The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 20 2026 (IPS) - World Humanitarian Day celebrates humanitarian workers and the life-saving services they provide under the most complex and often dangerous conditions.
This year, UN leaders are urging the international community to protect humanitarians working in conflict zones and to seek accountability for those who have been injured or killed in their line of duty.
In late 2008, the UN General Assembly designated August 19th as World Humanitarian Day, five years after the terrorist attack at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, Iraq, where 22 UN staff members were killed, including the then Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
On Wednesday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres paid tribute to the fallen UN staffers on the 23rd anniversary of the terrorist attack, remarking that their legacy “lives on in every humanitarian worker delivering assistance amid conflict, disaster and despair”.
Guterres also noted that international humanitarian laws meant to protect civilians and humanitarian workers are being violated “with alarming frequency and impunity”.
According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 2025 set a new record for violence against humanitarian workers, with 712 incidents recorded, in which 350 workers were killed, 322 were injured, 235 kidnapped, and 280 detained. This year alone there have been 136 major incidents, as reported in the Humanitarian Outcomes’ Aid Worker Security Database. It is only indicative of the growing number of incidents against humanitarian workers in recent years. This represents a jump from 300 reported attacks in 2022 to 471 in 2023 and then 634 incidents in 2024.
“Behind those grim numbers… are names. They are colleagues, they are our friends, they are families, and they are the best of us,” said Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.
Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, briefs reporters for World Humanitarian Day. Credit: Naureen Hossain/IPS
Fletcher spoke to reporters virtually from Ukraine, where he is visiting affected areas of the country, including those subjected to drone attacks in recent days. He warned of their increasing use against civilians and infrastructure. Fletcher described seeing many drones during his visit, including an incident in which he and his team had to run for cover because they were in the vicinity.
Drones are increasingly prevalent in areas with ongoing crises, like Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and Somalia. These weapons, which are controlled by humans but can also be directed by AI, have shaped the way civilians lead their lives and affected humanitarians carry out their work.
They create “a sense of collective anxiety” among civilians and aid workers. Yet, there seems to be little to no impunity for drone attacks or for those who carry out these attacks, who would likely be aware of what they are targeting. Drone technology is also getting cheaper and easier to access, putting them in more hands as parties to conflict experiment with their use.
Fletcher acknowledged that they can be used by aid workers for good, such as delivering vaccines or identifying survivors in emergencies. But otherwise, much of their use in the context of conflict has been “inhumane and reckless”.
“I’ve not been anywhere where drones are so much part of the conversation. Everyone – from the kids I met in shelters, civilians, humanitarians, and my colleagues – can tell the difference between the sound of a first-person-view drone and a fibre-optic drone and the medium-range drones or the loitering munitions, which are such a threat to our work,” Fletcher said.
Fletcher called for the international community, and chiefly Member States, to uphold international humanitarian law and to seek accountability toward the parties involved in conflict, including state actors. Member states can and should take stronger measures to conduct independent investigations.
Fletcher made repeated calls for increased dialogue and reflection on international humanitarian law, including how to protect humanitarian workers from emerging technologies like drones. It should be up to member states and the companies behind these technologies to make sure that it “does not outpace humanity” and it “does not outpace accountability”. He also called for engaging in dialogue with the companies involved in manufacturing and distributing drones so they understand the risks they’re creating.
For those that believe in the United Nations or in the spirit of global solidarity, they also believe that member states still have the will to uphold their responsibilities toward international humanitarian law. “If the world has become so transactional and selfish and inward-looking that member states are no longer able or prepared to do this work, then we really are in a grim dystopian reality,” Fletcher told Inter Press Service.
He added that the public can in turn hold their governments to account. “We need a public demand of their leaders that we manage these risks before it’s too late. And for so many of the people that I work with, my fallen colleagues, for so many of the people who we’re here to serve, it is already too late, I’m afraid.”
IPS UN Bureau Report
ROME, Aug 20 2026 (IPS) - FIVE years after the Taliban returned to power, Fawzia Koofi, the former Deputy Speaker of the Afghan Parliament, denounces what she describes as “gender apartheid.”
Despite bans, terror, and the systematic erasure of women from society, Afghan women continue to resist through underground schools and online solidarity networks.
Koofi was also a member of the official delegation that represented the Afghan government during the 2020 peace negotiations with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar.
Since the fall of Kabul, she has been living in Europe after being evacuated from Afghanistan, where she continues to advocate for Afghan women and campaign for political alternatives to Taliban rule. Speaking with IPS, Koofi explains how the Taliban have systematically erased women from public life while describing the resilience and determination of Afghan women to continue resisting.
IPS: Three years after their return to power, the Taliban have gradually stripped women of all their rights. Today you describe the situation as genuine gender apartheid. How would you describe the condition of Afghan women?
Fawzia Koofi: Women have gradually lost their rights as the Taliban imposed increasingly restrictive measures through a series of decrees. In 2021, girls were banned from attending secondary school. Then, in 2022, women were barred from universities. In 2024, they were no longer allowed to study medicine, not even gynaecology.
Today, every field of education is closed to them. Compared with the first Taliban regime, the current restrictions are even harsher. Yet Afghan women continue to resist because they know education is essential, and their families understand that it is vital. They attend classes in clandestine home-based schools.
Most of these home schools are run by NGOs that pay teachers’ salaries and sometimes even cover students’ internet connection costs. They also provide online English and computer courses. These schools do not issue diplomas. Nevertheless, students receive an education that sometimes enables them to start an online business, pursue distance learning while remaining underground, or teach other young girls.
IPS: How do these underground schools operate, and how do women manage to escape repression?
Koofi: Officially, these schools do not exist; they are not registered. As a result, whenever the Taliban discover them, they can arrest the teachers, students, or those responsible for running them. That is exactly what happened to one of the networks I helped establish, for example, in Ghor Province, in central-western Afghanistan, and also in Badakhshan, in the country’s northeast. They raided the schools and arrested the staff. In other cases, however, they may be more lenient when members of their families attend these schools.
The curriculum focuses on science, computer skills, and English to help women and girls obtain scholarships, work online, or run online businesses. Some women who manage to build small businesses personally take charge of marketing in an effort to expand their activities. Unfortunately, without diplomas or accreditation, professional opportunities remain extremely limited for most women.
Many Afghan women living in exile devote a large part of their time to providing online education for women inside Afghanistan. We connect them with university students and try to teach them English or other languages. It is regrettable that Western governments repeatedly promise to defend women’s rights while failing to provide the funding or scholarships that would allow Afghan women to continue their studies abroad, return home one day, and help rebuild their country. The Taliban’s declared objective is to erase women from Afghan society in the name of Islamic morality.
IPS: Why do you use the term gender apartheid?
Koofi: Because, little by little, women have been completely erased from public life. Some women tell me that when they walk through the streets of Kabul and encounter Taliban officials or soldiers, they are often looked at as though they were criminals.
They are told: “You are not allowed to work or attend university, so why are you out in the street?”
That is precisely the principle of apartheid: separating a gender or a group of people on the basis of their sex, race, or religion and excluding them from society. That is exactly what the Taliban are doing.
The silence of the international community is deeply regrettable. Some governments occasionally condemn the Taliban system, but that is where it ends.
Even worse, they adopt the same kind of practices.
The United Kingdom, for instance, continues to say, “We support Afghan women,” while refusing to grant student visas for fear that applicants might later seek political asylum. It makes no sense. How many of them would actually do so? Two hundred students? In a situation where they can neither study nor work in their own country, it should not be considered a problem if they apply for asylum.
All these contradictions, together with the international community’s lack of action, only encourage and strengthen the Taliban, who interpret this as a form of recognition and legitimacy.
Many experts say that women are disappearing from public space in Afghanistan. Do you agree with that assessment?
Koofi: Imagine the reality faced by women living there today, who are not even allowed to leave their homes freely. Take humanitarian aid distribution as an example.
In many regions, aid distribution is controlled by the Taliban with the assistance of the local councils they have appointed. Beneficiaries are selected from among relatives or supporters.
Single women, such as war widows with dependent children, or women who lost their jobs under Taliban rule, are excluded from receiving aid. And when they protest, the local council members appointed by the Taliban report them, and they are arrested.
There have been cases of sexual violence in Taliban prisons.
The Taliban have locked down the entire system by systematically controlling the country and all its institutions. If local council members rebel or fail to cooperate sufficiently, they are simply replaced. That is how the system functions.
Yet women continue to resist and to protest in order to survive, although it is far from easy. Some open beauty salons or small shops inside their homes. A few television channels that have reached agreements with the Taliban and comply with censorship are still allowed to employ women, but they are required to wear face masks while on air. In effect, they have become spokespersons for the Taliban, who tightly control the news that they broadcast.
Are there still any spaces where women can enjoy some degree of freedom?
They are becoming increasingly rare. Last month in Herat, in western Afghanistan, the Taliban arrested more than 60 women who were not wearing the burqa but instead a large headscarf in keeping with local tradition. Their families and other women protested, and for once, men also took to the streets. The Taliban responded by opening fire. To them, human life has very little value. They arrest, imprison, torture, and kill.
On April 28, they arrested three members of my family as well as one of our gardeners. They then confiscated my house. My relatives were held in solitary confinement for a week and tortured. We managed to mobilise social media, and my family was eventually released. All this simply because I am able to speak to the media and communicate with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Kabul.
In most cases, however, families do not even know where their loved ones are being held. They can disappear for months. The media do not report these cases because they are controlled by the Taliban. This is the reality for everyone. Women continue to write and to protest through social media, each in their own way.
Do you feel that the world has forgotten Afghanistan and Afghan women?
Yes. The world paved the way for the Taliban’s return.
Let us remember the Doha Agreement signed between the Taliban and the United States, which says absolutely nothing about the condition of women or about human rights in general. A
ll of this encouraged the Taliban.
I took part in those negotiations, and the Taliban told me that women’s rights were not among the priorities of my American and European friends. Unfortunately, they were right.
Now the European Union has invited the Taliban to negotiate the return of Afghans living abroad irregularly or individuals considered to pose a security threat. This approach is rather strange and paradoxical because as long as conditions in Afghanistan do not improve, people will continue to want to leave.
Everyone living in the country wants to leave. I speak by telephone every day with Afghans, and every one of them tells me they want to leave. Without work, without education, and without freedom, there is no dignity.
It is absurd. The European Union is engaging with the Taliban, who will simply exploit these negotiations for their benefit.
The attention of Western countries, and indeed of the world as a whole, is focused on other major conflicts. I believe this is a mistake because, sooner or later, Afghanistan will become a rear base for several violent extremist groups.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Islamic State (ISIS), and Al-Qaeda remain highly active in the region. In fact, Al-Qaeda’s leader was killed only two kilometres from the Taliban presidential palace in July 2022.
To claim that the Taliban will effectively fight these groups while allowing them to govern the country is, in my view, sheer hypocrisy. The world must act before it is too late. We are not asking for NATO troops to return. Rather, we are asking governments not to encourage or support the Taliban.
Unfortunately, I have the feeling that human rights — and women’s rights in particular — are simply not considered a strategic issue or a priority. That is the reality.
IPS UN Bureau Report
Aug 19 2026 (IPS) - Weeks have gone by since the World Cup ended. Its aftermath has sparked a broader conversation about who football’s biggest tournament belongs to and how it should look in 2030. One postscript to that conversation comes from Mexico.
In a country with more than 100,000 people registered as disappeared, families searching for their loved ones confronted an unusual question: how do you participate in a national celebration while carrying the grief of a missing loved one?
While fans immersed themselves in 104 matches and the outcome for the teams they were cheering for, the answer by the civilian search collectives, who come together to find missing relatives amid state inaction and often face considerable risks, was disarmingly bold: neither to ignore the tournament nor reject it, but to claim a place in it.
In a country where football pitches can be found from volcanoes to fields of Mexican agave plants, they carved out a pitch of their own in the country’s most emblematic avenue. And then they played football.
Around 9 a.m., the chalk lines for another pitch began to appear on the asphalt of Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City. It was Mexico’s final day as a World Cup host. Sixteen kilometers north of the Azteca Stadium, the “Glorieta de los Desaparecidos,” a roundabout reclaimed by families as a memorial in 2022, was preparing for another game. These were among the pickup games that collectives organized as spaces of remembrance during the tournament. Pickup games took place the days Mexico was playing.
In a country with more than 100,000 people registered as disappeared, families searching for their loved ones confronted an unusual question: how do you participate in a national celebration while carrying the grief of a missing loved one?
The games followed a simple script: small teams of three to five faced off until they reached a set number of goals. Some were part of the collectives; others –including football fans– were passersby who joined. Some became regulars; children particularly. In that convergence, football became a vehicle for telling stories of absence.
“Preparations started one year before the initial kick-in,” Jorge Verástegui, one of the initiative’s organizers, told me.
His brother and nephew, Antonio and Antonio de Jesús, disappeared in the northern state of Coahuila in January 2009, when the Zetas cartel dominated much of the region.
“We were coming from a very frustrating year of dialogues with the government, so many of us, searching for our loved ones, asked how to engage with a World Cup taking place in Mexico,” he said, wearing a Mexican national team jersey emblazoned with a large picture of his brother. Organizers distributed over 300 similar jerseys, so families could add photos of their missing loved ones. Search collectives joined from across the country.
For César Contreras, a lawyer at Centro Prodh, a human rights group that has represented families for decades, football became a way “to collectivize joy but also reflect on how we got here.” The interventions wanted to challenge the stigma of disappearances as a “sad topic that nobody wants to hear about.”
When children joined, one father told Contreras he would later explain to his son who he had been playing with.
Supporters created the “Ajolote Buscador” a reworking of the salamander that is the city mascot, that became a regular presence at the pickup games. In Guadalajara, another Ajolote denounced the lack of resources for identification.
Mobilization was not without backlash from government authorities. U.N. experts raised concerns about restrictions faced by families while trying to make their voices heard. And violence against those seeking answers or accountability continued. During the World Cup, two searchers were killed, one in Guanajuato and another in Sinaloa.
Yet, as Andrea Horcasitas, one researcher who has worked alongside search collectives put it, “in a context marked by exclusion from the city and restricted access, collectives sent a message of belonging: this celebration is also ours, and here we are,”
Among the families who joined the pitches were Javier Barajas and María del Tránsito Piña, teachers who were originally from Guanajuato.
Their daughter, Guadalupe, disappeared in Salvatierra in February 2020. Her brother, Francisco Javier, joined the local search commission and helped locate her remains in one of Mexico’s largest mass graves. Three months later, he was killed. Investigations linked both crimes to the same criminal group. Their parents were later displaced from their home state.
Football was a family ritual, their mother told me. Francisco Javier and his mother watched matches together, while Javier and Guadalupe prepared the snacks.
“Now, I can’t watch football. It’s just too painful,” she said.
Yet the couple eventually found their way to the pitches. Barajas played several matches as a tribute to his son and daughter. For his wife, the pickup games offered a distinct space: “I can feel them when I wear that jersey with their photos.”
The resistance to FIFA’s commercialization projects is a reminder that we ultimately cherish these tournaments because of the stories they leave behind. Mexico’s search collectives offer one of them.
For the families, the work continues. Ensuring their security remains an urgent task, particularly in places where lethal violence against them concentrates. So does advancing investigations grounded in local realities and reducing the backlog in forensic identification.
Their message still resounds: this tournament was also theirs, because their stories are part of Mexico.
Jorge Peniche is a senior Americas researcher at Human Rights Watch.
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 19 2026 (IPS) - When smoking was common in the corridors of the UN, in the delegate’s lounge and in committee rooms during the 1970s and 90s, the office of the Secretary-General sent a memo that read: “Smoking was Discouraged” in the UN building—sounding far short of a ban.
The Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov (1994-2004), currently the country’s Foreign Minister, left a Security Council meeting and pulled out a cigarette in the presence of half a dozen reporters waiting for him outside the chamber.
As he approached the reporters, one of them told him that the Secretary-General had banned smoking in the building. And Lavrov shot back: “This building does not belong to the Secretary-General. It belongs to member states: he said, as he lit his cigarette.
And Lavrov was dead on target.
The ban on smoking became effective only after the 193-member General Assembly adopted a resolution back in 2008—18 years ago.
Under Resolution 63/8 and Secretariat Information Circular ST/IC/2016/10, the United Nations enforced a complete ban on indoor smoking and the sale of tobacco products across all UN Headquarters premises. Smoking and vaping were restricted exclusively to designated, signposted open-air areas.
• The resolution 63/8, adopted on November 3, 2008, mandated a total ban on indoor smoking and tobacco sales at UN Headquarters in New York, while recommending similar restrictions across all regional and country offices system-wide.• Information Circular ST/IC/2016/10: This administrative issuance updated and superseded prior circulars (such as ST/IC/2009/29), reiterating strict compliance guidelines for staff, delegates, and visitors regarding the smoke-free workplace mandate.
But apparently there were violations of the ban.
A new circular released last week by the UN’s Media and Liaison Unit (MALU) has reiterated the ban on smoking– and well ahead of the arrival of thousands of delegates who will be at the UN for the General Assembly sessions in mid-September.
“Please remember: terraces, verandas, entrances and other outdoor spaces are not automatically smoking areas. Smoking and vaping should take place only where the area is specifically designated and clearly marked”.
The World Health Organization (WHO), says the circular, states that there is no safe level of exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke and that fully smoke-free environments provide the most effective protection.
Even brief exposure can affect cardiovascular and respiratory health, particularly for people with asthma, cardiovascular disease, other respiratory conditions, or heightened sensitivity to smoke.
Second-hand smoke can drift beyond the person smoking and affect colleagues, delegates, visitors and service personnel who have not chosen to be exposed. Vape aerosol may also contain nicotine, ultrafine particles and other potentially harmful substances; for this reason, vaping is subject to the same UNHQ restrictions.
According to WHO, a UN agency based in Geneva, tobacco damages nearly every organ in the body, causing cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung disease, reduced fertility, weakened immunity and premature death.
• Tobacco kills more than 7 million people each year, including over 1.6 million non-smokers who are exposed to second-hand smoke.• All forms of tobacco use are harmful, and there is no safe level of exposure.
• Around 80% of the world’s 1.2 billion tobacco users live in low- and middle-income countries
• Nicotine is highly addictive and harmful, particularly for children, adolescents and young adults whose brains are still developing.
The tobacco epidemic, says WHO, is one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced, responsible for over 7 million deaths annually as well as disability and long-term suffering from tobacco-related diseases.
Tobacco use is a major risk factor for cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, over 20 different types or subtypes of cancer, and many other debilitating health conditions.
All forms of tobacco use are harmful, and there is no safe level of exposure to tobacco. Cigarette smoking is the most common form of tobacco use worldwide. Other tobacco products include waterpipe tobacco, cigars, cigarillos, heated tobacco, roll-your-own tobacco, pipe tobacco, bidis and kreteks, and smokeless tobacco products.
Nicotine is highly addictive and harmful, particularly for children, adolescents and young adults whose brains are still developing. Nicotine exposure during adolescence can affect brain development, including impacts on attention and learning.
Early nicotine use can increase the likelihood of long-term dependence and future use of other nicotine and tobacco products. Nicotine use also increases cardiovascular risk, the WHO warned.
“Around 80% of the 1.2 billion tobacco users worldwide live in low- and middle-income countries (2), where the burden of tobacco-related illness and death is heaviest. Tobacco use contributes to poverty by diverting household spending from basic needs such as food and shelter to tobacco. This spending behaviour is difficult to curb because tobacco is very addictive”.
The economic costs of tobacco use are substantial and include significant health care costs for treating the diseases caused by tobacco use, as well as the lost human capital that results from tobacco-attributable morbidity and mortality.
IPS UN Bureau Report
Aug 19 2026 (IPS) -
CIVICUS discusses the state of civic and humanitarian action in Gaza with Ibrahim Arandas, a Palestinian activist and project manager at SPARK Gaza, a civil society organisation that provides humanitarian and psychosocial support.
Ibrahim Arandas
What’s life like for people in Gaza now, and what needs are most urgent?
Today, life is defined by scarcity and uncertainty. Israel has turned Gaza into something far worse than a concentration camp. It has engineered a system designed not just to confine and suffocate an entire population, but to erode people’s lives day after day, generation by generation. This is not a simple military operation but deliberate, prolonged destruction, calibrated to keep people alive, but just enough to avoid global outrage while denying every basic condition of human dignity.
The psychological toll is enormous. Aid agencies report that anxiety and severe helplessness have become the norm rather than the exception, particularly among families who have lost their homes, routines and support networks. Our most urgent needs are clean water, healthcare, shelter and mental health support.
What has changed and what obstacles to humanitarian work remain?
When the ceasefire was announced, we thought it meant the end of the war and the suffering. Before the war, two million of us lived across Gaza. We have lost friends and family, and now live in just 36 per cent of the territory.
The hardest issue we face is reaching vulnerable people with the aid they need, including basic supplies, healthcare and mental health support. Patients need healthcare, but our teams cannot reach them. Israel makes movement between areas extremely hard, particularly during periods of escalation, when near-constant closures and limited crossings determine who enters and leaves Gaza.
This is a high-risk, complex environment and we have to stay adaptive to reach the sites and people who depend on us. Every movement implies high risk, but there’s no risk register.
How has your organisation’s work evolved?
We have grown. Gaza has lived through many wars, but we’d never faced conditions like these. In Gaza, you can’t plan a month or two ahead. Things collapse, and the plan has to be redesigned every day.
In our European Union-funded project, we had to constantly redesign how we deliver programming, shifting activities and timelines and sometimes moving sessions online, because access to project sites and young people can change from week to week depending on movement restrictions and security conditions.
We work under constant uncertainty, with internet and network cut-offs overnight and contact with front-line workers lost within an hour. From this, we learned and adapted existing global standards to our context. I developed and published a framework I call ‘adaptive conflict project management’, useful for working in conflict-affected areas like Gaza. It sets out how to build a risk plan, delegate to frontline workers rather than only leaders, divide projects across areas because movement is restricted and keep every worker feeling safe and supported.
How has civil society sustained the response and what support does it need?
Coordination has been essential. One of our few sources of resilience is local organising, combined with international partners who bring resources and access to global platforms like CIVICUS. The combination of local knowledge and international backing has kept civic and humanitarian work alive under the most difficult conditions.
As a frontline worker, what I believe is most needed is sustained access. It’s not just about the volume of aid, but about the ability to plan around consistent access to people and areas. We also need investment in local capacity, not only emergency relief, so Gaza’s civil society can lead the recovery rather than only respond to the crisis. We want to lead this recovery and think beyond emergency relief.
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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Gaza: ‘Humanitarian aid matters for survival, but its dynamics diminish Palestinian agency’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Ali Abdel-Wahab 16.Feb.2026
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SYDNEY, Aug 19 2026 (IPS) - The 13th of August marked the 100th birthday of Cuba’s revolutionary leader Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz – in short Fidel Castro. Amidst an intensified US siege and the threat of invasion, Cubans commemorated their dear leader’s centenary birth anniversary with events that included an International Book Fair, art exhibitions, concerts and gatherings of delegates from left-wing organisations across the continent.
Anis Chowdhury
Wayne Smith, a US diplomat with a long experience in Cuba, believes Fidel Castro will be remembered because “he stood up to the United States and survived”. When Castro died in 2016, the leading US news media CBS carried an opinion piece, entitled, “How Fidel Castro stood up to the U.S., and won”.
The illegal blockade of Cuba contributes to shortages of food, medicine, fuel, and essential supplies, increasing the cost of everyday life for the Cuban people. However, when Castro welcomed Pope John Paul II in 1998 and let the pictures do the talking, the world saw Cuba surviving in spite of the US trade embargo.
Castro’s legacy
Castro’s legacy was best summarised by Ken Livingstone, former mayor of London. In 2006, during his visit to Cuba, Livingstone said, “What’s amazing here is you’ve got a country that’s suffered an illegal economic blockade by the United States for almost half a century and yet it’s been able to give its people the best standard of health care, brilliant education… to do this in the teeth of an almost economic war is a tribute to Fidel Castro”.
Thus, Cuba attained high human development measured by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)’s Human Development Index (HDI). In comparison with the world average of 0.746 based on 185 countries, Cuba’s HDI was 0.762 in 2023. In 1994, Cuba’s HDI reached 0.887. Underlying the above global average HDI is a high adult literacy rate of nearly 100% and a high life expectancy of approximately 78.1 years at birth.
These are the results of free health care and free education for all, considered a right. Cuba has the highest ratio of doctors to patients in the world, at 9.8 per 1,000 people (2021), which was 0.9 in 1960. Its infant mortality of 3.86 per 1,000 live births is one of the lowest in the world. At the William Soler Paediatric Hospital in Havana, more than 90% of the new-borns who needed neonatal surgery survived their procedures.
Malaria, polio, tetanus, and measles have been eradicated in Cuba due to years of investment in primary care and assiduous attention to the population’s health. Cuba’s long-standing commitment to health has led to a successful COVID-19 pandemic response. Cuba spends a larger proportion of its gross domestic product on education than any other country in the world.
Unfortunately, the recent tightening of the unilateral illegal blockade by the Trump administration is inflicting heavy costs and reversing Cuba’s unique development gains.
A true internationalist
Castro was a true internationalist leader of the proletariat and stood by freedom fighters, especially in Africa. At a rally of approximately 1 million Cubans in 1962, Fidel Castro presented the Second Declaration of Havana, a call to revolutionary action to anti-imperialist and working-class fighters internationally. Castro often reiterated, the Cuban people’s internationalist aid to liberation struggles was “paying our debt to humanity.”
Castro sent his first batch of military support to Algerian President Ben Bellah in 1963. Castro’s Cuba trained the revolutionaries in Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Namibia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Cape Verde and fought with them against the colonial rule. Castro branded apartheid “a creation of Western capitalism and imperialism”, and his Cuba helped bring down the system of apartheid in South Africa by providing resources and training to African National Congress (ANC) fighters.
Despite the hardship illegally imposed on it by the US, Cuba always stood by the world’s oppressed and hapless people. In 1960, Cuba joined the relief effort after the Chilean earthquake. In 1963, it sent health-care workers to assist the newly independent state of Algeria.
Castro’s Cuba has been despatching cadres of health-care professionals all over the world to combat disasters and epidemics. Cuban doctors were on the scene in Haiti during the cholera outbreak that followed the 2010 earthquake; they arrived in west Africa during the 2013–16 Ebola crisis. And when COVID-19 spread to Europe, two Cuban health professional teams landed in Italy. By the end of April, 2020, more than 1000 Cuban health-care workers were helping foreign countries respond to COVID-19.
Castro conceptualised and implemented an inclusive model of healthcare that brought doctors to the people. He extended Cuban medical aid to other countries, demonstrating the essentially internationalist and human nature of the Cuban Revolution.
Clare Wenham, assistant professor of global health policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science observed, “The international health programme is about solidarity; Cuba believes that healthy populations are the bedrock of global society and they want to support that any way they can”.
Mandela and Castro
Like many revolutionaries and freedom fighters in the Global South, Nelson Mandela was inspired by the Cuban Revolution’s triumph in 1959. Charged with the task of starting a guerrilla army in 1961, Mandela looked to the writings of Cuban Communists for guidance.
Mandela visited Cuba in 1991 to express his gratitude to Castro, calling Castro’s Revolution “a source of inspiration to all freedom-loving people”. Mandela further added, “We admire the sacrifices of the Cuban people in maintaining their independence and sovereignty in the face of a vicious, imperialist-orchestrated campaign. We, too, want to control our own destiny.”
During a public event in Havana, Mandela asked Castro to visit South Africa. Referring to Castro, Mandela asked, “Who trained our people, who gave us resources, who helped so many of our soldiers, our doctors? … “You have not come to our country – when are you coming?”
Castro attended Mandela’s presidential inauguration in May 1994. Barbara Masekela, South Africa’s former ambassador to the US and who accompanied Mandela to Cuba in 1991, said Mandela’s friendship with Castro had been “born in the trenches of the freedom struggle”.
A true friend of the oppressed
Norberto Fuentes, a writer once close to Castro and now living in exile, believes the Cuban leader’s relevance is as “the spokesman for silence, for the man who has no army, no Congress, no face. The man who has nothing”.
Thousands of Cuban internationalists contributed to decisive battles for independence of African countries, while fostering cooperation in the fields of health, education, and training.
Despite hardships due to the US’s illegal blockade, Castro’s Cuba has remained a shining example of internationalism and holds a special place in the history of people’s struggles against imperialism.
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
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 18 2026 (IPS) - Indigenous communities have long advocated for the environment through the lens of their traditional knowledge systems and cultures. But much more work needs to be done to translate their presence into influence.
A new report from Nia Tero, an international nonprofit that aims to strengthen Indigenous guardianship over ancestral lands and waters, examines the factors that have limited Indigenous Peoples’ influence in global environmental decision-making.
The report, “Beyond Fragmentation: Advancing Coherence, Equity, and Indigenous Leadership Across the Rio Conventions”, was formally launched at the 17th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), or COP17, currently underway in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, during a side event focused on strengthening coherence across the Rio Conventions.
The UNCCD is one of three climate frameworks that emerged from the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It, along with the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is one of the landmark global conventions that address environmental crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and desertification in the modern age.
This year, all three conventions will be hosting climate conferences, starting with UNCCD COP17, which makes it an appropriate occasion to launch the report, according to Margarita Mora, Chief Programmes Officer at Nia Tero.
The goal of the report, Mora told Inter Press Service, is to “encourage Parties, UN bodies, and funders to better support Indigenous Peoples’ meaningful participation here and across this year’s Rio Conventions gatherings”.
Margarita Mora, Chief Programmes Officer, Nia Tero. Credit: Nia Tero
“Launching the report at COP17 helps draw greater attention to the UNCCD, which remains the least known of the three Rio Conventions, and starts a conversation we can carry into the climate and biodiversity COPs later this year,” said Minnie Degawan of the Kankanaey-Igorot, an indigenous group from northern Luzon, Philippines, and the Managing Director, FSC Indigenous Foundation.
The report examines Indigenous Peoples’ recognition and participation in the Rio Conventions. Climate change, biodiversity loss and land degradation are all interconnected. These all impact lands and territories, which are “central to Indigenous Peoples’ identity, cultures, and ways of life,” Degawan, the report’s author, told Inter Press Service.
Drawing on expert interviews and surveys with participants, the report reveals what it describes as a fragmented response to these issues. While environmental harms are interconnected, they are governed through their frameworks, institutions and funding streams. This siloed approach to the Rio Conventions presents challenges to Indigenous Peoples. Representatives may be expected to attend multiple conferences where they discuss related issues through different institutional structures. Thus, they address topics like safeguards, territorial governance, and traditional knowledge separately.
Minnie Degawan of the Kankanaey-Igorot, an indigenous group from northern Luzon, Philippines, and the Managing Director, FSC Indigenous Foundation. Credit: SC Indigenous Foundation
The recognition of Indigenous Peoples has seen considerable progress since the Rio Conventions were first introduced. Traditional leaders and activists have advocated for the formal acknowledgement of Indigenous rights in these climate frameworks, their efforts spanning decades. The report notes that this recognition is not consistent across the frameworks.
Neither the UNFCCC nor the UNCCD explicitly referenced Indigenous Peoples or their rights in their original texts. However, subsequent decisions, provisions and ongoing advocacy have strengthened the recognition of Indigenous Peoples, their rights and their participation within the two frameworks. On the other hand, the CBD directly references Indigenous and local communities in its original framework, acknowledging their dependence on biological resources in accordance with traditional knowledge that is relevant to biodiversity efforts.
Since then, Indigenous people’s engagement within the Rio Conventions can be measured in a few ways, including a broader recognition of them as stakeholders within these processes, participation in formal and informal conferences, and a recognition of traditional knowledge in addressing environmental challenges.
While the visibility and participation of Indigenous representatives has increased over the years, this does not necessarily translate into meaningful influence when it comes to decision-making processes. The decisions in these frameworks are largely determined by the States, with insufficient input from Indigenous Peoples at these conferences. Indigenous Peoples still attend climate conferences as observers, with limited influence in formal text negotiations. The influence should “[go] beyond having Indigenous Peoples in the room”, Degawan said.
As she elaborates in the report, Indigenous Peoples’ participation in text negotiation is somewhat limited. Most of their involvement in climate conferences takes place in side events or informal dialogues. This is ironic, given that the report was launched at a side event. Structural barriers such as language constraints, accreditation issues, travel and visa issues and insufficient funding only further limit opportunities.
This is also indicative of a wider issue of the cost of participation. Indigenous representatives are expected to attend multiple meetings, which require extensive investments and resources. This is in service to increasing their visibility, but at present it creates a risk of burnout and a concentration of knowledge and expertise among what is a relatively small group of experienced negotiators and technical experts.
All of these factors emphasise the need to improve conditions for Indigenous Peoples to enact meaningful influence in climate discussions. “It means creating the conditions for Indigenous Peoples to actually shape decisions – from setting priorities and contributing to negotiating texts before they are finalised to influencing how commitments are implemented and financed,” Degawan said.
What Degawan and the report observe is that representatives can build on existing benchmarks within the Rio Conventions and identify where their participation has been stronger, so they can apply these strategies across all three. This would mean building greater coherence among existing structures so that different institutions and actors work together in a way that reflects the interconnected nature of environmental challenges and the realities Indigenous Peoples experience. For their part, Nia Tero are dedicating their efforts to supporting coordinated Indigenous engagement during UNCCD COP17.
“The goal is not to create new benchmarks, but to ensure that progress in one convention can help raise the standard for meaningful Indigenous Peoples’ participation across the others,” Degawan said.
“The real measure of progress is whether participation translates into meaningful influence over negotiations and decisions affecting Indigenous Peoples and ancestral territories. Full, meaningful inclusion of Indigenous Peoples at this and the following Rio Conventions COPs will put the international community – not just Indigenous Peoples – in the best position to achieve humanity’s shared goals for a healthy, prosperous planet,” said Mora.
The report recommends that the convention secretariats move beyond making rhetorical commitments and take practical steps, including improving Indigenous Peoples’ access to negotiating spaces and providing them with more opportunities to input into negotiating texts. These bodies should also strengthen safeguards to ensure Indigenous participation mechanisms are not treated in isolation.
Progress in their participation across the Rio Conventions warrants reflection on Indigenous Peoples’ representation in other frameworks. Within the context of broader structural changes, such as those introduced under the UN80 initiative, there have been questions of consolidating mandates in the name of increasing efficiency in the UN system, which should serve every member of the international community.
Degawan warned that Indigenous representatives are concerned over a potential weakening of the hard-won gains in recognition and formal spaces within the UN system. Any reforms should therefore, she said, build on these gains rather than roll them back.
The full report is available at www.niatero.org/RioReport
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