The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
SYDNEY, Sep 21 2026 (IPS) - The UN General Assembly will soon vote – most likely favourably – on Bangladesh’s request to postpone the country’s graduation from the UN’s Least Developed Country (LDC) category, currently scheduled for November this year. The request for a 3-year extension was endorsed by the ECOSOC following the recommendation of the UN’s Committee for Development Policy (CDP). It is highly likely that the extension will also be justifiably granted to Nepal and Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao, PDR) – the two other countries scheduled to graduate with Bangladesh, given the fast deteriorating global economic situation and recent natural disaster in Nepal. In fact, the same argument for an extension may be admissible to all prospective graduating countries, such as Solomon Islands (2027), Cambodia (2029) and Senegal (2029).
Anis Chowdhury
The background
The United Nations established the LDC category in 1971 for low-income countries facing severe structural barriers to sustainable development and to direct special international support toward them such as preferential market access, financial aid, and technical cooperation. The idea of a special category for low-income, structurally weak countries originated in the first session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in 1964.
Since the creation of the LDC category, the UN organised five international conferences, the first being in 1981, to draw up comprehensive ten-year frameworks for supports with specific goals. The current programme is the Doha Programme of Action (DPOA) for the Decade 2022–2031, preceded by the Istanbul Programme of Action (IPOA) for the Decade 2011–2020.
The decision to establish a separate LDC category was undoubtedly commendable. The global consensus around the comprehensive action programmes also reflected the goodwill of the international community.
However, none of the programmes could reduce the vulnerability of LDCs. The number of LDCs steadily increased from the 1971 list of 25 countries, reaching a peak of 51 countries in 2003. The number now stands at 46, still nearly double that of the original list. Only 9 countries exited the list – one, Sikkim, through India’s annexation in 1975.
Although the inclusion of newly independent countries partly explains the lengthening of the LDC list, one cannot avoid the judgement of an overall failure of the international community’s good-intentioned programmes. This is especially so in light of the development successes of countries which did not join the group despite their eligibility.
The Reckoning
The failure became staggering by the time the international community met in Istanbul in 2011. After four decades since the special LDC category was created, only three countries – Botswana, Cabo Verde and Maldives – exited the group. Furthermore, the post-graduation experience has been disappointing.
For example, life-expectancy in Botswana, the first country to exit the LDC group, declined from 61.6 years in 1988 to 50.08 years in 2003, while it remains one of the most unequal countries in the world, holding the 9th highest income Gini coefficient globally. Botswana, although hailed for macroeconomic stability, failed to transform structurally with the share of manufacturing hovering below 6% of GDP, and it remains extremely vulnerable to fluctuations in international commodity markets, especially diamond. Thus, growth has declined significantly since the mid-2000s and the unemployment rate has increased to very high levels, around 26%.
Therefore, the core goals and targets of the IPOA included:
• Enable half of all LDCs to achieve graduation status by 2020.• Attain sustained, equitable, and inclusive economic growth of at least 7% annually.
• Strengthen education, health, and nutrition.
• Build productive bases and diversify economies to generate decent jobs, especially for youth
Unfortunately, only 6 countries – Maldives, Samoa, Equatorial Guinea, Vanuatu, Bhutan and São Tomé and Príncipe graduated – during 2011-2024, and 3 countries – Bangladesh, Nepal and Lao PDR – became eligible to graduate this year. Again, the experience is not very encouraging for the graduated countries, while the fear of graduation has gripped the countries soon to graduate.
In 2021, UNCTAD concluded that 50 years of LDC experience is “sobering”. It found that half of the LDCs fell behind the rest of the world in terms of per capita income and other dimensions of development. Hence, the economic gap between these countries and the rest of the world has widened over the last 50 years.
Rejecting “LDC insult”
Zimbabwe, a land-locked country, rejected the UN’s recommendation to be classified as a LDC in 2006 despite facing severe economic hardships. Zimbabwe viewed the UN recommendation “to be downgraded to LDC status” as an insult, while the neighbouring land-locked Zambia was among the first group of countries classified as an LDC in 1971.
When Zimbabwe’s per capita GDP plunged to USD341 in 2008, resource-rich Zambia’s per capita GDP was around USD1,376. Today, after more than half a century as an LDC, the per capita GDP of Zambia, one of the world’s leading producers of copper, cobalt, and semi-precious gemstones like emeralds, is around USD1,318, while Zimbabwe’s per capita GDP recovered within a decade to around USD3,445 in 2017.
Vietnam, coming out of a quarter century long devasting war in 1975, facing the challenge of unifying the country during the worst global economic situation with a paltry per capita income of around USD85, chose not to join the LDC group. Instead of aid dependence, it opted for the trade and investment route to development. Today, its per capita GDP is approximately USD5,066, while Bangladesh which joined the LDC group in 1975 with a per capita income of around USD230 could manage to raise its per capita GDP to approximately USD2,960.
The Republic of Korea (ROK), one of the poorest countries of the world in the 1960s, could also join the LDC group in 1971 when it was created; but it did not. Maintaining its policy independence and choosing the trade and investment route, ROK has become a full-fledged developed country in 1996 (member of OECD) within three decades. It managed to increase its per capita GDP from USD158 in 1960 to USD36,227 in 2025.
What may have gone wrong?
UNCTAD attributed the “sobering” experience to the LDCs’ inability to exploit international support measures (ISMs) strategically to develop their productive capacity. Others offered different reasons such as failure to understand the complex development process and appreciate the dangers associated with increased integration of structurally weak economies to the rapidly changing global economic system.
Add to these, complicity. Countries joining the group took ISMs as guaranteed; they did not take serious steps to mobilise domestic resources, diversify their economies and expand markets. Take the case of Bangladesh, a country regarded as the best utiliser of ISMs.
Bangladesh’s tax-GDP ratio is dismally low, experiencing a decline from a peak of around 10% to around 7%. Its ready-made garment (RMG) sector’s dominance increased from around 67% of export earnings in 2018 when the country first met the graduation criteria to around 85% by 2025 while it should have been declining as the graduation deadline was approaching.
Bangladesh has also failed to diversify its export markets away from the EU and the USA, accounting for close to 80% of RMG exports. It does not have any meaningful trade agreement with any country or trading bloc, while Vietnam has 17 bilateral FTA and is a member of Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership as well as Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the world’s largest free trade agreement, covering roughly 30% of global GDP.
Ironically, the sector that propelled Bangladesh’s industrialisation, made the country more vulnerable. Worst, too big to ignore, the RMG sector has captured Bangladesh’s political and policy space. The CDP’s recommendation in favour of Bangladesh’s extension request has been made subject to the country’s commitment to reforms. However, political will for reforms may waver when the state is captured by a dominant sector.
Curse or Boon?
Thus, what was supposed to be a boon, for many LDCs, the category has become a curse, trapping them in a perpetual state of underdevelopment and vulnerability. It fits the narrative of William Easterly’s The White Man’s Burden; unfortunately, the international community may feel burdened and grant an extension to the “fearful” LDCs even when its “good-intentioned” efforts have produced so little good.
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. E-mail: anis.z.chowdhury@gmail.com; a.chowdhury@westernsydney.edu
IPS UN Bureau
LONDON, Sep 21 2026 (IPS) - Sudan’s civil war grinds on. It’s close to three and a half years since the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia began their battle for supremacy, and the two forces and their allies continue to slaughter civilians with impunity. As a recent UN report makes clear, the killing is enabled by numerous foreign powers that continue to supply weapons, personnel and logistical support. They have made a civil conflict their proxy war, and their self-interest is sustaining the killing.
Drone warfare
Things are relatively quiet in the capital, Khartoum, where the curfew was recently lifted following its recapture by the SAF last year, but the RSF still controls significant areas, with fighting concentrated in the Darfur and Kordofan regions to the west and Blue Nile state in the southeast.
Both sides now extensively use drones to kill civilians. In February, a suspected RSF drone strike on an aid convoy in South Kordofan killed three humanitarian workers and wounded four more. In May, a suspected SAF drone strike on a crowded market in Ghubaysh, an RSF-controlled town in West Kordofan, killed 28 people as they shopped for food. In August, another likely SAF strike on a court session in an RSF-controlled village killed 35 people.
The RSF are attacking El Obeid, a city of around half a million people in North Kordofan. RSF drones have hit hospitals and schools. People fear a repeat of what happened when the RSF took the city of El Fasher last October. The UN’s Fact-Finding Mission concluded that the ensuing massacre, in which the RSF killed at least 60,000 people, bore the ‘hallmarks of genocide’, with ethnically targeted killings and widespread sexual violence.
Humanitarian and civic space emergency
The war has caused the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. Over 11 million people have been forcibly displaced within Sudan or to surrounding countries, and around 20 million are experiencing acute food insecurity.
There’s a great need for the help civil society offers, but it’s hard for humanitarian organisations to provide aid because of security dangers and access and movement restrictions. The Sudanese government is also attacking the ability of civil society organisations to operate. In February, authorities revoked the licences of four organisations with missions to provide aid, help victims and promote peace.
Journalists, particularly women journalists, are under attack, making it harder to tell the truth about what’s happening on the ground. In January, the Sudanese Journalists Syndicate recorded that 14 journalists and other media workers had been killed in 2025. In December 2025, it was reported that 40 per cent of women journalists had experienced sexual assault, physical violence, harassment or threats.
Foreign powers behind the war
Sudan’s people can expect little help from the deadlocked UN Security Council. In August, the US government proposed a resolution to expand an arms embargo that currently applies to Darfur to the whole country, explicitly including drones. The Sudanese government condemned the proposal and Russia rejected it, which, given its veto power as a permanent member, means the resolution won’t advance further unless significantly watered down.
Russia initially sold weapons to both the RSF and SAF but more recently has swung behind the SAF, becoming a major arms supplier in return for gold and a potential Red Sea naval base. It’s joined by several other states with a direct stake in the conflict. The UN’s Fact-Finding Mission has set out how the SAF are using foreign-supplied drones while transnational networks are keeping the RSF supplied.
Alongside Russia, states that supply arms or other military support to the SAF, or have done so at some point since the war began, include Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Turkey and Ukraine. Those that have backed the RSF in various ways include the Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan, Uganda and, most notoriously, the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Weapons originating from countries including Canada, China, Israel and the UK have also been used. In most cases, states deny involvement.
There’s ample evidence that the UAE extensively supplies the RSF with mercenaries and weapons via African transit routes, in return for gold and in the hope of securing a regional foothold. The UAE funded Colombian mercenaries who played an active role alongside the RSF in the slaughter in El Fasher. It was recently revealed that individuals and entities linked to the RSF’s leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, have acquired properties worth over US$24 million in Dubai, likely paid for with smuggled gold.
The UAE’s reliance on states that border Sudan to allow its convoys to cross brings the risk of conflict spillovers, as seen in alleged SAF airstrikes on a military convoy in Chad in August.
Push for accountability
A new initiative to hold foreign figures accountable offers some hope for justice. In June, the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and a group of civil society organisations made a legal submission to the International Criminal Court (ICC), asking it to investigate several foreign officials for aiding and abetting crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes in Sudan. The submission provided evidence of the involvement of the governments of Egypt, Iran, Turkey and the UAE.
The ICC has an ongoing investigation into the situation in Darfur, scene of a 2003-2005 genocide. It has confirmed that human rights crimes committed during the current war fall under its jurisdiction as part of this investigation, and in June it announced it had ‘concrete evidence’ linking RSF leaders to atrocities in El Fasher.
It’s vital that leaders responsible for human rights crimes face justice, and this must include the leaders of the countries waging a proxy war. If there is to be peace and justice, the impunity of the foreign powers that are sustaining the war must be challenged.
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
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 21 2026 (IPS) - When Yasser Arafat was denied a US visa for his second visit to New York to address the United Nations back in 1988, the General Assembly defied the United States by temporarily moving the UN’s highest policy making body to Geneva– perhaps for the first time in UN history– providing a less-hostile political environment and a platform, for the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Arafat, who first addressed the UN in 1974, took a swipe at Washington when he prefaced his statement in Geneva by remarking: “it never occurred to me that my second meeting with this honorable Assembly, since 1974, would take place in the hospitable city of Geneva”.
The US last week denied visas to the Palestinian delegation, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, who was due to address the General Assembly on September 24. The delegates were also denied visas last year.
In the official list of speakers released last week, Abbas has been designated “Head of State” (HS) of the “State of Palestine”.
The U.S. State Department, criticized Abbas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) for pursuing the “unilateral recognition of a conjectural Palestinian state” through international bodies rather than negotiated bilateral talks.
As a rebuff to the US, the General Assembly voted overwhelmingly last week to allow President Abbas and other high-level Palestinian officials to participate and address the annual gathering of world leaders via video outsmarting the US– electronically.
The resolution was adopted with a 152-3 vote (with four countries abstaining). This decision directly addresses the decision by the United States to deny entry visas to the high-level Palestinian delegation—including Abbas—marking the second consecutive year the delegation has been barred from attending the UN high level meeting of world pollical leaders.
The resolution was opposed only by the United States, Israel, and Paraguay, with Colombia, Honduras, Panama, and Peru abstaining.
So far, the UN expects about 73 Heads of State, 45 Heads of Government, 49 Ministers, 11 Vice-Presidents and one Crown Prince to address the General Assembly through September 28.
Alongside the mandated meetings, there are about 168 events that are scheduled during the high-level week, and a of last week, Member States have submitted about 1,000 requests for bilateral meetings amongst themselves.
The bilateral meetings with the Secretary-General are also in the process of being scheduled.
The UN has also issued 1,935 press passes for visiting journalists and an additional 1,290 press passes for official media.
Dr. Stephen Zunes, a Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, where he serves as coordinator of the program in Middle Eastern Studies, told Inter Press Service (IPS) under the 1947 US-UN Headquarters agreement, the United States is obliged to allow foreign leaders to address the General Assembly.
“That’s why previous administrations allowed even the likes of Muammar Qaddafi, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Idi Amin, Suharto, and other nasty characters to visit”.
(According to one definition, “ruthless autocrats” are political leaders who hold absolute power and use severe oppression, violence, and censorship to maintain control. Throughout history, these dictators have suppressed political opposition, eliminated civil liberties, and caused massive human suffering.)
Now, however, the Trump administration is banning representatives of the government of Palestine–a permanent non-member state of the United Nations–from coming to New York despite their recognizing Israel, renouncing terrorism , and calling for peace, said Dr Zunes.
And there have been no objections, he said, from Democratic leaders in the US Congress. The problem, therefore, is not that the State of Palestine is a brutal dictatorship or violating international legal norms–the United States has no problems with that.
“The problem is that they are Palestinians. This is bigotry, pure and simple,“ he said.
The General Assembly could have relocated to Geneva, as they did in 1988. However, concerns about the costs and the carbon footprint, combined with access to modern communications technologies, have led them to allow the Palestinian leadership to Zoom in, said Dr Zunes..
While going to Geneva would have been a more powerful statement, the support by such an overwhelming majority of the world’s nations can still be seen as a rebuke of Washington’s continued opposition to Palestine’s right to exist, declared Dr Zunes.
Mouin Rabbani, Managing Editor, Jadaliyya, an independent ezine produced by the Arab Studies Institute, told IPS the United States has once again demonstrated itself to be unfit to play the role of host nation of the United Nations. It considers the Host Country Agreement as something to be honoured on a voluntary basis rather than a series of binding obligations.
The US government considers it perfectly normal to behave like a gangster state and openly violate its obligations by refusing entry to foreign delegates on the most specious of pretexts, he pointed out.
This is not a matter of the Trump administration. Nearly four decades ago, its predecessor, the Reagan administration, also refused entry to a Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat.
What is particularly noteworthy on this occasion, he said, is that the US government is explicitly identifying the Palestinian recourse to the ICJ and ICC as legitimate grounds to refuse the participation of the Palestinian leader in the GA.
“This is the conduct of one gangster state acting on behalf of another (Israel), and demonstrates in the clearest manner possible that the US cannot and should not be entrusted with hosting the UN HQ”.
The Palestinians should of course be demanding that the GA conduct its session outside the US. The problem is that they are led by the exceptionally weak-kneed Mahmoud Abbas, who seems to continue to believe that absorbing these outrageous violations without confronting them forcefully will earn him brownie points with Trump and Netanyahu, which of course they won’t, declared Rabbani.
Meanwhile, responding to questions from journalists, UN Spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, said last week the Secretary-General deeply regrets the announcement by the United States extending sanctions that would deny visas to members of the Palestine Liberation Organization and officials of the Palestinian Authority to participate in meetings of the United Nations.
“The Secretary-General is concerned about the impact of this decision on the ability of the State of Palestine to participate fully in the work of the United Nations. The full participation of all delegations in the work of the Organization is essential to its proper functioning”.
The Secretary-General takes note of the arrangements adopted yesterday by the General Assembly for the participation of the State of Palestine in the eighty-first session.
The Secretary-General urges the host country to ensure that visas are issued to all delegations in accordance with its obligations under the Headquarters Agreement and will continue to engage with the United States authorities to this end,.
Meanwhile, key details of the General Assembly decision include the following:
• Scope of Virtual Access: The approved measure not only permits President Abbas to deliver his address virtually but also extends video-participation rights to any senior Palestinian officials for any UN meetings or conferences over the next year if they remain blocked from traveling to the U.S.• The U.S. Stance: The Trump administration extended existing visa sanctions, citing security concerns and accusing the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) of failing to comply with legal commitments and attempting to “internationalize” the conflict through global tribunals.
• On-the-Ground Representation: While the high-level traveling delegation was barred, Palestinian diplomats who are already permanently accredited to the UN in New York will continue to represent them.
IPS UN Bureau Report
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 18 2026 (IPS) - Urbanization can help concentrate jobs, services, and investments; however, it can also concentrate unaffordable housing, insecure employment, and unequal exposure to contamination and environmental threats. A recent report from the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, argues that the difference is not urbanization itself, but how cities are planned, governed, and financed.
Elena Díaz Galán’s report, Cities and Poverty, issued earlier in July and examines social exclusion and the structural drivers of poverty in cities. In it, Galán looks at how land use, housing infrastructure, public services, and participation can either exacerbate or mitigate poverty.
In an exclusive interview with Inter Press Service, Anacláudia Rossbach, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN-Habitat, highlighted how the report’s findings closely align with UN-Habitat’s priorities, particularly in how “the central challenge lies not in urbanization itself, but in addressing the inequalities, deprivations and climate risks that accompany it, which affect people differently based on factors such as gender, age, or socio-economic status.”
UN-Habitat’s World Cities Report 2026: The Global Housing Crisis – Pathways to Action paints a bleak picture of the global housing crisis. Worldwide, at least 3.4 billion people lack access to adequate housing, with 1.1 billion people living in slums or informal settlements. As informal settlements become home to a significant and growing share of the world’s urban population, Rossbach emphasized how “informal settlements hold significant potential to contribute to more inclusive and sustainable urban development”. Informal settlements are often characterized by inadequate housing, limited access to basic services, infrastructure deficits, and insecure tenure; however, “they provide housing, livelihoods, social networks, and opportunities for millions of urban residents.”
Addressing Galán’s point in her report that urbanization has the power to reduce poverty or deepen inequality, Rossbach shared how UN-Habitat’s Strategic Plan 2026-2029 focuses on housing, land, and basic services as the foundation for sustainable development.
“We work to ensure that urbanization contributes to improving living conditions and increasing access to adequate housing, while preventing the deepening of existing inequalities and vulnerabilities, particularly for women and other groups that face multiple and overlapping forms of exclusion,” said Rossbach.
The Cities and Poverty report illustrated how poverty and inequality appear in spatial patterns. For example, low-income individuals are often pushed into more outlying and environmentally hazardous areas, leaving them vulnerable and lacking access to services, jobs, schools, and healthcare. Examples within the report illustrated how informal settlements in Dandora and Korogocho, located near Nairobi’s main landfill, are exposed to toxic environments, including polluted air and groundwater. Cycles of poverty often reinforce themselves in informal settlements. For example, in the peri-urban areas of Woldia, Ethiopia, due to the lack of formal water, sanitation, and electricity networks, the price of water can be up to 1,645 percent more than the price paid by those with private water pipes. These examples and additional costs illustrate the unequal cost of urban life. Showing how people who have the fewest resources are often times forced to pay more for lower-quality essential goods and services.
Building off of these points, Rossbach told IPS how UN-Habitat considers participatory in-situ upgrading as the most effective approach for improving living conditions in informal settlements. Instead of focusing on the eradication of settlements, policy responses should build on the social, economic, and environmental potential in these settlements and support their progressive improvement.
As informal settlements house a growing share of the world’s urban population, they hold potential for contributing to more inclusive, sustainable urban planning. Credit: Nikko Balanial/Unsplash
Successful interventions engage residents along all phases, from design, implementation, and maintenance, to ensure that local priorities, needs, and context-based solutions are taken into account. Most importantly, successful interventions require coordinated responses to integrate informal settlements into the wider urban fabric.
“When combined with broader housing policies and planning reforms, participatory in-situ upgrading can contribute to more inclusive, sustainable, and equitable urban development outcomes,” Rossbach said.
The Cities and Poverty report discussed urbanization through the lens of the processes that lead to it and the impact on human rights. Two urbanization models were included, the first of which is the “15-minute city”. The 15-minute city is an inclusive vision of urban development which seeks to ensure that all residents have access within a short walk or bicycle ride to essential daily services and opportunities. Examples include Shanghai’s Anshan Xincun 15-minute community life circles, which have shown increased mobility in the aging population, helping to make more equitable and inclusive cities.
However, greater accessibility within these 15-minute cities can also lead to gentrification. “When neighbourhoods become more attractive and better connected, land values and housing costs can rise, potentially displacing existing residents,” said Rossbach. In order to protect existing residents and ensure that these changes do not lead to displacement or exclusion, Rossbach proposed three principles for protection:
1. Proximity-based planning should help reduce spatial inequalities, not reinforce them.2. Neighborhood improvements need to go hand in hand with measures to protect housing affordability and tenure security.
3. The communities and residents need to be involved at all levels and should have a meaningful role in deciding what is developed and how.
“The success of a 15-minute city should not be measured only by how quickly people can reach services, but by whether existing residents can continue to live in their communities and benefit from the improvements around them,” said Rossbach.
The second urbanization model discussed was ‘smart cities’. Smart cities utilize digital technologies, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence to improve upon the management and delivery of urban services. However, the report also warns that digitization and smart cities can reinforce existing inequalities and create a sense of double vulnerability where material poverty combines with exclusion from devices, connectivity, and digital skills.
Rossbach discussed how UN-Habitat promotes a “people-centered smart cities approach that puts people and their needs, rather than technology, at the center.” In particular, services and digital services need to be designed to address the realities of low-income neighborhoods and informal settlements, many of which lack affordable connectivity, devices, digital skills, and formal addresses. Most importantly, Rossbach said, “digitization should close existing inequalities, not reinforce them.”
UN-Habitat is working to close these existing inequalities through programs such as the United Nations Innovation Technology Accelerator for Cities (UNITAC). It developed the Building and Establishment Automated Mapper (BEAM), which helps cities better understand informal settlements and fast-growing urban areas by rapidly mapping buildings from aerial imagery. BEAM provides municipalities with better information to plan infrastructure, target upgrading programmes, and improve basic services.
Nonetheless, data itself does not ensure or create more equitable cities. The Cities and Poverty report emphasized how developing human rights indicators are essential, and so are inputting monitoring tools to evaluate the efficiency of government policies and action. Rossbach added that “inclusive digital transformation is about making people visible — both in data and in decision-making”.
Rossbach and Galán, through her report, have called for urban planning that puts human rights at the center. This means promoting affordable housing in well-connected areas, secure tenure, universal basic services, and more equitable investments across neighborhoods. Implementation needs to be people-centered and measured by whether existing residents can remain in their communities and share in the benefits.
IPS UN Bureau Report
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Sep 18 2026 (IPS) - Migrants now send home more money than foreign aid, and this is pulling rural families out of poverty, according to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
A new report, Sending Money Home, released this week, asserts that remittances have become the world’s largest and most resilient source of household finance during overlapping economic, environmental and geopolitical shocks.
“Those who receive remittances become more resilient in the end, but what we have seen and is most staggering is that remittances continue to dwarf any flow back to low- and middle-income countries,” said Pedro de Vasconcelos, manager of the IFAD Financing Facility for Remittances (FFR) and lead author of the report.
“What we have seen is that both Official Development Assistance (ODA) and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) combined add to a figure less than what migrants do in sending small amounts on a regular basis back home,” De Vasconcelos said in response to a question from IPS.
Pedro de Vasconcelos, manager of the IFAD Financing Facility for Remittances (FFR) and lead author of the report, Sending Money Home. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS
“What is striking, and more importantly, any crisis that is thrown at it, migrants are the first responders because we are talking about their families; they are the first ones to support in addressing hardships and realities of the family back home.”
De Vasconcelos noted that remittances were a tremendous contribution hidden in plain sight at global proportions because families in low- and middle-income countries will receive approximately US$3.6 trillion between 2026 and 2030.
According to the OECD, overseas development aid from the world’s richest nations to poorer countries fell by 23.1% in 2025 to $174.3 billion, while the World Bank indicates that FDI flows to developing economies reached approximately $877 billion to $901 billion in 2025, and net inflows of about $379 billion specifically for low- and middle-income countries were recorded.
According to the report, remittances into the low- and middle-income countries have since 2016 increased by 94%, outpacing both population growth and emigration, as an estimated 220 million migrants and diaspora members support 1.1 billion relatives, meaning roughly one in six people worldwide are connected through remittances.
Remittances: From coping to resilience. Credit: IFAD
Bigger and Growing
The report shows that remittance inflows rose from US$375.6 billion in 2016 to US$728.6 billion in 2025, with five countries receiving nearly half of all remittances. India received the most at US$150.7 billion, followed by Mexico with US$64.4 billion, the Philippines with US$41.6 billion, Egypt with US$41.5 billion and Pakistan with US$40.5 billion.
Nigel Brett, Director, Sustainable Production, Markets and Institutions Division (PMI) at IFAD, highlighted that ten years ago the average remittance amount was $200 sent on a regular basis. That figure has increased not only in frequency but also in amounts to between $400 and $450 on the global average.
“Migrants are much more aware of the daily lives of their families, and remittances remain a lifeline,” he said, observing that fees for sending money on average were still high at 6.4%, which was far from the SDG target of 3%.
“While digitalisation has made a big impact, more has to be done to reduce the cost of remittance fees,” Brett said, noting that the high fees have been influenced by other factors such as the lack of greater competition, technology, foreign exchange margins and infrastructure around payments.
Securing Food, Health Care and Coping with Climate Change
Studies by IFAD have shown that about $22 billion has been invested in agrifood systems in rural areas, suggesting that when offered the opportunity, remittance families will invest in livelihoods, said Brett.
“What is needed is more data, making it crucial for governments to better understand the realities of remittance recipients to understand the impact in rural areas,” Brett said.
Noting that remittances strengthen households’ capacity to absorb shocks by helping them to cope and recover, emerging research shows that remittances can finance short-term adaptation measures and contribute to longer-term resilience, particularly when combined with access to financial services, markets and infrastructure, as well as supportive public policies, the IFAD report said.
For example, in Senegal, 73 per cent of remittance-receiving households adopted an agricultural risk-management strategy, compared with 22 per cent of households without remittances. Recipients were also nearly twice as likely to save, strengthening their ability to manage losses without resorting to more damaging coping strategies.
In Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia and Ghana, remittances have helped households prepare for and withstand climate shocks. In the Western Sahel and northern Kenya, they have supported investment in drought-resistant seeds, small-scale irrigation and, in Burkina Faso, wider adoption of soil and water conservation techniques.
IFAD is an international financial institution exclusively focused on transforming rural economies and the lives of rural people.
President of IFAD, Alvaro Lario, in a statement said as remittances help families meet their basic needs, they are also building financial growth and resilience to shocks. He noted that the potential benefits of remittances are “greatest when families have access to affordable and trusted financial services, together with the knowledge, freedom and appropriate options to use their resources according to their own needs and aspirations”.
Recommendations to Reduce Costs and Expand Financial Access
The report recommended that government and development sectors should create conditions for remittances and diaspora investment to advance sustainable development.
“The question on the importance of remittances in comparison with ODA is that in terms of volume, the answer is yes, remittances are four times larger than ODA, but they are no substitutes, as they serve an entirely different purpose,” he said. “Remittances are private money sent by migrants to support families, and ODA is public money financing public goods such as roads and markets that families cannot finance on their own. We need both, and while very different, they can reinforce and complement each other.”
Furthermore, the report recommends the building of enabling and inclusive markets, modernisation of proportionate regulation and strengthening of connectivity, agent networks and cash-out liquidity so that digitalisation does not exclude families who still depend on cash.
While the private sector was urged to deliver affordable, inclusive and resilient services for migrants, families and diaspora investors, it was also called upon to ensure that these services are affordable, transparent and trusted. In addition, the private sector should also partner with governments, development organisations and civil society to provide accessible financial and digital education for migrants and remittance recipients while offering insurance, savings, credit, and investment mechanisms tailored to rural remittance-recipient households and their enterprises, helping them prepare for, respond to, and recover from climate-related shocks.
Key findings:
Asia and the Pacific remains the centre of the global remittance economy, receiving US$384.9 billion, or 53 per cent of the total covered by the 10-year report. Latin America and the Caribbean recorded the fastest growth; remittances to the region increased by 132 per cent over the decade, reaching US$168.6 billion. Remittance inflows to Africa rose by 86 per cent, to US$124.2 billion. In 23 countries, remittances represent more than 10 per cent of gross domestic product. In nine countries, remittance inflows exceed the total value of exports of goods and services.IPS UN Bureau Report
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 18 2026 (IPS) - When a child is diagnosed with cancer, their chances of survival should not depend on where they live, yet according to the WHO, more than 80 percent of children with cancer in high-income countries are cured, compared with fewer than 30 percent in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
The key gap lies in access to available medicines. In East Africa, hospitals report frequent stockouts of essential chemotherapy agents, with shortages affecting 32–49 percent of critical medicines such as methotrexate and etoposide. Survival therefore depends less on the discovery of new therapies and more on whether children are able to access and complete uninterrupted treatment.
“No child should be denied a chance of survival because the medicines they need are unavailable, unaffordable, or out of reach,” affirmed Dr Carlos Rodriguez-Galindo, Executive Vice President of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
In efforts to combat this issue and in honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, the World Health Organization (WHO) and its collaborators at the Global Platform for Access to Childhood Cancer Medicines published a new strategy report with a roadmap to strengthen the global market and improve the circulation of childhood cancer medicines in many LMICs.
Each year, an estimated 400,000 children develop cancer. Unlike many adult cancers, childhood cancer is generally not preventable. As a result, the most effective strategy for improving outcomes is to ensure that children receive a prompt and accurate diagnosis, followed by effective, evidence-based treatment and tailored supportive care.
The report highlighted many key barriers LMICs face when implementing this strategy. First, the supply of essential childhood cancer medicines is unreliable and depends on a small number of manufacturers, especially for medicines that meet international quality standards.
Secondly, LMICs often buy small amounts of cancer medicines, making supply less reliable and prices higher due to perceived low demand. Limited government funding and poor planning can also lead to shortages. Cancer medicines may take years to become available in LMICs because of slow approval processes. There is little investment in medicines designed specifically for children, especially for low-resource settings. This is partly because childhood cancer affects fewer people, making it a smaller market for companies.
“Persistent market challenges continue to affect access for children, and it is critical that we continue to work together to enhance the reliability and affordability of childhood cancer medicines,” said Dr. Kennedy Lishimpi, Permanent Secretary for Technical Services, Ministry of Health, Zambia.
Most types of childhood cancer can be cured with widely available generic medicines and other forms of treatment, including surgery and radiotherapy. Yet children in LMICs often face significant barriers to accessing these lifesaving interventions. Lower survival rates are driven by delays in diagnosis, difficulties obtaining an accurate diagnosis, limited access to appropriate therapy, treatment abandonment, death from treatment-related toxicity, and avoidable relapse.
Improving access to childhood cancer care, including essential medicines and technologies, has the potential to improve survival across all income settings.
The report also mentions how cost of treatment was another big barrier to care. In some cases, More than 70 percent of children being treated for leukaemia stop or do not complete their cancer treatment due to financial reasons.
The Global Platform prioritized a set of ten interventions in the report that will be implemented over 2026-2030. These included working more closely with medicine companies, increasing the number of reliable suppliers, speeding up medicine approval, improving planning and purchasing, and strengthening access to affordable, quality-assured childhood cancer medicines. The interventions also focused on supporting research, improving price information, including these medicines in national health coverage, and encouraging the development of new treatments.
“Rather than focusing only on individual products or prices, market shaping interventions aim to strengthen overall market health by improving the conditions required for sustainable access,” the report states.
In practice, this could look like integrating childhood cancer medications into national health benefit packages. For example, in 2024, Nepal declared free treatment for children with cancer at public health facilities.
“Where the price is more friendly, there are plenty of suppliers; that’s sort of the goal we’re trying to reach,” said Rongrong Liu, program manager from St. Jude’s global operations.
Additionally, the report also mentions that voluntary licensing could play an important role in improving access to new childhood cancer medicines in LMICs by allowing other quality-assured manufacturers to produce medicines that are still protected by patents. This could increase the number of suppliers, improve competition, lower prices, and help medicines reach LMICs sooner, reducing delays caused by high costs or dependence on a single manufacturer. The Global Platform plans to work with companies that own these medicines to negotiate licensing agreements for priority medicines. These agreements would allow selected manufacturers to produce and supply the medicines in LMICs under agreed conditions.
“At the beginning, we have focused only on clinical forecast, but in reality there are a lot of logistical parameters that we need to consider,” said Alessio Mola, pharmacist at WHO, emphasizing the importance of the proposed market strategies.
The newly launched roadmap provides good guidance on strengthening child cancer medicine markets and supply systems and is an essential step toward closing the survival gap and ensuring that where a child is born does not determine whether they survive cancer.
IPS UN Bureau Report
NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 18 2026 (IPS) - For the young women I met through Global Give Back Circle’s HER Lab in Kenya, displacement was not the end of ambition. It had interrupted school, separated families from stability, and narrowed the choices available to them. But it had not erased their hopes. What they wanted was not pity. They wanted skills, work, confidence and the chance to rebuild their lives with dignity.
Linda Latsko Lockhart
Their stories point to what migration debates often miss: displacement is not only about movement, but also about whether people can rebuild their lives in safety and dignity. If work and opportunity do not exist locally, the question is not only how to manage migration. It is how to create opportunity in their host country.
Kevine and Monica’s experiences reflected a wider reality. UNHCR recorded 117.8 million people forcibly displaced worldwide in 2025. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre reported 83.4 million people living in internal displacement across 117 countries and territories in 2024.
This is where Africa’s local experience matters, not as a continent people are simply leaving, but as one already hosting many of its own displaced people. African migration remains predominantly regional. The African Union and the International Organisation for Migration reported that 20.8 million people had moved between African countries. They also found that 86% of refugees and asylum seekers from African countries were hosted within Africa, compared with 9.6% in Europe.
This should reset the debate. Most African refugees and displaced people are already hosted within the continent. The challenge is not simply whether Europe or the United States should receive more people, but whether African host countries have the systems, resources and investment to help refugees rebuild locally. When opportunity exists, onward migration becomes less about desperation and more about choice.
This is not an argument against migration or the right to seek asylum. Migration can benefit individuals, communities and economies. But forced movement should not be the only route to dignity. Refugees need recognised skills, training, routes into work and confidence that their futures are not on hold. That means investing in education, accredited training, entrepreneurship, financial inclusion and community acceptance, so refugees can contribute to host economies.
The kind of local capacity needed is not abstract. In Kenya, Global Give Back Circle’s HER Lab, delivered in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, shows what this can look like in practice. Across Kajiado and West Pokot counties, HER Lab supports 32 young refugee women: 19 in Kajiado from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and 13 in West Pokot from South Sudan, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. They are receiving training in fields ranging from coding and electrical installation to fashion, food production, cosmetology and agriculture. The HER Lab model combines market-aligned skills, mentorship, confidence-building, financial inclusion and pathways into employment or enterprise.
HER Lab reflects a broader shift. Through its $300 million partnership with UNHCR, the Mastercard Foundation is supporting half a million young refugees and displaced people across Africa to complete their education and enter dignified work.
In Dadaab, Dadaab Refugee Voices is applying the ILO’s Rural Employment Services model to connect refugees and host communities with job registration, guidance, matching, skills support and digital training. Already, 6,189 jobseekers have registered and received support, showing how local systems can move people towards work and self-reliance.
During and after the 12-month HER Lab programme, young women are building businesses in poultry, beauty, beadwork, retail and regenerative farming, while others are gaining skills in plumbing, agribusiness, digital literacy and electrical work. Through the HER Financial Freedom Programme, hundreds of previously unbanked rural women have gained access to savings and credit in addition to membership in a women-operated tea production cooperative. These are local routes to dignity, income and self-reliance.
That is why local capacity is central to the future of migration policy. Without the resources to educate, train and economically include refugees, displacement will continue to drive onward migration. With support for local initiatives and building inclusive systems, host countries can address some of the pressures that force people to move.
The policy response is clear. Governments, donors, development finance institutions, philanthropies and the private sector should back efforts that are locally rooted, measurable and designed for scale. Western governments, in particular, have a role beyond deterrence or crisis response. Investing in African countries and locally led initiatives can expand education, skills, livelihoods and financial inclusion for refugees and host populations alike. It can also turn migration partnerships into a shared effort to reduce forced movement.
The strongest migration policy is not one that pretends movement can simply be stopped. It is one that gives people real choices before movement becomes unavoidable. Africa is showing what inclusion can look like when opportunity is built locally.
The world should not look away. It should invest in helping that approach scale.
Linda Latsko Lockhart is the Founder and CEO of Global Give Back Circle, a serial social entrepreneur focused on the empowerment of women and girls in Africa and beyond. Named to Forbes “50 Over 50: Impact List”, she brings over 25 years of global leadership designing scalable, gender-based financial independence models. Through her organisation, Lockhart helps marginalised women and girls gain education, financial tools, and lasting economic resilience.
IPS UN Bureau
Excerpt:
Without the resources to educate, train and economically include refugees, displacement will continue to drive onward migration