather than growth, the Korean government used non-project aid to rebuild the manufacturing sector for accelerating growth, and demanded more project assistance. The policy conflict was negotiated and coordinated by the Combined Economic Board (CEB, established in 1952). Although CEB was jointly chaired by the representatives of the US aid mission in Korea and the Korean government, Korea prevailed.

The Korean government also maintained its policy independence from the World Bank (WB). For example, when in 1967 the WB rejected Korea’s funding request for the Seoul-Busan expressway, connecting the nation’s capital to its main sea-port, Korea completed the 428km expressway with domestic finance and resources in 1970 as other multilateral and bilateral donors also refused to finance it following the WB’s rejection.

The WB and donors believed the expressway was an excessively grandiose project for a country so poor. Proving them wrong, the expressway not only spurred economic activities along the corridor of two major population centres, its construction was a critical learning opportunity for the Koreans. With the gained capacity, Korean construction companies were able to win major infrastructure projects in the Middle-East, which was a critical source of foreign exchange. Korea is now regarded as a leader in infrastructure construction.

The WB also was very critical of Korea’s Heavy and Chemical Industry (HCI) drive (1973-1979). Ignoring the WB, Korea pushed ahead, and proved the WB and other critics wrong. By the early 1980s, HCI became the nation’s leading export industries. The HCI drive was greatly successful in boosting investment, leading to the rapid growth of the manufacturing sector and its structure change. The manufacturing sector grew 16.2% per annum from 1971 to 1980, much higher than the GDP growth of 9.1% during the same period, while the share of HCIs in manufacturing value added rose to 58.3% in 1980.

No wonder, Korea broke away from the poverty trap in the early 1970s, leaving its “poor cousins” – Bangladesh and Vietnam – behind to become a full member of the OECD in little over two decades in 1996.

Vietnam’s story is not so different from that of Korea. Since initiating reforms in 1986, Vietnam quickly became WB’s one of the top loan recipient countries. But the WB’s influence over Vietnam’s development path has been limited, as the government has always refused to adopt policies imposed by foreign organisations. With strong enough institutions Vietnam achieved “ownership” of public policies.

Here is an interesting story of Vietnam’s determination to pursue its own development strategies. When in 1997, the WB approached Vietnam with an offer of US$300 million in credit in exchange for structural adjustment, à la the Washington Consensus model, including faster privatisation and financial liberalisation, the Vietnamese government declined. The WB returned with a higher offer in 1998, and Vietnam declined again. When the WB came again in 1999 with an even higher offer, the government issued a stern rebuke. The minister of planning and investment, Tran Xua Gia, told WB representatives, “You cannot buy reforms with money . . . no one is going to bombard Vietnam into acting.”

By then the Vietnamese government knew from the experience of Indonesia the risks of yielding too much sovereignty to international markets and institutions. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had to wind up its last programme in 2004 as Vietnam refused the IMF’s demand for an independent audit of its central bank and disagreed over privatisations of state-owned enterprises.

Vietnam charted its own path of reforms – Đổi Mới, learning from successes and failures of neighbouring East Asian countries, including China as well as its former patron and role model, former Soviet Union.

Vietnam posted remarkable macroeconomic performances following the launch of Đổi Mới, with GDP growing at close to 8% per annum. Since the beginning of the 2000s, it also recorded Asia’s highest rate of growth in exports, half of which were made up of manufactured products, prompting The Economist to hail Vietnam as “Asia’s other miracle”.

Starting in 1975 with a per capita GDP of about US$85 after successfully defeating the US that waged a devastating war on Vietnam for more than two decades, Vietnam became a lower middle-income country in 2009. “Desperately seeking model countries”, unsurprisingly the first country Robert Zoellick visited after becoming President of the WB in 2009 was Vietnam, a country governed by its Communist Party, constructing a ‘socialist-oriented market economy’. One could almost say, “Vietnam is more important for the WB than the WB is for Vietnam”!

Poor Bangladesh lacks self confidence

Bangladesh, in search of development, joined the club of LDCs in 1975 when its GDP per capita was US$230, and still remains a LDC after more than five decades maximising LDC related facilities. Bangladesh is scheduled to graduate out of the LDC category in November this year; but it is asking for a deferment, lacking self-confidence.

On the other hand, self-confident Vietnam with its per capita GDP of only US$82 in 1975 decided not to join the LDC club, despite having to face the challenges of reconstruction and reunification in the most difficult global economic situation – stagflation. It received aid (mostly from the former Soviet Union); but did not blindly follow either its former patron USSR’s reform package or that of the WB/IMF. Its former enemy, the US, which pressured the WB to halt all funding, made a U-turn in the early 1990s, and signed the US-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement in 2000.

Korea could have also joined the LDC club in 1971 when the UN created the LDC category for the world’s poorest countries; but it did not. Heavily dependent on US foreign aid for food, fuel and other raw materials, Korea was not seen as a promising place for major investments until the late 1960s. So, the State took the lead to break the vicious circle of low income and low investment.

Of course, Bangladesh is no longer a “basket case”; it is now a lower middle-income country. It also showed some courage to stand on its own feet when the WB declined to finance the Padma Bridge project, citing corruption.

However, Bangladesh could have done better had it not surrendered its policy independence to the donors, as the experiences of RoK and Vietnam demonstrate. Like successful marriages, there are many factors for successful development. Failure in any one of those essential elements can be damning according to Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina principle, even if it has all the other ingredients of success.

Anis Chowdhury, Emeritus Professor, Western Sydney University (Australia). He held senior UN positions in Bangkok and New York and served as Special Assistant to the Chief Advisor for Finance (with the status and rank of State Minister) in the Professor Yunus-led Interim Government. Anis has written extensively on East and Southeast Asian economies, including The Newly Industrialising Economies of East Asia (Routledge) and The Political Economy of East Asia (Oxford University Press). E-mail: anis.z.chowdhury@gmail.com

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Jabiru Muhammed stands beside a tree planted as part of the Great Green Wall project in his village in Jigawa State. Credit: Promise Eze/IPS

By Promise Eze
GARABADU VILLAGE, Nigeria, May 12 2026 (IPS)

In 2021, Gadeja Shehu and about a hundred farmers in Garbadu village, Zamfara State in northwestern Nigeria, were invited by officials of the National Agency for the Great Green Wall to plant trees across a large stretch of land in their community.

Shehu remembers how fierce, dust-laden winds from the Sahara Desert often tore off the roof of his home and damaged his farmland. For him, taking part in the tree-planting exercise was a way to confront this challenge, especially after seeing the impact of similar interventions in other northern states such as Kaduna, Bauchi, and Jigawa, where desertification has degraded once fertile land.

The Sahara is advancing relentlessly across the Sahel, expanding by nearly 10 per cent since the 1920s. In Nigeria, around 35,000 hectares of land are lost each year as the desert continues to encroach southwards.

Trees planted in Garbadu village, Zamfura State. Credit: Promise Eze/IPS

 

Desertification is causing land degradation in the Sahel. Credit: Promise Eze/IPS

In Garbadu, a community of roughly 6,000 people who rely on farming, many had abandoned their fields, resulting in falling incomes and growing food shortages. However, the tree-planting initiative is beginning to reverse this trend. It is part of the Great Green Wall Initiative, an ambitious plan to create an 8,000-kilometre-long and 15-kilometre-wide belt of vegetation across Africa.

Launched by the African Union in 2007, the initiative spans 11 countries in the Sahel, including Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti. It aims to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land, generate 10 million jobs, and capture 250 million tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2030.

Nigeria’s section stretches roughly 1,500 kilometres, focusing on a 15-kilometre-wide belt of drought-resistant trees across vulnerable northern states.

Initially conceived as a plant barrier, the initiative has since expanded its goals. It now focuses on restoring degraded lands, halting desert expansion, improving soil and water conservation, supporting agriculture and livestock, creating green jobs, and helping communities adapt to climate change.

“The project has been really impactful here. Previously strong winds would rip off our roofs, but now it is no longer frequent. Before the plantation, the soil of the areas where the trees are now barely held water, but now it does have moisture and I’m happy the area is slowly turning green again,” said Shehu, who added that he continues to care for the trees.

Senegalese villagers working in a tree nursery forming part of the Great Green Wall. Photo: FAO/Benedicte Kurzen/NOOR

Family of Funds

The Great Green Wall has attracted significant funding over the years. The Global Environment Facility (GEF), a key partner, has provided more than $1 billion in grants. These funds have helped leverage an additional $6 billion from governments, development partners, and multilateral institutions. The investments have strengthened landscapes, improved livelihoods, reduced poverty, and enhanced food and water security.

Jonky Tenou, Africa Regional Coordinator at the GEF, said the GEF has supported the Great Green Wall Initiative through strategic, programmatic investments over successive replenishment cycles, leveraging its family of funds to build momentum and coherence.

These efforts include the GEF 4 Strategic Investment Program for Sustainable Land Management in Sub-Saharan Africa (SIP), the GEF 5 Sahel and West Africa Program (SAWAP), the GEF 6 Integrated Approach Pilot on Food Security (IAP Food Security), the GEF 7 Food, Land-Use and Restoration Impact Program (FOLUR), and, under GEF 8, the Transformational Approach to Large-Scale Investment in Support of the Implementation of the Great Green Wall Initiative (TALSISI GGWI).

Tela Jubrin, a farmer, planted trees for the Great Green Wall in Jigawa State, Nigeria. Credit: Promise Eze/IPS

 

Shafi’u Ladan, one of the farmers who participated in the tree planting project in Garbadu, Zamfara state. Credit: Promise Eze/IPS

Sustainable Impact

The TALSISI GGWI, Tenou explained, is designed as a truly programmatic, multi-country platform that builds on lessons learned over the past decade.

“Compared to earlier approaches, TALSISI places stronger emphasis on regional coordination, deeper integration across GEF focal areas, and a clear focus on scalability, learning, and adaptive management. Crucially, the programme also gives greater attention to the institutional, financial, and security constraints that have previously limited effectiveness, helping to create the conditions needed for sustained and transformative impact at scale,” he said.

Observers have noted that the Great Green Wall Initiative has often been criticised for being highly ambitious but slow in delivery — a concern acknowledged by the GEF and its partners. They stress, however, that the programme is not designed as a quick fix, but rather as a long-term intervention aimed at delivering sustained impact over time.

“Progress on the Great Green Wall is assessed through a transformational, system-level lens rather than through isolated output metrics. In Nigeria and across the Sahel, GEF investments have contributed to advancing land degradation neutrality objectives by strengthening sustainable land management practices, restoring ecosystem functionality, and improving livelihoods in highly vulnerable areas,” said Tenou.

Emmanuel Diagbouga, a natural resources planning and management expert based in Burkina Faso, said the effectiveness of the Great Green Wall Initiative depends on a clear and operational multi-level governance framework that connects regional coordination, national planning, and community-level implementation.

Community Ownership Drives Tree Protection

Murtala Bado, the village head of Garbadu, said one sign of the Great Green Wall Initiative’s progress is the behavioural change among community members in a region where deforestation is a serious problem.

He told IPS that people are now aware of the benefits of trees and no longer cut them in the Great Green Wall Initiative project sites. Defaulters who are caught are reported to village leaders and security agencies for disciplinary measures.

“The project has even provided employment opportunities for people here. Farmers who are part of it receive allowances from the government. This project cannot work if there are no people to take care of it. And for people to actually show up and take interest means that it is going to be sustainable in the long term,” he said.

Rising Above the Challenges

The Great Green Wall Initiative has achieved only 30 per cent of its planned execution in participating countries. In Nigeria, progress is higher, at about 50 per cent, but insecurity has slowed the project and remains one of its greatest challenges.

Insurgency in northern states such as Zamfara, Katsina, and Borno, where the project is implemented, has been a major obstacle. For decades, insurgents have imposed taxes, killed villagers, and kidnapped for ransom, targeting anything linked to the state, including environmental projects.

“Insecurity has emerged as one of the most critical risks to the long-term sustainability of the Great Green Wall, particularly in countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. Direct operational constraints include armed conflict and the presence of non-state armed groups, which restrict access to restoration sites, force the suspension of field activities, and expose environmental staff and local partners to security threats. Several restored areas have been abandoned due to population displacement and the lack of institutional presence,” said Diagbouga, and the impact is that the budget is diverted toward defence spending.

Tenou said that despite the challenges, the GEF and its partners have responded by adopting flexible and adaptive implementation approaches, including working through local institutions, adjusting geographic focus when necessary, and integrating conflict-sensitive design.

“These approaches help sustain progress while safeguarding communities and ensure that investments remain aligned with GEF’s broader objectives on durability, inclusion, and risk-informed programming,” he said.

Addressing the Funding Gap

Another major challenge facing the initiative is financing. In 2021, $19 billion was pledged at the One Planet Summit to support the Great Green Wall. However, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification estimates that at least $33 billion is needed to meet its targets, leaving a significant funding gap. Experts say that even where funds exist, their impact has yet to be fully felt.

“The Great Green Wall project has been observed to be hindered by a massive gap between pledged and disbursed funds, with only a fraction of promised international funding, often less than 10% in some areas, reaching local implementers. It has also been observed that severe bureaucratic delays, lack of local capacity to manage funds, and high regional insecurity are some of the reasons stalling progress,” said Yusuf Maina-Bukar, a former Director-General/Chief Executive Officer of the National Agency for the Great Green Wall, which has been implementing the initiative in Nigeria since 2015.

The GEF acknowledged that coordination across diverse national contexts remains a central challenge of the Great Green Wall initiative but noted that this is addressed through regional frameworks, shared results architectures, and close collaboration with regional institutions such as the Pan-African Agency of the Great Green Wall, while maintaining flexibility to accommodate country-specific priorities.

Maina-Bukar told IPS that collaborating effectively to ensure that funding for the initiative translates into lasting impact requires shifting from a top-down, tree-planting approach to a community-driven, integrated landscape management model. This, he said, should be supported by harmonised, multi-level funding, such as that promoted by the UNCCD, which allows partners to measure, report, and verify implementation using a common framework.

He added that other measures include empowering local ownership, establishing transparent monitoring systems, fostering public-private partnerships, and using tools such as the Regreening Africa App to track and evaluate restoration efforts on the ground.

Despite the challenges, Diagbouga believes that “the Great Green Wall has the potential to become one of the most impactful climate resilience and land restoration initiatives globally.”

Great Green Wall: Achievements

Graphic: Wilson Mgobhozi/IPS

Burkina Faso

Graphic: Wilson Mgobhozi/IPS

Ethiopia

Graphic: Wilson Mgobhozi/IPS

Nigeria

Graphic: Wilson Mgobhozi/IPS

Niger

Graphic: Wilson Mgobhozi/IPS

Senegal

Graphic: Wilson Mgobhozi/IPS

Mali

Graphic: Wilson Mgobhozi/IPS

Chad

Graphic: Wilson Mgobhozi/IPS

Sudan

Credit: Wilson Mgobhozi/IPS

Mauritania

Graphic: Wilson Mgobhozi/IPS

Eritrea

Graphic: Wilson Mgobhozi/IPS

Djibouti

Graphic: Wilson Mgobhozi/IPS

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

 

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By Mohamed Omar
MOGADISHU, Somalia , May 12 2026 (IPS)

When war erupted in the Middle East in late February, the most visible consequences were playing out in the Persian Gulf, with smoke rising from Dubai’s Jebel Ali port and shipping traffic across one of the world’s most critical maritime routes grinding to a near halt.

What was harder to see was a mother in Somalia, traveling 200 kilometers with a child too sick to sit upright, arriving at a stabilization center that was running low on the one product that could save her child’s life.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most consequential maritime chokepoints, has sent shockwaves through global supply chains that reach far beyond the Gulf. Before the war began, roughly 3,000 vessels transited the strait each month.

In March, that number fell to just 154. The UN has warned that the resulting disruption is triggering a widening humanitarian and economic shock far beyond the Middle East, with rising oil prices and reduced maritime traffic driving up transport and food costs across import-dependent economies. We are certainly feeling that shock in Somalia.

Dr. Mohamed Omar is head of Health and Nutrition at Action Against Hunger in Somalia.

Somalia was already contending with acute malnutrition, with an estimated 1.84 million children under five expected to be impacted this year, up from 1.7 million last year. Of those cases, over 480,000 involve severe acute malnutrition, the form that requires immediate inpatient medical treatment.

These children are treated with two products: Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) and therapeutic milk, specifically the formulas F-75 and F-100, which are produced exclusively by Nutriset in France. Before the Strait of Hormuz closure, those products arrived in Mogadishu in 30 to 35 days via the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Aden.

Ships now divert around the entire African continent, extending delivery times to 55 to 65 days. That is nearly double the original transit time, and it comes with far less certainty about when shipments will actually arrive.

The cost increases compound the delay. A carton of therapeutic milk that cost $139 in 2024 rose to $186 in 2025 after USAID funding cuts, and has since climbed to $200 in 2026 following the Strait of Hormuz closure, a 44 percent increase in two years.

Fuel costs inside Somalia have surged by 150 percent, raising both the price of food for households and the cost of transporting supplies from Mogadishu to remote program sites like Hudur in the Bakool region. They represent the difference between whether a child receives treatment and whether a facility can afford to stay open.

Action Against Hunger, which operates 10 of the 52 remaining stabilization centers in the country, currently has only 69 cartons of therapeutic milk on hand. That figure covers roughly two weeks to one month of supply under current demand, and demand is rising sharply. Admissions at our facilities increased 35 percent between the first quarter of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026. At the same time, the number of stabilization centers across Somalia has already fallen from 71 to 52, after USAID’s termination order prompted facility closures earlier this year.

In areas such as Wajid, Somalia, Action Against Hunger replaced diesel-powered engines with solar-powered systems to supply water, reducing costs and providing a sustainable, long-term solution. Credit: Action Against Hunger

The funding gap to sustain nutrition interventions through 2026 stands at $2.9 million. That figure covers product procurement and in-country transportation costs. To put that in context: treating a child for severe acute malnutrition costs between $140 and $213. Preventing it costs $35. The math on early intervention is not complicated.

The Council on Foreign Relations has documented how shipping containers at Dubai’s International Humanitarian City now carry a $3,000 emergency surcharge, while the World Food Program has warned that supply chain pressures are driving up the costs of life-saving operations globally. These are systemic failures that compound each other.

There is a specific and urgent timeline here. UNICEF’s in-country stock of therapeutic milk is projected to run out by August 2026. Because of the extended shipping times caused by the Africa diversion route, funding must be committed by May or June for the product to arrive before that deadline.

Iran has agreed, in principle, to facilitate humanitarian aid shipments through the strait, and diplomatic efforts to reopen the waterway to commercial traffic are ongoing. But the ceasefire remains fragile, and even a partial reopening offers no guarantee that the specialized supply chains supporting therapeutic nutrition programs will recover in time.

The supply chain disruptions caused by the Iran war are a new layer on top of pre-existing funding deficits and a withdrawal of US foreign aid that was already forcing closures and rationing across the country.

The children arriving at stabilization centers and outpatient nutrition sites in Somalia did not cause any of these disruptions. They are the downstream consequence of a global logistics network absorbing simultaneous shocks it was never designed to handle. A $2.9 million funding gap is solvable. The question is whether the international community will respond in time.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Felice Noelle Rodriguez
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, May 12 2026 (IPS)

Transnational agribusinesses increasingly shape food policies worldwide. Claiming to best address recent food security concerns, they seek to profit more from innovations in food production, processing, and distribution.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Post-war food security
Food policies in the Global South have evolved significantly since World War Two (WWII), especially after nations in Asia and Africa gained independence, often after experiencing wartime food deprivations.

The early post-WWII and post-colonial eras saw new emphases on food security, especially following severe food shortages before, during, and after the war.

Many starved as millions experienced acute malnutrition. The wartime Bengal famine in India claimed over three million lives as Churchill prioritised British imperial interests and military priorities.

After WWII, colonial powers weaponised food supplies for counterinsurgency and population control purposes, especially to overcome popular anti-imperialist resistance.

Many who died were not military casualties but victims of deliberate counter-insurgency food deprivation. Unsurprisingly, food security efforts became a popular policy priority after WWII.

Western-controlled research organisations, including the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), became highly influential, shaping and even developing post-colonial food security policies.

Felice Noelle Rodriguez

Green Revolution
Public research institutions were established in developing countries, many of which are affiliated with the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

The Green Revolution initially focused on increasing yields of wheat, maize, and rice. These efforts increased cereal production unevenly during the 1960s and 1970s.

Malthusian logic held that rising life expectancies meant population growth outstripped the increase in food supply, constrained by limited agricultural land.

As government funding from wealthy nations declined, powerful corporate interests and philanthropies became even more influential. They often promoted their own interests at the expense of farmers, consumers, and the environment.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) was established in the 1970s, channelling a small share of windfall petroleum incomes into food and agricultural development.

Soon after, the US transformed its Public Law (PL) 480 program into the World Food Programme (WFP). Thus, some FAO functions were ceded to donor-controlled UN funds and programmes also set up in Rome.

Embarrassingly, an FAO report found WFP food supplies were withheld from Somalia to avoid being taken by the ‘Islamist’ As-Shabaab militia. Chatham House also estimated two to three hundred thousand deaths as a consequence.

Neoliberalism
The counter-revolution against national development efforts in the 1980s undermined government fiscal capacities, import-substituting industrialisation, and food security efforts.

Neoliberal structural adjustment policies involving economic liberalisation were imposed on heavily indebted developing countries, mainly in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Global North promoted trade liberalisation, undermining earlier protection of and support for food and industrial production.

Powerful food conglomerates sponsored and promoted import-friendly food security indicators, undermining FAO and other civil society research and advocacy efforts.

Countries hardly producing any food were highly ranked, as civil society organisations tried to counter with their own indicators, mainly focused on food sovereignty.

Trump 2.0
A new phase has begun with Donald Trump’s re-election as US president.

Trump 2.0’s weaponisation of economic policies and agreements, including food supplies, has ominous implications for countries trying to assert some independence.

Economic and military threats have been used for diverse ends, including economic, political, and other ‘strategic’ goals. Tariffs and sanctions are now part of a diverse arsenal of such weapons deployed for various purposes.

Governments have even been threatened with tariffs and sanctions for personal reasons. Trump has demanded Brazilian ex-President Jair Bolsonaro’s freedom following his failed coup after losing the last presidential election.

Deploying such economic weapons has worsened the deepening worldwide economic stagflation, as various Trump economic and military policy threats exacerbate contractionary and inflationary pressures.

The US-controlled WFP was long used to provide food aid selectively. But there is little sympathy left in Washington for other nations’ food security concerns.

To cut federal government spending, Trump has ended official development and humanitarian assistance, including food aid, while the US remains the world’s leading food exporter.

Nevertheless, Trump may take unexpected new steps to boost farmers’ earnings to recover electoral support before the November mid-term election.

Weaponisation of food aid took an ominous turn during the Israeli siege of Gaza, by calibrating food access to enable selective ethnic cleansing.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation attracted hungry residents to its food centres, causing hungry families desperately seeking food to be shot while seeking food.

Poverty is primarily defined by inadequate access to food, while the FAO considers income the main determinant of food insecurity.

Although World Bank poverty measures have generally continued to decline, FAO indicators suggest a reversal of earlier progress in food security over the last decade.

These contradictory trends not only reflect problems in estimating and understanding poverty and food security but also suggest that resulting policies are poorly informed, if not worse.

Professor Felice Noelle Rodriguez is Director of the Centre for Local History and Culture, Universidad de Zamboanga, Philippines.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By CIVICUS
May 11 2026 (IPS)

 
CIVICUS discusses Gen Z-led protests in the Philippines with Charles Zander, a 17-year-old climate justice activist from Bohol and youth campaigner for Greenpeace Philippines.

Charles Zander

The Philippines is particularly exposed to climate change, hit by increasingly destructive annual typhoons. In 2025, a major scandal over corruption in flood control funds brought young people onto the streets alongside climate and social justice activists who had long been organising. The protests led to some accountability, but activists argue that structural problems remain unresolved.

What brought you to activism?

I grew up in Bohol, an island province in the Philippines where the climate crisis knocks on our doors every week. When I was younger, politics felt distant, but that changed in 2021, when Typhoon Odette hit our province. My home was severely damaged, but others suffered a lot more. I knew people who lost everything. Coastal communities were flattened and some villages were so cut off that it took weeks for supplies to reach them. In my case, it took two years before we had electricity again, and a year before we had water or I could access education.

My two childhood best friends died in the aftermath, and losing them changed me. At first, I didn’t think I was doing activism. It started with relief work: distributing food, organising community support, listening to people who had lost everything. I realised people needed to be heard. But the more you listen, the more questions appear. Why were some communities still waiting for aid?

Eventually, I realised if you grow up in a place where disasters are routine, silence feels like complicity. I joined local groups working on climate justice, community education and disaster response. And I saw protest as the moment when patience runs out.

What are young Filipinos demanding?

For many young Filipinos, the climate crisis is not a policy issue; it is the story of our lives. Climate injustice is therefore at the core of our struggle, but it connects to many other struggles. We live in a country hit by stronger typhoons every year, yet coal plants still get approved. We have coastal communities losing their homes to storm surges, yet development decisions rarely involve them. We have severe flooding everywhere in the country, and our government is pocketing climate adaptation funds.

When disaster hits, wealthy neighbourhoods rebuild quickly and sometimes are not damaged at all, while remote island communities wait for assistance for months, if not years. Disasters expose inequality, so climate protests are about fairness, about whose lives are considered worth protecting.

How were recent protests organised, and what role did social media play?

There are many active organisations, youth groups and community leaders, and when a major event such as a typhoon or a scandal creates urgency, conversations spread through networks and messaging groups. At some point someone proposes a date, which we often tie to a symbolic moment, such as the day of a national hero. The most recent one, in February, was on the 40th anniversary of the 1986 People Power Revolution. This has practical implications: on holidays, people don’t have school or work, so they can participate without worrying about their livelihoods. And because they’re home, people are paying more attention to social media, which increases our reach.

In this sense, nobody owns the protests. Movements grow because many people decide the moment has come. But organising involves logistics, including permits, safety planning, communication, outreach and coordination among groups with different priorities and strategies. That process can be messy, but it also reflects the democratic nature of grassroots movements. Eventually we all come together and get onto the streets.

Social media platforms, particularly Facebook and Instagram, allow young people to organise quickly across islands, cities and movements. Calls for protests can reach people within hours. Organisers can document events, share live updates and counter disinformation.

We use memes a lot. Older generations might respond to more technical explanations, but Gen Z and Gen Alpha are more reachable through humour and jokes. We also link issues to people’s actual lives so they feel compelled to act. But there needs to be more work on making sure people really know what they are fighting for when they join, not joining because it looks cool on social media.

Ultimately, technology is just a tool. A hashtag cannot replace a community. The underlying work is slower and happens when no one is watching. Protests are the visible tip of the iceberg, but below the surface there are community workshops, policy research meetings with local leaders, training of young volunteers and network-building across the country. A protest is just one day, but organising is the thousands of conversations that make that day possible. Without that groundwork, protests would fade quickly.

What risks have you faced?

For me personally, one of the most tangible dangers has been surveillance, online and offline. After participating in a major climate and social justice march, I noticed my online activity and messages being monitored more closely. It’s a subtle kind of pressure, but it makes you think twice about who you trust, how you communicate, what you post.

There’s also intimidation. At one protest, for instance, local authorities questioned volunteers about their involvement, contacts and affiliations. This is meant to create fear.

This has emotional and practical impacts. It can be exhausting and sometimes isolating. But it also shapes how you organise. You become strategic, deliberate, more protective of your peers. The fact that there are risks shows that those in power recognise the potential of youth movements to challenge the status quo. It is a reminder that our struggle matters.

What have the protests achieved, and where have they fallen short of ambition?

Change rarely arrives all at once. Sometimes protests produce policy progress, stronger commitments and greater attention to issues. Sometimes the impact is cultural. A protest can shift what people believe is possible, what people believe is right.

In the Philippines, the most visible achievement concerned the corruption around flood control projects. Although change is slow, we have seen some politicians arrested. A sitting senator is in hiding right now because of an arrest warrant. If we hadn’t spoken up, we would have lost so much more money from climate adaptation projects while our communities continued to suffer.

But movements also face setbacks. Governments delay action, hiding behind procedural issues, and public attention moves on quickly. This is discouraging. What failure teaches, though, is that we should communicate more effectively, build stronger alliances and sustain momentum beyond a single protest. A movement is not defined by the moment it wins, but by whether it continues after losing.

Is it right to call these Gen Z protests?

I have mixed feelings about it. I understand why the label appears. Many of the visible faces in recent movements are young people. The label captures something real: many young people feel the future they are inheriting was shaped by decisions made long before they had any political voice. The climate crisis is the clearest example. Policies that created the crisis were implemented decades ago, yet the consequences will unfold across the lifetimes of today’s young people. That creates a sense of urgency, and calling these protests Gen Z protests signals that a new generation is politically active and unwilling to remain passive.

But movements are rarely that simple. In almost every movement, people from many generations stand together, students marching alongside workers, community elders joining demonstrations, parents bringing their children, veteran organisers who have been fighting for decades showing up alongside people attending their first protest.

When protests are framed only as Gen Z movements, something important gets lost. It can unintentionally erase the contributions of older generations who built the foundation for these struggles. Every movement stands on ground that someone else cleared. Civil rights campaigns, climate movements and labour struggles didn’t start with Gen Z. These are long historical arcs that young people are entering and pushing forward.

The most powerful movements are intergenerational. Older organisers bring experience, historical memory and institutional knowledge. Younger generations bring new energy, new tools and new ways of communicating. One generation can ignite a movement, but lasting change requires many generations moving together.

It is also wrong to call us leaderless. We are not leaderless; we are leaderful. We just refuse to adopt some of the hierarchical ways of organising of previous generations, because sometimes leading collectively works much better than having someone dictate everything.

What keeps you going?

People, particularly young people, keep going because the problems are immediate and impossible to ignore. Protesting means refusing to accept the future we are being handed and making our voices matter.

Hope is not a passive feeling. It’s found in action, not in waiting. I see hope in the movement, because when young people, elders, students and communities stand together, there’s a shared strength, and the possibility of a world that values dignity, justice and sustainability becomes real. We keep moving because we are not alone. I also find hope in history, because it shows that while change is messy, people have always managed to push the boundaries of what is possible.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

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SEE ALSO
Gen Z protests: new resistance rises CIVICUS | State of Civil Society Report 2026
Bulgaria: ‘We protested against a whole system of corrupt governance and state capture’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Aleksandar Tanev 21.Apr.2026
Philippines: ‘We refuse to stay silent while those in power treat public office like private property’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Raoul Manuel 25.Nov.2025

 

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Despite the newfound discovery of sexual harassment and the taxpayer-funded settlements, the United States Congress has failed to implement any lasting policy reforms to protect staff from sexual misconduct. Credit: Shutterstock

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, May 11 2026 (IPS)

After more than two centuries of independence, it appears that the United States Congress, or at least certain parts of it, has finally discovered the existence of sexual harassment within the institution.

This discovery by Congress is noteworthy in a country where sexual harassment is widespread. Nationally, 81% of women have reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment and/or assault in their lifetime. Moreover, as of early 2026, reports indicate that 25% of individuals have witnessed or experienced sexual harassment in the workplace within the past 12 months.

Sexual harassment in Congress is believed to be driven by a combination of interrelated factors. These include extreme power disparities within a hierarchical framework, a decentralized workplace structure, the abuse of position to coerce or manipulate, burdensome reporting processes, the use of taxpayer funds for settlements, fear of retaliation, staff members’ career dependency, gender imbalance, lack of oversight, and a perceived culture of tolerance with a historical lack of accountability.

Despite Congress passing reforms to require sexual harassment training and streamline reporting, the underlying factors and cultural issues continue to pose challenges for ensuring a safe workplace free of sexual misconduct.

Throughout much of its recent history, there have been reported claims and personal accounts of sexual harassment and misconduct in Congress. For example, in the 2010s, there were 16 instances of sexual harassment reported (Figure 1).

Source: GovTrack.US.

 

In addition to the alleged claims and personal accounts, Congress has conducted investigations and awarded settlements for sexual misconduct within the institution. For example, since 2017, the U.S. House Ethics Committee has undertaken 20 investigations into allegations of sexual misconduct by members of the House.

However, approximately 80% of the individuals who have reported sexual misconduct to their respective offices about sexual misconduct choose not to report it to the Office of Compliance due to fears of retaliation and negative consequences on their employment and careers.

Many of the settlements involve non-disclosure agreements, which have been criticized for protecting the identities of the perpetrators. Between 1996 and 2018, 349 settlements and awards were made involving 80 House and Senate offices (Table 1).

Source: GovTrack.US.

Despite numerous alleged claims, personal accounts, settlements, and awards, Congress has been hesitant to openly acknowledge the prevalence of sexual harassment within its branch of government.

However, with the recent surge in allegations, high-profile resignations, and investigations into taxpayer-funded settlements, leaders of both parties in the House and Senate are under increasing pressure to address and prevent sexual misconduct. As a result, the U.S. Congress seems to have finally discovered the existence of sexual harassment within its ranks.

With the recent surge in allegations, high-profile resignations, and investigations into taxpayer-funded settlements, leaders of both parties in the House and Senate are under increasing pressure to address and prevent sexual misconduct

Additionally, three Republican women in Congress have recently launched a campaign against sexual harassment. Their main goal is to uncover and hold accountable predators in Congress from all parties. Besides advocating for transparency, they are demanding that members of Congress face consequences for their sexual misconduct.

Furthermore, these women are urging Congressional lawmakers to acknowledge the pervasive culture of sexual harassment and misconduct on Capitol Hill. They are also calling for lawmakers to take action to change the environment where such behavior has been accepted as an unfortunate but unchangeable reality.

One of these Republican lawmakers has claimed that the sexual misconduct in Congress goes much deeper than the public realizes.

Additionally, these Congressional lawmakers are committed to dismantling the unwritten rules of political expediency and tribal loyalty that have historically kept sexual harassment concealed.

One of the lawmakers introduced a resolution (H.Res.1100) directing the committee to preserve and publicly release records and reports on all investigations into Congressional members for sexual harassment. Additionally. these Republican lawmakers are demanding the release of documents detailing any settlements related to sexual harassment involving members of Congress.

However, the party’s male leaders, including the president and top Republican congressional leaders, have chosen to support the accused men whose votes are necessary to maintain their majority in the House of Representatives.

Furthermore, numerous women in the United States have publicly accused the country’s current president of various acts of sexual misconduct, including rape.

In 2023, a New York jury found the U.S. president civilly liable for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll and awarded her $5 million in damages. Currently, no other person serving in the U.S. federal government has as many credible accusations and a jury conviction for sexual misconduct as the president.

Additionally, in a rare statement, the Congressional House Ethics Committee defended its handling of sexual harassment charges following the resignations of two lawmakers facing sexual misconduct. The committee operates in secrecy and typically takes years to complete its inquiries.

While acknowledging flaws in the reporting process, the committee cited the challenges it faces and urged employees with sexual harassment claims to come forward. However, Congressional staffers are understandably reluctant and afraid to make accusations of sexual harassment against lawmakers to a panel controlled by their peers.

Congressional lawmakers are predominantly men. In 2026, men make up 71% of the House of Representatives and 74% of the Senate (Figure 2).

 

Source. U.S. Congress. Gov.

In addition to the women in Congress who are objecting to the sexual harassment taking place within Congress, advocacy groups across the country are demanding more transparency and easier reporting processes. They maintain that sexual harassment typically goes undisclosed because of the power dynamics within Congress, with many incidents going unreported because of fear of retaliation.

For example, the National Women’s Defense League reported that there have been fifty-three allegations of workplace sexual harassment made against at least 30 lawmakers in the House and Senate over the past two decades. Nearly all of these documented cases involve men harassing women, with 77% of the allegations involving members of the legislative staff.

Furthermore, the issue of sexual harassment in Congress is bipartisan. Of all the allegations, 60% are made against Republicans and 40% against Democrats. The recent cases of sexual harassment in 2026 have prompted calls for accountability, stricter ethics investigations, and public disclosure of misconduct records.

In April and May 2026, prominent lawmakers, including Rep. Eric Swalwell and Rep. Tony Gonzales, resigned due to allegations of sexual misconduct and ethics violations. In addition, the Ethics Committee is currently investigating Rep. Chuck Edwards for reportedly having an improper relationship with a subordinate and sexually harassing staff.

Moreover, documents released since 2004 reveal that over $338,000 in taxpayer funds have been used to settle confidential sexual harassment claims involving 13 claims against members of Congress. The process of filing complaints in Congress has been criticized for being opaque and largely unknown.

The recent resignations of lawmakers along with the use of taxpayer funds to settle harassment claims have contributed to Congress’s discovery of sexual harassment committed by its members.

It appears that Congress is now beginning to address some of the immediate issues of sexual misconduct taking place within the institution. However, despite the newfound discovery of sexual harassment and the taxpayer-funded settlements, the United States Congress has failed to implement any lasting policy reforms to protect staff from sexual misconduct.

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

As the global target to eliminate hunger by 2030 fast slips out of reach, investing in how the world feeds itself is the only way to avert a crisis. Investing in agrifood systems—from production and processing to distribution and consumption—is crucial to making the global agriculture sector more resilient to food security threats, said Mohamed […]

Residents in Phú Yên, Vietnam, relied on a small wooden boat during a flood. Climate change and El Niño disrupted the livelihood of millions of people in Asia and the Pacific. Credit: Pexels/Long Bà Mùi Source: ESCAP

By Kareff Rafisura
BANGKOK, Thailand, May 11 2026 (IPS)

Climate models are converging: El Niño is likely to return by mid-2026 and could be strong. According to the World Meteorological Organization, it could emerge as early as May–July 2026, with several national hydrometeorological agencies in Asia and the Pacific already issuing alerts.

El Niño makes headlines not because it is rare, but because it amplifies climate risks. Past events have triggered major humanitarian crises, driving drought, food insecurity and public health emergencies across Asia and the Pacific. While each Niño event differs, their impacts tend to follow recognizable regional patterns.

In countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Timor Leste, strong El Niño events have repeatedly brought drought, forest fires, agricultural losses and water stress, with patterns reinforced even during the weaker 2018–2019 El Niño. These impacts provide clear signals of risks concentrated across food, water, health and livelihood systems.

In practical terms, an El Niño event is only fully established when the atmosphere reinforces the warming of oceans. As not all warmings reach that stage, this is where uncertainty lies, including how strong the event will become. While forecasts will improve in the coming months, historical impacts already indicate where risks are likely to concentrate.

To understand the risks, it helps to look at how past events have unfolded in the region. Strong events in 1971–73, 1982–83 and 1997–98 triggered widespread droughts, forest fires and vector-borne diseases, such as dengue, across South and South-East Asia and the Pacific.

While impacts vary by location, the pattern is consistent: risk intensity is highest where exposure overlaps with underlying vulnerabilities caused by poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition, as well as heavy dependence on subsistence farming.

The 2015–2016 El Niño is the strongest of this century and can serve as a useful reference should current conditions develop into a comparable event, given similar early warming patterns. The joint ESCAP and ASEAN report, Ready for the Dry Years, states that during this event, more than 70% of South-East Asia’s land area experienced drought, exposing over 200 million people to severe drought at its peak.

While El Niño affects large areas, its impacts are most severe where climatic exposure overlaps with structural vulnerability. This year, these risks are unfolding in a more complex climate and socioeconomic context, with tighter fiscal space, higher debt levels and persistent global economic uncertainty, as highlighted in the ESCAP Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2026.

At the same time, remittances, an important source of income for countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines and Sri Lanka are being affected, weakening a key buffer that has historically helped households cope with shocks.

Together, these pressures leave governments and households less able to absorb climate shocks than during previous El Niño cycles.

Climate change is amplifying baseline risks. Higher temperatures increase evapotranspiration (process of heat making water evaporate faster), reduce soil moisture and intensify drought conditions. The Ready for the Dry Years report shows that droughts increasingly occur under warmer conditions, magnifying their impacts.

Climate variability is now interacting with long-term warming trends, increasing systemic risks.

The implication is clear: waiting for certainty can increase exposure to avoidable losses. Historical evidence and current signals already provide a sufficient basis for early, no-regret action.

Because the impacts of El Niño align with extremes expected to intensify under climate change, there is a strong case for investing in resilience across scenarios. Three priority areas stand out.

First, turn climate forecasts into actionable decisions on the ground. Seasonal forecasts provide valuable signals, but decisions require localized insight: where water stress will emerge, where crops are likely to fail and which communities are most at risk. Advances in satellite data and analytics now allow near-real-time monitoring of soil moisture, vegetation health and water availability, and should be used to guide targeted preparedness.

Second, early financing is a no-regret investment in resilience. The impacts of El Niño are cumulative and can outlast the event itself. Acting early through social protection, support to farmers and better water management reduces long-term costs and protects hard-won development gains. In a context of constrained fiscal space, anticipatory action limits downstream losses.

Third, strengthen coordination across sectors. El Niño affects multiple sectors simultaneously, including agriculture, water, energy and public health. Coordinated responses enable faster and more efficient actions with benefits that extend beyond a single event.

Even as uncertainty remains around the strength of the evolving event, historical experience makes a clear case for early action to strengthen long-term resilience.

Kareff Rafisura is Economic Affairs Officer, ESCAP

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Credit: Attila Kisbenedek/AFP

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, May 8 2026 (IPS)

When Péter Magyar took the stage in Budapest on the night of 12 April, he told the crowd they had ‘liberated Hungary’. The hyperbole seemed justified. His party, Tisza, had won a parliamentary supermajority on the highest turnout since Hungary’s first free election in 1990, ending 16 years of increasingly autocratic rule.

An autocracy built in plain sight

Ousted Prime Minister Viktor Orbán boasted of turning Hungary into a model of what he called ‘illiberal democracy’. When he returned to power in 2010, he set about dismantling every institution capable of constraining him. His party, Fidesz, rewrote the constitution, restructured the Constitutional Court and gerrymandered electoral districts so thoroughly that in 2014 and 2018, it won two-thirds of parliamentary seats on under half of the vote.

Public broadcasting became a party mouthpiece, and Orbán-connected oligarchs took over private media. Fidesz captured universities and arts bodies. The government used Pegasus spyware against opponents, demonised migrants and LGBTQI+ people as threats to the nation and passed a law criminalising attendance at Budapest Pride. Civil society organisations faced escalating restrictions on their funding, and the government created a Sovereignty Protection Office to investigate and harass them further. The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) index eventually downgraded Hungary to ‘electoral autocracy’ status — the first European Union (EU) member state to receive that designation.

The EU’s blind spot

The EU’s response was inadequate. In 2018, the European Parliament triggered Article 7(1) of the Treaty on European Union, the first step in a procedure that could, in theory, suspend a state’s voting rights. In practice, Article 7 was never fully applied, because doing so requires unanimous agreement among all other member states, and there are always states unwilling to go that far. The Rule of Law Conditionality Regulation, in force since 2022, allowed the EU to freeze up to US$32 billion in funds for Hungary, but this mechanism too was compromised by political calculation. In December 2023, the Commission released around US$12 billion in cohesion funds seemingly in exchange for Hungary lifting its veto on Ukraine aid, effectively trading rule-of-law conditionality for foreign policy compliance.

Ultimately, the EU did not solve its Orbán problem; Hungarian voters did. This suggests structural reforms are still needed to prevent another autocrat from playing the same blocking game Hungary did.

After Orbán

Previous opposition coalitions in Hungary failed partly because Orbán’s machine had a reliable weapon against them: the accusation that they served Brussels, Hungary-born funder George Soros and a cosmopolitan elite detached from Hungarian values. Magyar, a former Fidesz insider who broke with the party in February 2024 following a scandal over a presidential pardon granted to a man convicted of covering up child sexual abuse, was immune to that weapon. His campaign was deliberately post-ideological, focused on corruption, crumbling public services and economic stagnation, while Orbán ran a fear-based campaign centred on the EU and the war in Ukraine. Voters chose economic reality over a manufactured threat. In the end, the electoral architecture Orbán had built to reward the first-placed party converted Tisza’s win into a supermajority of 141 of 199 parliamentary seats.

But Magyar’s victory will not necessarily bring a progressive transformation. He is a conservative politician leading a centre-right party whose platform made no explicit commitment on LGBTQI+ rights. During the campaign, he criticised the Budapest Pride ban as a distraction rather than a rights violation, committing only to protecting freedom of assembly more broadly. His victory speech promised a Hungary where ‘no one is stigmatised for loving someone differently from the majority’, but this was a shift in tone rather than a policy commitment. LGBTQI+ rights are unlikely to regress further under Magyar, but recovery will depend on sustained pressure from civil society.

Orbán may be out of government, but Fidesz appointees remain embedded throughout the state apparatus. Magyar has pledged to invite the European Public Prosecutor’s Office to examine alleged misuses of EU funds, dismantle the Sovereignty Protection Office and drop proposed legislation that would have further extended powers to restrict civil society. Delivering on those pledges and unravelling 16 years of institutional capture will require sustained political will.

Hungarian civil society faces its first genuine opening in 16 years. To make the most of it, it will need to push hard and consistently for the restoration of civic space, the rule of law and LGBTQI+ rights, and not mistake a change of government for a change of direction.

For the EU, Magyar’s victory opens a window to change a decision-making structure that allows a single member state to hold the bloc’s foreign policy hostage. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s call for qualified majority voting for foreign policy decisions may now gain traction. But the broader question of how the EU enforces its democratic standards against a member state determined to flout them remains open. The EU should resolve it before the next challenge arises.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Head of Research and Analysis, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report. She is also a Professor of Comparative Politics at Universidad ORT Uruguay.

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

 

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By Mohammed A. Sayem
SYLHET, Bangladesh, May 8 2026 (IPS)

When catastrophic floods swept through the Haor wetlands of Sunamganj in 2022, they destroyed far more than homes and crops. They shattered childhoods.

Jannat was only nine years old when floodwater swallowed her family’s house, farmland, and livestock. Like thousands of displaced families in northeastern Bangladesh, they took shelter in a school building converted into an emergency flood centre. But when the water receded, there was nothing left to return to.

The family migrated to a slum in Sylhet city to survive. Her father, once a farmer in the fertile haor lands, began pulling a rented rickshaw. Her mother started working as a domestic worker. Jannat’s school life ended almost overnight. Instead of carrying books, she began washing dishes and cleaning clothes in another family’s home for food and a small income.

Her story reflects a growing reality across climate-vulnerable Bangladesh. The 2022 floods in Sylhet, Kanaighat, Companygonj and Sunamganj were among the worst in more than a century. United Nations agencies estimated that nearly 7.2 million people across northeastern Bangladesh were affected, including around 3.5 million children. Entire villages disappeared under water, electricity collapsed across districts, schools were turned into emergency shelters, and thousands of hectares of cropland were destroyed. UNICEF reported that 1.6 million children were stranded by the floods, while hundreds of educational institutions and community clinics were damaged or submerged.

The crisis did not end in 2022. In 2024, another devastating wave of flooding inundated nearly 75 per cent of Sylhet district, affecting more than two million people across northeastern Bangladesh and displacing thousands of families yet again. More than 800 schools were flooded and large areas of farmland went underwater, deepening poverty and food insecurity. This year again, heavy rainfall and upstream water flows submerged more than 46,000 hectares of standing Boro rice fields in the haor region during harvesting season, threatening livelihoods and increasing the risk of climate migration and child labour. Experts warn that repeated climate shocks are trapping vulnerable families in a cycle of disaster, displacement, and poverty.

Yet hope can still rise from disaster.

The Doorstep Learning Programme (DLP) of UKBET, a UK-based international NGO working in Bangladesh, was created to support children trapped in domestic labour and other vulnerable situations in urban slums. Rather than waiting for children to return to school on their own, the programme brings education, counselling, and rehabilitation support directly to their communities. Through flexible learning support and family livelihood assistance, it helps children return to education while reducing families’ dependence on child labour for survival.

DLP identified Jannat and supported her return to school alongside her younger brother. The programme also helped her father secure his own rickshaw, giving the family a more stable livelihood and a chance to rebuild their future.

As global leaders gather at the Eighth Assembly of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) in Samarkand, Uzbekistan in May–June 2026 to discuss climate financing and resilience, stories like Jannat’s must remain at the centre of international attention. (Global Environment Facility) Climate change is no longer only about rising temperatures or environmental loss. It is about children losing education, dignity, and hope.

Local community-led initiatives that protect vulnerable children and strengthen climate resilience deserve far greater global investment and support through mechanisms such as the GEF Trust Fund and international adaptation financing.

Because children like Jannat are not victims to be pitied. They are futures worth protecting.

Mohammed A Sayem is Executive Director, UKBET
Sylhet, Bangladesh
msayem@ukbet-bd.org

IPS UN Bureau

 

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UNICEF and partners established the first Primary Health Care (PHC) Centre and Child-Friendly Space/Learning Space in Jabalia, North Gaza on 12 January, 2026. Credit: UNICEF/Rawan Eleyan

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, May 8 2026 (IPS)

Despite the implementation of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel last October, Israeli forces continue to launch airstrikes into the Occupied Palestinian Territory. This has resulted in extensive destruction of infrastructure, loss of human life and exacerbating immense health needs amid an increasingly strained health system in Gaza.

Recent months have marked a significant escalation in hostilities, with routine bombardment pushing communities that have been displaced multiple times to the brink, while continued blockages of humanitarian aid hinder relief efforts and deprive thousands of life-saving services.

“Gaza’s crisis is far from over. For millions of civilians, the emergency is ongoing, relentless, and life-threatening. Food insecurity remains widespread and severe,” said Faten, the International Rescue Committee’s (IRC) Senior Protection Manager in Gaza. “Gaza’s healthcare system has all but collapsed with 94% of Gaza’s hospitals destroyed or damaged.”

Findings from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) underscore the urgent state of crisis in the Gaza Strip. OCHA experts leading a safety report recorded a significant number of security incidents over the past week, noting that the figures are among the highest reported since the declaration of the ceasefire last year. Experts from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) note that Israeli forces continue to maintain a high level of activity across the Gaza Strip, most notably in the northern region, where the scale of needs is most pronounced.

According to figures from OCHA, between October 7, 2023, and April 29, 2026, a total of 72,599 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip and another 172,411 injured. UNRWA has also reported that over 391 UN personnel have been killed since the start of the war through May 7. Hostilities from Israeli forces remain a routine part of daily life for Palestinians across Gaza, with UN experts recording airstrikes, shelling, and gunfire across all areas, particularly densely populated ones.

In May, a UNRWA school in Jabalia was struck by gunfire, injuring two displaced civilians residing within the school for shelter. OCHA also recorded two separate incidents in which humanitarian facilities came under fire in May, alongside an airstrike landing near a UN warehouse and a stone-throwing incident that damaged humanitarian relief vehicles. The UN continues to underscore the urgency of all actors complying with international humanitarian law, including all parties’ obligations to facilitate humanitarian operations and protect civilians and civilian infrastructure in all contexts.

Displacement also remains widespread, with over 90 percent of the population having been internally displaced. Many communities have been displaced multiple times, with more than half of the displaced population being children. Thousands of families currently reside in poor-quality makeshift shelters, such as damaged residential buildings and schools, where they face increasingly limited access to basic essential services, such as food, water, fuel and sanitation.

It is estimated that UNRWA currently hosts over 65,000 displaced Palestinians across 82 collective emergency shelters throughout the enclave. Approximately 126 UNRWA displacement sites are located with the Yellow Line, as well as areas within the Orange Line, where humanitarian aid remains subject to Israeli monitoring and intervention.

Many of these displacement sites face severe security concerns, overcrowding, and unsanitary conditions, while health responses fail to keep pace and mitigate the rapid spread of infectious disease and illnesses.

Gaza’s health system has borne the brunt of the crisis, being on the brink of collapse as the immense scale of needs continues to grow every day. Compounded by Israeli blockades on humanitarian aid deliveries, relief efforts have been severely hindered by a lack of supplies, such as batteries, lubricants, and spare parts.

“51 percent of essential medicines are currently at zero stock in Gaza, which is severely limiting the ability to treat patients with life-threatening conditions, including those requiring intensive care and cancer treatment,” said Faten. “Hospitals are overwhelmed, under-resourced, and increasingly unable to provide adequate care.”

Additionally, humanitarian movement remains severely constricted as armored vehicles break down, posing significant security risks to aid personnel as they attempt to assist vulnerable populations. Furthermore, continued restrictions on generators, engine oil, and other key supplies hinder sanitation efforts, debris clearance, food distribution, water trucking, ambulance services, and the delivery of educational and medical supplies.

Over the past several months, UNRWA teams on the frontlines have recorded a significant uptick in rodent infestations across multiple overcrowded displacement shelters across the enclave, being most pronounced in Khan Younis, as well as areas with large amounts of rubble, including northern Gaza.

Heath facilities have also reported a significant increase in the frequency of rat bites, which are linked to the transmission of rodent-borne diseases such as leptospirosis. Efforts to contain the spread of infection are hindered by a severe shortage of pesticides, anti-lice shampoos, and scabicidal medications. As a result, UNRWA has recorded a significant increase in cases of chickenpox, as well as ectoparasitic skin diseases, such as scabies, over the past few months.

“With designated landfills becoming inaccessible during hostilities, the market has been used as a major solid waste dump, with trash now covering an entire city block and exceeding four flights in height,” said Stéphane Dujarric, UN Spokesperson for the Secretary-General during a press briefing on May 7.

“Our sanitation partners report that Gaza’s two sanitary landfills are near the perimeter fence surrounding the Strip, where access needs to be enabled by Israeli authorities. They also stress the need for permissions to bring into Gaza the machinery to remove the waste, the rubble and explosive ordnance, as well as the spare parts required to operate that equipment. These permissions are also critical to address health risks linked to pests and rodents,” Dujarric continued.

Despite immense challenges, UNRWA remains on the frontlines of this crisis, providing lifesaving services to vulnerable, displaced communities. Since October 2023, the agency has conducted over 17.2 million health consultations, including over 71,800 consultations between April 20 and 26 of this year alone. UNRWA continues to support six health centers, four temporary centers, and 28 medical points across the enclave, and have provided psychosocial support services to over 730,000 displaced Palestinians, including 520,000 children. The agency also continues to provide protection services, which have proved to be instrumental as security concerns reach new highs, particularly around displacement sites.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Attendees at the NPT Review Conference side event titled 'Preventing Nuclear Use and Escalation: Lessons from Nuclear Close Calls. ' Credit: Naureen Hossain/IPS

By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, May 8 2026 (IPS)

The consequences of nuclear warfare would transcend borders and the impact would be felt across generations. Yet knowing this, member states, including nuclear-armed states, are increasingly flouting the nuclear taboo, while also relying heavily on deterrence to prevent fallout.

Throughout the Cold War period, there were stories of nuclear “close calls”—moments where the world could have been plunged into nuclear warfare were it not for human intervention or sheer luck. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and the Petrov incident of 1983 may be more well-known examples from history, but others may also reveal what lessons should be taken from these ‘close calls.’

At the sidelines of the 2026 NPT Review Conference, academics, government and civil society convened to discuss just that. On May 1, at an event convened by Soka Gakkai International (SGI) and the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), people came together to deliberate over past and present efforts to prevent nuclear escalation. The panelists argued that these stories demonstrate how nuclear deterrence may not be an effective security strategy towards disarmament or even nonproliferation.

Chie Sunada, Director of Disarmament and Human Rights, SGI Peace Center, speaks in a panel on nuclear escalation risks. Credit: Naureen Hossain/IPS

“The history of close calls—Cuba, Petrov, Black Brant—and many other less well-known events does not tell us that deterrence works. It tells us that deterrence has, on a number of documented occasions, almost failed,” said George-Wilhelm Gallhofer, Director for Disarmament, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Austria’s Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs. “Luck is not a security strategy. And yet, the global security order, 60 years on, still rests on it.”

Gallhoffer went on to suggest that the nuclear taboo needs to be reinforced once more by promoting honest dialogue between nuclear powers and non-nuclear states, where the non-nuclear states remind all parties of the stakes at play. Doctrines like the NPT and the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) should be regarded as security treaties, not only moral or ethical frameworks.

Elayne Whyte, a professor at Johns Hopkins and former UN Ambassador of Costa Rica, also echoed this sentiment, adding that the issue of nuclear danger is just as rooted at the societal level as it is through legal frameworks. The shared understanding of nuclear danger is not only produced through weapons systems or treaties but also through decision-makers and the values of society.

“It is [the] 21st century; we also have to acknowledge that the erosion of the nuclear taboo cannot be separated from the wider nationalist trends that rank human lives unequally and make it easier to imagine that mass destruction inflicted on others is […] tolerated,” said Whyte.

Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence threaten to further complicate nuclear escalation, wherein nuclear states, in an effort to stay ahead of the curve, adopt these technologies for their perceived potential to reduce the human margin of error. The automation of decision-making in nuclear weapons use is not entirely new, as was seen in 1979 and 1980, when the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) received several false alarms through errors in their missile warning system.

Yanliang Pan, a research associate at CNS, remarked that these cases proved that automated systems would still be susceptible to automation bias and compressed decision-making time, thus increasing the likelihood of accidents. Although humans should still have ‘meaningful’ control over decisions of nuclear use, Pan noted that these close calls occurred while humans were in control. “We should be talking about the effect of automation on the reliability of human control, rather than simply human control as an antidote to automation,” said Pan.

At present, academic research can uncover recurring patterns in how nuclear close calls were handled and what that can tell decision-makers about risk reduction in this space. According to Sarah Bidgood, a postdoctoral fellow at the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, recent studies have looked into how there might not be a singular framework for crisis management that could apply across nuclear close calls. When it comes to crisis management and risk reduction, the dynamics of previous nuclear close calls do not exist in a monolith, but there are variations in the outcomes instead. The lessons that leaders take from such situations may not lead to a shift away from nuclear weapons. Instead, these events may reinforce what leaders already think about the risks and benefits of nuclear weapons. If a leader regards nuclear weapons for a perceived strategic value, then after a close call, they may be just as likely to embrace new capabilities that would allow them to threaten the use of weapons across multiple levels of conflict. Bidgood raised the question of what this scenario would mean for the future of risk reduction in the present geopolitical environment.

“We need to be quite skeptical of this conventional wisdom that we often hear in our community… which is that to get arms control and risk reduction back on track, maybe we need another event like the Cuban Missile Crisis. Because if my theory is right, what this tells us is that the next crisis could just as easily lead us farther down a very, very different path. And that’s something that I don’t think we as scholars or practitioners have really accounted for,” said Bidgood.

Such near-misses may often be thanks to individual human judgement calls rather than the positions of nuclear states. Chie Sunada, Director of Disarmament and Human Rights at the SGI Peace Center, recalled the example of an incident during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, where a near-miss also brewed in the Pacific, which would have targeted an uninvolved third party. During this time, U.S. military bases hosted nuclear missiles in Japan that were powerful enough to level cities. The base in Okinawa received what seemed like authenticated launch orders. However, the most senior field officer on site, Captain William Bassett, found discrepancies with the launch orders and the missiles’ readiness level, including that the missiles at this base were primarily targeted at China. So he ordered subordinates to stand down.

Sunada warned that the sense of urgency that informed decisions on nuclear de-escalation was missing from the current discourse and that the reality of nuclear fallout and the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be “fading into abstract history.” She urged that nuclear disarmament education would be a “vital mechanism” for maintaining “strategic restraint” by recognizing that a key element for its success is empathy for the pain of others, which is itself a form of deterrence.

“We cannot continue to outsource our survival to luck,” said Sunada. “We urge all state parties to recognize that risk reduction requires more than just adjusting military doctrines. It requires a fundamental shift in how we understand these weapons, driven by education. By cutting the chain of hatred and nurturing the heart that cherishes and is respectful to others, we achieve the ultimate disarmament and pure, proper peace education.”

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

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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LDC Future Forum Banner. Credit: OHRLLS

By Rabab Fatima
UNITED NATIONS, May 8 2026 (IPS)

The future of the world’s least developed countries (LDCs) will be shaped by a critical choice they make today- strategic investment in their youth. Rich in human potential, the young people in LDCs embody ingenuity, resilience and ambition. With the right opportunities, they can transform challenges into opportunities and put their countries strongly on track to sustainable development.

In the 44 LDCs, more than 60 per cent of the population is under 25. That is more than 315 million young people – innovators, entrepreneurs and problem-solvers – in a world being reshaped by technology, climate pressures and shifting economic realities. Their energy, creativity and ambition represent an extraordinary opportunity not only for national development, but for global prosperity and stability.

The question is simple: will we act with the urgency this moment demands? In May 2026, governments, development partners, private sector leaders, researchers and young changemakers will convene in Helsinki for the Fourth LDC Future Forum, under the theme “Transforming LDCs by Empowering the Youth Population through Education, Innovation, and Inclusive Growth.”

Rabab Fatima, USG and High Representative, OHRLLS. Credit: OHRLLS

This Forum is more than a ceremonial gathering. It is a strategic moment—one that calls for decisive action to translate youthful potential into concrete progress.

Opportunity is expanding—but unevenly

The global economy is evolving at speed. Artificial intelligence, digital platforms, green technologies and geopolitical shifts are reshaping how we live and work. By 2030, an estimated 170 million new jobs will be created worldwide, even as 40 per cent of core workplace skills are transformed.

Youth in LDCs are ready to be part of this future. Already, they demonstrate remarkable entrepreneurial initiative: nearly 70 per cent are engaged in self employment, compared to about 50 per cent in other developing countries.

Yet opportunity remains deeply uneven. Tertiary enrolment in LDCs stands at just 11 per cent. Fewer than a quarter of graduates specialize in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Millions of young people—especially girls and rural youth—remain excluded from quality education, digital connectivity and formal employment. Without urgent and targeted investment, demographic strength risks becoming a demographic strain.

The DPOA: Investing in youth as a development imperative

The Doha Programme of Action (DPoA) is unequivocal: investing in people – especially youth – is central to sustainable development and smooth graduation from the LDC category.

It places strong emphasis on education, skills and science, technology and innovation (STI) as engines of structural transformation. Critically, it advances concrete deliverables, including the establishment of an Online University for LDCs, designed to expand access to quality, affordable higher education – particularly in STEM fields. It also promotes digital learning, innovation ecosystems, and stronger linkages between education systems and labour market needs.

The Fourth LDC Future Forum will focus squarely on these priorities. It will advance practical solutions to close skills gaps, expand digital learning, strengthen innovation hubs and promote inclusive growth models that leave no young person behind.

Inclusion must be intentional

True transformation cannot happen if opportunity is accessible only to a few.

Gender gaps in education, skills acquisition and labour force participation continue to hold back progress. The digital divide—between countries, communities and genders—threatens to widen existing inequalities unless deliberately addressed. Inclusive growth requires inclusive design: policies and investments that actively reach girls, marginalized youth and those in rural and underserved areas.

By placing equity at the centre of youth empowerment, LDCs can ensure that growth is not only faster, but fairer—and therefore more sustainable.

A shared responsibility

No country can undertake this transformation alone. Governments must lead by prioritizing youth in national development strategies and aligning education with future economic needs. Development partners must scale up predictable, high quality financing for education, skills and digital infrastructure. Academia must help generate evidence based solutions. And the private sector must play a central role—by investing, mentoring, innovating and creating decent jobs.

The LDC Future Forum exists to forge these partnerships. Through rigorous research, policy dialogue and multi stakeholder collaboration, it aims to deliver actionable recommendations that will inform both national action and the 2027 Midterm Review of the Doha Programme of Action.

The choice before us

History will judge this generation not by the challenges we faced, but by the choices we made. We can allow structural barriers and underinvestment to hold back millions of young people—or we can unlock the dynamism that resides within them.

Empowering youth is not a long term aspiration. It is the fastest, most reliable path to sustainable growth, resilience and global stability.

The message from Helsinki must be clear: invest in young people now – and they will transform their countries, and our shared future.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

Rabab Fatima is United Nations Under Secretary General and High Representative for LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS

Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, May 8 2026 (IPS)

The 10-month-old Middle East conflict—which has triggered a rise in the cost of living worldwide, and an increase in the prices of food, groceries and gasoline—is likely to impose burdens on hundreds of UN staffers, delegates, journalists and civil society representatives– and thousands more, during the General Assembly sessions beginning September.

The proposed increases are mostly due to the naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and the battle between the US and Iran, specifically targeting ships entering or departing– and halting oil exports and trade.

The UN’s Department of Operational Support (DOS) has decided “as mitigating cost savings measure to increase café prices by approximately 5% in general, any up to 20% for items, including sodas, cakes, oatmeal, pastries and soups”.

“This cost savings measure is meant to reduce the organization subsidy amount from $2.1M to $1M. The measures also include reduction in the hours of café operations to lower labor cost”.

The UN Staff Union (UNSU), responding to the price hike, said early this week, it “strongly objected to the proposed cafeteria price increases, which places an undue financial burden on staff already facing rising living costs and limited on-site alternatives”.

This concern is amplified by the fact that the cafeteria (run by an outside contractor) “benefits from substantial organizational subsidized support, and bears no overhead cost such as rent, utilities, and maintenance expenses”, says a message from UNSU released early this week.

Moreover, says UNSU, current economic data does not support increases of this magnitude. With year-over-year inflation between January 2025 and January 2026 at approximately 2.3–2.4%, even accounting for higher food and labor costs, there is no credible basis for price hikes in the range of 5–20%.

Fluctuations in oil prices further fail to justify such increases, given their limited impact on overall cafeteria operations. Taken together, these facts point to “disproportionate and unjustified measures passed on the staff, who have not received comparable salary increases”, says Narda Cupidore, President of the UNSU Staff Council.

In this context, shifting additional costs to staff is neither transparent nor justified, particularly in the absence of meaningful prior consultation as required under the Terms of Reference of the Headquarters Catering Advisory Committee.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, one UN staffer told Inter Press Service: “At a time when there are reports of proposed salary cuts, as part of UN reforms, this hits us where it hurts us most –in our stomachs”.

Moreover, says UNSU, current economic data does not support increases of this magnitude. With year-over-year inflation between January 2025 and January 2026 at approximately 2.3–2.4%, even accounting for higher food and labor costs, there is no credible basis for price hikes in the range of 5–20%.

Fluctuations in oil prices further fail to justify such increases, given their limited impact on overall cafeteria operations.

Taken together, these facts point to disproportionate and unjustified measures passed on the staff, who have not received comparable salary increases.

The Staff Union calls for a suspension of the proposed price hikes at the Café and encourages the DOS to evaluate alternative financial strategies that could avoid passing on such a significant cost burden to staff.

“We remain committed to constructive engagement and continue to seek opportunities for open dialogue and clear answers from management. UNSU believes it is essential to be a partner in both the discussion and the solution, working collaboratively we can reach an outcome that is fair and minimizes the impact on staff. We will keep you informed of any developments.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Malawian Farmers harvest sweet potatoes in fields where no chemicals have been used. Credit: Albert Khumalo

By Benson Kunchezera and Tanka Dhakal
LILONGWE & VIENTIANE, May 7 2026 (IPS)

For decades, pesticides have been a quiet pillar of Malawi’s agriculture, guarding crops against pests, improving yields, and sustaining millions of livelihoods. But beneath this success story lay a troubling reality: weak regulation, unsafe handling practices, and growing threats to human health and the environment.

Between 2015 and 2023, USD 2.55 million by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) set out to confront these challenges head-on. Today, it is leaving behind a legacy that is transforming how Malawi manages pesticides from importation to disposal and reshaping the way farmers think about crop protection.

At the centre of this shift is a stronger institutional framework. The project supported a comprehensive review of national pesticide regulations, bringing them closer to international standards. It also invested in training regulatory staff in pesticide registration, monitoring, enforcement, and lifecycle management, areas that had long remained underdeveloped.

“We invested heavily in strengthening systems, not just solving immediate problems,” said Precious Chizonda, Registrar of the Pesticides Control Board of Malawi and former National Coordinator for the GEF project. “This has positioned Malawi to better manage pesticides across their entire lifecycle, from importation to disposal.”

A major milestone was the development of a strategic plan for the Pesticides Control Board (PCB), aimed at improving efficiency and aligning operations with global best practices. Collaboration played a crucial role. The Malawi Bureau of Standards provided laboratory services for pesticide quality testing, while the Ministry of Agriculture ensured policy coordination. Together, these institutions helped elevate the PCB’s effectiveness and national visibility.

Some examples of pesticide-free farming include bananas grown using manure and tomatoes grown using neem water to deter pests and a woman farmer is shown mixing ash with her pigeon peas for storage to protect them from weevils. Credit: Albert Khumalo

Obsolete Pesticides

The project also delivered concrete environmental results. Approximately 208 tonnes of obsolete pesticides — including highly hazardous persistent organic pollutants — were safely destroyed through high-temperature incineration. Another 40 tonnes of contaminated waste were secured in an engineered landfill. These efforts eliminated long-standing sources of soil and water pollution, protecting ecosystems and communities.

Equally significant was the introduction of a pilot system for managing empty pesticide containers. Initially constrained by regulatory challenges, the initiative has since gained traction and continues beyond the project’s lifespan. Supported by industry stakeholders such as CropLife, it now collects used containers from farms across the country, demonstrating a viable model for environmentally sound waste management.

A field of irish potatoes grown without using chemicals. Credit: Albert Khumalo

Farm Level Changes

But perhaps the most profound change is happening at the farm level.

In Lichenza, under Chiladzulu’s Thumbwe Extension Planning Area, 39-year-old farmer Emily Zuwedi recalls how deeply rooted pesticide use once was. “We used to believe in pesticides when growing our crops, but that is now a thing of the past,” she said.

Zuwedi joined a farmer training group in 2017, where she learned about integrated pest management (IPM) and alternative methods that reduce reliance on chemicals. Today, she grows onions and beans using these techniques, cutting costs while protecting her health and the environment.

“I am spending less money now, and my crops are still doing well,” she said.

Her experience reflects a broader shift among smallholder farmers. Albert Khumalo, an Extension Development Officer in Chiladzulu, said the transition was not immediate. “At first it was difficult for farmers to accept, but after the trials they get along,” he explained.

Since 2024, Khumalo and his team have trained at least 100 farmers in pesticide-free farming methods. The results are encouraging – farmers are reducing production costs, improving soil health, and becoming more environmentally conscious.

“This program is helping farmers conserve the environment while also saving money,” Khumalo said. “And those who learn are now able to share knowledge with others.”

The project has also strengthened Malawi’s compliance with international chemical conventions by building expertise in risk assessment and regulatory procedures, an area where the country previously faced challenges.

While gaps remain, particularly in scaling up initiatives to reach more smallholder farmers, the progress is undeniable. Malawi is demonstrating that agricultural productivity and environmental protection do not have to be at odds.

Across the country’s fields, a quiet transformation is underway – one in which safer practices, stronger systems, and informed farmers are cultivating not just crops but also a more sustainable future.

In Lao PDR, the UNDP and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry lead a $4.2 million GEF-funded FARM project. Credit: Lao farmer network

Laos Sustainable Farming

However, GEF funding is being used in several parts of the world, including Asia.

In Lao PDR, GEF funding is helping farmers adopt and apply practices that promote sustainable agriculture.

Laos farmers are being trained and given extension support to “reduce dependence on hazardous pesticides while integrating environmentally friendly pest management approaches”, Saithong Phengboupha, project manager at the Department of Agriculture under the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, said.

“This aligns their practices with good agricultural standards, translating upstream policy gains into tangible on-farm change.”

According to the Ministry, GEF funding has been helpful to create the foundation by strengthening the legislative and regulatory environment governing pesticide and agricultural input management.

“Key milestones include the promulgation of the Law on Crop Production and the development of decrees on fertiliser regulation and good agricultural practices (GAP), currently in the final stages. The instruments establish the legal basis for sustained enforcement and compliance beyond the project lifecycle,” Phengboupha said, explaining how FARM funding is being used to improve the agricultural future of the country.

The $4.2 million initiative through the FARM project is led by the UNDP and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

The FARM project is establishing a pilot on agrochemical container and plastic waste management in Viengphoukha District, Luang Namtha Province.

Smallholder farmers have responded to the pesticide management training and promotion of alternatives to chemical pesticides. Credit: Marco J Haenssgen/Unsplash

Integrated Pest Management

According to the ministry, the pilot is designed to demonstrate the effectiveness of a structured approach for the collection, interim storage, and environmentally sound management of empty pesticide containers.

“It also aims to strengthen institutional coordination among relevant government agencies, local authorities, and private sector stakeholders, while enhancing farmer awareness and compliance with recommended practices, including triple rinsing, segregation, and safe return mechanisms,” he said.

The project has supported awareness-raising and capacity building among local authorities, extension workers, and farmers on the risks associated with obsolete and banned pesticides, as well as on safe handling, repackaging, and temporary storage practices. In selected locations, pilot measures have been introduced to improve containment, labelling, and secure storage to minimise environmental and health risks.

Phengboupha says smallholder farmers in Lao PDR have generally responded positively to Integrated Pest Management (IPM) training and the promotion of alternatives to chemical pesticides supported by the FARM project. He added “training interventions have contributed to improved understanding of pest ecology, safer pesticide use practices, and the benefits of adopting non-chemical and low-toxicity control methods, including biological control, cultural practices, and mechanical measures.”

However, adoption rates vary depending on access to extension services, market pressures, availability of alternative inputs, and perceived short-term effectiveness of chemical pesticides.

“Constraints remain, including limited access to certified biopesticides, weak input supply chains for IPM alternatives, and continued reliance on agrochemical vendors for technical advice in some areas,” he added.

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

 

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