The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
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.
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 13 2026 (IPS) - Global goods trade reached approximately USD 13.7 trillion in the first half of 2026, up 12.5 percent from the same period in 2025, while services grew 10.5 percent, together adding USD 2 trillion to global trade. While these figures point to continued expansion, much of the increase reflects rising prices rather than stronger trade volumes.
According to UNCTAD’s Division on International Trade and Commodities, disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz have strained energy supplies, increased fuel costs, disrupted maritime logistics, and raised production costs across a wide range of industries. Prices for traded goods rose 3.6 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, accelerating to 5.1 percent in the second quarter. Although merchandise trade continues to expand, UNCTAD’s nowcast, its data and model-driven predictions of global trade over period growth, estimates that trade by value will grow by 4.2 percent in the third quarter of 2026 compared with the same period last year, suggesting that higher prices continue to account for a significant share of trade growth.
This inflation is driven by a roughly 160-day disruption of the Strait of Hormuz, where 25 percent of the seaborne oil trade, 20 percent of global liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), about one-third of global seaborne fertilizer trade, and significant petrochemical supply chains have been almost completely shut off from maritime trade flows. According to the Strait of Hormuz Tracker, roughly 7 ships have transited on August 7, 11.7 percent of traffic compared to normal pre-crisis levels: limiting daily throughput to 1.2 million compared to pre-levels of 10.3 million.
According to Freightos, the cost of a 40-foot equivalent unit (FEU) on a China/East Asia to North America East Coast voyage was roughly USD 9,100 in July, up from USD 4,300 in May. Similarly, on a China/East Asia to North America West Coast voyage it cost USD 7,550 in July, up from USD 2,828 in May.
This drastic price volatility for a FEU reflects the consequences of heightened fuel costs. Both the passages mentioned do not go near the Strait of Hormuz, both thousands of miles away. Yet, the effects of a disruption to the Strait cascade across global shipping. Logistics is the backbone behind every industry, with shipping a FEU becoming more expensive by more than double in multiple passages, the price of the items within those FEU also must rise in price to cover the costs.
The effects are particularly evident in East Asia, the world’s manufacturing hub and the center of the global semiconductor and artificial intelligence (AI) supply chain, where demand for AI infrastructure, digital technologies, and electric mobility continues to accelerate. According to UNCTAD, trade in critical minerals increased 38 percent during the first quarter of 2026 compared with a year earlier, and semiconductor trade rose 25 percent, batteries 15 percent, information and communication technology (ICT) products 14 percent, and electric vehicles 11 percent.
Yet despite being geographically distant from the Strait of Hormuz, semiconductor fabrication facilities in Taiwan and South Korea remain heavily dependent on reliable global shipping networks, affordable energy, and petrochemical inputs. As higher fuel prices increase the cost of transporting components between suppliers and manufacturers, and rising electricity, natural gas, and petrochemical prices raise production costs, the value of these high-tech exports continues to climb—even when the volume of goods traded grows far more slowly.
The Strait of Hormuz disruption demonstrates the interconnectedness of the global maritime system. A constriction in this strategic maritime chokepoint raises oil and LNG prices, increasing transportation and industrial energy costs, heightening manufacturing expenses, and ultimately raising the price of internationally traded goods. Consequently, manufacturers in East Asia, importers in North America, and consumers around the world all experience the effects of a disruption occurring thousands of miles away. As these costs accumulate across increasingly interconnected supply chains, the nominal value of global trade rises, even when underlying trade volumes and real economic output grow much more slowly, illustrating that higher trade values do not necessarily represent stronger economic performance.
IPS UN Bureau Report
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Aug 12 2026 (IPS) - On 19 July, the 47th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution that first brought him to power, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega declared that his country would hold ‘no more elections’ so that the opposition could never again try to ‘seize power’. Just like that, he scrapped a presidential vote that had previously been pushed back to 2027, abandoning even the fiction of democratic legitimacy. The move changes little in practice, since no free vote had been possible for years. But it’s still revealing: a government that controls the army, the courts, the electoral machinery and the police, and will still not risk even a stage-managed ballot, is one that has lost confidence in its people.
Civil society dismantled
The abolition of elections is the political capstone of a longer-term project to eliminate every organised space beyond the ruling family’s control. A constitutional overhaul ratified in January 2025 extended Ortega’s term, elevated his wife, Rosario Murillo, from vice-president to ‘co-president’, and handed the couple control over every branch of the state, with their son, Laureano Ortega Murillo, positioned as monarchical heir apparent. Scrapping elections that had already been emptied of any meaning removes the last formal mechanism through which power in Nicaragua might, however unlikely, have changed hands.
Since 2018, the government has shut down over 5,500 civil society organisations, close to 80 per cent of what existed. Its net has encompassed trade unions, women’s groups, universities, independent media and religious bodies, with the Catholic Church a particular target. The legal profession is the latest victim. In early July, some 2,000 lawyers found their licences to practise revoked overnight, without notice or appeal, effectively leaving many Nicaraguans without legal defence.
The Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua, mandated by the UN Human Rights Council, has concluded that the government has weaponised every arm of the state and its abuses amount to crimes against humanity committed as deliberate policy. It has documented chains of command linking the presidency to local officials, and named 54 officials responsible for the repression.
Repression beyond borders
Persecution has forced over 935,000 people, roughly one in eight Nicaraguans, into exile since mass protests in 2018, which security forces suppressed by killing more than 300 people. But exile offers no safety. A 2025 report by the Group of Human Rights Experts shows the regime runs an extensive transnational intelligence and surveillance network using the army, police, foreign service and informal agents to track critics abroad, monitor their communications and threaten their families back home.
For a growing number, surveillance leads to violence. In June 2025, Roberto Samcam, a retired army major turned prominent critic, was shot dead at his home in Costa Rica by an assassin posing as a delivery driver. He was one of at least four exiled opposition figures killed in Central America since 2022. Many more have survived attempts on their lives.
The regime has also stripped hundreds of critics of their nationality, including 222 political prisoners it expelled to the USA in 2023 and 135 it shipped to Guatemala in 2024, and made changes to the Penal Code to prosecute ‘crimes against the state’ committed abroad.
Aware that international bodies offer a route to accountability, the regime is moving to close it off. Having quit the Organization of American States in 2023, Nicaragua withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council and four other multilateral bodies in 2025. Yet some mechanisms do not need its consent. Two months after the government announced it was quitting, the Human Rights Council renewed the Group of Experts’ mandate for a further two years. An Argentine judge, acting under universal jurisdiction, has issued arrest warrants for Ortega, Murillo and other senior officials. The legal instruments exist, but the will to use them is often missing.
Democratic states have supplied little of that will. The USA does not recognise Ortega’s government, yet in September 2025 the Trump administration terminated Temporary Protected Status for Nicaraguans, asserting that the country was now safe for their return, a claim at odds with UN findings. This left thousands exposed to deportation.
Ortega has meanwhile leaned on autocratic friends, with China now his main source of funding and Russia supplying intelligence and security advice and training.
Long-term pressure needed
Ortega will have watched Venezuela closely. In 2024, Nicolás Maduro allowed the holding of an election he was sure he had won in advance, having stopped the main opposition candidate standing, only to see a little-known substitute become the catalyst for years of pent-up discontent. Scrapping elections spares Ortega that danger, at least in the short term.
Over the long term, pressure for the restoration of democracy will depend on the endurance of Nicaraguan civil society, at home and in exile, and on democratic states being willing to hold the regime to account. Neither can be taken for granted. The movement best able to sustain the fight has been driven abroad, where it also faces persecution, and the government best placed to shelter these exiles is busy sending them back home.
Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Head of Research and Analysis, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report. She is also a Professor of Comparative Politics at Universidad ORT Uruguay.
For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 12 2026 (IPS) - On July 7, the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres presented a report from the Special Rapporteur on the sale, sexual exploitation, and sexual abuse of children, Ai Kihara-Hunt, to the General Assembly, underscoring her goals and priorities for the implementation of protection measures for children worldwide. The report, submitted in coordination with the Human Rights Council, highlights the systemic barriers that leave children increasingly vulnerable to sexual exploitation and abuse, including weak government oversight, limited support and justice services for victims, and worsening protracted crises.
“Given the complexity, hidden and transnational nature of the sale, sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children, the Special Rapporteur believes that robust child protection systems and effective cooperation within each State and across borders are essential to combat the phenomena,” the report reads. “Addressing the sale, sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children requires a human rights-based approach grounded in the best interests of the child and informed by the dignity, agency and resilience of children.”
Drawing largely from contributions by UN member states, international agencies, civil society groups, and humanitarian organizations, the report outlines key mechanisms for cooperation, accountability, and the prevention of human rights violations against children. The report incorporates global perspectives from diverse stakeholders and the lived experiences of survivors, prioritizing protection, recovery, rehabilitation, and access to justice through frameworks that are gender-responsive, disability-inclusive, victim-centered, trauma-informed, and fundamentally grounded in children’s rights.
This follows the sixty-first session of the Human Rights Council on March 10, where former Special Rapporteur Mama Fatima Singhateh warned that emerging digital technologies are revolutionizing how perpetrators commit abuse and rendering online spaces increasingly dangerous for children. Singhateh urged closer cooperation between humanitarian actors, governments, and stakeholders to prevent digital advancements from creating “new pathways” for human rights violations.
Singhateh also issued a child-friendly version of her final report to the Human Rights Council on April 20, emphasizing the importance of accessibility so that children can engage meaningfully in the discussions that affect them most. Moving forward, Kihara-Hunt aims to build upon her predecessors’ work by addressing issues that have not received adequate attention or sustained engagement from the UN. Key priorities include the “complex or rapidly evolving” challenges linked with intersecting global crises and the alarming rise of sexual exploitation across digital contexts.
The Special Rapporteur notes that online spaces allow children to express consent and agreement based on their evolving capacities, which may grow increasingly complex amid the introduction of emerging technologies. The rise of artificial intelligence has been a major concern for humanitarian organizations as these technologies have streamlined the production and dissemination of harmful child material, as well as the collection of unauthorized images and the misuse of personal data.
Additionally, the report highlights how digital technologies—such as social media platforms, messaging applications, and cryptocurrencies—have streamlined recruitment into armed groups and trafficking and exploitation, while simultaneously helping perpetrators evade law enforcement.
“Child sexual exploitation and abuse are driven by a range of factors, including harmful social norms, stigma, gender inequality, power imbalances, poverty, and weaknesses in child protection and support systems,” Afrooz Kaviani Johnson, UNICEF Child Protection Specialist, tells Inter Press Service. “Today, the digital environment is increasingly implicated in these harms. Children face risks such as grooming, coercion, sexual exploitation, and abuse facilitated through digital platforms. Emerging technologies, including generative AI, are also expanding the scale and severity of risks.”
A core pillar of Kihara-Hunt’s mandate is to urge the private sector to adopt stricter safety policies rooted in human rights and children’s privacy—a responsibility that extends across organizations, from employees and volunteers to business partners. The report notes that market incentives and commercialization and profit-driven systems will be monitored in the ways they may or may not be contributing to a harmful environment that facilitates the sexual exploitation of children, particularly online.
“A safety-by-design approach involves assessing and mitigating foreseeable risks that platforms, messaging services, gaming environments or artificial intelligence systems may facilitate the sale of children, child sexual exploitation and abuse, and to actively detect, report and remove child sexual abuse materials,” the report states. “Beyond these responsibilities, the Special Rapporteur intends to examine how business actors can play proactive roles, in collaboration with States and other relevant stakeholders, in prevention, safeguarding, reporting and support for children.”
The report also noted that children residing in areas affected by armed conflict and humanitarian crises face heightened risks of sale and sexual exploitation, leaving them roughly twice as likely to experience rape and sexual assault during childhood compared to the global average. Other related drivers of sexual exploitation include forced displacement, natural disasters, and climate change. In these contexts, humanitarian aid is significantly limited, which often leads to constraints on protection measures and civil society intervention.
“Humanitarian crises such as conflict, displacement, climate-related shocks, and public health emergencies can disrupt the systems that help keep children safe,” said Johnson. “They can increase children’s exposure to risk while reducing access to essential services and support.”
“Poverty and financial hardship can also increase vulnerability, particularly in situations where exploitation involves an exchange of money, goods, or other benefits. Children who are displaced, on the move, living with disabilities, or affected by humanitarian crises often face multiple and overlapping risks.”
Economic instability and inequality also serve as primary drivers of child sexual exploitation. According to the report, children who are “outside the formal protection networks”—such as those experiencing statelessness—frequently are the victims of abuse from adults, peers, and in some instances, even law enforcement officials. Displaced children are similarly vulnerable, often barred from reporting crimes out of fear of detention or deportation. Without official identity documentation to access support services, and frequently separated from family members, stateless and migrant children face reduced adult supervision, which drastically increases vulnerability.
To build on her predecessors’ initiatives, Kihara-Hunt intends to prioritize youth participation and develop a mandate that empowers children. She aims to urge governments, tech companies, and stakeholders to build safer online spaces. Furthermore, Kihara-Hunt is committed to pressing for stronger cooperation between sectors, particularly within public health and education.
“The role of the public health sector in the rehabilitation of child victims and survivors extends beyond recovery and reintegration and includes promoting a shift from a criminal justice response towards one centered on the health and well-being of the child. Meanwhile, the education sector contributes across all stages of prevention, protection and response, as further elaborated on below.”
IPS UN Bureau Report
LILONGWE, Aug 12 2026 (IPS) - For years, Malawi’s electricity supply has been at the mercy of droughts, floods and cyclones that have repeatedly exposed the vulnerability of a power system heavily dependent on hydropower.
Cyclones Anna and Freddy damaged energy infrastructure, triggering prolonged blackouts that disrupted businesses, hospitals, schools and households while forcing the country to rely on expensive diesel generators to keep essential services running.
Now Malawi is betting on battery storage technology to make its electricity network more resilient to climate shocks while accelerating its transition to renewable energy.
The country has commissioned its first standalone utility-scale Battery Energy Storage System (BESS), a 20-megawatt, 40-megawatt-hour facility in Kanengo, Lilongwe, developed by the Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (ESCOM) with support from the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP).
Backed by a USD 20 million catalytic grant from GEAPP, the project is expected to stabilise the national grid, unlock approximately 100 megawatts of renewable electricity that has previously been curtailed, reduce dependence on diesel generators and avoid more than 10,000 tonnes of carbon emissions annually.
For Carol Koech, vice president for Africa at the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, the project represents more than another piece of energy infrastructure.
“This project was envisioned after Cyclones Anna and Freddy exposed the fragility of Malawi’s hydropower-dependent grid,” Koech told IPS in an interview.
“The Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) strengthens grid resilience by storing electricity and dispatching it instantly during peak demand or climate-related disruptions. It also reduces reliance on costly diesel backup generation while unlocking about 100 megawatts of renewable energy capacity that is currently being curtailed.”
Unlike conventional power plants, battery storage does not generate electricity. Instead, it stores excess energy when demand is low and releases it when demand rises or generation falls, helping stabilise voltage and frequency across the electricity network.
Energy experts say such systems are becoming increasingly important as African countries expand renewable energy generation while confronting increasingly severe climate impacts.
For Malawi, where hydropower accounts for most electricity generation, prolonged droughts reduce river flows while floods and cyclones damage transmission infrastructure, making battery storage a critical adaptation tool.
Powering Economic Growth
Reliable electricity remains one of the biggest barriers to Malawi’s economic growth.
Frequent blackouts force manufacturers to halt production, increase operating costs through diesel generation and discourage private investment.
Agriculture, which employs the majority of Malawians, also depends increasingly on electricity for irrigation, agro-processing and cold storage.
Koech says reliable electricity could transform these productive sectors.
“Energy plays a significant role in enabling resilient agricultural systems,” she said.
“Irrigation, agro-processing and cold storage all depend on reliable electricity. Having a stable grid means these activities can continue with minimal interruptions.”
She added that manufacturers and small businesses also stand to benefit from fewer power outages.
“A reliable electricity supply means manufacturers do not have to worry about production losses or the high costs associated with alternative power sources. Small businesses equally benefit because they can operate consistently without disruptions.”
The project is expected to improve electricity reliability for households, industries and critical public services while supporting Malawi’s ambition of expanding electricity access to 70 percent by 2030.
Strengthening Regional Energy Trade
Beyond national benefits, the battery storage project could strengthen Malawi’s role within the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP), the regional electricity market linking several countries across southern Africa.
Malawi already has an electricity interconnector with Mozambique, while additional connections to Zambia and Tanzania are planned or under development.
According to Koech, battery storage provides the stable national grid needed for countries to participate effectively in regional electricity trading.
“Malawi is strategically positioned within the Southern African Power Pool,” she said.
“Battery storage strengthens grid stability, making it essential for cross-border electricity trade and regional energy security. As regional electricity markets continue evolving, resilient national grids will become increasingly important.”
Improved regional integration could enable countries to share electricity during shortages, improve renewable energy utilization and reduce the costs of maintaining reserve generation capacity.
Building African expertise
The Malawi project also aims to strengthen Africa’s technical capacity in battery storage technology.
Koech said the initiative forms part of GEAPP’s wider effort to deploy 90 gigawatts of battery storage globally while building local expertise to support future projects.
A Southern Africa BESS Centre of Excellence anchored at Mzuzu University will train engineers and power sector specialists in battery operations, grid modelling and system integration.
“We are building a local ecosystem for battery storage in Africa,” Koech explained.
“The Centre of Excellence will equip the next generation of African energy professionals with the technical skills needed to design, operate and manage these systems while allowing countries to learn from each other and reduce project delivery costs.”
She said knowledge generated through Malawi’s experience would support similar projects across the continent, including utility-scale battery developments already emerging elsewhere in southern Africa.
Attracting Future Investment
For GEAPP, Malawi’s project also serves as proof that utility-scale battery storage is commercially viable in Africa.
Instead of relying on diesel generators to stabilise electricity networks, utilities can increasingly use batteries to provide frequency regulation, voltage support and other ancillary grid services.
“This project demonstrates that Africa is ready for utility-scale battery storage,” Koech said.
“It shows utilities can replace expensive diesel with battery systems that charge during periods of low demand and discharge during peak demand while providing critical grid services.”
She believes the demonstration effect could encourage greater public and private investment in modern electricity infrastructure across the continent.
As African countries pursue ambitious renewable energy targets while confronting worsening climate extremes, battery storage is increasingly being viewed not simply as an energy technology but as climate resilience infrastructure.
For Malawi, where climate change continues to threaten electricity generation and economic development, the Kanengo battery project could become an important model for how clean energy investments strengthen resilience, expand energy access and stimulate sustainable growth.
IPS UN Bureau Report
Inter Press Service (IPS),
SYDNEY, Aug 12 2026 (IPS) - Should anyone be surprised that Israel has rebuffed Donald Trump? The unconditional support of the US and its Western allies for Israel has emboldened the rogue state. Thus, Israel continues its genocide against the Palestinians in defiance of international humanitarian law and the Genocide Convention, and despite the so-called ceasefire agreement under the Trump plan. This is the pay-back for protecting Netanyahu from his arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Anis Chowdhury
The creation of Israel in the Palestinian land was a western project. The West ignored the fate of the Palestinians and granted impunity to Israel in the guise of Israel’s right to exist. The genocidal intent of the Zionists founders of Israel was well-known. It became an open fact in 1948 when 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced and dispossessed to pave the way for the creation of the State of Israel. The Palestinians refer to this as “Nakba”, meaning catastrophe in Arabic.
Between 1947 and 1949 Zionist forces captured more than 78% of historic Palestine even though the State of Israel was supposed to get around 56% of the land under the United Nation’s plan. The Zionist forces ethnically cleansed and destroyed about 530 villages and cities, and killed about 15,000 Palestinians in a series of mass atrocities, and more than 70 massacres. In less than six months, from December 1947 to mid-May 1948, Zionist armed groups expelled about 440,000 Palestinians from 220 villages.
Since the establishment of Israel, the state has extended its systematic ethnic cleansing while the West looked the other way. Even though the Zionist project fulfilled its dream of creating “a Jewish homeland” in Palestine in 1948, the process of ethnic cleansing and displacement of Palestinians never stopped.
The West’s Frankenstein now dreams of a greater Israel from “the River to the Sea”. The Zionist Israel always finds excuses to scuttle any peace plan or ceasefire agreement. This time, Netanyahu rejected Trump’s so-called peace plan demanding that Hamas be “genuinely” disarmed first.
Trump says “the relationship is very good,” even as Netanyahu rejects Gaza peace plan. No surprise; Netanyahu’s predecessor, Ariel Sharon, former Prime Minister of Israel was reported to have said to his Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, “Don’t worry about American pressure; we control America”.
However, to be fair, Israeli sources denied that Sharon made any such comment. Nonetheless, Israel’s control over the US and its Western allies is visible to the naked eye.
The West has no clothes
The Western allies of the rogue State Israel give a lip service to the fate of the Palestinian in the guise of a so-called “Two-State solution” while takes no real actions against Israel’s continued expansion of settlement in the Occupied Palestinian Territory in defiance of the verdict of the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
On 19 July, 2024, the ICJ issued an advisory opinion declaring Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory – including the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza – illegal under international law. The court demanded that the occupation must end as rapidly as possible.
Meanwhile rising settler violence, aided by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) against the Palestinians continues unabated.
In arrogant defiance Israel’s parliament (the Knesset) voted 68 to 9 on July 18, 2024 to pass a resolution rejecting the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
Yet, there is no protest from the US and its Western allies. Even the Western countries that symbolically recognised the State of Palestine remain silent as the Frankenstein tightened its grip on its creators.
They are loud in demanding Palestinian disarmament as condition for so-called peace while the rogue State of Israel defiantly reject the Palestinian’s right to have their own sovereign state and basic human rights.
If the Palestinians are asked to disarm then the rogue state must also be asked to rescind its bill rejecting the creation of an independent Palestine. It must also dismantle its illegal settlements in the Occupied Territory– including the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza as demanded by the ICJ.
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.au
IPS UN Bureau
ALEPPO, Syria, Aug 11 2026 (IPS) - The abuse 30-year-old Nour Al-Badawi experienced in an Aleppo public hospital while giving birth resulted in her having two major follow-up operations and left her with depression and anxiety.
She is one Syrian woman who spoke out to IPS about “obstetric violence” – a term that refers to physical, verbal, or psychological abuse by healthcare providers; medical interventions performed without the pregnant woman’s informed consent; and violations of her dignity and privacy within healthcare facilities.
The experience of these women extends far beyond medical challenges and harsh humanitarian conditions.
Obstetric violence encompasses all forms of abuse, neglect, violations of dignity and privacy, or the performance of medical interventions without informed consent.
Al-Badawi describes her most recent childbirth experience as one of the harshest chapters of her life.
“Poverty forces us to give birth in public hospitals and endure the mistreatment that takes place there. Because of the violence and abuse I experienced during childbirth, I no longer consider becoming pregnant again.”
Nour explains that her suffering was not limited to verbal insults and violations of her dignity but extended to violent practices during the delivery process, including forceful pressure on her abdomen, as well as an improperly performed procedure to widen the birth canal. This resulted in serious uterine complications that required two surgical operations to treat an obstetric urinary fistula.
The experience completely transformed Nour’s life. She developed severe depression and a constant desire for isolation. Her family also faced significant financial burdens to cover the costs of her treatment, forcing her to sell some of her belongings and resort to borrowing money.
Despite what happened to Nour, her husband chose not to make any comment and said he would not file a complaint or take legal action against the healthcare centre where the delivery took place, fearing further disputes and additional difficulties. Instead, he assumed responsibility for caring for his wife and covering her treatment expenses.
Farida Al-Hassoun (26), from Hama, also remembers the day she gave birth to her first child at a public hospital as one of the most difficult days of her life — not only because of the pain of labour, but also because of the way she was treated by nurses and midwives inside the hospital.
“I was screaming from the pain, but a nurse told me to be quiet and said I was exaggerating. No one explained what they were going to do. I was shocked when they stitched the wound resulting from childbirth without anaesthesia. At that moment, I felt indescribable pain,” Al-Hassoun said.
She points out that her fear increased as her questions were ignored and she received no psychological support during childbirth. After leaving the hospital, she was unable to forget the experience and continued to suffer from anxiety for months whenever she remembered the delivery room.
Al-Hassoun asks: “Can a Syrian woman give birth with dignity, or will violence inside delivery rooms remain a silent experience that no one steps forward to stop?”
Dr Ola Al-Omar (36), an obstetrician and gynaecologist, discusses the risks of obstetric violence, saying:
“In Syria, years of war and economic collapse have placed increasing pressure on the healthcare system, which has affected the quality of maternal care services. Shortages of medical staff, overcrowded hospitals, and declining resources have all contributed to creating an environment in which women are exposed to mistreatment during pregnancy and childbirth.”
She said that obstetric violence took many forms, including performing medical interventions without explaining them to the patient or obtaining her informed consent; using humiliating expressions; blaming women for crying out during labour; failing to respect privacy inside delivery rooms; depriving women of sufficient information about their health condition; ignoring their pain; or delaying the provision of necessary care.
She emphasises that every woman has the right to receive respectful maternity care, including the preservation of her dignity and privacy, obtaining informed consent before any medical intervention, receiving the necessary information to make decisions regarding her health, and being protected from humiliation, discrimination, or neglect.
Social and Psychological Counsellor Sereen Al-Sheikh (33), from the city of Idlib in northern Syria, speaks about the suffering of pregnant women, saying: “I have met many women who were subjected to artificial induction of labour to accelerate the delivery process, even though the mother’s cervix was already dilated, as well as repeated vaginal examinations that caused severe distress and trauma. In addition, patients are not allowed to have companions present during childbirth, and their movement is sometimes restricted.”
Al-Sheikh explains that these practices leave long-term psychological effects, including fear of becoming pregnant again, postpartum psychological disorders, and a loss of trust in healthcare institutions.
“Most women choose silence out of fear of social stigma, as well as because it is difficult to prove that violations or abuses have occurred. These incidents often take place without evidence or witnesses and, therefore, pass without accountability,” she says.
A childbirth experience may end with the arrival of a newborn into the world, but for some Syrian women, what follows is a long journey of fear and trauma.
At a moment that is supposed to be among the safest and most reassuring experiences in a woman’s life, some Syrian women find themselves facing an entirely different reality: cries that no one listens to, medical procedures carried out without explanation or consent, and harsh words that remain engraved in their memories for years after childbirth.
IPS UN Bureau Report