The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
KABUL, Jul 7 2026 (IPS) - Kabul barber Ahmed (name changed) used to keep a collection of pictures of different hairstyles on his phone. He would show them to his customers before cutting their hair so they could choose the style they liked. Some young men would bring their own pictures, and Ahmed would cut their hair according to their wishes. The business was particularly busy a few days before Eid.
Not anymore.
“Before the festival, I was in the shop day and night and hardly ever went home. The shop was never empty. Now things are completely different. I don’t open until ten or eleven in the morning and go home at four or five in the afternoon. I just go to work to pass the time and get through the day,” Ahmed says.
In Afghanistan, and especially in its capital, Kabul, men’s hair salons and barbershops have traditionally been about more than just getting hair and beards trimmed. They have provided opportunities for men and young people to gather, drink tea and chat. In recent years, modern hairstyles and beard trends had become popular, with barbers drawing inspiration from social media and global fashion trends.
When the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in August 2021, many everyday activities were restricted. The changes also had a significant impact on the operations of men’s hair salons.
The restrictions reduced the range of services and created a climate of uncertainty among barbers. The effects of these changes quickly became visible in the everyday lives of both barbers and customers
In September of that year, the Taliban announced in some cities, especially Kabul, that cutting men’s beards was prohibited. Providing such services to men would now be against Sharia law.
The new rules and increased surveillance of barbershops changed the way the profession could be practiced. The restrictions reduced the range of services and created a climate of uncertainty among barbers. The effects of these changes quickly became visible in the everyday lives of both barbers and customers.
Ahmed is not only the owner of a barbershop, but also the father of four children. He shares his home with his family, his mother and two sisters, and the barbershop is their only source of income.
To speak to Ahmed discreetly, I go to his shop in downtown Kabul with my husband and our five-year-old son, under the guise of getting his hair cut.
When I enter Ahmed’s shop, it doesn’t look much like the salon it once was. The large posters showcasing hair and beard styles have been removed. They are no longer allowed to be displayed. The entire space has been stripped down, and it now looks more like a small, old-fashined barbershop than a modern hair studio.
When Ahmed has finished cutting my son’s hair, he gently places the scissors on the table and glances into the mirror. He pauses for a moment before sighing and saying:
“Sisters, I was eighteen when I started this job, full of passion for this craft. I’ve been in this profession for twenty years now. Just five years ago, before all these changes, I would ride my bike to work at 6:30 in the morning so I could open the shop by 7 a.m. I would work all day until 10 p.m., serving countless customers, children, adults and the elderly, from all walks of life.”
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Taliban restrictions on barbers in Afghanistan have reshaped daily life in Kabul, as beard bans and strict rules threaten livelihoods and creativity. Credit: Learning Together.
Ahmed’s barbershop sits on a busy alley in Kabul. In the past, the shop was more than just a place to get a haircut. It was where men would gather, wait their turn and drink tea while chatting about everything from football to politics. Ahmed smiles as he recalls:
“This wasn’t just a job, this was life. There were plenty of clients. Every day I learned new styles from YouTube, from clients and the pictures they brought in. There was competition in the industry and that kept me motivated.”
But that all changed in late 2021 and early 2022, when the so-called Ministry of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, known informally as the chastity police, began actively visiting barbershops. Barbers were told they could no longer trim or shave their customers’ beards. They should also avoid Western hairstyles and were warned that violations would result in serious consequences.
“At first, we just heard that we were not allowed to shave beards. Then, gradually, they started visiting our shops. Some days, two or three chastity police officers would sit here for hours, watching what I was doing and how I was cutting men’s hair and beards. While I worked, they would give me instructions on what I should and shouldn’t do,” Ahmed says.
During those first few months, Ahmed says, unofficial rumors circulated. Many barbers thought this was just a temporary measure. But it soon became clear that the rules had to be taken seriously. Over time, restrictions increased and regulatory forces began to visit stores more regularly.
“To be honest, we didn’t even dare try new styles anymore, even when customers asked for them. We were scared. Many of my barber friends were fined, and some had to close their shops for a while.”
Over the past five years, many barbers have faced various punishments: fines, arrests, and partial or complete closures of their shops. Some have changed careers, others have moved abroad. At the same time, a few, like Ahmed, continue despite the challenges, though his clientele has changed, and his income has been cut in half.
Ahmed says that conversations are shorter now, customer visits are less frequent, and the warm, lively energy that once filled the shop has evaporated. In this climate, barbering is no longer the motivating, dynamic profession that it once was for many.
“Young people used to care a lot about their appearance. Now they either don’t come at all or only want very simple haircuts. In fact, they’re scared. Recently, I was cutting a teenage boy’s hair when a chastity police officer showed up. He noticed I was styling my client’s hair and made a big scene. He forced me to cut my hair very short and threatened to close my shop. After a long discussion, they finally agreed to just fine me and leave.”
The experiences of Afghan barbers show that human creativity cannot be completely suppressed. People like Ahmed, despite the challenges and fears, have not given up. They continue to create small spaces where there is room for art, connection and hope. Perseverance is a sign of a community’s ability to recover, grow and rebuild.
The future may be difficult, but the spirit of resistance and human hope keep alive the possibility of change and a return to days when life and creativity thrived.
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
SAMARKAND, Uzbekistan, Jul 7 2026 (IPS) - For most of the Eighth Global Environmental Facility (GEF) Assembly last month, the atmosphere inside Samarkand’s sprawling Congress Centre echoed a growing confidence of global environmental policymakers.
Delegates darted between plenary halls and side events discussing biodiversity targets, climate adaptation and ecosystem restoration. PowerPoint charts displayed shrinking forests. Investment bankers touted new financing tools. Smartly dressed bartenders served coffee in perfect air-conditioned comfort.
Yet despite this spectre of environmental diplomacy, a hard question lingered: How to mobilise private money when public coffers can no longer provide?
To many, the answer was blended finance.
The question became even more tangible on a humid Saturday morning when a group of delegates boarded low-emission coaches to Zarafshan National Nature Park on the outskirts of the ancient Silk Road city.
The excursion, many delegates later affirmed, offered a glimpse of a successful conservation model.
Walking through one of Central Asia’s surviving tugai forests – a riverside ecosystem that once stretched across much of the region – delegates witnessed the recovery of the Bukhara deer, a species once pushed to the edge of survival by habitat loss and poaching.
Wide-eyed delegates watched as rangers briskly hurled bundles of fresh forage, while several deer emerged from the reeds with the ease of animals that had learned to trust their caretakers.
A ranger works in an enclosure at the Zarafshan National Natural Park, one of Uzbekistan’s newest protected areas established to conserve the fragile riparian forests of the Zarafshan River and recover threatened wildlife, including the iconic Bukhara deer. The park illustrates the type of landscape where blended finance could help bridge funding gaps for ecosystem restoration, sustainable tourism and community livelihoods, provided investments deliver measurable conservation outcomes. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS
For conservationists, the scene was a tangible sign of ecological recovery in a parched Uzbek steppe. For financiers, it carried a different meaning—evidence that restoration requires sustained investment long after donor attention has shifted elsewhere.
That tension – between ecological reality and financial logic – ran through nearly every conversation in Samarkand, where the GEF’s Eighth Assembly signalled a deeper shift toward blended finance as a core conservation funding model.
The GEF’s new replenishment cycle, dubbed GEF-9, will secure at least $3.9 billion in donor commitments through 2030. But the more consequential shift lies in its architecture, with a target of using roughly a quarter of the resources to crowd in private capital alongside public and concessional finance.
GEF officials explain that the institution’s approach differs from other blended finance initiatives by targeting only investments where markets have clearly failed.
“It is worth stating clearly at the outset that GEF’s own approach to blended finance has been deliberately targeted and highly catalytic,” Avril Benchimol, Senior Blended Finance Specialist at the GEF, told IPS. “By design, GEF’s concessional resources have been directed at transactions where market failure is demonstrable – frontier areas such as circular economy, nature-based solutions, conservation finance, and sustainable agriculture in challenging markets where private capital does not flow without a catalytic push.”
Samuel Wangwe, senior researcher at the Economic and Social Research Foundation, said this shift towards more blended finance initiatives reflects a broader transformation in development thinking.
“Blended finance is essentially an attempt to stretch scarce public resources further by bringing in private capital. That logic is understandable in today’s fiscal environment, but it does not remove the underlying development constraints that many countries face,” he said.
The logic is rooted in a fiscal reality widely acknowledged across development finance institutions: public budgets are insufficient to meet global environmental needs, with annual financing gaps for biodiversity and climate resilience running into hundreds of billions of dollars.
Blended finance is intended to bridge that gap by using public capital to absorb early-stage risk, improving the risk-return profile of projects that would not be viable for commercial investors.
A park ranger guides delegates through one of Uzbekistan’s protected landscapes, explaining ongoing conservation and restoration efforts. The visit highlighted how long-term biodiversity protection depends not only on strong environmental policies but also on innovative financing mechanisms capable of attracting private capital while safeguarding public conservation objectives. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS
But Wangwe warned that the effectiveness of this model depends heavily on institutional strength.
“You cannot financialise ecosystems without strong governance systems. Where land rights are unclear or enforcement is weak, the risk does not disappear—it is simply priced differently, often at a higher cost to the country.”
The timing reflects broader strain in global public finance. Many donor governments face rising debt burdens, domestic political pressures and competing priorities from defence to healthcare. Development assistance budgets, once expected to expand alongside climate commitments, are instead substantially shrinking.
In that constrained environment, multilateral institutions are under pressure to demonstrate leverage – how much private capital can be mobilised per unit of public spending. As a result, blended finance has shifted from a niche development tool to a central pillar of environmental action, offering policymakers a politically palatable narrative: scarce public funds are not being reduced, but multiplied.
Wangwe, however, cautioned against over-reliance on this narrative.
“There is a tendency now to focus on how much money can be leveraged, rather than how effectively institutions can absorb and manage that investment. But without institutional depth, leverage becomes a hollow metric.”
GEF argues that its own experience suggests carefully structured concessional finance can mobilise substantially larger private investment than broader market averages.
“The concern about additionality is legitimate at the system level, and GEF takes it seriously as part of the broader conversation,” Benchimol said.
“GEF’s own mobilisation ratios have consistently outperformed the [market] average, in part because of the deliberate application of a minimum concessionality principle—using only as much concessional support as is necessary to make a transaction viable, and no more.”
Yet the promise of scale masks a more selective reality. Institutional investors – pension funds, insurers and asset managers – do not allocate capital based on environmental urgency. They respond to predictable revenue streams and manageable risk.
That distinction matters. Renewable energy projects increasingly fit that profile, offering long-term contracts and stable cash flows. Many conservation activities do not.
Ecosystem restoration, biodiversity protection and watershed management often generate public goods that are difficult to monetise. A restored forest may reduce carbon emissions and stabilise rainfall patterns, but it does not always produce direct financial returns.
As a result, blended finance works best where environmental projects can be partially ‘financialised’ – through carbon credits, ecotourism revenues or infrastructure-linked returns. Pure conservation projects remain harder to structure in bankable form.
Nowhere is this mismatch more visible than in Africa. The continent holds some of the world’s most critical biodiversity assets, from the Congo Basin to East Africa’s savannahs, yet continues to attract a relatively small share of global private environmental finance.
Contrary to common assumptions, the binding constraint is not global liquidity. Trillions of dollars sit in institutional portfolios seeking yield.
As Wangwe put it, “Africa is not short of opportunities. It is short of bankable structures that meet investor expectations. That gap is not technical alone—it is institutional and political.”
The result is a structural imbalance: countries with stronger institutions attract disproportionate flows of blended finance, while those facing the most severe environmental degradation remain dependent on grants and concessional funding.
GEF acknowledges that imbalance remains a genuine weakness of blended finance globally.
“The GEF fully shares the concern that blended finance instruments have not always reached the countries and communities with the greatest need,” Benchimol said.
“The concentration of blended finance flows in middle-income and relatively more bankable markets is a documented challenge, and addressing it is a priority as GEF shapes its future programming.”
This dynamic brings governance to the centre of the debate. Blended finance does not eliminate institutional risk; it re-prices it.
Guarantees, first-loss capital and concessional tranches can improve project economics, but they cannot substitute for credible legal systems or stable regulatory frameworks.
In practice, blended finance tends to cluster in environments where governance already functions relatively well. Where institutions are weaker, transaction costs rise and investor appetite declines.
That creates an uncomfortable implication: the places most in need of environmental investment are often the least able to attract it.
Wangwe added that this dynamic risks deepening inequality in conservation finance.
“If local communities are only seen as beneficiaries rather than stakeholders in financial structures, then blended finance risks repeating the same extractive patterns we have seen in other sectors, just under a greener label.”
GEF says future financing models must become far more country-led.
“Equity in blended finance requires genuine country ownership and voice—ensuring that recipient governments are partners in the design of financial structures rather than passive recipients of externally defined solutions,” Benchimol said.
Beyond technical design lies a more political question: who ultimately controls environmental assets as they become financialised?
Blended finance structures distribute risk and returns among governments, investors and local communities. But those distributions are not neutral.
Critics warn that conservation could increasingly resemble an investment class, where financial returns flow outward while ecological and social costs remain local.
“There is a risk that conservation becomes an asset class without community ownership,” Wangwe said. “That would replicate extractive dynamics under a green label.”
Despite its market-orientated framing, blended finance does not reduce the role of public institutions. It reconfigures it.
Governments and development agencies continue to provide first-loss capital, guarantees, project preparation funding and regulatory support. Without these interventions, most blended-finance transactions would not be viable.
Public finance, in other words, is not replaced – it is embedded deeper in deal structures, even as its presence becomes less visible in headline figures.
Wangwe stressed that this reality is often overlooked.
“The idea that private capital will replace public finance is misleading. In reality, public money is doing more of the heavy lifting than the rhetoric suggests – it is just now embedded deeper in the transaction structure.”
That raises a critical risk: if public spending is cut on the assumption that private capital will fill the gap, the entire model could weaken.
Closing the assembly, GEF interim CEO Claude Gascon noted that the model relies on cooperation and shared purpose.
He stressed the GEF was built on the understanding that no one can meet global environmental challenges alone and that it brings together countries, conventions, IPLCs, civil society, the private sector, and other stakeholders to deliver global environmental benefits.
“We need banks, institutional investors, corporations, and innovators to engage at a fundamentally different level. We need them not only to finance transition but also to shape it responsibly. We need business models that reward stewardship, not short-term extraction; disclosure and accountability systems that value long-term resilience; and governance frameworks that make environmental performance central to business success. The private sector has extraordinary reach, influence, and ingenuity. But with that influence comes responsibility.”
Back in Zarafshan National Nature Park, the Bukhara deer eventually retreated into the reeds as the delegation prepared to leave. The moment was brief, almost incidental, yet it underscored a central contradiction in global environmental finance.
Capital can accelerate conservation outcomes. It can reduce risk, improve coordination and expand funding. But it cannot substitute for the institutional and ecological conditions that determine whether recovery endures.
As delegates returned to Samarkand, optimism about blended finance remained intact. So did its central uncertainty.
For Africa, Wangwe argued, the challenge is not simply attracting investment but building the systems that can sustain it.
“The real test is not the volume of private investment mobilised, but whether ecosystems are restored, livelihoods are protected, and institutions are strengthened enough to sustain those gains beyond donor cycles.”
Despite the uncertainties, GEF says it intends to deepen – not scale back – its use of blended finance.
“GEF-9 is targeting 25% of GEF Trust Fund resources for blended finance, signalling a deliberate scaling of this approach – grounded in the conviction that blended finance, when properly structured and targeted, is not a subsidy for investments that markets would have made anyway, but a catalytic lever for investments that would not have happened at all,” Benchimol said.
The success of GEF-9 will therefore not be measured by how much private capital is mobilised but by where it flows – and whether it translates into lasting ecological recovery.
Note: This feature is published with the support of the GEF. IPS is solely responsible for the editorial content, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of the GEF.
IPS UN Bureau Report
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 7 2026 (IPS) - In recent weeks, Venezuela’s humanitarian situation has deteriorated sharply following the twin earthquakes on June 24. Marking the strongest seismic event since 1990, the earthquakes and subsequent aftershocks have resulted in a significant loss of life, widespread damage to critical infrastructure, and considerable disruption to livelihoods and humanitarian response efforts.
Before these earthquakes, Venezuela was already in the midst of a severe humanitarian crisis defined by economic collapse, political instability, and the disintegration of basic services. As of June 2026, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) estimated that nearly 8 million civilians were in dire need of humanitarian assistance, while the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported over 7.6 million forced displacements due to persistent insecurity.
The earthquakes have severely compounded these preexisting vulnerabilities, with power outages, access constraints, and communications blackouts obstructing emergency, life-saving operations and preventing millions from accessing basic needs. According to figures from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the total number of civilians in urgent need of humanitarian assistance has skyrocketed to nearly 1.8 million since the earthquakes, including roughly 680,000 children.
According to figures from the Venezuelan government, as of July 5, the death toll stood at over 3000, while over 16740 people have been injured and 17000 have lost their homes. On June 29, Gianluca Rampolla, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Venezuela, told reporters during a press briefing that the death toll “will unavoidably and sadly keep on growing as the search-and-rescue operation continues, and as we are able to detail further assessment of the impacts and quakes.”
Local authorities have recorded 942 aftershocks in the days following the initial earthquakes, with the latest recorded on July 4. La Guaira has been among the hardest-hit regions, with humanitarian experts describing entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble and displaced civilians living in makeshift camps for survival.
“Families across the affected states are in urgent need of safe water, as well as access to health care,” said UNICEF Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Roberto Benes. “Many are sleeping outside, afraid of more aftershocks. These supplies will help us reach children and families with what they need most right now…But the needs on the ground are far greater than what’s arrived.”
Doctors and humanitarian experts have raised alarm about the thousands of displaced civilians now residing in overcrowded, unsanitary camps. With civilians facing limited access to clean water and a healthcare system on the brink of collapse, experts warn that the emerging medical crisis will claim more lives if urgent intervention is not secured soon.
“It’s very hot, and there’s a lot of concern about potential vector-borne diseases,” said Veronique Durroux, the Head of Information and Advocacy, Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean at OCHA. “Waste management is an issue. Debris management, when you see the scale of devastation, it’s very concerning.”
“The issue we foresee just around the corner is the infections that patients who have been exposed to the disaster for the longest time might bring,” added Eugenio Cova, the head of the trauma unit at Hospital del Oeste Dr. José Gregorio Hernández in Caracas. “We’ve already gone through a period of complex trauma — which will continue to occur — but now it’s complicated by infections.”
Local authorities report that the earthquakes damaged 38 hospitals across the nation, further depleting an already severe shortage of medical personnel, emergency responders, ambulances, and medical equipment. Dr. Huníades Urbina, a board member of the Venezuelan Pediatrics Association, told reporters that the country has only half the number of physicians recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) to meet its needs. He noted that these earthquakes have only further emphasized “the Venezuelan government’s inability to provide an adequate healthcare system that meets the needs of the Venezuelan people.”
A preliminary assessment by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) shows that the earthquakes caused approximately USD 37 billion in direct physical damage to buildings and critical infrastructure. This includes USD 24 billion in direct losses from damage to residential, commercial, industrial, educational, healthcare, and government buildings. Another USD 13 billion in losses was attributed to damage to critical infrastructure, including water and sanitation, telecommunications, roads, railways, energy, ports, airports, oil, and gas.
These losses do not account for indirect production losses, emergency response costs, or costs associated with reconstruction or recovery. Experts project that it will take significant time and a sustained flow of aid to allow for recovery and reconstruction. UNICEF estimates that approximately $52 million is urgently required to adequately respond to the crisis, as part of its 2026 Humanitarian Action for Children Appeal for Venezuela, which has been funded by only 35 percent.
The UN and its partners have been on the frontlines of this crisis since the onset of the earthquakes, helping vulnerable communities access essential services. In La Guaira, OCHA is providing beds, tents, water and sanitation services, primary healthcare, and psychosocial support.
Additionally, OCHA is planning a Rapid Needs Assessment to determine which areas and groups require prioritized assistance. Furthermore, the data collected by this initiative will be used to inform the next phase of the humanitarian response. The Humanitarian Response Plan for Venezuela has received USD 274 million, while over USD 32 million was contributed by the private sector for humanitarian support.
IPS UN Bureau Report
MUNICH / BRUSSELS , Jul 7 2026 (IPS) - The 2030 agenda cum SDGs are due to be completed in 2030, with negotiations towards a follow-up agenda to begin formally at the UN General Assembly in autumn 2027. Many direct or indirect discussions have, however, already begun, e.g. pluri-laterally at BRICS and G20 meetings and the EU; as well as at the UN in connection with the Summit of the Future, the Doha World Summit for Social Development, the Beyond GDP report; or in fora such as the Hamburg Sustainability Conference. Think tanks and academics, too, are brainstorming on how best to re-ignite a genuine commitment to the SDGs and at the same time reflect on the future.
Therefore, it appears as the right moment to inject some thoughts contributing to chart a better course for the “beyond 2030” development agenda.
Gabriele Koehler
The international community first conceptualized a development agenda– the development decade – in 1960, and this approach has continued in various formats ever since, with poverty eradication decades, the MDGs and the SDGs. Towards the end of each such effort, the tragic verdict is that the aspirations are at best partially met.
Many observers are dismayed at the poor performance of the SDGs, with delivery on many targets underperforming or even regressing. Hence the need to analyse where and why the 2030 Agenda has not met its commitments. One argument is that they lacked analysis and skirted the sensitive issue of the structural causes of poverty and inequities. Political and economic power hierarchies are not addressed.
Another possible conclusion is that, like the preceding development agenda, the SDGs offer a global commitment, but this is not binding. SDG reporting is voluntary and anecdotal, and governments can easily “pretend” to be keen, but in reality, circumvent the required actions. The international community can duck away from its obligations to restructure global economic structures that play out against lower-income countries and socially excluded communities.
Catherine Mbengue
Anchoring a post-2030 agenda in internationally recognised human rights obligations would help ensure that commitments to present and future generations are subject to regular review and accountability. The near-universal ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child provides a particularly strong foundation for such an approach.
A proposal
We therefore propose considering a new tack: attaching the next development agenda to the Human Rights Council (HRC). The conceptualisation, the negotiations, as well as the subsequent reporting and monitoring could make use of the well-established mechanisms of the Universal Periodic Reviews and the human rights conventions.
In HRC processes, governments report on those of the 9 core human rights conventions which they have ratified. The process includes a report by the country itself, findings from independent research by the Office of Human Rights, and where existent, by civil society. Each country must report periodically on those conventions they have adopted. Some of the human rights conventions, notably the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), enjoy near-universal ratification, providing one of the strongest globally agreed foundations for a rights-based development agenda beyond 2030.
Since 2008, the Human Rights Council moreover prepares integrated reviews of human rights-related outcomes of its member states’ decisions and policies in the format of Universal Periodic Reviews (UPRs). The review process examines how a country under review adheres to the UN Charter; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the conventions it has ratified, as well as national human rights policies and/or programmes, and applicable international humanitarian law. Three peer governments supplement and assess the report of the country under review, and independent human rights experts and civil society contribute their own assessment. All 193 member states of the United Nations participated in the first 3 rounds of UPRs. This shows their traction
The experience of the CRC reporting process also demonstrates how periodic reviews, independent expertise and civil-society engagement can strengthen implementation and accountability over time.
In our proposed adjusted approach to preparing a development agenda beyond 2030, the set of eleven ILO fundamental labour standards could supplement the human rights conventions, so as to incorporate decent work, living wages, the rights to social protection and to collective organising and bargaining. This would be in the same logic of making use of governments’ binding commitments.
And thirdly, to address the triple planetary crises, one would want to include the UN General Assembly resolution on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, or the Nationally Determined Contributions under the Climate Conference of the Parties, and other mandatory processes to tackle climate change and ecological challenges. While less codified, these agreements too are binding on UN member states.
Prospects of a shifted development agenda logic
The idea of incorporating human rights into a development agenda is not new. It faced some opposition when the SDGs were negotiated in the run-up to 2015. Nevertheless, at the operational level, a human rights monitoring tool, developed by the Danish Human Rights Institute, has been available since 2015, linking most SDG targets to human rights conventions. So, there would be accumulated experience to draw on.
Our hope is that shifting the ‘beyond 2030’ discourse and negotiations from the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, convened under the ECOSOC, to the Human Rights Council (HRC), in combination with the ILO for example, could help create a new dynamic:
• It could be more efficient, because governments could conflate the reviews of their voluntary SDG reports with the mandatory reporting processes.• It could be more effective, because the HRC and the ILO oblige governments to react to and report on recommendations made at the respective reviews.
• It could be more honest and transparent because of the multiple viewpoints considered – governmental, academic, civil society, and UN.
• It could be more scientific, because part of the reporting on UN conventions is undertaken by specialists familiar with rigorous and independent academic standards.
Granted, it would be more painful, too, for those countries violating their human rights commitments. It would therefore not be easy to even launch this proposal. There may also be resistance from vested interests or established processes against moving “the SDGs” from New York to Geneva – and if climate is included – to Nairobi. And, of course, it could only function if the Human Rights Council, and human rights bodies and labour standards monitoring in each country, are properly and reliably funded.
Despite expected resistance to this idea, we observe a “magic moment”. We see so many vibrant processes on social and economic justice converging just now. Intellectual examples include the comprehensive compendium on Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth: A Global Roadmap for a New Economy, the radical Global Justice Report, the multifaceted volume on policies for an Eco-Social Contract for Sustainable and Just Futures. Politically, the International Panel on Inequality and the Global Coalition for Social Justice, as well as the movement for tax justice carried by Brazil and South Africa, point to a hunger for fundamental change. In UN inter-governmental contexts, we have the Doha Declaration of the World Social Summit committing to a more just, inclusive, equitable and sustainable world. Shifting the development agenda to human rights arenas could therefor fit nicely into a long overdue momentum for global social justice within planetary boundaries.
Gabriele Koehler is a former UN staff member (ESCAP, UNCTAD, UNDP, UNICEF) and currently a senior research fellow with UNRISD and a member of various NGOs and NGO coalitions (Women Engage for a Common Future, Global Social Justice, Alliance for a Treaty on Business & Human Rights). She follows the UN80 and other UN processes, and has been writing, advocating and giving talks and academic lectures on the SDGs since long before their inception.
gabrielekoehler@posteo.de
www.gabrielekoehler.net
Catherine Mbengue is an independent international consultant with more than four decades of experience in development cooperation, humanitarian action and human rights. A former UN Senior Official (UNICEF Representative and Senior Advisor), she currently advises governments, multilateral organisations and civil society and serves on several international boards working on child rights, social justice and institutional reform.
mbenguec@gmail.com
IPS UN Bureau
GROS ISLET, Saint Lucia , Jul 6 2026 (IPS) - Caribbean leaders are meeting in Saint Lucia for their annual summit, confronting a convergence of global and regional challenges ranging from rising living costs and climate change to crime, food security and geopolitical tensions.
The 51st Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the regional organisation that promotes economic integration, coordinates foreign policy and fosters cooperation among its 15 member states, runs until Wednesday.
Leaders are expected to discuss regional security, climate resilience, economic integration, trade, migration, food and water security and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.
The country’s Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre assumed the grouping’s rotating chairmanship.
He said he was taking over at a time of “profound uncertainty”, with Caribbean people feeling the effects of international instability in their daily lives.
“Our people feel these pressures every day,” Pierre said during the conference’s opening ceremony, citing the rising cost of food and energy, worsening climate impacts and growing concerns about crime and public safety.
He told the gathering that his six-month chairmanship would focus on ensuring regional integration delivers tangible benefits for Caribbean citizens rather than remaining confined to official meetings and declarations.
“Our people are asking a serious and legitimate question: What more can CARICOM do for me?” Pierre said. “We must make integration work for the ordinary citizen.”
The Saint Lucian leader outlined priorities that included strengthening regional unity, advancing the CARICOM Single Market and Economy, improving food and nutrition security, addressing violent crime and illegal firearms, expanding transportation links, increasing access to climate finance and developing a coordinated regional approach to artificial intelligence.
He also called for stronger support for young people, women, people with disabilities and other groups that have historically faced barriers to opportunity.
Pierre renewed CARICOM’s call for climate justice, arguing that Caribbean nations contribute little to global greenhouse gas emissions while bearing a disproportionate share of climate impacts. He urged the international community to expand access to climate finance, loss-and-damage funding and debt relief mechanisms that better reflect the vulnerability of small island developing states.
The summit comes as Caribbean governments continue to navigate the economic effects of global conflicts, supply chain disruptions and inflation while confronting increasingly severe hurricanes, prolonged droughts and other climate-related disasters that disproportionately affect small island developing states.
CARICOM Secretary-General Carla Barnett said the region’s founders envisioned cooperation as a practical response to external pressures.
“Then, as now, external factors and influences put at risk the vision of regional integration,” Barnett said, adding that leaders must accelerate implementation of long-standing regional commitments, particularly within the CARICOM Single Market and Economy.
Barnett pointed to progress in expanding the free movement of skilled workers, increasing agricultural production under the region’s food security strategy and strengthening international partnerships but said much work remains to implement agreed regional measures fully.
Outgoing CARICOM Chairman, Prime Minister of St Kitts and Nevis, Terrance Drew said his tenure reinforced the importance of unity during a period marked by global uncertainty, climate threats and questions about regional cohesion.
“The question is no longer whether CARICOM will survive,” Drew said. “The question now is how we strengthen CARICOM for the next generation.”
He said Caribbean governments had continued working together on food security, climate resilience, regional security, Haiti, reparatory justice and international diplomacy despite mounting external pressures.
Founded by the Treaty of Chaguaramas on July 4, 1973, CARICOM promotes economic integration, coordinated foreign policy and functional cooperation among its member states. The organisation now comprises 15 member states and seven associate members and works across areas including climate change, agriculture, education, health, security, trade, transportation and sustainable development.
This year’s meeting is being held under the theme ‘People, Partnerships, Prosperity: Promoting a Secure and Sustainable Future’. Leaders will continue discussions through July 8 before issuing a final communiqué expected to outline decisions on regional security, climate resilience, economic integration and other priorities identified during the conference.
IPS UN Bureau Report
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 6 2026 (IPS) - A new assessment from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) warns that the Ebola outbreak could cost Africa USD 3.6 billion, push 985,000 people into poverty, and put 300,000 jobs at risk.
The new analysis shows that the damage extends well beyond just those infected, disproportionately harming vulnerable populations and creating trade disruptions, transport delays, border restrictions, declining consumer confidence, along with interruptions to informal markets.
Currently, the Bundibuygo species of Ebola has no vaccine or treatment, and garners a fatality rate around 50 percent. The Democratic Republic of The Congo (DRC) records 1307 confirmed cases and 377 confirmed deaths as of June 30th, according to the DRC Ministry of Health. Separately the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recorded 20 confirmed cases and 2 confirmed deaths in Uganda, along with 1 confirmed case and no deaths in France.
According to Dr Abdirahman Mahamud, Director of Health Emergency Alert and Response Operations at the World Health Organization, the new virus only took 37 days to reach 250 deaths, while in 2014 and 2016, during the West Africa outbreak, it took 78 days, and in 2016-2019 it took 130 days to reach the same amount of deaths. “This is the largest number of confirmed cases in the first month of an Ebola disease outbreak in Africa,” said Dr. Mahamud.
Ahunna Eziakonwa, UN Assistant-Secretary-General and UNDP Regional Director for Africa says “Ebola does not stop at the hospital gate. It affects livelihoods, education, food security, trade, public finances and trust. If we treat this Ebola outbreak solely as a health challenge, we risk missing the much larger development emergency unfolding around it.”
This indicates that this outbreak could affect much more than just health. Rather it can be a challenge for all forms of livelihood, among disrupting the movement of goods, food, and money: the backbone behind resilience.
“Ebola is more than a health crisis. It touches every aspect of daily life, bringing uncertainty and fear.” Says Ugochi Daniesl, Deputy Director General for Operations at the International Organization for Migration (IOM)
UNICEF notes that children make up 15 percent of confirmed cases, and over 25 percent of deaths, making children almost twice as likely to die compared to adults. UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russel says that “Children are especially vulnerable because they depend on caregivers and cannot distance themselves from a sick parent or sibling in the same way that an adult can,” revealing a stark reality where more than 130 children have lost one or both parents in the Ituri region, the origin of the current outbreak.
While much of the outbreak looks dark, the WHO Director General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus said on June 24th, “With support from the WHO and the Africa CDC, laboratory capacity has increased from 30 tests a day at the central laboratory in Kinshasa to over 2000 tests a day in nine labs across three provinces.”
The Director General also said that more than 100 people have recovered since, noting that early detection and supportive care can help patients survive the disease. He added “But we could save many more lives with therapeutics. And preparations are now complete for a trial of two therapeutics that is expected to start in DRC next week (The Week of June 28th). The trial will evaluate whether two antivirals, MBP134 and remdesivir, can help to reduce mortality in patients with Bundibugyo virus disease, alone or in combination. We thank the United States and Gilead Sciences for donating doses for the trial.”
The WHO Director General affirmed that “With early detection and supportive care, many can survive this disease.”
The clinical trial opened enrollment for Ebola patients in the DRC on July 2. The trial is coordinated by WHO, the Institut National pour la Recherche Biomédicale (INRB) in the DRC, the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Belgium, and the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, in coordination with international research, clinical and humanitarian partners. The trial will be integrated into clinical care, and will allow for additional treatments to be added as they become available.
IPS UN Bureau Report
VIENNA / ADDIS ABABA, Jul 6 2026 (IPS) - Amid shifting geopolitical, economic, and technological landscapes, it reflects growing international recognition that Africa’s sustainable industrial transformation is vital – not only for the continent’s future, but also for global prosperity.
Backed by more than 140 co-sponsors and endorsed by 176 Member States, as well as the African Union Executive Council, IDDA IV is the most politically anchored Decade yet. This is especially significant at a time when international development cooperation and multilateralism are under strain.
The proclamation underscores that industrialization is crucial to Africa’s productive transformation, economic diversification, decent job creation, poverty reduction, and long-term growth. It also calls on the international community to support Africa’s industrialization efforts as a contribution to the realization of Agenda 2063.
Building on its predecessor, IDDA IV sets an integrated transformation agenda, which aligns Africa’s structural realities to the opportunities and challenges of a rapidly evolving global economy.
The Third Industrial Development Decade elevated Africa’s industrialization on the global political agenda, mobilized over 700 joint initiatives with development partners and financial institutions, and strengthened industrial policy support across African Member States.
These achievements are a strong foundation to build on. Yet significant structural barriers – infrastructure and energy deficits, limited productive capacity, low technology absorption, and insufficient access to finance – still need to be addressed.
Africa enters the Fourth Industrial Development Decade against a backdrop of volatility and change, but also unprecedented opportunities.
Opportunities
Despite recurring global and regional shocks, the continent has remained resilient. The African Development Bank’s 2026 Economic Outlook notes that real GDP growth reached 4.4 per cent in 2025, making Africa among the fastest growing regions of the world.
With nearly 12 million young people entering the labour force each year, Africa’s youthful population is a major driver of its future prosperity.
At the same time, global supply chains are being reconfigured, and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is creating the world’s largest emerging integrated market, opening the door to regional trade integration, value chains and economies of scale.
Digital technologies are reshaping manufacturing systems worldwide, providing Africa with an opportunity to leapfrog traditional industrial pathways. The digital transition is driving innovation in agro-processing and climate-smart agricultural technologies. It is also fueling global demand for critical minerals, which resource-endowed African countries can leverage by building local value addition.
In parallel, Africa’s growing middle class, urbanization and shifting consumer preferences are expanding markets, from processed foods to pharmaceuticals. Continuing regional integration under the AfCFTA is further adding momentum.
The convergence of these trends creates a historic window of opportunity for Africa, which may not return in the same form.
With IDDA IV proclaimed, the mandate is set; the urgent task now is delivery.
The African Union Commission (AUC) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) are committed to steering this process together as the two institutions entrusted by the UN General Assembly to lead the Decade’s implementation.
The immediate priority for the next 18 months is to develop a collaborative Programme of Action. This framework will translate the Decade’s mandate into targeted investments, secure financing platforms, and measurable results across national and regional corridors.
IDDA IV is not standalone. It aligns with major continental frameworks and initiatives, including the AfCFTA, the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA), and the New African Financial Architecture for Development (NAFAD), while convening the different actors needed to advance Africa’s industrialization.
UNIDO, as the UN’s specialized agency for industrial development, brings technical and policy expertise, field presence, and proven operational models to implement IDDA IV on the ground, including through its Programmes for Country Partnership.
The AUC, with its continent wide political mandate and strong coordination capacity, can align trade, infrastructure, finance, and industry to drive delivery.
This effort will be coordinated with the African Union Development Agency – Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA -NEPAD), the Economic Commission for Africa, the African Development Bank Group, Afreximbank, regional economic communities, development partners, and private sector stakeholders.
However, to succeed, IDDA IV needs adequate and sustained financing. It requires building an industrial investment ecosystem and making private sector engagement a core pillar of delivery.
Governments and international organizations can create an enabling environment, coordinate partnerships and support policy reforms. But it is the private sector that builds factories, creates jobs, and links economies to regional and global value chains.
The next phase will therefore focus on mobilizing public and private capital, structuring bankable projects capable of attracting institutional investors, and using blended finance mechanisms to de-risk investments in emerging markets.
IDDA IV is not merely another international decade. It is the opportunity to redefine Africa’s role in the global economy, shifting from raw material exporter to a producer of value-added goods, and a driver of industrial innovation and sustainable growth.
Ms. Fatou Haidara is UNIDO’s Deputy to the Director General and Managing Director of the Directorate of Global Partnerships and External Relations, while Ms. Francisca Tatchouop Belobe is the AUC’s Commissioner for Economic Development, Trade, Tourism, Industry, and Minerals.
Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations
IPS UN Bureau
Excerpt:
The UN has proclaimed 2026-2035 as the Fourth Industrial Development Decade for Africa (IDDA IV). What opportunities are there for Africa?