The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 25 2026 (IPS) - Amidst increased geopolitical tensions, the risk of volatile energy markets, trade corridors, and regional stability in the Middle East has garnered more attention than trade policy in terms of its power to alter the global economy, according to new findings from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
In their report on trade and development, “Global Economy Faces a Geopolitical Challenge”, UNCTAD says that a protracted escalation “raises the likelihood of deeper disruptions in global trade and finance, potentially, foreshadowing a cascading crisis”.
Credit: UN Conference on Trade and Development (Trade and Development Foresights 2026)
Daily crude oil prices in the Middle East since the beginning of the conflict have risen from around USD 60-70, to a fluctuating rate between a high of over USD 110-. With oil prices surging more than 60 percent, and gas doubling in price, many markets have been left in an inflating scenario as higher energy prices increase macroeconomic pressure and overall slow and contract the economy.
The increase per barrel is largely due to a constriction of supply, where most Gulf economies can barely output oil due to a lack of transport ability through the strait of Hormuz. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) records a spike in the price of Brent crude rising over USD 100 per barrel and remaining at elevated levels, with European gas also jumping roughly “60 percent amid disruptions to LNG exports”.
The numbers are impacted by an estimated loss of capacity of 10 million barrels per day of oil and “about 500 million cubic meters per day of natural gas”. This is roughly 10 percent of global oil production, and roughly 5 percent of global natural gas production for every single day.
The IMF records the following:
Daily Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz (in number of vessels) between 26 February and 6 April 2026. Credit: IMF
Oil being an inelastic good means that consumers won’t be able to curb their spending. Rather, they have to pay more for as long as the conflict lasts as fuels are needed for many essential routine tasks, from driving your car, to taking your vitamins, to growing your food, and having your Amazon packages shipped.
In their April 2026 Regional Economic Outlook Update for the Middle East and Central Asia, the IMF details that a continued conflict will likely for every 10 percent rise in the average oil price lead to a loss of about 0.5 percent of GDP and an inflation increase of around 1 percent in Gulf economies, ultimately affecting global markets heavily.
As the report notes, “Longer trade disruptions or greater damage to oil production capacity raises the possibility of higher and more sustained oil prices and a larger risk premium than is currently embedded in oil futures prices”.
However, for developing countries higher energy prices hit a lot harder to consumers in developing countries, which in this case don’t have the same money to spare. The IMF warns that “Low-income countries and other fragile and conflict-affected states in the MENAP region are especially vulnerable to higher energy, fertilizer, and food prices”.
Due to the conflict, estimates stand that vulnerable economies, mostly least developed countries (16.1 billion) and small island developing states (4.3 billion), could incur a USD 20 billion a year increase in spending, representing a huge composition of their GDP expenditure.
Among least-developed nations, Mauritania is recorded to have their bill increase by 7.3 percent, The Gambia 6.3 percent, Burkina Faso 5.0 percent, Liberia and Zambia 4.3 percent, with 17 other least developed countries also estimating to increase their spending by at least 0.5 percent in terms of GDP points.
Similarly for small-island developing states, Vanuatu is recorded to have an increase of 5.8 percent, Maldives 5.2 percent, Tonga 4.4 percent, Mauritius 4.2 percent, and Fiji 3.2 percent, with 18 other small developing states recording an increase of at least 0.6%.
UNCTAD also expects this conflict to take away capital investment into developing nations, as these assets are perceived as riskier. The UNCTAD report states that “the start of the Middle East conflict triggered a sell-off of developing countries’ assets, with equity markets of emerging markets sliding by more than 12 per cent between 28 February and 29 March.” Likely such effects will trigger a compacting of issues, contributing to an economic downturn that could take years to recover from depending on the length of the conflict.
IPS UN Bureau Report
URBANA, Illinois, US, Jun 25 2026 (IPS) - Across the United States, record breaking extreme weather events have already occurred, including severe storms and Tornadoes in the State of Illinois to flooding in Texas, southern Wisconsin and the South. Throughout the summer, and the remainder of the growing season, additional severe weather events will come through including several hurricanes and tropical storms beginning with Tropical Storm Arthur.
While the impacts of severe weather on people, communities, and infrastructure dominate headlines, the damage flooding inflicts on agricultural systems, crop productivity, and food security often goes unnoticed and underestimated.
Equally concerning is the noticeable lack of focused dialogue among researchers, policymakers, and other key stakeholders in agricultural crop production and food systems, including farmers, about whether current best management practices and innovations are keeping pace with efforts to mitigate the negative impacts of severe weather and flooding on agriculture.
The impacts of flooding on crops and soils, as well as the beneficial web of microbes, can persist long after floodwaters have receded. Research shows that even after floodwaters have receded, plants continue to grow slowly and remain highly vulnerable to pests and diseases, further exacerbating crop damage and yield losses
Flooding can affect agricultural crops, including corn and vegetables like tomatoes, in many ways. These effects range from altered growth patterns and the wiping out of millions of acres of crops to tons of unsellable vegetables due to potential contamination from floodwaters.
I have seen this firsthand in my research at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. In just a few days, due to a lack of oxygen, crops like tomatoes and corn visibly stop growing, and when flooding is severe, they suffocate to death.
Belowground, flooding is also harmful to beneficial soil microbes that provide many benefits to plants, including improving nutrient availability and uptake, fixing nitrogen, promoting growth, boosting resilience to biotic and abiotic threats, and improving soil health and fertility.
By harming beneficial microbes and other organisms, including earthworms, flooding can disrupt the belowground ecosystem that sustains healthy soils, crop growth, resilient agricultural production systems, and food security.
Disturbingly, the impacts of flooding on crops and soils, as well as the beneficial web of microbes, can persist long after floodwaters have receded. Research shows that even after floodwaters have receded, plants continue to grow slowly and remain highly vulnerable to pests and diseases, further exacerbating crop damage and yield losses.
Alarmingly, current studies show that agricultural losses from flooding do parallel those caused by drought, and future projections indicate that the intensity, frequency, and severity of flooding events will continue to increase.
Ultimately, flooding causes systemic issues and disruptions across food systems, affecting all stakeholders connected to agriculture, a trillion-dollar industry. These impacts that come along with flooding can increase food costs, trigger higher insurance claims, and place additional mental burden on farmers and agricultural workers.
The question then becomes: What can be done to prepare for this future? What best practices and innovations can be implemented? What can farmers, researchers, policymakers, and all stakeholders in agriculture do to ensure that the crops we depend on to meet food security, along with the practices and flooding mitigating innovations in place, can withstand flooding?
First, there is a need for more investment in flooding research in the United States and globally. Compared with drought, we know far less about the full extent of flood impacts on agricultural crops, from the onset of flooding through the post-flood recovery phase.
Additionally, we do not know whether the current best management practices and innovations that farmers are deploying to cope with flooding are effective.
Investing in research will enable researchers to build a comprehensive understanding of flood impacts on plants, soils, and microbiomes in current and projected future climates, while uncovering the many strategies plants use to resist, adapt, and thrive.
Notably, our understanding of flooding impacts to crops, microbes, agroecosystems, and agricultural productivity remains siloed and fragmented across disciplines. Yet flooding impacts span multiple disciplines, including plant biology, entomology, agronomy, microbial and soil ecology, predictive modelling, and climate systems biology and engineering.
Arguably, there is a need to collaborate across disciplines to develop a more integrated and holistic understanding of how flooding affects crops and agroecosystems. In doing so, we will advance scientific knowledge and lay the groundwork for developing solutions to address and conquer flooding and its negative impacts on agriculture.
Necessarily so, there is an urgent need to conduct field-based research across a spectrum of climates, soils, and management practices. Although researchers have made great strides in building foundational knowledge about flooding impacts on crops, most of this research has been conducted in controlled settings, primarily in greenhouses.
To capture the complexity and inherent variability of agricultural systems, soils, and environments, field experiments are necessary. These experiments can offer insights and help determine the factors that determine crop resilience.
A metric of success for researchers is collaborating with farmers and using farms as living laboratories to understand flooding and co-build flooding solutions. These collaborations offer many benefits, as farmers are the ones who suffer most, but also have on the ground intelligence that research may not have.
When researchers and farmers co-build solutions, the resulting insights, solutions, and innovations become more practical, trusted, and embraced by farmers and in turn, these can be quickly integrated and translated into the suite of strategies and solutions farmers are deploying to mitigate flooding.
Research alone would still not go very far. Policymakers, governments, philanthropists, the private sector, and the media are equally needed if we are to make strides in addressing flooding and its negative impacts.
Media outlets such as NBC, CNN, local TV news channels, and major outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, and The News-Gazette, can expand public understanding of flooding by discussing and sharing the rarely highlighted consequences of flooding for agricultural production. Greater visibility can raise awareness and highlight the need to invest in flooding research.
In the end, we cannot solve a problem we do not fully understand. Only by acknowledging and demonstrating the impacts of flooding through research and having the media and other stakeholders share widely about the consequenses of severe weather including flooding on agriculture can we begin to identify the sustainable short- and long-term solutions needed to protect our agricultural systems.
When agricultural crops are lost to flooding, food costs rise, food systems are weakened, and our ability to meet our food security needs is threatened. It’s time to paint a realistic picture of flooding and acknowledge its full impact. In doing so, we can begin to develop solutions that help us withstand flooding and the extreme weather-related challenges ahead. Time is of the essence.
Esther Ngumbi, PhD is Assistant Professor, Department of Entomology, African American Studies Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Christy Gibson is an Illinois Distinguished Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she studies how floods and droughts reshape farming systems and the ecosystems that sustain them.
LONDON & DAR ES SALAAM, Jun 25 2026 (IPS) - Before anyone called her an innovator, before artificial intelligence entered the conversation, before solar-powered cold rooms, before the language of sustainable development, Shifra Ainomugisha knew food loss in its painful form.
At dawn, she would grab a bucket and walk into rows of tomato plants on her family’s farm in Western Uganda to collect what had already been lost.
The tomatoes looked healthy from a distance. But many had softened, burst, or spoilt before reaching the market – the true meaning of food loss.
“I used to wake up every morning to collect rotten tomatoes and throw them away while trying to save whatever remained,” she recalled.
Almost half the family’s harvest disappeared this way.
Yet the labour never stopped.
Her parents worked relentlessly. Seasons came and went. Fields produced food. But income remained painfully uncertain.
“Meanwhile, we struggled to pay school fees,” she said. “Some children dropped out of school even though we worked very hard during holidays on the farm. We were producing food but could not earn enough money to support our education.”
Shifra Ainomugisha poses beside a solar-powered irrigation system in Uganda. She was named the 2026 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year. Her contribution includes combining renewable energy and AI-enabled agricultural support to help smallholder farmers increase productivity and reduce post-harvest losses. Credit: Solar Farm Uganda
Mission Accomplished
Those childhood memories – of abundance turning into loss and hard work failing to translate into opportunity – would eventually shape a mission that has now earned Ainomugisha recognition as the regional winner for Africa under SDG 2: Zero Hunger in the 2026 Commonwealth Youth Awards.
Selected from almost 1,000 applicants across the Commonwealth’s 56 member states after a two-stage adjudication process involving 57 judges, Ainomugisha joined 19 finalists recognised for advancing the Sustainable Development Goals through innovation and community impact.
But the award was not her only accolade.
Today, the Ugandan farmer and innovator earned the prestigious title of 2026 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year at the 2026 Commonwealth Youth Awards ceremony in London.
The Commonwealth Secretary-General, Shirley Botchwey, presented the award to Ainomugisha.
In her remarks Botchwey congratulated all the finalists.
“You are already winners. To be selected from across 56 nations is a testament to your courage and your creativity. You embody the very best of our family. You have shown resilience in the face of challenge and innovation in the face of constraint.”
She continued, “Today is not about recognition alone – it is about momentum. It is not about isolated excellence — it is about collective advancement. Together, we will continue to strengthen the Commonwealth Youth Programme as a flagship vehicle for youth development in the Commonwealth.”
A Journey That Began With a Big Question
For the young Ugandan entrepreneur, however, the journey did not begin with awards.
It began with a question she carried since childhood:
How can people who grow food still remain hungry?
“Nobody should die of hunger,” she tells IPS.
“Because we are here to help. Farmers are doing agriculture, and we are solving food waste, which means we are fighting hunger. That is one of the SDGs we are working on.”
Today, Ainomugisha serves as co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Solar Farm Uganda Limited, a social enterprise using solar-powered technologies and artificial intelligence to help smallholder farmers reduce food losses, improve yields and increase incomes.
Her work combines three interconnected interventions: solar-powered cold storage, solar irrigation systems and an AI-enabled advisory platform known as Lean AI – a WhatsApp chatbot designed to guide farmers on planting decisions, irrigation timing, pest management, post-harvest handling and market access.
Together, the technologies aim to solve one of Africa’s challenging agricultural paradoxes: producing food but losing too much of it before it reaches consumers.
According to regional agricultural estimates, post-harvest losses continue to absorb a huge share of food production across sub-Saharan Africa, undermining incomes, nutrition and rural resilience. Smallholder farmers – who form the backbone of food systems – are particularly vulnerable because many lack access to storage, irrigation and agricultural extension services.
For Ainomugisha, those statistics have faces.
Her mother’s face.
Her father’s.
Her neighbours’.
And her own.
“I come from a tomato-growing family,” she said.
“Growing up, we experienced food wastage and low returns despite all the hard labour we invested in farming.”
Her father became one of her earliest inspirations.
Although he never had the opportunity to pursue formal education, he constantly experimented with solutions.
“He tried solving it by buying a diesel irrigation pump to increase yields because we only have one major farming season,” she explained.
“If you don’t make enough money during that season, the whole year becomes difficult.”
He attempted to preserve produce in improvised storage spaces.
But tomatoes continued spoiling.
Years later, after gaining access to education and exposure to technology, Ainomugisha began thinking differently.
“First of all, it wasn’t simply my decision alone,” she reflected.
“It began with my father. My father did not get the opportunity to go to school, but I did. I felt I had a better chance to solve the problem than he did.”
That conviction followed her into university.
Shifra Ainomugisha (centre, in reflective vest), co-founder and CEO of Solar Farm Uganda, stands with farmers and community members beside a solar panel installation that supports climate-smart agriculture initiatives. Through renewable energy and farmer-centred innovation, the project seeks to reduce food loss and improve rural incomes. Credit: Solar Farm Uganda
Solar to AI to Filling Knowledge Gaps
Together with colleagues, she founded Solar Farm while still studying.
Initially, the concept was straightforward: cold-chain storage.
Support from entrepreneurship initiatives – including LEAP Africa – helped transform the idea into a functioning enterprise.
But customers quickly changed the direction.
People arriving at the cold rooms often revealed a deeper challenge.
Some had little produce to preserve.
Storage alone was not enough.
The team expanded.
Solar irrigation came next.
The goal was to help farmers reduce dependence on expensive diesel fuel and enable year-round production.
Farmers could access irrigation systems through a flexible financing model – paying 20 percent upfront and then making weekly payments of approximately USD 1.60 until ownership.
“We wanted to create a solution that farmers could actually afford,” she said.
Then came the next leap: artificial intelligence.
Ainomugisha says the AI component emerged from another observation.
Many farmers lacked access to agricultural training.
Knowledge gaps were driving losses.
“Many people are farming, but they are not always doing it the right way,” she explained.
“You might find a tomato farmer irrigating in the morning, yet tomatoes are better irrigated in the afternoon or evening.”
The team launched Lean AI – a chatbot accessible through WhatsApp that provides real-time agricultural guidance.
Farmers can ask questions and receive recommendations on farming practices, pest control, irrigation and post-harvest management.
The system is now being adapted to work via real-time messaging protocol known as USSD to reach users with basic mobile phones.
“We use AI to continue training farmers even when we are not physically present,” she said.
“We believe this will improve yields, increase incomes and eventually change the narrative that farming is only for the poor.”
Shifra Ainomugisha poses beside a solar-powered irrigation system in Uganda. She is combining renewable energy and AI-enabled agricultural support to help smallholder farmers increase productivity and reduce post-harvest losses. Credit: Solar Farm Uganda
Changing the Narrative
That narrative matters deeply to her.
“In Uganda, there is a narrative that agriculture is for poor people,” she said.
“That is sad.”
She pauses.
“People believe that because despite hard work, they cannot escape poverty.”
One of the defining moments came in 2023.
After struggling to convince local markets to host their first cold room, the team installed it at her family home.
Her mother became the first customer.
Then came neighbours.
Then more farmers.
Initially, usage was free.
People needed proof.
One woman – a friend of Ainomugisha’s mother who traded fruits and vegetables – became an unexpected validation.
She stored produce for a month.
Fresh vegetables that once spoilt within days remained viable for nearly two weeks.
That extra time allowed her to wait for better prices instead of selling under pressure.
“She later realised how much it was helping her,” Ainomugisha said.
“Now she earns more from farming than she did before.”
Solar Farm eventually introduced a pay-per-use model.
The impact, Ainomugisha says, became measurable.
“What makes us proud is that we have increased farmers’ incomes by 28 percent.”
“We have also reduced post-harvest losses by about 30 percent.”
Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General (Programmes), Tanmaya Lal, Commonwealth Secretary-General, Shirley Botchwey, and Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General (Corporate), Tania Baumann, pose with the 2026 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year and Africa Regional Winner, Shifra Ainomugisha, at the Commonwealth Youth Awards ceremony in London. Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat
Winning Reaction
Those outcomes helped propel Solar Farm onto the Commonwealth stage. The Commonwealth Youth Awards are an initiative of the Commonwealth Youth Programme, which has supported youth development work in member countries for over 50 years.
“I am honoured to be named the 2026 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year. This recognition is not only personal but also represents the farmers and communities in Uganda whom we serve. It also affirms that solutions built from lived experience can create real impact. I cannot wait to continue this journey with the support of the Commonwealth and its remarkable network of partners.”
The Awards recognise young leaders advancing development solutions across member states.
For more than a decade, the programme has provided visibility, networks and funding opportunities to support youth-led initiatives.
This year’s finalists span sectors ranging from climate action and health innovation to entrepreneurship and communications.
For Ainomugisha, being selected is an honour.
“I’m glad to be a finalist for the Commonwealth Youth Award and a regional winner for Africa,” she said.
She believes three things contributed most to the selection.
Sustainability.
Impact.
Accessibility.
“First of all, our project is sustainable. We have maintained it from 2022 until now.”
“Secondly, we are creating meaningful impact.”
“Also, our technology is affordable for smallholder farmers.”
But perhaps what distinguishes her work most is who it centres.
Women.
“Because this problem is personal to me,” she said.
“I did not hear someone else’s story and decide to solve it.”
“I am a woman, and I saw how my mother worked every day on the farm, yet our lives were not improving.”
Across much of Africa, women form a large share of the agricultural workforce while often facing unequal access to land, financing, technologies and extension services.
Ainomugisha says designing with women in mind is not a strategy.
It is lived experience.
“Of course, we also work with men, but the majority of our beneficiaries are women.”
As global conversations increasingly focus on artificial intelligence, her message is clear.
Technology alone is not enough.
It must be accessible.
Affordable.
And designed around people’s realities.
Her next ambition is expansion—making agricultural intelligence available even to farmers without smartphones.
The larger vision is not simply digitising agriculture.
It is restoring dignity to farming.
The memory of rotten tomatoes remains.
So does the memory of school fees that almost went unpaid.
But today, those memories no longer represent failure.
They represent the beginning of a different harvest.
One where innovation is measured not only in algorithms or solar panels but also in whether families who grow food can finally afford to eat, learn and dream.
And for Ainomugisha, that future has already started.
IPS UN Bureau Report
Excerpt:
Shifra Ainomugisha from Uganda is the 2026 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year. Her award was announced at the 2026 Commonwealth Youth Awards ceremony in London, where she was also named the Africa Regional Winner.
OUIDAH, Benin, Jun 25 2026 (IPS) - It is barely noon, and a group of women sit near the beach on the outskirts of Djégbadji village, in West Africa’s Benin, sifting through mounds of salt harvested from the Gulf of Guinea’s ocean.
Large concrete vats covered with black tarpaulin show traces of white salt sediment as the seawater slowly evaporates under Benin’s midday sun – except that instead of using fire, the group uses solar energy.
The women have been working as part of a grassroots project called ProSEL Benin, a collaborative effort of the governments of Benin along with India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that focuses on strengthening local salt-producing communities to access sustainable energy sources and create medium-sized enterprises for the production and marketing of local iodised salt.
Salt production is one of the main income-generating activities for the populations living in and around southern Benin.
Generations-Old Traditions
“In Benin’s coastal areas, women skim the salt from the coastal marshes… they put up their little huts and boil salt water in massive vats over an open fire inside the hut. They then sell the ‘cooked’ salt at the markets and on the roadsides. It’s an unhealthy practice for various reasons,” says Robina Marks, who served as South Africa’s ambassador to Benin and Togo from 2021 to 2024 and was closely involved in the implementation of the IBSA-backed project.
The traditional method of collecting and cooking the salt has been practised in Benin since at least the 15th century, primarily by women, and involves collecting saline soil, evaporating the water and filtering brine by burning chopped mangrove wood to produce salt.
The practice harms women’s health due to how they collect the salt and the conditions in which it is prepared.
“It takes a very long time and is very labour-intensive,” Marks says.
The ProSEL Benin project attempts to change this traditional practice and make the process of collecting salt healthier and cleaner.
Salt-making is an important source of income for communities here, relying heavily on the cutting down of mangroves.
ProSEL Benin’s research estimates that approximately 20,000 cubic metres of mangrove wood are cut down annually in coastal Benin for use as firewood in Indigenous salt-making.
The UNDP and the Benin government discussed the new method about five years ago.
“But the idea came from the people on the ground, who had the needs. The Benin government came up with the project and wanted to work with UNDP,” says Aoualé Mohamed Abchir, who served as the UNDP Resident Representative in Benin from 2020 to 2024 and was instrumental in its development.
ProSEL Benin, Abchir says, is an attempt to advance three out of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: gender equality; decent work and economic growth; and responsible consumption and production. This project aims to help rural women in Benin make and sell clean salt and become self-reliant.
In 2021, the Board of Directors of the India, Brazil and South Africa Facility for Poverty and Hunger Alleviation Fund awarded USD 1 million to the UNDP to implement the salt project.
IBSA is an example of collaborative efforts between the three developing countries, as well as a South-South cooperation initiative within the United Nations that focuses on development cooperation among developing countries in the Global South.
When 60-year-old Cécile Koffi was first introduced to the salt project, it took some time to convince her to switch from the traditional method of making salt.
“There are a lot of things the salt does. Salt is intrinsic to the community’s women,” Koffi says, examining the day’s salt collection.
Salt is culturally important to Benin, and its uses go beyond culinary applications.
“It is not only used as food, but it also has a cultural aspect to it. It is regarded as sacred and is used in many of the vodoun practices,” says Marks.
“When we go to the market to sell our produce, we sprinkle salt on the ground and sweep it up before setting up our spot. It is believed that every bad spirit will go away if we do that. Salt is very important. We use it in a lot of rituals,” says Koffi.
Julienne Dekon collects saline water using the traditional method to make salt in rural Benin. Credit: Neha Banka/IPS
These deep-rooted cultural beliefs were one reason why it was difficult to get the women to change and adapt to the ProSEL Benin project, even though it was backed by the Benin government, explains Abchir.
Traditionally salt production is a cultural activity carried out by the Xwla populations of the coastal zone in Benin. The traditional production of salt by the salt farmers in the villages is subject to many prohibitions related to working days, village deities, and so on.
“The name Xwlajè is also intimately linked to the Xwla ethnic group,” says Luc Obale, national project director of ProSEL Benin. The Benin government has been working to certify the salt so that it can be sold with the label ‘Xwlajè’ to identify its cultural origin.
“The old method is their ancestral way of producing salt, so it has significance. Sometimes when you change the way you produce something, some people believe it may have negative implications. The women could have got the salt directly from the sea, but there is a reason why they weren’t doing that before the project,” says Abchir.
The ProSEL Benin project targeted five areas in coastal Benin where people have traditionally harvested salt: Sèmè Kpodji, Grand Popo, Ouidah, Kpomasse, Comè and Lokossa.
“In those other areas, people have been more open to using sea water to make salt, but Ouidah is Ouidah. It is very special. They believe that the best salt can only be cooked, not dried. They believe that they have to cook it,” explains Abchir.
Ground-Level Interventions
The ProSEL Benin project is not the first intervention programme that has attempted to make local salt cleaner and more environmentally sustainable, but it has been successful because caseworkers managed to get it off the ground, says Cessi Marlene Capo-Chichi, who works with UNDP as a project coordinator.
“Organisations have struggled to convince the local community to change their ways,” she says.
Some 500 metres from where the ProSEL project is ongoing by the beach, within the limits of Djégbadji village, is a coastal lagoon where women work inside a network of thatched huts, making salt in the traditional way.
“The traditional way of making salt is more laborious,” says 45-year-old Julienne Dekon, lifting a cane basket heavy with saline soil collected from the marshy land that surrounds her.
These days, the Benin government prevents the chopping down of mangroves for wood, and women are encouraged to use dried palm leaves and coconut shells for fuel instead.
Dekon says that she wants to continue working using the traditional method, although many of her friends have now switched to the modern method of salt making using seawater after joining the ProSEL project.
As she begins boiling the saline water inside her hut, smoke fills the small space.
“When I have to work a lot, I do get tired. But I don’t know much about how this affects my health,” says Dekon.
Dekon doesn’t remember when she started making salt, but it has been a very long time, and she is now accustomed to preparing using the traditional methods.
“The method on the beach (ProSEL project) is easy to do. But when it is raining, it is not possible to do it outside. But I can continue to make salt even in the rain, because I collect the soil and start cooking indoors. The two systems are too different,” says Dekon, referring to the open-air concrete salt vats by the sea that are susceptible to the vagaries of the weather.
However, the wet weather also affects the women using traditional methods.
From April to August, Benin experiences its rainy season, with short spells of rain between September and November, and the low-lying marshes near the lagoons are prone to flooding.
“We are pushing them to switch to the ProSEL system because during the rainy season the area where the salt is produced traditionally is inaccessible. It is completely flooded, and so for more than half the year, there is no production of salt. We needed to give them alternatives,” says Abchir.
While it is easier for the women to avoid the rains by tracking the weather, it is harder to bypass the persistent floods, he says.
Abchir says the project focused on giving the women access to seawater to make sure they could make salt and have steady income through the year.
“Using the seawater to make salt is less painful. You just get the water and let the sun evaporate it. You don’t have to cook it, and it is safer. You can also make more money,” says Abchir.
Just down the unpaved road from where Dekon works, a woman stands by the highway selling salt.
The difference between the salt produced by women like Dekon, who have been working using traditional methods and those engaged with ProSEL Benin is clear: the traditional salt is visibly yellow-brown with streaks of grey, colours that come due to the lack of a filtration process. The ProSEL Benin salt is clean and white, fortified with iodine that the women mix into the salt just before filling it into bags.
A one-kilogram bag of salt produced by women using the traditional method, sold in local marketplaces and by the road, would cost approximately 800 West African CFA franc (approx. USD 2), while the same amount produced by ProSEL Benin would sell for 1,000 CFA.
For Public Consumption
ProSEL research indicates there are about 4,000 women harvesting salt in Benin. The country imports most of its salt from countries like Ghana, Senegal and India because its Indigenous salt farming covers only a small fraction of the country’s actual needs.
Stakeholders realised that it was not enough to teach the women how to make cleaner salt; they also had to be given access to markets to sell it. One market that the project aims to tap into is the World Food Programme (WFP) under the UN’s Benin office, which helps feed over 1 million children annually with daily school meals. The WFP has been undertaking research to understand the feasibility of purchasing and using salt through these cooperatives led by women under ProSEL.
The Benin government has ambitious plans for the harvested salt.
In December 2025, Benin’s food safety agency, ABSSA, the Agence Béninoise de Sécurité Sanitaire des Aliments, certified the salt for public consumption, after which the salt was prepared to be sold under the label Xwlajè.
Presently, the Xwlajè salt is sold in seven different supermarket chains across Cotonou, as well as in standalone shops located in the municipalities of Porto-Novo, Cotonou and Comè.
“In addition, steps are underway to market Xwlajè salt in the duty-free shops at Cotonou International Airport,” says Obale.
Abchir adds that a process that would take the women six hours now takes them two. Bringing about change has been difficult, he says, because it involved convincing people who were accustomed to working in a specific way for generations.
He admits that they wouldn’t have been able to do much without winning the trust of the women, their husbands who still oversee their lives, the mayor and the local community leaders.
“The local team went down to the women and understood their needs so that sensibilities could be understood and it would be accepted. It is very difficult in Benin when outsiders come in and tell them what to do.”
Abchir says that there is a high risk of undoing all that work if there is mistrust in the community towards the project.
“They are accepting the changes. Now we are trying to build construction for storage, keeping machines, etc. It is a sensitive phase, but we are hopeful that it will work.”
Benin’s government has prioritised tourism over the last few years, and its Indigenous salt farming practices are a key part of its plans to introduce tourists to Beninese culture.
The ProSEL project does not aim to fully remove the traditional method of salt farming, says Obale.
“The modern salt production unit is located not far from the traditional production site to allow tourists to see the difference between the two production methods,” he says.
Mireille Adjovi, a new mother in her 20s, has come to work at the ProSEL site with her infant sleeping on her back.
“With the money I get, I am able to take care of my children. I will be able to send them to school. I think about myself last: my husband and children come first. Maybe the men give money for the household, but women still suffer a lot. If women need something, husbands give the amount of money they want to give you, not what you need. The men don’t think about the women. So the project helps me earn my own money,” says Adjovi.
For women like Adjovi, making salt is not just about following the jobs women before her have done for generations.
She doesn’t know what the UN’s SDGs are or even what IBSA means, but the work at ProSEL Benin allows her to prioritise her own health and well-being while working collectively in a women-led cooperative.
When she talks to other women working at the site, she also thinks about the hard-earned independence and self-reliance she now has.
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
DELHI, India, Jun 25 2026 (IPS) - Three years ago, during a mission to the Central African Republic from United Nations Headquarters, I met a woman whose story has remained with me ever since. She had survived rape during the conflict. Yet what stayed with her most was not only the violence she had suffered, but the stigma that followed it. When she returned home, her family refused to take her back. In a society where survivors of sexual violence are too often burdened with shame that rightfully belongs to perpetrators, she found herself isolated and struggling to rebuild her life. In that moment, it became painfully clear that for survivors, the violence does not end when the assault ends, it continues through stigma, exclusion, and the resulting silence for most.
Conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) does not end when the act itself ends. Its consequences ripple through families, communities, and generations and that is precisely why more needs to be done to not just address it but prevent it from happening in the first place.
As the world marked the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict on 19 June, (The day marks the adoption of Security Council Resolution 1820 (2008), which condemned sexual violence in conflict and recognized its impact on peace and security), I found myself reflecting on the many survivors whose stories I have encountered throughout my career. I witnessed firsthand the devastating and enduring impact of these crimes, sometimes documenting and analysing the many cases sent to us by colleagues on the field and sometimes while interacting with the survivors first hand. At a moment when wars dominate global headlines, from Gaza and Ukraine to Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo, ignoring CRSV means ignoring one of war’s most enduring and devastating consequences.
Today, the issue is more urgent than ever. Civilians continue to bear the heaviest burden of conflict, and among the most devastating consequences of conflict is sexual violence. According to the United Nations Secretary-General’s 2026 Report on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence, nearly 9,800 cases were verified globally in 2025, more than double the number documented the previous year. Yet even these alarming figures represent only a fraction of the actual scale of violations, given the barriers to reporting, including stigma, insecurity, fear of retaliation, and limited access to services. “The figures contained in this report should be understood not as the full picture, but as an indication of a much broader pattern of violations that remain largely unseen and underreported.” said Special Representative to the Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten.
From Sudan and South Sudan to Haiti, Ukraine, and Myanmar, recent UN reporting shows that conflict-related sexual violence continues to affect communities across the globe, reminding us that it remains one of the most enduring and devastating consequences of armed conflict.
CRSV is not an inevitable consequence of war; it is often a deliberate act used to terrorize communities, assert power, and deepen divisions. Its impact extends well beyond the immediate violation. For many survivors, the trauma is compounded by stigma, rejection from family members, exclusion from community life, loss of livelihoods, interrupted education, and limited access to justice and support services. The consequences can endure long after the conflict itself has faded from public attention.
In South Sudan, I documented stories of women and adolescent girls who had survived gang rape while collecting firewood, water or travelling to markets. I listened to survivors who feared reporting violations because they worried about being ostracized by their communities and feared retaliation by their attackers who ranged from soldiers to armed militia. I encountered families struggling to support children born out of rape while facing stigma and economic hardship.
Although women and girls bear the overwhelming burden of conflict-related sexual violence, my work also exposed me to the experiences of men and boys who had endured similar violations. Many carried their trauma in silence, reluctant to come forward because of stigma, fear, and societal expectations surrounding masculinity. As a result, their experiences are frequently overlooked, even as they grapple with profound physical and psychological consequences.
In conflict zones such as South Sudan, local civil society organisations continue to play a critical role in supporting survivors despite significant resource and safety constraints. These organisations often serve as the first and sometimes only point of contact for survivors seeking assistance. They provide psychosocial support, referrals to healthcare, legal aid, community awareness programmes, and safe spaces for healing. Yet the scale of need far exceeds available resources.
As Rev. John Ngbapia Bakiri, Executive Director of Rural Development Action Aid (RDAA), explains:
“The biggest challenge we face in dealing with Survivors of CRSV in South Sudan is the limited scope and resources of the intervention relative to the scale of need. Many CRSV Survivors remain unreached, several highly affected communities excluded, and the specific needs of children born out rape are not fully integrated into the response. These children continue to face stigma, protection risks, and limited access to essential services, compounding the vulnerability of survivor households.”
Addressing conflict-related sexual violence therefore requires moving beyond emergency response and looking at prevention with a survivor centred approach. It requires sustained investment in healthcare, psychosocial support, education, livelihoods, legal assistance, awareness building and social reintegration. It requires supporting local organisations that remain embedded within communities long after international attention has shifted elsewhere. It also involves very importantly engaging with the government including the implementation of national action plans, criminalization of conflict-related sexual violence in domestic legislation, and meaningful accountability for perpetrators regardless of rank or affiliation.
Despite decades of advocacy and normative progress, accountability remains elusive in many contexts. Survivors continue to face significant barriers in accessing justice and perpetrators often operating with impunity is common. With peace processes and political negotiations frequently overlooking the experiences and priorities of survivors, funding for survivor-centred services remains inadequate despite growing needs. At a time when violence and instability are rising across the world, we can no longer afford to relegate conflict-related sexual violence to the margins of policy and peacebuilding efforts. Its consequences are profound and enduring, leaving scars not only on survivors but also on the communities and societies struggling to rebuild in its aftermath.
The International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict offers an important moment for reflection. But remembrance alone is not enough. What survivors deserve is justice, protection, meaningful support, and genuine participation in shaping the policies and responses that affect them with a seat at the decision making table. Their stories are not simply testimonies of suffering, they are calls to action.
Mariya Salim is co-founder of Zariya. She is a Human Rights activist and an international SGBV expert currently based in Delhi India. She has served as a Women Protection Adviser with the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), and was part of the United Nations team working on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence at UN Headquarters in New York.
IPS UN Bureau
SYDNEY, Jun 25 2026 (IPS) - June 27-28 is the 16th Social Business Day, observed in Savar (Dhaka) Bangladesh. In June 2024 at the Western Sydney University’s graduation ceremony where I was conferred Emeritus Professor status, I urged the new business graduates to:
• purge the world of the… obnoxious Friedmanite idea that is destroying our planet and tearing our communities apart;• look instead to the “Social Business Model” of Bangladesh’s Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus; and
• work on the right side of history; stand up for justice and liberation; spread the “moral violence” for peace; and put people and the planet before profit.
Anis Chowdhury
In his 1970 article for The New York Times, Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman wrote, “the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits”. He further argued, “There are no ‘social’ values, no ‘social’ responsibilities in any sense other than the shared values and responsibilities of individuals. Society is a collection of individuals and of the various groups they voluntarily form”.
This Friedmanite world view has been at the core of the neo-liberal counter revolution led by Ronald Reagan and Margarette Thatcher in the 1980s. In his inaugural speech, Reagan famously declared, “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem”, and ushered in an era driven by unrestrained individual pursuits of profit.
Promoting unrestrained individualism, Thatcher questioned, “who is society?” Then she dismissed, “There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families…”.
“Greed” became the all-consuming passion at the height of unrestrained individual pursuit of profit as captured famously in the 1987 movie, Wall Street. The lead character, Gordon Gekko (played by Michael Douglas) addressing the shareholders said:
“The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed – for lack of a better word – is good.Greed is right.
Greed works.
Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
Greed, in all of its forms – greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge – has marked the upward surge of mankind”.
Has it?
Has greed, in all forms, marked the upward surge of mankind?
Yes, global income and wealth increased manifold since the 1980s; but so did global inequality. The wealth and income gaps between the wealthiest and the poorest have widened. The richest 1.5% own almost 48% of the world’s wealth, according to the UBS Global Wealth Report 2025, while the poorest 40% own only 0.5%.
The World Inequality Report 2026 reveals an even starker wealth gap. The wealthiest 0.001%, comprising around 56,000 multi-millionaires, now hold three times more wealth than the bottom half of the world population. Their share has grown steadily from 3.7% in 1995 to 6.1% in 2025. According to the UBS Global Wealth Report 2025, as of 2023, the world’s 26 richest billionaires owned a shocking US$2.872 trillion in wealth, which is greater than many nations’ total goods and services (GDP).
Cheerleaders of unrestrained greed may dismiss these facts and say “so what? Global abject poverty has also declined”. In fact, economist and historian Deirdre McCloskey, the author of Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economists Can’t Explain the Modern World, floated the idea of “Great Enrichment” asserting that real per capita incomes in the developed world have surged by a factor of 10 to 30 (or roughly 2,900%) since 1800. She argues this historic explosion of wealth fundamentally benefited the poor and working classes. For her, the concerns about inequality are a result of insatiable envy.
Some others have described the phenomenon of rising inequality amidst the wealth boom as “inclusive” because the process has lifted millions from abject poverty. According to them, rapid globalization has given rise to a new global wealth middle class. They see this as progress!
They also decry “the perception that billionaires make money for themselves at the expense of the wider population”, and attribute billionaires’ fortunes to successful investments, while highlight philanthropy and patronage of the arts, culture and sports by billionaires.
But the cheerleaders ignore billionaires’ tax evasion and tax avoidance, and the fact that societies should not rely on the generosity of the rich.
The cheerleaders are also climate deniers. They ignore the overwhelming scientific evidence linking rising inequality and the climate crisis. The world’s wealthiest 10% has caused two thirds of global warming since 1990, according to a new study published in Nature. It also reports that the top 1% of the wealthiest individuals globally contributed 26 times the global average to increases in monthly 1-in-100-year heat extremes globally and 17 times more to Amazon droughts.
It’s time for change
It is time for a paradigm shift from profit to people and the planet. Social business, a concept first introduced by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus, offers a path forward. In his 2009 book, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism, Professor Yunus defines a social business as “A business:
• Created and designed to address social problems• A non-loss, non-dividend company, i.e.
1. It is financially self-sustainable and
2. Profits realised by the business are reinvested in the business itself (or used to start other social businesses), with the aim of increasing social impact, for example expanding the company’s reach, improving the products or services or subsidising the social mission.”
In short, a social business is oriented to social value creation. It is designed to address specific social or environmental problems such as hunger, poverty, unemployment, pollution, and climate adaptation and mitigation. In many ways, it is a hybrid between a traditional business and a non-profit organisation. Like a traditional business, a social business generates revenue and is financially self-sufficient rather than relying on philanthropy. However, like a non-profit organisation, the primary goal of a social business is NOT profit, but social or environmental impacts.
But, not a magic bullet
Social business is not a panacea for all evils or social-environmental problems. More fundamentally, systemic or structural social and environmental issues should not be treated as market opportunities. The framing of social problems as technical or managerial issues that can be solved with “business” solutions can obscure underlying structural causes like systemic discrimination and power imbalances which must be addressed through deep reforms, backed by political will.
There also is a risk of “impact-washing”, much like “greenwashing”. That is, weak regulatory standards can allow companies to cherry-pick metrics, exaggerate their societal benefits, or use their social status as “moral licensing” to justify otherwise dubious business practices.
Therefore, the “euphoria” of celebration must not distract us from the urgent need to develop proper monitoring and accountability frameworks for social business so that “greed” does not infest it.
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 macroeconomic issues, sustainable development, international financial architecture and political economy. E-mail: anis.z.chowdhury@gmail.com; a.chowdhury@westernsydney.edu.au
IPS UN Bureau
DUMBOORNAGAR, India and SAMARKAND, Uzbekistan, Jun 24 2026 (IPS) - At dawn, when the waters of Dumboor Lake lie still under a pale grey sky, Santo Chakma, 63, nudges his narrow wooden boat into a reservoir that swallowed his childhood.
The lake is a growing attraction for tourists who come here in search of beauty and tranquillity, with dozens of islands scattered across a vast expanse of water. But for Chakma, the lake reflects a past erased.
“Once, these were rice fields. My father and my grandfather cultivated rice,” he says quietly. “But now we catch fish because there is no land.”
Spread across 41 square kilometres in Tripura’s Gomati basin, Dumboor Lake is now known for its 48 small islands and a growing tourism economy. But beneath its surface lies the submerged Raima–Saima valley – once a fertile agricultural landscape that sustained indigenous communities for generations.
That landscape disappeared in 1974, when the Gumti Hydroelectric Dam transformed the Gomati River into a reservoir, displacing thousands of people, mostly from indigenous tribes such as the Chakma, Reang, and Tripuri.
From Farmers to Fishers
In villages like West Gandecherra – a lakeside village – elderly people carry the memories of their old days in their hearts.
“The Gumti (Gomati) River was our lifeline,” recalls Phulorani Tripura, an elderly resident. “We used to sail bamboo rafts.”
Across the region, communities tie bamboo in large bundles and throw them upstream. The river carries the bundles down and people travel on them using these bundles as their rafts. For days, they live on these bamboo rafts, sleeping on them and selling produce from their farms, such as homemade butter and peppers, until they reach a market where the bamboo is sold.
“Water was not our livelihood – it wasn’t our way of living,” Chakma reminisces.
That world collapsed after the dam was built as farmland, homes, and markets were submerged. Families were relocated to uplands, where agriculture proved unreliable. Many eventually returned to the lake – not as traders or farmers, but as fishers.
Today, nearly 5,000 families depend on the lake’s fisheries, navigating livelihoods born out of displacement rather than choice.
An Increasingly Fragile Livelihood
Every morning, lines of small boats move out across Dumboor. By afternoon, they return with their catch, which is often smaller than in previous years. Fish diversity has declined due to overfishing, reduced stocking, and ecological stress.
“Earlier, fish were plentiful. We caught big fish like rahu (Labeo rohita), katla (South Asian carp) and gojal (channa marulius). If we sold one fish weighing 4-5 kg, it would be enough money for a whole week. Now we catch more small fish, which sell for less and also don’t stay fresh for long, which brings even less. So, now we work harder for less,” says Sushil Chakma, a fisherman, untangling his net.
Economic pressures add another layer of strain. Fishing licences cost up to ₹10,000, while government-fixed prices can be lower than 1 dime (US) per kilogram, leaving fishers dependent on middlemen.
“The government charges us, but the benefits don’t reach us,” Chakma says.
There are also constant safety risks due to erratic weather, fluctuating water levels, and fragile bamboo fishing platforms – known locally as ‘mancha’ – which have led to repeated fatalities.
“We call these platforms ‘mancha’, and we often hear that one has broken and fishermen have drowned,” says Bryn Tiprasa, a youth originally from East Gandecherra village near the lake, now living in Agartala, about 120 kilometres away.
“In fact, only last month, a fisherman died like that. Two years ago, four fishermen died in a single incident. Will this project consider addressing these kinds of problems? We don’t know yet.”
Tourism Grows, but Locals Miss Inclusion
Dumboor has increasingly been promoted as a tourism destination, with sites like Coconut Island attracting visitors for boating and festivals.
The Government of India has invested significantly in developing tourism infrastructure around the lake. But locals say these efforts prioritise visitors over indigenous communities whose livelihoods depend on the lake.
“The big businesses are not ours,” says a local boat operator. “We build boats ourselves, take loans, and earn only during the season.”
Some residents also report losing access to land and resources because private aquaculture or tourism ventures lease parts of the reservoir.
For communities already displaced once, these developments revive a familiar fear: marginalisation in the name of development.
Environmental pressures are also compounding these challenges. Invasive species such as Mikania micrantha (locally referred to as ‘Pichash’) due to erratic rainfall and changing water levels have disrupted fish breeding cycles and degraded ecosystems around the lake.
Despite supporting thousands of livelihoods, Dumboor Lake still lacks a comprehensive management plan.
“We depend on the lake, but no one manages it properly,” says a cooperative member. “How long can this continue?”
A New GEF-Backed Project Enters the Picture
Amid these overlapping pressures, a new biodiversity initiative supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) is drawing cautious attention.
The project – Conservation of Biodiversity, its Sustainable Use, and Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits in India (CONSERVE) – was approved at the 6th Global Biodiversity Framework Fund Council meeting, held under the framework of the Eighth GEF Assembly.
Backed by USD 13.8 million and implemented by the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank, the project aims to strengthen community-led conservation while ensuring fair sharing of benefits.
At its core is a shift toward recognising Indigenous communities as key custodians of ecosystems – a long-standing demand in regions like Dumboor.
However, details of how the project will work on the ground and what it will specifically deliver for Dumboor’s fishers are not yet clear.
This uncertainty shapes local reactions: hopeful, but cautious.
Potential – and Unanswered – Questions
The initiative is expected to involve at least 25,000 people across project areas in governance and decision-making, including women.
For communities in Dumboor, this could mean,
recognition of traditional knowledge participation in resource management access to financial support and new livelihood models improved ecosystem sustainability.It also reflects the GEF’s growing emphasis on blended finance approaches – combining public and multilateral funds with other sources – to support environmental outcomes alongside community development.
Some, however, say the project needs greater transparency.
“How will local women be integrated into this project? What will be the means and level of women’s access to finance and opportunities to play a leadership role? These are some of the questions,” says a member of the CBD Woman’s Caucus who participated in the GEF global council.
According to the GEF, several gender-specific targets are included in the project design, ensuring that women will make up 50% of the estimated 25,000 beneficiaries and at least 40% of the beneficiaries of an Access and Benefit-Sharing financial mechanism that will be implemented as part of the project.
For residents, the real test lies in implementation.
“Most of this money might just go into big pockets and not to the locals,” says Tiprasa. “A lot of projects are launched in the region, but few bring actual benefit.”
He adds that many interventions fail because they do not account for local realities.
“The projects do not always consider the local challenges, so not all solutions help improve their conditions.”
Despite scepticism, some residents see promise in the project’s stated focus on community participation.
“We have always lived with this lake,” says Santo Reang, a local resident. “But no one asked us how to manage it.”
“This time, if they involve us properly, things can change,” adds Niranjan Debbarma, a fisher cooperative member. “We understand this lake better than anyone.”
The GEF noted that the GBFF recently developed one of the most stringent and progressive guidelines to ensure that Tribal Peoples and local communities are in the driver’s seat when designing and implementing every project and will act as bona fide partners in identifying priorities and implementing the project.
A Fragile Turning Point
For decades, Dumboor’s indigenous communities have adjusted to realities imposed from the outside – shifting from land to water and from stable agriculture to precarious fishing.
Now, with a new GEF-backed project on the horizon, change is possible – one that could finally recognise both the lake’s ecological importance and the people who depend on it.
But in Dumboor, hope is never uncomplicated.
For those who have lost land once before, the question is not just whether change will come but whether it will finally include them.
Note: 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