The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, Aug 17 2026 (IPS) - After moving more than 6,000 km across Eurasia, the Silk Road Caravan has reached Mongolia with stories from pastoralists whose livelihoods are increasingly threatened by drought, degraded land and shrinking access to grazing areas.
Since leaving Türkiye in May, the thud of horse hooves has echoed through landscapes in the Russian Federation, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and China. Along the way, its riders met pastoralists adapting to a harsher climate and deteriorating rangelands. Now their experiences have converged in Ulaanbaatar, where the caravan’s final leg coincides with the opening of COP17 of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. Governments, scientists, financial institutions, businesses and civil society have gathered there to address the pressures on the world’s drylands.
The journey has brought an old question into the spotlight: can global efforts to restore rangelands succeed without the knowledge of the people who have managed them for generations?
Delegates in traditional attire gather at the UNCCD COP17 venue in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, on Aug. 17, 2026, as the conference brings together pastoralists, Indigenous representatives and policymakers to discuss land degradation, drought and rangeland restoration. Credit: UN photo
For centuries, caravans travelling the ancient Silk Road carried goods, ideas and cultures between distant civilisations. This one has carried stories of communities trying to keep up their land productive and their livelihoods intact as drought and degradation spread across drylands from Eurasia to Africa.
Its arrival on the eve of COP17 highlights the conference’s challenge of turning commitments to land restoration into action on the ground.
Land Degradation
Land degradation and drought cost the global economy USD 900 billion annually and affect 40% of the world’s land and 3.2 billion people. Droughts have increased by almost one-third since 2000 and generate at least USD 300 billion in annual losses, according to UN data.
For Tanzania’s pastoralist communities, Neema Seki, an Indigenous women and youth advocate connected to the Pastoralist Women’s Council, urged world leaders in Ulaanbaatar to guarantee land security for pastoral communities.
“The most rapidly changing aspect is access to land. This by implication affects everything else in pastoral livelihoods. Without land tenure security, livestock health is impacted, mobility is affected, and family food security is affected,” she told IPS.
Her warning is central to the COP17 debate as land degradation increasingly threatens pastoralist women’s rights, livelihoods and mobility.
“In a pastoralist setting, women play a significant role that is oftentimes not stated. If livestock health deteriorates, women are mostly responsible for feeding them, bringing water from far distances to water the ailing or weak livestock,” Seki said.
She added that restrictions on pastoral livelihoods can also create a gendered burden that national climate and conservation policies rarely capture.
“Another aspect is a reality that when the pastoral livelihoods are dismantled by restrictions on access to resources, women oftentimes remain in the land to suffer while men are able to go into cities to look for work while women remain with children at home.”
Mongolian ceremonial guards stand beside the national flag during the opening of UNCCD COP17 in Ulaanbaatar on Aug. 17, 2026. The conference is focused on accelerating global action on land restoration and drought resilience. Credit: UN photo
That experience is echoed thousands of kilometres away in Niger, where Abarchi Harouna, a pastoralist leader with the association Nodde Nooto and co-chair of the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists for West and Central Africa, argues that mobility itself is an environmental management tool.
“Mobility is essential to pastoralism because it allows livestock keepers to search for water, pasture and salt wherever they are available,” Harouna told IPS.
For nomadic pastoralists such as Tanzania’s Maasai, restricting traditional migration corridors directly affects livelihoods.
“When governments restrict access to traditional routes and water points, nomadic pastoralists are deprived of pasture, water and salt,” he said.
“This can lead to a pastoral crisis, with significant livestock deaths and even conflicts between farmers and herders.”
Relevance in Mongolia
Similar pressures are evident in Mongolia, where pastoralism is key to the economy, yet nearly 77 percent of the country’s land suffers from degradation. Rangelands cover about 70 percent of its territory and support the livelihoods of roughly one-third of the population, leaving pastoral communities exposed to climate shocks.
Rangelands cover 54% of the Earth’s land surface, support about 2 billion people and provide nearly 70% of global livestock feed and one-sixth of the world’s food. Yet up to half are degraded, particularly in dry regions facing mounting climate pressures.
Harouna challenges a persistent narrative that pastoralism itself is responsible for land degradation.
“Livestock keepers are never responsible for land degradation. This narrative is incorrect. Livestock mobility ensures the health of pastures.”
He points instead to the ecological functions performed by mobile herds.
“Animals carry the seeds of grasses and woody plants from one place to another, thereby enriching biological diversity.”
Manure, he said, fertilises soils, while trampling can loosen compacted ground.
“The knowledge of livestock keepers helps governments and all stakeholders restore degraded land and improve resilience to climate change.
For Seki, a similar knowledge system exists in Tanzania but is increasingly undermined by government policies.
“One of the greatest traditional knowledge practices by pastoralists which is being wrongly discouraged by government policies is pastoral mobility,” she said.
The implications extend to a younger generation that, despite the pressures, has not necessarily abandoned pastoralism.
“Young pastoralists still see pastoralism as the best livelihood system. They are, however, daily confronting the ugliness caused by state-restrictive policies and the climate crisis,” Seki said.
The Economics of Waiting
COP17 organisers are seeking to frame restoration not just as an environmental obligation but also as an economic investment.
The conference estimates that about USD 355 billion is needed every year to combat land degradation and drought, compared with the current investment of roughly USD 77 billion. That leaves an annual financing gap of USD 278 billion.
The private sector currently contributes only around six percent of global finance for land restoration and drought resilience.
Closing that gap will be central to the negotiations.
The conference will explore ways of reducing investment risks and encouraging businesses, financial institutions and governments to finance regenerative landscapes. An initiative linked to the COP has recorded commitments of more than USD 9 billion across more than 210 million hectares.
The argument for investment is strengthened by the potential returns: every dollar invested in drought resilience can generate returns of up to USD 10, while some nature-based solutions can generate benefits many times their cost.
UNCCD Executive Secretary Yasmine Fouad has described the challenge bluntly: “The world does not lack solutions; the challenge is taking them to scale.”
From Commitments to Measurable Results
Mongolia’s Prime Minister N. Uchral has called for a shift “from talk to action, from targets to implementation, and from commitments to measurable results”.
The conference comes at a time when multilateral cooperation faces pressure and the world’s environmental crises grow increasingly interconnected. Land degradation affects food production. Drought intensifies water insecurity. Loss of vegetation contributes to biodiversity decline. Livelihood losses can drive migration and deepen competition over scarce resources.
As the first of the three Rio Convention COPs being held in 2026, COP17 offers an opportunity to connect land policy with negotiations on biodiversity and climate change later in the year.
It is also taking place during the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, giving pastoral communities a prominent place in the global policy calendar.
Seki argues that women and young people should be recognised as custodians of knowledge and resources.
“Women and young people play a great role in the pastoral system. This role extends to forest stewardship and resource management.”
Yet, she said, traditional knowledge often gets sidelined.
“Both women and young people are discouraged by state policies and conservation policies from using traditional knowledge for ecology and nature sustainability.”
COP17’s agenda includes a proposed policy framework on rangelands and pastoralists and the launch of a Rangelands Flagship Initiative aimed at attracting long-term investment into sustainable rangeland management and pastoral livelihoods.
For Harouna, restrictions on livestock mobility potentially affect agriculture, pastoral production and the environment. He warns that declining soil fertility could trigger dismal crop yields, while degraded grazing areas could foster invasive pests, consequently affecting livestock and reducing milk and meat supplies.
Exchange of Knowledge
The Silk Road Caravan’s final journey across Mongolia will take participants from the Gobi Desert to the country’s central forests and grasslands. They are expected to meet nomadic herder families, researchers, local authorities and pastoral cooperatives and visit restoration projects.
The challenge for delegates is to ensure the caravan’s lessons continue beyond the conference.
For dryland communities in Tanzania, Niger and Mongolia, restoration can determine whether livestock survive, families remain on their land, food production continues and ecosystems endure.
As the conference opens under the theme “Restoring Land. Restoring Hope”, its success may depend on whether the afflicted communities living on vulnerable landscapes receive the space, resources and recognition they need to restore and manage them.
IPS UN Bureau Report
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 17 2026 (IPS) - Women-led and women’s rights organizations (WLOs) in humanitarian settings are collapsing amidst a complicated predicament in which needs are surging and international support is dwindling.
These organizations are often the first responders in humanitarian and conflict settings, providing psychosocial and gender-based violence (GBV) support; however, 84 percent of WLOs surveyed report that women and girls in the communities they serve have reduced access to essential services, according to UN Women’s July 2026 Beyond the Breaking Point report.
The report surveyed 855 WLOs operating across 52 crisis- and conflict-affected countries and found that as women and girls face heightened risks and increased need for assistance, services and support have dwindled significantly. Nine in ten organizations say they cannot meet the current levels of need, and two in five expect to shut down either temporarily or permanently within the next year.
Galit Wolfensohn, UN Women’s Humanitarian Research and Knowledge Management Specialist
Beyond the Breaking Point builds off UN Women’s alarm first raised in their 2025 report, At a Breaking Point. In it, they warned that half of WLOs surveyed in crisis zones risked closure within six months if current funding levels persisted. Fifteen months later, the situation remains the same. When asked what the warning in ‘At a Breaking Point’ generated from donors, Galit Wolfensohn, UN Women’s Humanitarian Research and Knowledge Management Specialist, told Inter Press Service it brought “greater recognition among donor governments and humanitarian partners of the severe consequences that funding reductions were having.” She added that the response has “not matched the scale or urgency of the crisis…the latest findings show that recognition alone is not enough.”
When examining the collapse of WLOs, Sudan offers an illuminating case to understand the on-the-ground impacts of the reduction of services. Over three years of conflict in Sudan have driven GBV needs to unprecedented levels, with the number of girls and women requiring GBV services quadrupling since the conflict began. However, two-thirds of WLOs in Sudan reported having to close or significantly reduce services, and half expect to close entirely within the next year without urgent financial support.
Salvator Nkurunziza, UN Women’s Representative in Sudan
As WLOs across Sudan have had to either close or scale back operations, Nkurunziza explained that “women and girls lose access not only to critical support but also to safe spaces that provide protection, psychosocial assistance, information, and a sense of security.” WLOs act as trusted entry points for survivors of GBV seeking help, and when these services disappear and become harder to access, survivors “may be less able or willing to seek assistance.” When services disappear, it creates a vicious cycle that “can result in prolonged exposure to violence, increased psychosocial distress, and heightened protection risks,” including greater reliance on “negative coping mechanisms, like child marriage and other harmful practices.”
“What we are observing is likely only the surface, as the absence of quality services is deterring those in need from seeking help,” Fabrizia Falcione, UNFPA’s Representative in Sudan, said on help-seeking behaviors in GBV survivors. In El Obeid, UNFPA estimates that 55,712 women and girls are at an increased risk of GBV as of August.
Fabrizia Falcione, UNFPA’s Representative in Sudan
Despite the operational and financial challenges, he remarked that many Sudanese WLOs “have demonstrated remarkable resilience and adaptability”. Organizations have “continued to provide services by reprioritizing activities, mobilizing community-based volunteers, utilizing remote modalities where feasible, and strengthening partnerships with other local actors to share resources and referral networks.” However, Nkurunziza was clear that these adaptive approaches “are not a substitute for sustained financial support.”
On a global scale, Wolfensohn outlined the changes that need to happen within the next six months to reverse the course of what was documented in the reports. “Donors must protect and increase funding for WLOs by providing direct, flexible, predictable and multi-year financing,” she said.
At the same time, Wolfensohn emphasized that funding alone is not sufficient: “women’s organizations must be recognized as essential humanitarian partners through meaningful participation and leadership in humanitarian coordination and decision-making.”
Reversing the current trajectory requires a type of accountability that does not yet exist: “measurable commitments, clear funding targets and greater transparency on how much humanitarian financing reaches local women-led organizations directly,” Wolfensohn said. Without decisive action, WLOs will be forced to scale back or close services globally.
“Reversing this trend is not only about sustaining organizations; it is about safeguarding access to protection services, GBV prevention and response, livelihoods support, and other critical assistance relied upon by women and girls in crisis settings,” Wolfensohn remarked.
In the weeks since Beyond the Breaking Point was published, Wolfensohn discussed the impact the report has had in increasing conversations between donors, governments, and humanitarian organizations. “The discussions generated by the report are helping to reinforce broader humanitarian reform agendas focused on localization, equitable partnerships and the meaningful participation of affected communities,” Wolfensohn said. However, she stopped short of claiming progress at the scale required to reverse the trends documented in the course, but “it should serve as a catalyst for action.”
UN organizations are already working in collaboration to close the funding gaps WLOs face in Sudan. According to Falcione, the approach is not only about advocacy, but also about working with WLOs “as genuine partners in the response.” Agencies like UNFPA and UN Women “support local and grassroots organizations in capacity development, institutional strengthening, leadership, and empowerment.” Falcione underscored the importance of strengthening the partnership, as WLOs “are not simply beneficiaries or implementing partners, they are essential actors in the humanitarian response.”
Over the course of fifteen months, UN Women’s reports have painted a picture from warning to confirming what happens when WLOs disappear. In Wolfensohn’s own framing, what comes next depends on measurement and follow-through. This requires donors publicly tracking what funds reach WLOs, and commitment to multi-year flexible financing. Recognition alone will not solve the problem, and supporting WLOs is the difference between a third report that documents reversals of these trends or repeats the same warnings.
IPS UN Bureau
LONDON, Aug 17 2026 (IPS) - In a recent Wall Street Journal piece, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio pledged to ‘dismantle’ the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Trump administration intends to pressure states into quitting the court, threatening sanctions, travel bans, visa restrictions and ‘increased scrutiny’ of states that receive its funding. At stake is the court’s ability to stand with victims of the gravest of human rights crimes.
Challenging impunity
Established in 2002 following years of civil society advocacy, the ICC prosecutes atrocities, including crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes, when national or regional courts can’t or won’t. It prosecutes individuals, and national leaders enjoy no immunity. It has secured several convictions, including of warlords from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali and Rwanda. Among ongoing cases, former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte awaits trial on crimes against humanity charges. Civil society plays a key role in collecting evidence. Filipino women-led groups, for example, have documented thousands of extrajudicial killings.
The court has 125 members, but the USA is among several powerful states, including China, India, Israel and Russia, that have never joined. US hostility intensified in 2020, when the ICC opened an investigation into crimes against humanity and war crimes in Afghanistan, including those committed by US forces.
A current US campaign could merit the court’s attention. In the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, the US military is bombing boats it claims are being used by drug cartels to smuggle fentanyl and other illicit substances. It started the strikes as a way of building pressure on then Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, but has continued after US forces invaded Venezuela and abducted him, now seemingly with the purpose of communicating US strength and contempt for international rules.
US forces have killed over 200 people. All are civilians, leaving little doubt the strikes are illegal under international law. Last October, a group of UN human rights experts concluded that the strikes amount to extrajudicial executions. UN human rights chief Volker Türk called for an investigation, saying he believed the campaign violated international law. The USA responded by lining up with Israel, North Korea and Russia to oppose Türk’s second term.
The victims include nationals of Colombia, St Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago, all ICC members. The ICC could investigate any strikes carried out in member states’ territorial waters or against vessels registered with them.
Defending Netanyahu
Donald Trump is also determined to defend his prize ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He’s said as much, undermining Rubio’s lofty rhetoric about sovereignty. In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for crimes against humanity and war crimes against Netanyahu, former defence minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas commander Mohammed Deif, later confirmed to have been killed by Israel. Israel doesn’t recognise the court, but the warrants stand because Palestine does.
Netanyahu’s warrant is back in the headlines because he’s due to visit New York for the annual high-level opening of the UN General Assembly in September. Mayor Zohran Mamdani has called for his arrest, but the Trump administration has confirmed it will ignore the warrant. This may have fuelled the latest offensive, which goes further than the Trump administration’s 2025 decision to impose sanctions on nine ICC judges and officials. Early in his second presidency, Trump issued an executive order that declared a ‘national emergency’, arguing the court was a threat to the USA and Israel, and pledging sanctions against anyone who takes part in its investigations. The order was used to impose sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Fearing criminalisation, US-based organisations may feel pressured to end cooperation with the ICC. Last year, two US-based civil society organisations pulled out of the ICC’s annual meeting. Civil society is however fighting back. In July, two US groups filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, arguing the sanctions violate constitutional free speech protections.
International system under attack
The Trump administration’s attack on the ICC is part of its broader assault on the international system, and particularly its human rights functions. It’s withdrawing from some bodies, defunding others, trying to bend others to its will, forming alternatives it controls, such as the Board of Peace, and showing outright hostility towards those seen to stand in its way.
The USA isn’t the only one. Three military-run Sahel allies – Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger – have begun their withdrawal from the ICC, a process that takes a year. They previously quit the Economic Community of West African States, including its Community Court of Justice, leaving victims of human rights atrocities amid jihadist insurgency with no international routes to justice.
Venezuela set the same course under Maduro. Last December, parliament voted to repeal the law ratifying the Rome Statute, the treaty through which states accept the court’s jurisdiction. That path hasn’t changed under US-compliant Interim President Delcy Rodriguez, whose government recently declared its withdrawal ‘irrevocable’. The US government has welcomed the decision, which will deny justice both to victims of Maduro’s repression and the families of Venezuelans killed in boat strikes.
Others have rallied to the court’s defence. A European Union spokesperson said the bloc ‘stands firm’ behind it. Hungary, which under right-wing nationalist Viktor Orbán had committed to pulling out, reversed that decision under its new government.
Time to rally round
The court faces this onslaught while leaderless. On 24 July, member states voted to remove chief prosecutor Karim Khan following disciplinary proceedings triggered by a sexual abuse complaint from a former staff member. It’s vital that his replacement be a strong and independent leader who can continue the court’s work.
The ICC is under attack by the Trump administration because of its promise to hold the powerful to account. Its member states must defend the principle that no one is above the law by refusing to bow to US pressure.
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
CAMBRIDGE, MA, USA / KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Aug 17 2026 (IPS) - As AGRA turns 20, a new report exposes its worsening failure to double productivity and incomes and halve undernourishment in participating African nations as promised.
AGRA still failing Africa’s farmers
The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, now known simply as AGRA, was established in 2006.
Timothy A. Wise
After considerable evidence of failure became apparent, it abandoned its original ambitious goals in 2022, adopting AGRA 3.0, focusing on food systems and policy reforms.
It also ‘rebranded’ by changing its name to AGRA, removing its explicit association with the much criticised Green Revolution. Wise’s 2020 assessment of AGRA up to 2018 found progress on its own declared goals quite modest and uneven.
Wise’s latest review finds even slower productivity growth and worsening hunger under AGRA compared to before 2006. Its improved seeds and fertilizer promotion did not even achieve sustainable intensification, i.e., growing much more food on the same land.
Dubious progress
Increased food production and sales were supposed to reduce rural poverty and food insecurity.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
High-yielding seeds and related agrochemicals were not widely adopted by most smallholders except when heavily subsidised.
But subsidies have encouraged planting favoured crops on new farmland. Modest yield growth often failed to cover the costs of more expensive inputs, leaving farmers in debt.
Meanwhile, cultivation and yields of millet, a nutritious climate-resilient staple, has declined over the last two decades.
Instead of halving the number of hungry, undernourishment has risen by 58% in participating countries since 2006. Tragically, the number of hungry in the 13 AGRA countries nearly doubled over the last six years!
AGRA unmonitored
The African Union was induced to support AGRA by encouraging more government investments in food agriculture. In 2006, it launched the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP).
Despite generous Green Revolution subsidies in Malawi, hunger continues to rise. Credit: Timothy A. Wise
CAADP called for dramatically raising government spending on agriculture to 10% of government budgets. However, most governments failed to provide the required funding.
But many governments, particularly in AGRA countries, have spent large shares of their scarce public resources on agriculture. Many have invested in Green Revolution programmes.
Despite setting similar productivity, income, and hunger objectives, by 2025, no country met CAADP’s targets according to its rigorous biennial progress reports using more benchmarks.
High-yielding seeds and related agrochemicals were not widely adopted by most smallholders except when heavily subsidised.
AGRA’s main initiatives, involving input markets and industrial farming, are too costly for most small-scale farmers, benefiting wealthier farmers more.
For Wise, the poor outcomes are not solely or even primarily due to AGRA. Instead, he blames the Green Revolution approach, previously strongly supported by private foundations and now by the World Bank Group.
In contrast, Senegal, not one of the AGRA 13, has succeeded in halving hunger, with more diversified policies supporting a wider range of crops and farming methods.
What failure?
AGRA has never reported actual progress against its original goals of doubling productivity and incomes while halving hunger for 30 million farming households.
With fewer measurable goals, progress reports now focus on the number of commercial seeds produced, private financing generated, and enterprises launched.
Instead, AGRA claimed, “we directly reached 11 million farmers and indirectly reached 26 million farmers. This achievement significantly outstripped our initial targets to reach 30 million smallholder households.”
‘Reaching’ 37 million farmers, mostly ‘indirectly’, says little about its actual impacts on farmers. Unsurprisingly, most donors have cut support for AGRA.
Now, AGRA is influencing national and continent-wide policymaking to accelerate agricultural commercialisation. Its new focus on food systems and policies shifts attention as its website now makes little mention of productivity or small-scale farmers.
Whither AGRA?
Yield growth has been slow and uneven, mainly for a few food crops prioritised by AGRA. Those modest yield gains often did not cover the costs of expensive inputs, leaving many farmers in debt.
Increased food production and sales were supposed to reduce rural poverty and hunger. Instead, malnutrition has risen in most AGRA countries, as dietary diversity has declined with crop diversity.
Asia’s Green Revolution offered far more support to farmers than Africa’s, although its achievements have been more mixed than typically claimed. Africa’s Green Revolution has offered much less, mainly improved commercial seeds.
AGRA still denies the failure of its earlier policies. Instead, it now pays lip service to low-input approaches including agroecology.
In 2025, AGRA president Agnes Kalibata acknowledged, as she stepped down from her post, “Part of why [AGRA] rebranded was that the Green Revolution ship has sailed. We can’t continue pursuing what’s not working for others.”
After twenty years, AGRA should take heed of that advice.
The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa will release its report, drawing on Wise’s research, on August 24.
IPS UN Bureau
Aug 14 2026 (IPS) -  :
CIVICUS discusses the challenges posed by Paraguay’s ‘anti-NGO law’ with Hugo González, executive director of the Paraguayan Network of LGBTQ+ Artists (REPAR+), a civil society organisation (CSO) that promotes the rights of LGBTQI+ people, which has joined the constitutional challenge against this law.
Hugo González
What are the problems with Law 7363?
The law was enacted in November 2024, and its regulations came into force in October 2025. It applies to CSOs that receive or manage private or public funds from national or international sources and use those funds to influence public policy or state activities. The regulatory decree defines influence broadly, including reports, press releases and other forms of public expression.
The law establishes a public register administered by the Ministry of Economy and Finance and requires balance sheets, minutes, supporting documents and annual reports on programmes, beneficiaries, professionals, staff and affiliated entities. It also prohibits reference to donor confidentiality to circumvent these controls and provides for sanctions ranging from a formal warning to suspension and deregistration.
Civil society doesn’t oppose transparency. We were already complying with civil, labour, tax and anti-money laundering obligations, so this law was unnecessary. We call it the ‘big stick law’ because it duplicates controls, uses broad definitions and turns public advocacy into a risk factor that triggers extraordinary scrutiny for punitive purposes.
In what political context was the law passed?
The bill was passed thanks to the majority held by the ruling Colorado Party. The process moved forward against a backdrop of stigmatisation of CSOs, human rights activists and journalists, and coincided with the work of a congressional committee that framed CSO funding within a narrative centred on money laundering.
The law also reflected the convergence between parts of the ruling coalition and conservative religious networks. Among its main proponents were legislators such as Gustavo Leite and Lizarella Valiente, who have also participated in activities and initiatives linked to evangelical organisations. While this doesn’t prove that these organisations drafted or funded the law, it does highlight an asymmetry in access and scrutiny between groups that influence public policy.
The law treats different groups that influence the same policies very differently. It imposes extensive controls on CSOs but expressly exempts churches and religious groups.
What impact is the new law having?
The impact began even before the first sanctions were imposed. Ever since the Ministry of Economy and Finance launched the registration portal, CSOs have had to devote time, money and staff to complying with the new accounting, administrative and legal requirements. For small organisations or those run by volunteers, this means that a large proportion of their resources is no longer being channelled into activities, assistance, research or support services.
Uncertainty is also a factor. Although sanctions are not yet being applied on a large scale, the law is having a deterrent effect. Donors, organisations and supporters fear the consequences of getting involved or advocating for causes.
The obligation to provide detailed information on beneficiaries and supporters poses privacy risks, particularly in small communities and among vulnerable groups. The safety of these people depends on who has access to the information, for what purpose and with what effective safeguards.
What obstacles do LGBTQI+ organisations face, and how does the new law exacerbate them?
In Paraguay, gender and diversity organisations operate in a context of structural discrimination, characterised by hate speech, exclusion from education and the labour market, barriers to accessing healthcare and difficulties in reporting violence. Added to this is the lack of a comprehensive anti-discrimination law, legal recognition for same-sex couples and accessible administrative procedures for the recognition of gender identity. All this leaves LGBTQI+ people in a particularly vulnerable situation.
Law 7363 exacerbates these difficulties, as it imposes broad and unclear requirements on CSOs that defend these rights. REPAR+’s artistic activities can be regarded as advocacy, culture and support all at once. The vagueness of the law, combined with discretionary powers and the threat of suspension, makes it impossible to predict how these activities will be classified, and could stifle critical voices before any sanction is imposed.
How has civil society mobilised to challenge the law at the Supreme Court?
The response has combined dialogue, international appeals, litigation and technical analysis. Since December, CSOs working on community development, culture, the environment and human rights, as well as rural communities, have filed constitutional challenges against the law and its implementing decree. REPAR+ has joined the effort because we believe freedoms of association and expression are essential for organisations that support LGBTQI+ people, denounce discrimination and engage in public policy.
We hope that the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court will examine these challenges independently and urgently, in the light of the Constitution, the American Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. A favourable ruling would directly protect the organisations bringing the challenges and establish an important precedent. We don’t seek to be exempt from accountability. We seek to prevent a regulatory process from becoming a form of political surveillance, exposing vulnerable people or serving as punishment for dissent.
What action is needed in and outside Paraguay to reverse these restrictions?
Within Paraguay, the court must rule urgently and prevent irreparable harm while it considers the merits of the case. However, a lasting solution requires Congress and the executive to repeal or comprehensively modify the law, through a pluralistic consultation process. Any regulation should be precise, avoid duplicate registrations and protect beneficiaries, donors, victims and workers. Intrusive requests should be subject to independent scrutiny and sanctions should be limited to what is strictly necessary and proportionate. These criteria should apply equally to anyone who manages public funds or influences policy, including religious organisations.
The international community could continue to monitor the situation at the United Nations, particularly through the Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review process, and at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. It can also take action through embassies and cooperation agencies. Donors should offer flexible support to cover accounting, legal, security and technological costs, rather than withdrawing out of fear of the new regime.
Paraguay also needs a comprehensive anti-discrimination law, effective recognition of gender identity and protection for human rights defenders and journalists.
We are not asking for external guardianship or privileges. We are calling for democratic solidarity to preserve a space where people can organise, question and propose ideas. Transparency should strengthen democracy, not expose vulnerable people or turn criticism of those in power into a cause for suspicion.
CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.
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UNITED NATIONS, Aug 14 2026 (IPS) - Pakistan, one of few South Asian countries to oscillate between democratic governments and authoritarian regimes, is cracking down on journalists, including foreign correspondents covering the political situation in the world’s fifth most populous nation, with an estimated population of over 250 million people and ranking behind India, China, the United States, and Indonesia.
According to one report, Pakistan is technically under a nominal civilian coalition government led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, but political analysts and experts describe the actual state as being under “constitutional militarism” or deep military dominance, with the military establishment holding sweeping authority
The government’s crackdown of journalists has triggered criticisms from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders and the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists.
Beh Lih Yih, CPJ’s Asia-Pacific regional director told Inter Press Service (IPS): Pakistan is tarnishing its own international reputation by restricting journalists from reporting from large parts of the country.
“The latest attempt to censor media coverage highlights the deteriorating situation of press freedom in the country, which remains one of the most dangerous places for journalists, with high numbers of media killings and enforced disappearances”.
“Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government must withdraw the restrictive measures and immediately stop targeting journalists, whether through detention or questioning. Pakistan must uphold its constitutional and international obligations to protect press freedom if it wants to be taken seriously as a democracy.”
According to the New York Times August 10, the government has imposed new restrictions that require all journalists working for foreign news media to seek permission to travel outside Pakistan’s three major cities.
The rules come after a surge of news media, covering elections in the Pakistan-administered part of Kashmir, a disputed region where protesters have been campaigning since early June for more political autonomy.
The Times said reporters in Pakistan have in recent years faced increased censorship and financial pressure, including frozen bank accounts and the suspension of government advertising , forced removal, arbitrary arrests and imprisonment, according to journalists and human rights groups.
In August 2026, UNESCO did not issue a specific statement or direct criticism regarding Pakistan’s latest media restrictions. Instead, a major pushback against Pakistan’s newly enacted Foreign Media Facilitation Guidelines 2026 came from press freedom organizations like the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), and Amnesty International.
Meanwhile, the New York based Committee to Protect Journalists has called on Pakistani authorities to withdraw draconian new guidelines requiring journalists working for international media outlets to obtain authorization before reporting outside Islamabad, Karachi, or Lahore, in a move likely to censor coverage of unrest in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
The guidelines, reviewed by CPJ, require international and Pakistani journalists who contribute to foreign media organizations, including social media and web-based platforms, to obtain a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the information ministry for “official assignments, especially for work outside Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi.”
“The Foreign Media Facilitation Guidelines open the door for Pakistani authorities to further restrict international media coverage, prevent journalists from reporting freely outside Pakistan’s three main cities, and risk exposing them to administrative retaliation,” said CPJ Afghanistan and Pakistan Representative Waliullah Rahmani. “These guidelines mark yet another appalling blow to press freedom in Pakistan, where journalists are already facing an intense crackdown, particularly those reporting on unrest in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.”
The five-page guidelines were introduced days after the government criticized international reporting on elections and protests in Kashmir and accused Al Jazeera of engaging in “yellow journalism,” a term for sensational reporting. Access to Al Jazeera’s website has been restricted.
Authorities can suspend or revoke journalists’ accreditation or media outlets’ for “acts against the ideology, sovereignty, security or public order of Pakistan,” the guidelines say.
Authorities have banned coverage of protests demanding electoral reform in Kashmir, after international outlets reported on police brutality during clashes with demonstrators, and suspended mobile and internet services. International media say that at least 40 people died ahead of the vote, which began on July 27, according to CPJ.
CPJ said the information ministry did not respond to emailed request for comment.
IPS UN Bureau Report
NAIROBI, Aug 13 2026 (IPS) - Women’s rights advocates, judges and lawyers have launched a coordinated campaign to reform family laws that discriminate against women and girls in Africa.
While the past decade has brought important legal advances in some countries, progress has also been marked by stagnation and backsliding. Increasingly, influential and often well-resourced and highly coordinated anti-rights actors are promoting regressive conservative ideologies that seek to repeal existing legal protections and obstruct reforms that would strengthen rights for women and girls.
Family law governs some of the most consequential aspects of daily life, including marriage, divorce, child custody, inheritance and property rights. Although national constitutions and regional human rights treaties guarantee many protections for women and girls, those guarantees are often undermined by discriminatory legislation, conflicting customary and statutory laws, and weak implementation.
Deborah Nyokabi, associate manager for economic justice and family law at Equality Now, attends the Africa Family Law Network conference in Nairobi, Kenya. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS
Rights advocates warn that family law has become a key target for coordinated anti-rights campaigns that promote restrictive interpretations of family, gender roles and “traditional values”, because shaping who has rights within the family sets the framework for whose rights are ultimately recognised and protected across society.
“They understand that if you control the family, you control society,” said Irene Mbengue, senior legal officer in the office of the African Commission’s special rapporteur on the rights of women in Africa, in remarks delivered on behalf of Commissioner Janet Ramatoulie Sallah-Njie at the inaugural Africa Family Law Network conference, held in Nairobi, Kenya, from August 4 to 6, 2026.
“If you define who counts as family, who has rights within the family, and who gets to make decisions in the family, you shift the entire social order.”
Anna Mutavati, UN Women regional director for East and Southern Africa, called for stronger regional coordination to counter growing anti-rights movements during the Africa Family Law Network conference. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS
That struggle is playing out in Uganda, where rights advocates say proposed changes to marriage law could leave many divorced women with little claim to the assets built up over years spent raising children, running households and supporting their families.
Jackie Bless Pinyoloya, Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA) Uganda country coordinator, explained that the bill does not guarantee equal division of assets acquired during marriage and leaves women to prove the value of unpaid care work when claiming their share.
Chikwangu Katana, a village elder from Digirikani village in Kilifi County, Kenya, says legal reforms are more likely to succeed when communities understand why long-standing customary practices are changing. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS
“At the point of divorce, a woman is told she only leaves with what she financially contributed… But who counts the years she spent caring for the family?” she said.
Pinyoloya said weak enforcement of existing protections also left women vulnerable, with domestic violence cases often being resolved informally by families or community leaders rather than through courts, while low penalties failed to deter perpetrators.
Equality Now’s 2024 regional study on African family laws in 20 African countries found that this tension over marital assets extends beyond Uganda. In countries including Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania, judicial insistence on proving direct financial contribution routinely penalises homemakers, while courts struggle to place economic value on unpaid care work.
Dr Robert Eno, registrar of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, speaks during the Africa Family Law Network Conference. Credit: AFLN/IPS
The study also found that many countries retain unequal inheritance and property laws, permit child marriage through legal exceptions, do not criminalise marital rape, and continue to recognise customary and religious laws that discriminate against women and girls.
Rehema Namukose, senior regional programme officer for sub-Saharan Africa at Musawah, a global movement for equality and justice in Muslim family laws, highlighted how phrases such as “family values” often raised questions about whose interests and definitions they represented.
“When they throw around these words, you have to also ask yourself, what is the measure of what family is? How are they defining words like family? Values?” she said.
Rehema Namukose, senior regional programme officer for sub-Saharan Africa at Musawah, says competing definitions of “family values” are increasingly shaping debates over family law reform across Africa. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS
For rights advocates, the argument is not only over individual laws but also over who gets to define the family those laws are meant to protect.
“Family values mean that the only type of family anti-rights actors believe should exist is a heteronormative, nuclear, patriarchal family consisting of a man, a woman and children,” remarked Deborah Nyokabi, Associate Manager for Economic Justice and Family Law at Equality Now.
Nyokabi added that those arguments were being used to justify restrictions on women’s reproductive autonomy, divorce, inheritance and property rights, while excluding sexual minorities from legal recognition.
Jackie Bless Pinyoloya, Uganda country coordinator at the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA), says proposed changes to Uganda’s marriage law could weaken women’s rights to marital property after divorce. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS
Those speaking at the Africa Family Law Network’s conference made clear that defending existing legal gains will require stronger regional coordination, strategic litigation and sustained advocacy.
Anna Mutavati, Regional Director, UN Women, East and Southern Africa, spoke about taking the initiative to set the agenda, explaining, “We should not be playing catch-up, nor should we be playing defence.”
Mutavati urged advocates to coordinate across countries to counter increasingly organised anti-rights movements, and she highlighted the need to “…keep pushing for more rights and expansion of rights rather than just safeguarding what we have,” as defending past legal gains is no longer enough. The greater challenge now, she added, was ensuring that legal protections reached the women they were intended to protect.
Dr Robert Eno, registrar of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, described how many of Africa’s strongest legal protections for women and children had yet to translate into everyday life, with constitutional guarantees and regional treaties often failing to change what happens inside families.
“Important reforms exist in constitutional provisions, statutes and regional commitments,” Eno said. “Yet, in many communities, the distance between law and lived reality remains significant.”
He pointed to the African Court’s landmark judgment against Mali, which rejected the government’s argument that customary or religious law could override its obligations under the Maputo Protocol. The ruling affirmed that marriage requires the free consent of both spouses and that equality within the family cannot be separated from equality before the law.
Members of the Africa Family Law Network gather during the inaugural conference in Nairobi, Kenya, on August 4, 2026. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS
But court judgments alone could not dismantle entrenched discrimination, Lady Justice Mumbi Ngugi, a judge of Kenya’s Court of Appeal, told IPS News.
“The law has advanced considerably. Jurisprudence is pro-women’s rights and pro-children’s rights. Implementation is a problem,” she stated.
Many women, particularly in rural communities, either did not know those rights existed or could not afford to enforce them, she said, adding that constitutional guarantees meant little if women could not access the courts or exercise the rights they already had.
Chikwangu Katana, a village elder from Digirikani sub-location in Kenya’s Kilifi County, said many families continued to resolve family disputes through customary systems.
“People have to understand why things are changing. If they don’t understand, they won’t accept it,” he said.
Nyokabi advised that translating legal protections into everyday life would require governments and civil society to work with religious and traditional leaders while strengthening regional networks, such as the Africa Family Law Network, which enables campaigners to share legal strategies and advocate for more equal family laws that are compatible with African societies.
One such effort is already under way through the East African Law Society’s Family Law Committee. Lawyers from eight countries are documenting common legal challenges, from cross-border child custody disputes and adoption to assisted reproductive technologies, mediation and arbitration, with the aim of developing recommendations for law reform agencies across the region.
Patricia Mundia, who chairs the committee, said the process would also help practitioners develop shared approaches to family law issues that increasingly extend beyond national borders.
Sustaining those efforts, however, will require resources as women’s rights organisations compete for shrinking pools of donor funding.
Rose Buabeng, senior programme officer for resourcing at the African Women’s Development Fund, said funding for women’s rights and feminist activism was becoming increasingly constrained amid a growing backlash, adding that AWDF had adapted its funding processes to respond more quickly to the needs of women’s rights organisations.
IPS UN Bureau Report
Excerpt:
Campaigners say anti-rights movements are increasingly using family law to challenge women's rights to inheritance, property, divorce and child custody.