Africa

Woodlands in nearly every forested country face threats from climate-change-driven fires and deforestation pressures fueled by economic interests exploiting natural resources. Credit: Imran Schah/IPS

By Stephanie Dowlen
MALMO, Sweden, Oct 16 2026 (IPS)

On Monday, governments from across the world will gather in Armenia for COP17, the UN biodiversity summit, to assess progress on the global agreement to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. For anyone who cares about the livability of our planet for future generations, and the richness of life on earth, the stakes could hardly be higher. Policy makers will debate targets, implementation, and the lack of money to protect nature, in particular the failure of developed countries to fulfil their obligations. But there is a more basic question that should put at the center of those discussions: what happens when the financial system governments are counting on to fund nature protection is also financing its destruction?

A new analysis by the Forests & Finance coalition provides an alarming answer. Since 2020, banks have provided $595 billion to companies operating in high-risk agribusiness and metal and mineral mining sectors across tropical forest regions. Of that, $351 billion went to agro-commodities and $244 billion to mining. These are among the primary industries driving deforestation, land degradation, pollution and conflicts with communities across the tropical forest regions of South America, Southeast Asia and Central and West Africa.

The significance of that figure goes beyond the amount of money involved. It exposes a fundamental weakness in the way the biodiversity crisis is being addressed. Governments have committed under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework to aligning financial flows with biodiversity goals, yet financial institutions remain largely free to finance nature destruction as a risk to themselves rather than as harm they may in fact be helping to cause.

Nature-related risks are not like ordinary financial risks. A bank might assess how drought could affect a company’s revenues without adequately considering whether the company itself helped create that vulnerability by clearing forests, draining wetlands or degrading watersheds. By the time those consequences appear on a balance sheet, an ecosystem may already have crossed a threshold from which recovery is extremely difficult. The report finds that current financial risk frameworks and sustainability policies remain woefully ill-equipped to assess these real-world impacts.

The consequences are already visible in some of the world’s most important forest landscapes. In Brazil, banks have provided $83 billion to the soy sector since 2020, including $6.8 billion this year alone, despite the collapse in January of the Amazon Soy Moratorium, which had been credited with reducing soy-driven deforestation by 69 percent in monitored areas. The withdrawal of major exporters from the agreement removed a critical safeguard and traceability system keeping forests standing, yet banks have not publicly taken a position on its collapse.

Indonesia presents a similarly disturbing pattern. Banks have provided $67.1 billion to the country’s notoriously destructive pulp and palm oil sectors since 2020, including financing for companies associated with repeated breaches of their own commitments to avoid deforestation, peatland development and exploitation. Peat drainage and deforestation leave landscapes less able to retain water and resist fire, increasing the vulnerability of communities to climate extremes.

At the same time, the financial flows behind mining are growing rapidly. Governments and companies are scrambling to secure copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt and other minerals needed for energy technologies, while demand is also being driven by geopolitical competition and the expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure. Financing for mining in tropical forest-rich countries increased 55 percent between 2016 and 2025, with lithium financing increasing more than elevenfold and nickel financing by 183 percent.

There is a danger in treating every new mine as part of a clean transition simply because its minerals may eventually be used in low-carbon technologies. Mining in tropical forest regions is associated with ecosystem destruction, pollution, land conflicts, violence and violations of Indigenous Peoples’ rights. A transition that sacrifices some of the world’s most biodiverse landscapes and the people who depend on them is not sustainable, whatever the end product.

What makes this particularly troubling is how little protection many banks actually require before providing this financing. The average score in the report’s assessment of bank policies covering forest-risk agro-commodities is only 25 percent, while 39 percent of banks assessed scored below 20 percent. JPMorgan Chase, one of the world’s largest and most influential banks, scored just 18 percent.

Voluntary commitments have done little to close this gap. Governments now need to establish binding rules requiring financial institutions to conduct meaningful environmental and human rights due diligence across corporate groups and supply chains, disclose where their money is going and what impacts that financing is associated with, and face consequences when they finance severe and unresolved harms.

Financial regulators also need to recognize biodiversity loss as more than a distant environmental concern. Tropical forests underpin food systems, water supplies and economic activity, while their degradation can create cascading risks across economies. Yet there is still no equivalent to the regulatory framework used for financial institutions considered systemically important, even as the degradation of these natural systems threatens consequences that extend far beyond individual companies or projects.

But banks should not wait for governments to act. They can establish clear red lines against deforestation, ecosystem conversion and serious human rights abuses, make those requirements enforceable in financing agreements, independently verify compliance and suspend or terminate financing when clients fail to address serious violations. Those safeguards must respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights, including Free, Prior and Informed Consent, and provide affected communities with meaningful access to remedy.

The choice facing governments at COP17 is therefore not simply how much money to mobilize for biodiversity. It is whether they are prepared to stop the financial system from undermining those investments in the first place.

The evidence is increasingly difficult to dismiss. Hundreds of billions of dollars are flowing into industries that are rapidly degrading the natural systems on which economies, and the web of life, depend. Governments have already promised to align financial flows with biodiversity goals. Now they need to make that commitment real.

At COP17, following the money would be a good place to start.

IPS UN Bureau

 

 

 

 

By External Source
Oct 15 2026 (IPS)

 
A safe home is more than a roof over our heads.

It is the foundation of health, security, opportunity and human dignity.

Yet for billions of people, that foundation remains out of reach.

According to UN-Habitat, 2.8 billion people worldwide face some form of inadequate housing.

More than one billion live in slums and informal settlements.

And over 300 million people are homeless.

The housing crisis is unfolding alongside a wider struggle against poverty.

The United Nations estimates that 826 million people will live in extreme poverty in 2026 — surviving on less than three dollars a day.

That’s one in every ten people worldwide.

And having a job offers no guarantee of escaping poverty.

In 2025, 284 million workers were living in extreme poverty.

Meanwhile, 3.8 billion people remain without any form of social protection.

Conflict, climate-related disasters, displacement and rising living costs are placing further pressure on vulnerable communities.

Against this backdrop, the 2026 International Day for the Eradication of Poverty calls for Safe Homes for All, under the theme United for Peace and Human Rights.

The United Nations is urging governments to prioritize adequate housing, mobilize resources and involve people experiencing poverty in decisions that affect their lives.

Because ending poverty means more than increasing incomes.

It means ensuring that everyone has a safe place to live, access to essential services, and the opportunity to build a secure future.

This October 17th, the message is clear:

A safe home is not a privilege. It is a human right.

IPS UN Bureau

 

 

 

 

By Sania Farooqui
BENGALURU, India, Oct 15 2026 (IPS)

When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021, Zahra Nader was pursuing a doctorate in Women and Gender studies at York University in Canada. Nader had planned to return to Afghanistan to continue her research, possibly teach at Kabul University, and continue exploring Afghan women’s role in political history.

Zahra Nader, Editor-in-Chief, Zan Times

Then came the Taliban.

Seeing the freedoms and opportunities that women had enjoyed being stripped away, Nader could not help but do something. A journalist with experience in Afghan newsrooms as well as with The New York Times in Kabul, she knew how dangerous life could be for women journalists under Taliban control.

“I knew who the Taliban are, what they will do if they took over. So I had no illusion about Taliban 2.0 and how the Taliban has changed. We knew they have not changed. And so we started Zan Times,” says Nader. Set up in 2022, Zan Times, is a news agency run by women who investigate human rights abuses under the Taliban government. Operating out of exile, the news agency works in collaboration with journalists operating within Afghanistan, most of them working under pseudonyms to remain anonymous.

“I was here in Canada, safe, my rights are protected, but the rights that I grew up with, the opportunities that I had in Afghanistan, going to school, going to university, are now being denied to millions of women,” Nader says.

According to this report by the United Nations, five years since the Taliban have seized power, women and girls in Afghanistan have been systematically stripped of their rights. De facto authorities have issued more than 100 decrees curbing “education, including one that’s left 2.4 milion girls excluded from secondary education, work and freedom of movement – restrictions now compounded by deep cuts to aid on the ground”. The report states that the unprecedented restrictions have triggered a mental health crisis.

“The results are devastating,” the agency added, stressing that shorter life expectancy, higher risks of maternal death, child marriage and gender-based violence alongside the loss of education, work and freedom of movement have also triggered a mental health crisis.”The systemic erasure of women from public life, including their exclusion from higher education and employment, also removes the visible role models that show what is possible and narrows what Afghan women and girls can imagine for their own futures, this report adds.

For Nader, these are examples of efforts to strip women of their presence in the world around them. Nader refutes the assumption that it is the Afghan culture itself that stops women from getting involved in public affairs and activities. She mentions her personal experience of how she was encouraged by her family to get educated and work as a journalist. “What I really want the world to know about us is that our culture does not prevent Afghan women from joining public life and social activities.” The marginalization of women is not an inevitable or predestined cultural process; it is something that is being imposed on them through specific policies.

One of the groups most visible to suffer from these measures has been women journalists. “Since taking over Afghanistan five years ago, the Taliban have made Afghanistan one of the world’s hardest places for journalists to report,” says this statement by the Committee to protect Journalists. “Women in the media face particularly severe and escalating discrimination. Taliban authorities have banned women’s voices from radio and TV in Helmand, prevented them from attending press conferences, and mandated that they cover their faces when appearing on TV.”

Limitations imposed on women’s dress code and activities have diminished the opportunities for women journalists to perform their duties even more. Taliban’s 2024 Law on the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice includes additional limitations regarding the voice of Afghan women in public space.

Women journalists also encounter limitations on freedom of movement by having to travel with a male guardian in most places. Investigating topics like the education of girls and the wellbeing of women exposes journalists to intimidation and questioning.

Insecurity of income is another problem that women journalists face. Nader argues that women journalists have claimed being offered unpaid jobs, exclusion from staff positions since their presence would make them vulnerable to questioning by Taliban officials, and sexual abuse in job hunting.

Journalists who opt to continue working under such conditions also expose themselves to danger. In the case of Zan Times, journalists working in Afghanistan do so clandestinely, using pseudonyms.

Despite all the restrictions, Afghan women keep finding ways of resisting their marginalization.

Women teachers turn their own homes, bedrooms, and even basements into informal schools, where girls could still get education. Other women organize online classes and educational programs, but the lack of Internet connection and funds is preventing many people from participating.

Women also create private literary clubs, exchange books, and attend meetings of poets. These places enable them to communicate, share knowledge, and stay in touch despite the prohibition of public gatherings.

Nader considers such actions to be strong examples of women’s resistance. The work of women journalists who document cases of violation belongs to this form of struggle since through their activity, Afghan women manage to keep their stories visible in public sphere.Their work is especially important because not only they observe the restrictions imposed on women, but they experience them too.

Nader appeals for increased efforts from the international community in protecting Afghan refugees from any kind of forced return.

Moreover, there should be support for Afghan women, particularly in matters such as education and resettlement. There should also be increased protection for journalists under threat. Accountability is equally significant. Through international legal proceedings, there is a possibility of those who perpetrate persecution being taken to book in the future.

At the end of the day, the situation in Afghanistan, along with that of women’s rights and of press freedom, is that of peace. In order to have peace, you need to have half the country educated and involved into public life. You need to have the other half able to earn money on its own without being afraid of demanding anything. Even if the Taliban managed to establish control over Afghanistan, this is not the same thing as peace.

Afghanistan has been unable to give its women peace because its system relies on their complete isolation from the process of development of the country, their participation, dignity and freedom. Without the establishment of justice and rights for all the citizens, there is no peace. The Afghan women who are still fighting and educating, organising and reporting under extremely tough conditions prove that peace should not be confused as absence of war.

To Nader, the crisis in Afghanistan is an indicator of the vulnerability of women’s rights throughout the world.

“Failure to hear from Afghanistan does not mean that all is well and peaceful. Failure to hear from Afghanistan means that we don’t know what is happening,” Nader says.

Sania Farooqui is an independent journalist and host of The Peace Brief, a platform dedicated to amplifying the voices of women in peacebuilding and human rights.

IPS UN Bureau

 

 

 

 

Impunity for past crimes has fueled decades of violence and human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Credit: MONUSCO/Aubin Mukoni

By Ida Sawyer
WASHINGTON DC, Oct 15 2026 (IPS)

It has been 30 years since Rwanda-backed rebel forces attacked Lemera hospital in what was then eastern Zaire, killing 37 patients and medical staff. This was one of the first major atrocities during what became known as the First Congo War, helping to unleash decades of foreign-backed rebellions and grave abuses against civilians by all sides, including ethnic-based massacres, widespread rape and sexual violence, forced recruitment of children, abductions, torture, mutilation, and forced displacement.

The Congolese Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Dr. Denis Mukwege, began his career as a doctor at Lemera hospital, and he was there on October 6, 1996 when the place he thought was safe, protected by international humanitarian law, became the scene of carnage. Dr. Mukwege has since dedicated his life to supporting survivors of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo and to advocating justice for victims.

The attack on Lemera hospital was one of the 617 incidents in the United Nations Mapping Report, which documents alleged serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in Congo between 1993 and 2003.

What’s missing now is the political will to prioritize justice for the Congolese people. With millions killed during hostilities or dying from conflict-related causes, the war in Congo is widely regarded as the deadliest conflict for civilians since World War II
Yet the serious crimes went on. Despite the important work of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and Congolese military courts, the vast majority of alleged perpetrators remain unpunished, including high-level government and military officials from Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda.

Attacks as horrific as the one on Lemera hospital continue today, as an abusive Rwanda-backed armed group, known as the M23, controls large swathes of North and South Kivu provinces, while numerous other armed groups as well as Congolese army forces and their allies continue to target civilians.

Many of the commanders responsible for abuses that Human Rights Watch and others have documented in recent months are the same ones whose crimes we have documented for decades – often as they move from one armed group to another, integrate into the Congolese army, and then leave again when they have new grievances. Impunity for these past crimes has fueled the abuses we’re documenting today.

What’s missing now is the political will to prioritize justice for the Congolese people. With millions killed during hostilities or dying from conflict-related causes, the war in Congo is widely regarded as the deadliest conflict for civilians since World War II. Yet despite, or perhaps because of, its brutal and seemingly intractable nature, the conflict rarely dominates headlines or high-level diplomatic agendas.

When Congo does capture the world’s attention, it is more often for its natural resources than the plight of its citizens. Powerful foreign countries and companies – facilitated and enabled by self-serving national leaders – exploit and plunder the country’s wealth. Congo’s minerals help power the technological revolution driving so much of global economic growth, all while a litany of grave abuses go unpunished and undeterred.

To break this culture of violence and impunity, world leaders should put meaningful pressure on both the Congolese and Rwandan governments to end all support to abusive armed groups operating in Congo.

They should also press the Congolese government to implement a vetting program, with international support, to remove those implicated in serious human rights abuses from the Congolese security forces, intelligence services, and government positions.

And they should support a multi-tiered justice response to address the scale and gravity of Congo’s impunity gap. This should include support to the ICC and its ongoing investigation in Congo, the pursuit abroad of universal jurisdiction cases wherever possible, and continued support to improve Congo’s military justice system.

There also needs to be an internationalized justice mechanism to complement the work of the ICC and purely domestic courts, and a comprehensive reparations program for victims of serious international crimes.

I was honored to join Dr. Mukwege in Brussels and Strasbourg in recent days to initate a campaign, “30 Years of War, 30 Years of Impunity,” during events organized by the Panzi Foundation, the René Cassin Foundation, the city of Brussels, and the Eurometropolis of Strasbourg, to raise awareness about the conflict in Congo and to mobilize strong international action to end the cycles of violence, abuse, and impunity.

As Dr. Mukwege said in Strasbourg: “Thirty years of war is thirty years too many. Thirty years of impunity is thirty years too many. … . It is time to place the right of millions of victims to justice at the heart of efforts to establish peace and consolidate the rule of law.”

Ida Sawyer is crisis, conflict, and arms director at Human Rights Watch.

A senior South African cricket official pledges to order a review into the low crowd which attended the first Test against Australia in Durban.

His family has appealed to fans to remember his wife, children and family in prayer during this period of mourning.

Kenia Inés Hernández Montalván. Credit: @CDHVitoria

By Clare Quirk
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Oct 15 2026 (IPS)

Kenia Hernández is an Indigenous Mexican lawyer and human rights defender dedicated to advancing women’s rights and social justice.

Arrested in October 2020, she has faced multiple criminal proceedings that human rights organisations, including CIVICUS, have denounced as politically motivated and linked to the criminalisation of her activism. This piece is the second in our series on the campaign that advocates for the immediate release of unjustly imprisoned or persecuted human rights defenders globally.



 

Additional reference: Five years of resistance: The case of Kenia Hernández and the battle against the fabrication of crimes 

Additional research and reporting: Cecilia Russell
Note: This feature is published with the support of CIVICUS: Stand As My Witness Campaign.
IPS is solely responsible for the editorial content, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of CIVICUS.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

 

 

 

The home secretary said she would not hesitate to impose measures on other countries "refusing to co-operate".

Zwei Wochen nach Einführung des Tankrabatts zieht Wettbewerbsexperte Tomaso Duso, Leiter der Abteilung Unternehmen und Märkte im Deutschen Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW Berlin), Zwischenbilanz. Täglich verfolgt der Tankrabatt-Monitor des DIW Berlin die Preisentwicklung für Benzin und Diesel ...

Zwei Wochen nach Einführung des Tankrabatts zieht Wettbewerbsexperte Tomaso Duso, Leiter der Abteilung Unternehmen und Märkte im Deutschen Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW Berlin), Zwischenbilanz. Täglich verfolgt der Tankrabatt-Monitor des DIW Berlin die Preisentwicklung für Benzin und Diesel an den Tankstellen.

Nach zwei Wochen Tankrabatt zeigt sich in unserem Tankrabatt-Monitor, dass nur rund zwei Drittel der Preissenkung von 16,7 Cent bei den Verbraucher*innen ankommen. Seit dem 1. Oktober sind die Preise in Deutschland im Durchschnitt um 10 bis 11 Cent je Liter stärker gesunken als in Frankreich, wo es keinen Rabatt gibt.

Noch deutlicher ist die Entwicklung über die Zeit. In den ersten Tagen sind die Preise um rund 12 Cent stärker gefallen als in Frankreich, beim Diesel um bis zu 13,6 Cent. Die Weitergabe ist über die Zeit kleiner geworden und liegt seit dem 8. Oktober bei durchschnittlich nur noch 9 Cent. Auch beim Tankrabatt im Frühjahr hat die sie mit der Zeit nachgelassen, damals allerdings erst gegen Ende.

Wie viel genau ankommt, hängt auch davon ab, welchen Tag vor dem Rabatt man als Referenzpunkt nimmt. Vergleicht man die Entwicklung mit dem 27. September statt mit dem 30. September, liegt die Weitergabe bei über 80 Prozent, da die Preise in Deutschland schon im September stärker gefallen sind als in Frankreich. An der Entwicklung seit dem 1. Oktober ändert der Vergleichstag aber nichts: Die Weitergabe nimmt ab.

Die Steuersenkung kommt zuerst bei Raffinerien und Großhändlern an. Ob sie weitergegeben wird, hängt vom Wettbewerb auf dieser Stufe ab. Und dort gibt es deutliche Hinweise, dass der Wettbewerb schwach ist. Das Bundeskartellamt sollte seine Untersuchungen auf der Raffinerie- und Großhandelsstufe konsequent fortführen, denn der dortige mangelnde Wettbewerb ist nicht nur in Zeiten des Tankrabatts ein Problem.

Hosting the World Athletics Championships in Nairobi in 2029 will leave a "legacy of experience and expertise", according to the sport's top official Sebastian Coe.

Hosting the World Athletics Championships in Nairobi in 2029 will leave a "legacy of experience and expertise", according to the sport's top official Sebastian Coe.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres opens the general debate of the General Assembly’s 81st session on 22 September 2026. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Oct 14 2026 (IPS)

At this year’s highest-profile UN event, Donald Trump publicly mused over his ‘big decision’ about whether to ‘annihilate’ Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as dozens of delegates walked out, branded those who condemn genocide in Gaza ‘moral cowards’.

The UN was established in the devastating aftermath of the Second World War with the explicit aim to ‘save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’. Its charter commits all UN members to settling disputes peacefully. Yet at the UN General Assembly’s annual high-level session, held in September, several national leaders used a podium meant for peace and international cooperation to justify and threaten violence.

The bellicose tone of many speeches signalled a broader crisis of multilateralism. Autocrats are throwing their weight around, determined to prove that might makes right, or, as Trump put it when boasting of US control of Venezuelan oil, ‘to the victor belong the spoils’. Such leaders care little for international laws, norms, institutions and processes.

Powerful states are withdrawing from institutions, defunding them, refusing to cooperate and forming rival, more selective and less formal groupings. Nakedly transactional deal-making is replacing collective action, fragmenting the multilateral system. As a rules-based order gives way to something more chaotic, civil society’s opportunities to engage are withering. All this is happening as huge transnational problems mount up, including the climate crisis, economic inequality, impunity for conflict atrocities and the repression of civic space.

The race to succeed Guterres

Against this backdrop, someone new will take the helm. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s second term expires at the end of the year, and states are now choosing his successor.

Civil society is calling for a feminist woman leader who puts human rights first. Yet human rights feature little in the debate. A former UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, has pulled out because straw polls among the 15 Security Council members, a key stage of the process, showed she lacked support.

In each poll, states can ‘encourage’ or ‘discourage’ a candidacy, or express ‘no opinion’. So far, five rounds have proved inconclusive. Former Costa Rican Vice President Rebeca Grynspan has emerged as frontrunner, but the latest poll saw her receive six ‘discourage’ votes compared to three in the round before. No candidate commands overwhelming backing and it’s possible other candidates will come forward.

Civil society is trying to engage, but ultimately states don’t have to publicly justify their decisions. Because the Security Council is central to the process, the final say rests with its five permanent members, China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA, any of which can veto a candidate they dislike. Opaque negotiations are therefore likely to produce a compromise candidate that China, Russia and the USA find sufficiently inoffensive.

As the race heats up, there are signs candidates are avoiding speaking about issues that may be seen as contentious for fear of losing support. States that back particular candidates may decide not to ask difficult questions that could cost them votes. As a result, important matters such as Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the rights of excluded groups are being sidelined. Anyone who sees themselves as a world leader should be taking these issues on, but candidates’ refusal to do so shows how firmly powerful states are calling the shots.

One candidate, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, has been the target of a Wall Street Journal hit piece over comments condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide, made in her role as Guyana’s ambassador to the UN. The intent is clearly to encourage the USA to block her.

Civil society expects a global voice of conscience, someone prepared to go further than serving states and willing to speak up on the issues candidates are now avoiding. History shows that, even in difficult times, the personality and leadership style of the secretary-general can make a difference. Whoever prevails will have to steer the UN through crisis and rebuild respect for the institution and the broader promise of multilateralism, and that means putting human rights first.

Access needed

When they next meet, national leaders will have the opportunity to shape the future of development. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the set of 17 interconnected goals agreed by every UN member state in 2015, expire in 2030. Next year’s SDG Summit will consider what should come next.

In these difficult times, civil society faces the challenge of asserting a progressive vision and pushing for goals that make a real difference. But civil society remains excluded. It was once again forced to the sidelines for this high-level session. The passes of organisations that have cleared accreditation hurdles and normally have access to UN headquarters are suspended at these annual meetings. This speaks of a broader exclusion. The UN has failed to advance even modest proposals to recognise civil society’s role, such as instituting a UN civil society day or appointing an envoy to coordinate civil society engagement.

Meanwhile, the UN’s funding crisis is further impacting on civil society’s participation. The USA is the chief culprit, owing around US$4.2 billion in contributions. The USA and other powerful states are defunding and sidelining the UN’s human rights functions, which civil society most engages with. The result is job cuts, curtailed mandates and fewer opportunities for civil society participation.

The arrival of a new secretary-general and the debate on new development goals bring not just challenges but also opportunities. To seize them, civil society will need to build stronger coalitions and collaborate more closely than ever. It must engage constructively with the next secretary-general while raising expectations, putting stronger access and partnerships on the table.

A state-centric UN will fail. A UN that hopes to make a difference on big problems, rebuild respect for human rights and win an increasingly contested argument for the value of multilateralism can’t keep excluding civil society. The next secretary-general must champion an open and accountable UN that recognises civil society as an essential partner.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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

 

 

 

 

It follows the death last week of a man who had arrived in Kenya after travelling from DR Congo.

Formula 1 will return to Africa in the early 2030s, but Rwanda's deal to stage a race has prompted accusations of sportswashing against the country.

Formula 1 will return to Africa in the early 2030s, but Rwanda's deal to stage a race has prompted accusations of sportswashing against the country.

A Liverpool fan denies racially aggravated behaviour during a match against Bournemouth in 2025.

A Liverpool fan denies racially aggravated behaviour during a match against Bournemouth in 2025.

Im Restaurant Trinkgeld zu geben ist nicht obligatorisch, aber üblich. Doch wie ist das im Hotel? Und wem soll man wie viel überreichen?

Ein Angestellter der KI-Firma OpenAI soll im Sitzungszimmer der Chefetage eine Wanze versteckt haben. Die Firma kam dem mutmasslichen Spitzel nach eigenen Angaben dank ihrer KI auf die Spur.