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Women in Kenya and Ghana tell the BBC about being approached by a Russian man who later posts videos of them without their consent.

Women in Kenya and Ghana tell the BBC about being approached by a Russian man who later posts videos of them without their consent.

Máximo Torero, Chief Economist of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), briefs the Security Council meeting on Conflict-related food insecurity: Framing the global dialogue: addressing food insecurity as a driver of conflict and ensuring food security for sustainable peace. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elías

By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 27 2026 (IPS)

The current conflict in Iran and the Middle East region threatens to disrupt the global energy and agri-food sectors, as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz affects oil and fertilizer exports for farmers during critical harvest seasons.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warns that if the war does not come to an immediate end, global markets could collapse from the high demands for oil and crops.

Within the next two weeks, global markets may be able to absorb the shocks brought on by the war thus far and could therefore minimize the risks of food insecurity, said FAO’s chief economist Máximo Torero.

“If this crisis continues for the next three to six months, then yes, it will have an impact not only on the food security sector; of course, energy will impact all other sectors and all other inputs that have been affected,” Torero said.

The Strait of Hormuz carries up to 30 percent of international trade fertilizers and up to 35 percent of global crude oil and natural gas. Premiums on the costs of these resources are increasing as the war continues in the region. Torero told reporters on Thursday that farmers face the “double choke” of higher prices on fertilizers and rising fuel prices, the latter of which is used by the value chain to produce the food available in markets. With limited supplies, farmers may be forced to adapt their crop cycle by reducing the amount of fertilizer or switch to crops that require less nitrogen fertilizer.

Credit: UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Torero remarked that the immediate impact will be on the next season of crops, which will likely have fewer yields than before the war started. If the fighting concludes within a month, countries with higher reserves of fertilizers and fuels may mitigate shocks to the global markets. If the fighting lasts three months and the Strait of Hormuz stays closed, the shocks will be global and harder to manage. The consequences could include fewer yields from crops and more pressure on global exporters such as the United States, Brazil and Australia. As oil prices increase, this may encourage farmers to switch to biofuels to help meet the demands for crops. Yet such actions may also cause higher consumer prices.

When it comes to the war’s impact in the region, Torero reported that Iran was already dealing with high food prices before the fighting began, which it has only exacerbated. Meanwhile, for Gulf states such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, they are largely reliant on food imports and will face more challenges as there are no ships carrying imports through the channel.

Beyond the Middle East, FAO identified certain countries that will be impacted by fertilizer and fuel shortages, such as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, which are currently in their respective rice harvest seasons, and sub-Saharan countries like Kenya and Somalia, which rely on 22 to 31 percent of fertilizer imports.

One area that will also be affected by the conflict is remittances. Migrant workers from South Asia and East Africa live and work in the Gulf states, including at airports and places of business that have been targeted by military strikes. Torero explained that if these workers cannot send money back to their households in their home countries, the resulting decline in remittance inflow will affect many countries where remittances make up a “significant share” of their GDP.

“There’s a significant amount of labor employment that comes from this region,” Torero said. “Now, if the airplanes are not flying… If the operations that used to flow through the airports are not happening, that will impact of course their economies, and that will impact all these temporary laborers that are working in those locations.”

The rich economies that attract migrant labor could be impacted, Torero said, and the workers whose families rely on remittances would also be severely affected.

While the war in the Persian Gulf continues to threaten the global energy, fertilizer and food markets, the international community is encouraged to take short- and long-term measures to mitigate the shock and protect vulnerable populations.

Torero and FAO recommended developing alternative trade routes to reduce dependence on the Strait of Hormuz. Vulnerable import-dependent countries, including low-income states, need support through emergency food aid, balance-of-payment support and targeted subsidies. Farmers should also be financed to maintain agricultural production and to prevent liquidity constraints.

Torero also recommended that states should diversify their import sources and promote regional coordination. He added that states need to build resilience in the future, which means investing in sustainable domestic agriculture and alternatives to fertilizers and preparing for structural market shifts that may result from prolonged instability.

“We need to treat food systems with the same strategic importance as energy and transport sectors and invest […] accordingly to minimize those shocks.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By CIVICUS
Mar 27 2026 (IPS)

 
CIVICUS discusses Portugal’s presidential runoff election and the rise of the far-right Chega (Enough) party with Jonni Lopes, Executive Director of Academia Cidadã (Citizen Academy) and a Steering Committee member of the European Civic Forum, an organisation working on civic engagement, democratic participation and the protection of civic space at national, regional and international levels.

Jonni Lopes

On 8 February, Portugal held the second presidential runoff in its democratic history, and the first to feature a far-right candidate. Backed by a cross-party coalition spanning centre-left to centre-right, Socialist Party candidate António José Seguro defeated Chega leader André Ventura. The result was a significant rebuff to Ventura, but in just a few years Chega has changed from being a fringe movement into parliament’s second largest party, and continues to influence Portugal’s political landscape.

Why did centre-right voters back a Socialist candidate?

Despite not agreeing with his politics, centre-right voters backed a Socialist candidate to build a firewall around the presidency, recognising that the office demands deliberation, predictability and respect for democratic rules, none of which Chega represents. Seguro’s campaign made this possible. He distanced himself from party politics, avoided turning the race into a debate about the Socialist Party and positioned himself as a stable figure capable of providing institutional continuity during a political crisis.

This was practical risk management, not ideology. The centre-right Social Democratic Party is pushing labour law changes that triggered a joint general strike in December, with over three million workers participating. With Chega already holding significant parliamentary power, voters feared that a far-right president would go further still, using veto powers not to check the government’s agenda, but to entrench it and block any legislation protecting workers’ rights.

This coalition shows that a clear boundary against the far right still exists, at least when it comes to leading the state. It’s a defensive pact: democrats can disagree on policy, but there’s a line when it comes to handing power to a reactionary force that threatens democratic institutions.

What does the result mean for Portugal and Europe?

For Portugal, this result is a temporary reprieve for democracy. Seguro won two-thirds of the second-round vote and over 3.5 million votes, the most ever cast for a presidential candidate in Portugal, despite storms that disrupted voting. This shows that, faced with a genuine far-right threat, Portuguese democracy can still mobilise broadly to defend itself.

But this wasn’t a clear victory against the far right. Ventura won one-third of the vote, strengthened his base and positioned himself as a serious contender for right-wing leadership. In just a few years, Chega has gone from a fringe party to parliament’s second largest.

This sends a mixed message to Europe: broad democratic coalitions can still prevent far-right candidates reaching the top office, but the far right is now mainstream, shapes political agendas and forces other parties to constantly define themselves in relation to it. This is the new normal. This matters particularly for the European Commission, as far-right movements are structural threats and the only response is to strengthen the rule of law and democratic institutions.

Where does Chega go from here?

Ventura lost the presidential election, but Chega has emerged stronger. Winning a third of the vote against a candidate backed by the entire democratic spectrum cements its position. Ventura can now claim to speak for a significant portion of the right, and his loss only strengthens that claim, as he can frame the firewall as evidence that the political system is rigged against him, feeding narratives of elite persecution. He will also use his parliamentary strength to extract concessions by supporting or blocking the government’s budget and pushing on immigration and security, winning enough policy gains to show he delivers for his voters.

Ventura has already said that support for stability ‘has limits’. If the government hits serious problems, such as a budget crisis or a political deadlock, Chega will position itself as the only force willing to break the impasse and ‘fix things’. He’s not treating the presidential loss as the end of his political project but as a stepping stone to bigger gains in future elections. His calculation is that electoral legitimacy can eventually become governmental power.

What does this mean for civic space and civil society?

Portugal’s civic space is shrinking. Hate speech is becoming normalised, immigration rules are tightening, government administration is becoming more exclusionary, protest organisers face police intimidation and civil society organisations are struggling financially. These create real barriers to people exercising their rights. Chega’s rise and its racist and xenophobic rhetoric now heard in parliament raise the risk that discrimination and violence against migrants will become politically acceptable.

A president committed to rights protection can set limits: vetoing discriminatory laws, refusing to suppress information the public needs and protecting communities and organisations under attack. The presidency alone cannot reverse the shrinking of civic space, but it can prevent the government from fully institutionalising a far-right agenda.

Human rights organisations, labour movements and migrant groups see this moment as an opportunity to strengthen protections, not a final victory. Turnout held strong despite devastating storms and emergency conditions, evidence that people were genuinely mobilised by the threat, particularly urban voters connected to civil society, including unions, who had already fought the government over labour rights. The organisations that coordinated the strike now expect the president to use his powers to defend rights.

How should Seguro use his presidential powers?

Seguro has been clear he won’t be the reason parliament is dissolved, and has committed to working with the government while demanding ‘solutions and results’. This means dissolution of parliament will be a last resort in a genuine crisis, not a tactical move to tackle normal political disagreements. He will use his veto power to block laws he thinks violate the constitution and rights and mediate between the government and opposition to push them towards compromise.

The challenge will be to keep the democratic parties, both government and opposition, at the centre while Chega tries to dictate the agenda. If Seguro dissolves parliament too quickly or without a strong reason, he’ll just fuel Chega’s narrative that the system is broken. If he’s too passive and doesn’t use his veto when rights are threatened, he’ll look complicit in democratic erosion. Both scenarios would help Chega: either the system looks incapable of functioning, or it looks unwilling to defend people’s rights.

Seguro will have to walk a very fine line between doing too much and doing too little, while a far-right opposition waits to exploit whatever mistakes he makes. If he gets it wrong, his historic electoral victory will give way to deeper crisis rather than democratic renewal.

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
Portugal’s far-right surge CIVICUS Lens 30.May.2025
‘Civil society must engage to prevent discussions devolving into demagoguery’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Jorge Máximo 28.May.2025
‘The rise of the populist right only further weakens trust in the political system’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Ana Carmo 19.Feb.2024

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