The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 9 2026 (IPS) - New figures from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) project that the impending 2026-2027 El Niño cycle could be one of the strongest on record. Marked by unusually wet and dry conditions, this cycle is forecast to trigger a host of extreme weather events, threatening the health, security, education, and development of over 347 million children worldwide.
“For children, El Niño is far more than a weather pattern. It can mean increased displacement, malnutrition, water shortages, and disease outbreaks. Children are also at risk of schools closing, while families could experience added financial hardship,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell, emphasizing that anticipatory action is critical in protecting communities from climate shocks in the coming months.
Nearly half of the world’s children—roughly 1.1 billion—are already exposed to at least three overlapping climate hazards, including droughts, extreme heat, and floods. The impending El Niño cycle could affect children and communities across nearly 100 countries and territories between October and December 2026.
Rohini Sampoornam Swaminathan, UNICEF Statistics and Monitoring Manager, tells IPS that children are uniquely vulnerable because of their early developmental stage and dependence on essential services and caregivers. This significantly limits their ability to withstand climate shocks, especially as basic services begin to disappear when extreme weather hits.
“Communities may not have fully recovered from one shock before another one strikes, causing the impacts to compound over time,” she said.
The Asia-Pacific region is projected to face the heaviest toll, with roughly 190 million children estimated to be at risk. Substantial populations are also critically vulnerable across East and Southern Africa, with 41 million children vulnerable to climate shocks, alongside another 41 million in Latin America and the Caribbean. Approximately 22 million children are similarly vulnerable in Europe and Central Asia, followed by 20 million in the Middle East and North Africa, and 20 million in West and Central Africa.
El Niño’s regional impacts are expected to vary significantly and could compound pre-existing humanitarian crises. Swaminathan underscored that climate shocks that are manageable in some areas can become pronounced humanitarian crises in others.
Tropical nations—such as Colombia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and the Philippines—are forecast to face unusually dry conditions, driving weaker agricultural outputs and severe water scarcity. This, in turn, could elevate rates of acute malnutrition and adverse health outcomes among children.
Conversely, communities in the Greater Horn of Africa could face alarmingly high levels of rainfall, particularly in Somalia, where there is a greater risk of riverine and flash flooding. Children in this region are especially vulnerable to outbreaks of water-borne diseases.
Between 2016 and 2023, weather-related disasters displaced more than 20,000 children daily. Swaminathan stressed to IPS that regions facing wetter climates could experience exacerbated displacement as floods push more communities far from their homes and into crowded, temporary shelters, which amplifies protection risks.
In protracted conflict or crisis zones such as Chad and Afghanistan, El Niño poses a direct threat to survival for children. Already bearing the burdens of extreme hunger, displacement, and an overwhelming lack of access to essential services such as protection, these children have no safety net when climate shocks ravage their communities, as they are already on the brink of collapse.
Beyond physical hazards, UNICEF’s findings highlight that disruptions to schooling are among the most alarming consequences of the impending cycle. Severe droughts and floods threaten widespread school closures, declining attendance, and rising dropout rates. In 2025 alone, extreme weather patterns interrupted education for an estimated 171 million students globally.
Swaminathan warned that climate-induced disruptions to schooling carry profound risks for children’s safety, exposing them to heightened risks of violence, exploitation, and child marriage. Girls bear the brunt of these impacts, often taking on family caregiving roles that can lead to compromised health and nutrition, as well as limited access to essential services. “When girls leave school, they are often less likely than boys to return,” she noted.
UNICEF estimates show that every US $1 invested in disaster risk reduction and prevention efforts can yield up to $15 in saved recovery costs. Yet less than 1 percent of humanitarian funding is allocated for anticipatory action, even with months of warning and massive projected losses.
The agency continues to call on governments, donors, and partners to invest in lifesaving anticipatory intervention before peak impacts hit vulnerable communities. UNICEF highlights building climate resilience, securing essential services, and guaranteeing humanitarian access as key priorities in its response.
Swaminathan underscored that children with disabilities, who already face persistent barriers in education, healthcare, and nutrition, must be considered in disaster preparedness. She emphasized that inclusive planning is essential in addressing structural inequalities and ensuring every region is adequately prepared.
“Despite efforts to plan for disasters, most resources are mobilized only after the damage occurs, and the focus is often on the immediate response phase of a crisis,” said Swaminathan. “With forecasts providing months of warning, UNICEF is urging governments, donors, and partners to act before needs escalate by investing early and before impacts peak. Building resilience is not only about infrastructure and early warning systems, but also about strengthening the services and institutions children rely on and addressing the inequalities that make some communities far more vulnerable to climate shocks than others.”
IPS UN Bureau Report
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, Oct 9 2026 (IPS) - Each morning on her way to Kariakoo, Clementina Nyangwine looks out of her commuter bus as it crawls through Jangwani and watches giant foundation piles rising above the muddy Msimbazi valley.
Workers in safety helmets and high-visibility vests move among towering reinforcement cages. Cranes swing over the site while excavators, concrete mixers and trucks rumble below. Deep foundations are being driven into the quagmire for a bridge that will carry one of Dar es Salaam’s busiest roads above the floodplain.
Nyangwine, a 37-year-old shopkeeper, remembers what travelling through Jangwani was like when the Msimbazi River burst its banks.
“I have spent hours here waiting for the water to go down,” she told IPS. “Sometimes we got out of the bus and walked because there was no other way to reach Kariakoo. You would arrive at work with your clothes soaked in muddy water.”
On the worst days, passengers waited on the edge of Morogoro Road as murky floodwater swept across the carriageway.
“You could not tell whether you would reach work in an hour or four hours,” Nyangwine said. “When I see this bridge coming up, I think perhaps those days are finally ending.”
The bridge is part of the Msimbazi Basin Development Project, an effort to reduce chronic flooding in Dar es Salaam as climate risks intensify.
At the centre of the work is a 390-metre bridge about eight metres above the existing road level, allowing traffic to continue moving even when the Msimbazi swells during heavy rains.
The wider construction corridor stretches for about 1.2 kilometres and includes approach roads. The bridge will be approximately 41 metres wide and will accommodate vehicles as well as pedestrians, cyclists and the Bus Rapid Transit system.
In August, the Tanzania National Roads Agency, TANROADS, said construction had reached 41 percent.
Building Above the Flood
Project manager Leonard Ngayungi said the height of the new bridge is central to its design.
“The problem with the existing crossing is that the road sits within an active floodplain,” Ngayungi told IPS. “When the Msimbazi rises, water spreads across Jangwani, and the road becomes part of the flood area. We are changing that relationship by taking the transport infrastructure above the flood level.”
The bridge is being supported by hundreds of deep foundation piles driven between 35 and 42 metres underground, depending on soil conditions. Of the roughly 496 piles required, 404 had been completed, according to officials.
Ngayungi said the aim is not simply to build a stronger road but to let the river and floodplain carry water without cutting one of the city’s main transport links.
“The bridge is being designed so that the river can flow perpetually underneath while people, buses and other vehicles continue to move above.” Ngayungi said.
“We have to build for the rainfall we may face in the future, not simply the rainfall patterns people remember from 20 or 30 years ago,” he said.
A River That Can Stop a City
The Msimbazi is a relatively small river with an outsized impact on Dar es Salaam.
Its basin is home to approximately 1.6 million people and cuts through densely populated neighbourhoods.
Near Jangwani, two of Dar es Salaam’s major traffic arteries cross the lower floodplain, including the corridor used by the city’s first Bus Rapid Transit system.
When the river floods, therefore, the consequences spread far beyond households living beside its banks.
Roads close. Buses stop. Workers arrive late. Traders lose customers. Goods cannot move easily between the city centre and its western suburbs.
Issa Majega, 56, a BRT driver on the Kariakoo-Kimara route, said heavy rain can turn a routine journey into hours of uncertainty.
“Once Jangwani floods, everybody suffers,” Majega told IPS. “The buses cannot pass, passengers become stranded and traffic builds up on other roads because everyone is looking for another route.”
For drivers, he said, the danger is knowing when to stop.
“You cannot gamble with a bus full of people when water is crossing the road,” he said. “Even if passengers are in a hurry, you have to wait.”
Majega believes the elevated crossing could remove a persistent bottleneck in the city’s transport system.
“If this bridge works as designed, rain will no longer mean that the whole route has to stop because of Jangwani,” he said.
Climate Change Meets Urban Growth
Dar es Salaam’s flooding problem cannot be blamed on rainfall alone.
Rapid urban sprawl has pushed settlements into wetlands and floodplains, while buildings and roads have reduced the land available to absorb rainwater. Rubbish chokes drainage channels, while sediment has accumulated in parts of the Msimbazi.
About 70 percent of Dar es Salaam’s residents live in informal settlements, many with inadequate drainage. In 2018, a major flood in the Msimbazi basin caused an estimated US$100 million in damage — equivalent to roughly two percent of the city’s gross domestic product, according to World Bank figures.
Deusdedit Rwehumbiza, an urban planning professor at Mkwawa University in Iringa, says that is why the project should not be understood simply as a bridge-building exercise.
“The bridge is the most visible part because everybody can see the cranes and concrete,” Rwehumbiza said. “But the real issue is how you manage an entire urban watershed.”
“The strength of the Msimbazi approach is that it treats flooding as a land-use, environmental and transport problem at the same time,” Rwehumbiza said.
The project also includes river improvements, floodplain restoration, watershed management and better solid-waste management. Parts of the lower basin are intended to become flood detention areas that temporarily hold excess water.
“That is what climate adaptation should do,” Rwehumbiza said. “You give water somewhere safe to go instead of spending every rainy season trying to fight it after it has already entered people’s homes.”
Moving People Out of Harm’s Way
Around 3,500 households living in the Msimbazi floodplain were targeted for resettlement, with US$30 million allocated for compensation. Among them was Teresia Katimba, a mother of four who moved to Madale in 2024 after years of enduring floods that repeatedly filled her Jangwani home with sewage and rubbish.
“A climate-resilient city cannot simply move risk from the river to people’s livelihoods,” Rwehumbiza said. “If families are safer from floods but cannot afford transport to work, you have solved one problem and created another.”
US$260 Million Bet on Resilience
The World Bank’s International Development Association is providing US$200 million in concessional financing, while Spain and the Netherlands are contributing additional financing that brings the package described by Tanzanian authorities to around US$260 million.
The project, scheduled to run through 2028, covers the lower Msimbazi basin and extends work farther upstream towards the Pugu Hills.
TANROADS is responsible for the Jangwani bridge works, while other government institutions are involved in the redevelopment of the wider valley.
Authorities also envisage markets, commercial development and improved public transport in the redeveloped valley.
But Rwehumbiza said the project’s success will also depend on controlling waste, sediment and development upstream.
“You can build a bridge to last many decades,” he said, “but the river is connected to everything happening upstream. Climate resilience requires maintaining the whole system.”
For commuters, the test will come on a rainy morning when the Msimbazi rises.
For years, Jangwani has represented a peculiar vulnerability in Dar es Salaam: a short stretch of road where a downpour could interrupt journeys across a metropolis of millions.
As climate change increases the risks facing fast-growing African cities, such weak points are becoming increasingly expensive.
It will not prevent heavy rain. Nor can one bridge make Dar es Salaam climate-proof.
Nyangwine still remembers stepping out of stalled buses, lifting her skirt and walking gingerly along Morogoro Road as filthy water splashed around her legs.
Occasionally she reached her Kariakoo shop hours late. Sometimes customers had already left. On the journey home, another downpour could begin the ordeal again.
Now, each time her bus passes Jangwani, she watches the workers.
“The river will still flood when the rain is heavy,” she said. “But if people can cross safely above it, then the rain does not have to stop our lives.”
IPS UN Bureau Report
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 9 2026 (IPS) - Since October 2023, 50,000 women and girls in Gaza have been killed or seriously injured.
• UN Women estimates that nearly 50,000 women and girls in Gaza have been killed or severely injured since the onset of war in October 2023 [1], amounting to one in 21 Gazan women and girls losing their life or living with lifelong disabilities [2].• More than 38,000 women and girls have been killed and 11,700 severely injured, the result of Israeli airstrikes and land military operations.
• While most of the casualties recorded took place during the first two years of the war, women and girls continue to be targeted despite a ceasefire agreement entering into effect in October 2025. Two hundred seventy-seven women and girls are among those who have been killed in Gaza over the past year.
Nearly every woman and girl in Gaza is displaced.
• More than 150 evacuation and movement orders have been issued across Gaza by the Israeli Defense Forces since October 2023, forcing nearly one million women and girls from their homes – nearly every woman and girl in Gaza.• The majority of women and girls in Gaza live in tents or in the ruins, with no privacy. In conditions that are incompatible with survival and dignity, women and girls are caring for children, the sick, the injured, and for the elderly, cooking and cleaning without the basic means to carry out these responsibilities.
• Women are being forced to deliver babies in unsafe and unsanitary conditions, putting their lives at risk. At the same time, the number of miscarriages reached almost 4,000 in the first six months of 2026, triple the number recorded during the last six months of 2025.
The number of widows and those assuming the role of head of household in Gaza has doubled since October 2023.
• Nearly one in four households in Gaza – an estimated 86,290 households – is now reportedly headed by a woman, compared to the pre-October 2023 rate of one in nine.• For women-headed households, the impact extends beyond the grief of losing a husband, father or other loved one. Many are now carrying sole responsibility for providing for, protecting, and holding their families together in increasingly devastating conditions.
Despite the ceasefire, women and girls in Gaza continue to face severely limited access to food, shelter, safe water, and hygiene supplies, alongside ongoing hostilities and insecurity.
• Intense and widespread bombing has leveled homes, businesses, hospitals, schools, and shops, making it extremely hard for women and girls to access essential services and basic goods.• Restrictions on humanitarian access and bombardment continue to cause immense suffering. Between July and December 2026, an estimated 702,000 women and girls are projected to face high levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3+, crisis or worse), with devastating effects on their health, including the risk of malnutrition [3].
The steepest recorded decline in aid is threatening a lifeline to women and girls in Gaza: women’s organizations.
• UN Women surveyed women’s organizations working on the frontlines of the response in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Thirteen of the 14 organizations surveyed reported that the level of need among women and girls has increased since 2025. All organizations surveyed had seen an increase in gender-based violence, poverty, and mental health distress since 2025. Thirteen of the 14 organizations had seen an increase in child marriage.• At the same time, 13 of the 14 organizations surveyed by UN Women reported that they do not have the capacity to meet the growing needs of women and girls. To cope with the lack of funding, nearly two thirds of the organizations told UN Women they had been forced to put women and girls on waiting lists or turn them away.
UN Women is on the ground in Gaza. We work with women-led and women’s rights organizations to provide lifesaving and critical support to women and girls, including protection services and gender-based violence case management, legal aid, mental health and psychosocial support, and emergency cash and livelihoods assistance.
From fitting women and girls with prosthetics and offering counselling to survivors, to ensuring that the humanitarian response is shaped by the experiences and perspectives of women and girls, our support is helping them to stay afloat. But women and girls in Gaza need peace.
UN Women calls for the ceasefire in Gaza to be fully implemented. We call for international law to be upheld, accountability for violations, and the protection of women and girls and all civilians. Humanitarian assistance must reach those in need – at scale and without obstruction. Women and girls must be placed at the centre of response and recovery efforts.
[1] The proportion was calculated by combining women and girls killed or injured (38,000 and 11,700, respectively).
[2] The proportion was calculated by dividing the combined figure of 49,700 women and girls killed or injured (38,000 and 11,700, respectively) by PCBS’s estimated female population of Gaza at the end of 2025 (approximately 1.06 million). This gives 4.69 per cent, equivalent to approximately one in 21 women and girls. The calculation assumes no overlap between the reported deaths and injuries. Population source: PCBS, 8 March 2026.
[3] UN Women estimate based on the IPC Gaza Strip Special Brief, published 13 August 2026. The estimated 702,000 women and girls facing acute food insecurity at crisis-level or worse (IPC Phase 3+) during July–December 2026 is calculated by applying PCBS’s 2025 female population share (49.7 per cent) to the IPC projected caseload of 1,412,421 people. The calculation assumes proportional representation of women and girls across IPC phases and is rounded to the nearest thousand.
IPS UN Bureau
SINGAPORE, Oct 9 2026 (IPS) - When governments gather in Yerevan this month for the 17th UN Convention on Biological Diversity, they will weigh a promise nearly 200 countries adopted six years ago: to effectively conserve at least 30 percent of land, inland waters, and sea by 2030. Achieving the ambitious 30×30 target is essential to sustaining the systems humanity relies on for survival—including crop pollination, purification of water and air, and climate regulation—as well as the biodiversity that underpins food production, fisheries, and tourism.
Unfortunately, the world is not on track to achieve this target. Moreover, the emphasis on the quantitative dimension of the 30×30 target has often overshadowed its more critical objective: ensuring that areas of high biodiversity value are protected, conserved, and connected through effective and equitable management.
The struggle to deliver on international commitments reflects a fundamental challenge. The Global Biodiversity Framework requires countries to halt and reverse biodiversity loss while pursuing economic growth, and businesses are increasingly expected to mitigate nature-related impacts. The ongoing expansion in infrastructure, mining, and the energy transition places additional pressure on biodiversity-rich ecosystems, creating difficult trade-offs that must be carefully managed.
The fundamental question remains: how do we reconcile economic development with meeting biodiversity commitments?
A new analysis of tropical countries contains insights vital to answering that question. Most importantly, it found that oil and gas concessions overlap nearly 61 million hectares—roughly two and a half times the size of the United Kingdom—of protected and conserved areas. Mining concessions overlap another 43 million hectares. Such conditions can turn protected and conserved areas into ‘paper parks’: places protected in law but vulnerable to extractive industries in practice.
What the Maps Reveal
The analysis examined a wide range of some of the world’s most vital ecosystems and the industrial pressures closing in on them—oil and gas, mining, industrial logging, and large-scale agriculture—across the Amazon, Central America, the Congo Basin, and Southeast Asia, with further examples from the Global North. The report focused on the tropical forests and marine ecosystems that not only harbor irreplaceable biodiversity but also remain at the center of conflicts between extraction and conservation.
Senegal, for example, is close on paper to protecting 30 percent of its territory, yet oil and gas blocks cover 99 percent of both the country’s protected areas and identified Key Biodiversity Areas. The remaining undisturbed forest in Cambodia largely lies inside protected areas, yet a fifth of those areas face mining concessions and most contain land of interest to oil and gas companies. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, nearly three-quarters of the ambitious new Kivu-Kinshasa Green Corridor overlaps with oil and gas blocks included in a recent licensing round.
This contradiction between conservation in policy and extraction in practice can also be seen in high income countries. The United States has opened Bears Ears National Monument to mining and is threatening new oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the UK also allows fossil-fuel companies to drill in protected areas.
There is further tension. Some of the mining pushing into protected areas is for minerals fueling the energy transition. Securing a stable climate and securing nature are both essential, and one should not be pursued by quietly sacrificing the other.
We need to consider not only how much additional territory must be brought under protection by 2030, but whether areas already counted as protected and conserved are genuinely conserved, effectively managed, and delivering meaningful biodiversity outcomes.
The Path Forward
High-integrity implementation of 30×30 means prioritizing places that matter most for biodiversity and ensuring they remain ecologically intact, connected, effectively conserved, and equitably governed. It means upholding Indigenous Peoples’ and local community rights and protecting these places from incompatible extractive and large-scale industrial activities.
There are four critical components. The first is the mitigation hierarchy, which calls for avoiding harm whenever possible before considering other measures. Areas of highest biodiversity value, including strictly protected areas, should be no-go zones for extractive industry.
The second is policy coherence. A protected area sits with a ministry of environment while a mining concession sits with a ministry of mines or energy, and unless biodiversity is built into the decisions of every economic sector, the two will keep colliding.
The third is biodiversity-inclusive spatial planning, which enables governments to clearly recognize where nature is protected and where development can proceed. Protect here, develop there.
Finally, effective and equitable governance, including rights-based approaches, is essential. Indigenous peoples and local communities steward some of the world’s most intact and biodiverse lands, including many areas of global importance for biodiversity. Their rights, knowledge and leadership are central to effective conservation.
With only four years left, the commitment worth making in Yerevan is durable protection for the areas that matter most, so they remain intact, connected, and free of the industries that would undermine them. We must make sure that 30×30 is not a promise that only exists on a map, but is a pathway to true biodiversity protection for our collective survival.
Madhu Rao, Chair of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas and Tyson Miller, Executive Director of Earth Insight
IPS UN Bureau
KABUL, Oct 8 2026 (IPS) - It has become difficult for Afghan journalists to obtain information from the authorities, who are permitted to use smartphones only with special authorization. This ban particularly affects women, for whom face-to-face interviews are not an option.
The work of Hadia (name changed), a journalist at a Kabul-based radio station, has become significantly more difficult since the Taliban administration banned the use of smartphones within the Afghan government in June.
Many of Hadia’s stories remain incomplete because she can no longer obtain information from officials via phone as she used to.
"If female journalists are cut off from information, why would they even remain in the media? Furthermore, no entity in Afghanistan holds the Taliban accountable if it fails to answer questions from journalists or citizens"
“Landlines don’t offer the same capabilities as WhatsApp, and gathering information takes a lot of time. Most Taliban officials used to answer our questions via mobile apps. Where do we get our information now?” Hadia wonders.
Under the new rules, using a smartphone requires special permission, and officials who defy the ban risk having their phones confiscated and destroyed.
The ban hinders journalists’ access to information and particularly affects female journalists, who fear that the smartphone ban will further undermine their employment prospects.
Previously, even if officials did not wish to meet in person, they would still send information, photos, and audio files via WhatsApp or other smartphone apps. Now, that channel is closed.
The impact of the new smartphone ban is particularly significant outside the capital, where digital services have been crucial for accessing information.
“There have already been problems with several authorities. For instance, internet connections at the Herat police department and other offices are down because it is no longer possible to share a network connection from smartphones. Staff at some agencies said they could only answer questions after working hours because WhatsApp use was prohibited at the workplace,” says Nasrin (name changed), who works at a television station in the city of Herat in western Afghanistan.
According to Nasrin, the ban on smartphones in government offices reduces the number and influence of female journalists in Afghanistan’s media landscape.
The situation for female journalists in Afghanistan had already deteriorated following the Taliban’s return to power in 2021. They can no longer attend press conferences as they once did, and communication with authorities is restricted.
Officials increasingly refuse to grant face-to-face interviews to female journalists unless they are accompanied by a close male relative. At the same time, women have been gradually removed from the civil service, meaning they are no longer available for interviews either.
The number of female journalists has also plummeted. According to the Canadian organization Free Speech Centre, there were approximately 2,000 female journalists in Afghanistan before the Taliban took power; now, there are fewer than 200.
Officials increasingly refuse to grant face-to-face interviews to female journalists unless they are accompanied by a close male relative. Credit: Learning Together.
The independent journalists’ organization Afghanistan Journalists Center (AFCJ) has warned about the impact of the ban. According to the organization, it hinders journalists’ access to information and undermines press freedom. The organization suspects that this is an attempt by the Taliban to tighten control over communication and impede the operations of independent media.
Media executives are also concerned about the ban’s impact on access to information.
Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid has sought to reassure the media, stating that the ban has not yet been confirmed and is still under discussion.
However, Hijran (name changed), a TV journalist working in Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan, is concerned.
“We will face real problems if the ban remains in effect. Sometimes we have to produce two or three news reports a day, which is feasible if we receive information via WhatsApp. Now, getting answers and arranging interviews can take several days.”
For this story, female journalists across Afghanistan were interviewed, and they all faced the same problems. Almost everywhere, female journalists have only been able to communicate with Taliban officials via smartphone apps.
Asma (name changed), a news manager at a radio station in Kabul, points out that everyone has the right to access information.
“If female journalists are cut off from information, why would they even remain in the media? Furthermore, no entity in Afghanistan holds the Taliban accountable if it fails to answer questions from journalists or citizens.”
Excerpt:
The author is an Afghanistan-based female journalist, trained with Finnish support before the Taliban take-over. Her identity is withheld for security reasons
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 8 2026 (IPS) - The demand for critical minerals is accelerating as world powers scramble to stay on top of emerging technologies. Meanwhile, the environment and frontline communities are paying a steep price.
Such was the basis of the discussion held by the Oakland Institute on September 30, during their webinar: ‘How War and AI Fuel the Critical Minerals Race‘. The event convened experts and frontline activists to examine how artificial intelligence (AI) drives mineral extraction, transforms war technologies, and affects communities entrenched in protracted conflict.
Building on the Institute’s July report, RUSH: Global Scramble for Minerals Wages War on People and Planet, the event highlighted the correlation between rising military spending and the proliferation of AI systems. Panelists stressed that as the demand for critical minerals reaches new peaks, frontline communities bear the brunt of adverse environmental and social impacts.
Anuradha Mittal, founder and Executive Director of the Oakland Institute, noted that military operations account for less than 10 percent of total critical mineral use. Despite this, she warned that the global AI “boom” and increasing competition between world powers over strategic supply chains could trigger a sharp rise in extraction.
Expanding data centers will demand increasingly higher quantities of critical minerals, including copper, gallium, indium, palladium, magnesium, tungsten, germanium, and tantalum. Mittal projected that by 2030, data centers could require an additional 512,000 tons of copper, alongside a 37 percent increase in germanium and an 85 percent increase in gallium by 2033.
She highlighted the United States military-industrial complex as a specific area of concern, describing it as an “AI-first warfighting force.” Under the Trump administration’s proposed 2027 defense budget, military spending would reach a record high of 1.5 trillion USD, nearly twice that of 2023. As the U.S. races to counter China’s dominance across global supply chains, extraction, and processing, the Trump administration has enacted rapid measures to secure minerals internationally.
“Since 2025, the (Trump) administration claims to have signed 38 mineral agreements with countries ranging from Ukraine, India, the DRC, the Philippines, UAE, Australia, Argentina, and Saudi Arabia…Competition with China is bolstering this strategy,” said Mittal. “The Department of War has allocated 75 billion USD to AI-driven programs and another 9 billion to data centers, while the Pentagon requested 13.4 billion dollars in 2026 for autonomous systems. This has driven the U.S. to start stockpiling minerals as strategic assets.”
Other panelists detailed how the impacts of the critical minerals race extend far beyond the global scramble for resources. Frontline communities are not only subjected to environmental degradation, but those in conflict zones are routinely exploited by tech and defense corporations as testing sites for novel military technologies before they are introduced to global markets.
Leila, representing the U.S.-based and Palestinian-led advocacy group Adalah Justice Project (AJP), warned that Gaza has served as an “enormous blueprint for AI-powered war,” noting that Israeli companies have historically used the enclave to test emerging technologies relating to surveillance.
“We have facial recognition drones, different kinds of spyware companies that can hack into phones, and all kinds of AI-assisted targeting programs that, of course, we really learned about through the last couple of years in the genocide,” said Leila. “These tools were developed and tested by Israeli companies in real time, and then sold to the world as sort of ‘battle-proven.’”
Leila also stressed the urgency of the Deadly Merger, a legislative proposal in the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to expand the integration of the U.S. and Israel’s military technology, intelligence, and surveillance systems. AJP posits that the Merger could intensify violence against Palestinians, drive heightened surveillance in the U.S., and impose a “new techno-fascist world order.”
Katerina Canyon, Executive Director of Peace Economy Project—a non-profit organization that advocates for the redirection of military spending toward human needs—introduced the concept of a “peace economy”, where critical resources are used to strengthen healthcare and social infrastructure rather than fund military operations.
Canyon stated that rare earths, lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, and other critical minerals are not only necessities for the proliferation of AI but also are cornerstone resources for the green energy transition. She emphasized that a peace economy must prioritize an equitable environment for civilians over military defensives.
“For nearly fifty years, our organization has challenged militarism and asked what would happen if public resources were directed toward human needs rather than preparation for war,” said Canyon. “My core argument is simple: critical minerals are not politically neutral. The same mineral can become part of a wind turbine, an electric bus, a medical device, or a missile guidance system. Geology does not make that distinction; policy does, government budgets do, procurement decisions do, and industrial strategy does.”
“So the real question is not simply whether we need critical minerals; it is what kind of economy are we building around them,” she continued. “A peace economy starts with a different definition of security. One centered on whether people have safe communities, have healthcare, clean energy, transportation, housing, and a livable environment.”
IPS UN Bureau Report
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 8 2026 (IPS) - The seven candidates, still in the running for the post of UN Secretary-General (SG), have so far faced a barrage of questions, mostly from delegates and the news media.
But some of the more politically-sensitive and heavily-loaded questions, have been avoided — either intentionally or by accident– primarily because the answers could trigger a veto from the P-5.
Do you subscribe to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies at the UN? If so, will you help implement this policy, which excludes gender empowerment, and is strongly advocated by the Trump administration?
The US has dismissed climate change as a “hoax”. Where do you stand on global warming and climate change? Any reaction to the US view?
As Secretary-General, what will be your leadership philosophy?
The ICC has determined that the Israeli Prime minister is a war criminal and is accused of committing genocide in Gaza. Do you agree? If not, what are your thoughts?
Do you consider Taiwan an integral part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)? And, as Secretary-General, will you initiate negotiations to prevent a possible new military conflict in the region?
Is the Russian invasion of Ukraine a violation of the UN charter? And is Russia responsible for war crimes in Ukraine?
Thomas G. Weiss, Presidential Professor Emeritus, Political Science, Director Emeritus, Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, the CUNY Graduate Center, told Inter Press Service (IPS) the absence of probing questions from governments is easier to understand than from journalists who should be shedding light on and exposing the relative degree of spinelessness in candidates.
“The last two SGs demonstrate that what passes for acceptable among the P5 is not what the UN requires. The planet requires boldness and a willingness to speak truth to power. Alas, what gets a candidate elected and what is required are two different things,’ he pointed out.
Mandeep S. Tiwana, Secretary-General CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society organizations (CSOs) and activists, told IPS practically speaking, in order to successfully navigate the present political minefield, it could be considered wise for candidates to steer clear of questions they deem contentious.
But what does that say about the process for the appointment of the next Secretary General? he asked.
“The United Nations is supposed to be the conscience of the world. So, in principle answering a question on the value of diversity and equity or calling out the reality of complicity in genocide and war crimes by powerful states should not be so hard for someone who aspires to be the leader of the world body”.
Unfortunately, traditions have taken hold where senior UN officials see themselves more as bureaucrats beholden to the representatives of states – some of whom don’t even conduct free and fair elections – rather than as servants of the peoples of the world in whose name the UN was established, said Tiwana.
“The UN draws its legitimacy from its founding values. It is our hope that whoever is appointed will break the mold. Crucially, it is time for a woman to head the UN and govern it with feminist leadership values of consensus building, courage, power-sharing and radical inclusion. At the same time, they should be able to hear and feel deeply for victims of the very violations the UN was established to prevent,” declared Tiwana.
Richard Gowan, Director for Global Issues and Institutions, and a longtime UN watcher at the Brussels-based Crisis Group told IPS there is an old saying that “politicians campaign in poetry but govern in prose.”
But aspiring UN Secretaries-General don’t even get to campaign poetically. They have to tread extremely carefully to avoid offending the veto powers. This leads them to make lowest common denominator statements and avoid hard topics, he said.
“That means these races are disappointing for UN watchers and boring for journalists. However, at the end of the day the world’s top diplomat must be diplomatic, so the race is all about showing who can be most tactful not most brilliant”.
It is worth saying that even the best UN leaders did not say much that was exciting during the campaign phase. Dag Hammarskjold, U. Thant and Kofi Annan all took office without making waves.
Hammarskjold, he pointed out, was famously prone to periods of introspective silence even once he was in office. So, I don’t think that out-spokeness is necessarily a decisive criterion in this race, he declared.
Meanwhile, the seven official candidates running to succeed António Guterres as the next UN Secretary-General (starting January 1, 2027) are listed below, alongside former candidate Michelle Bachelet who withdrew from the race:
IPS UN Bureau Report