The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 2 2026 (IPS) - Demand for critical energy transition minerals (CETMs) is expected to surge over the coming decades as countries expand clean technology capacity, develop electric vehicles, create battery storage, implement renewable energy systems, and introduce digital infrastructure according to UNCTADs latest report, The Shifting Dynamics of Critical Minerals Trade.
CETMs include lithium, nickel, cobalt, and rare earth elements, making them vital to producing low carbon clean energy alternatives and renewable technologies used for electricity production and battery storage. These elements are also commonly found within datacenters, semiconductors, consumer electronics, and any field requiring digitalization.
According to the report, demand for lithium is projected to increase by 353 percent by 2040, followed by graphite (131 percent), nickel (69 percent), magnet rare earths (65 percent), cobalt (49 percent), and copper (28 percent).
Naturally this surge in CETM demand also has changed the composition of where CETMs are being used, with clean technologies absorbing a growing share in the industry of CETMs.
Share of Critical Mineral Demand for Clean Technologies. Credit: Maximilian Malawista / IPS
Although these CETMs are experiencing a surge in demand, from mining to processing or refining, the entire value chain is geographically concentrated between a few countries, dominating the entire global output. This same pattern also follows for reserves of key minerals, such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and rare earth elements which are unevenly distributed among a few states.
According to UNCTAD, China accounts for 69 percent of rare earth element production, and produces 78 percent of natural graphite capacity. Indonesia accounts for 67 percent of global nickel production, while the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) accounts for 50 percent of global cobalt reserves and 47 percent of global cobalt mine production.
“Reserves” refer to mineral deposits which can be economically extracted using available technology, differing from total geological resources, which include deposits not yet commercially viable or known. Due to the situation of current reserves and mining output, only a few nations produce the majority of the capacity of critical minerals. The concentration of production and reserves leaves global supply chains highly vulnerable to geopolitical disruptions, and trade restrictions, among other shocks.
Represented is how much of the global reserves/mining output of CETMs is within just the top three countries. Credit: Maximilian Malawista / IPS
Notably, mining output is slightly more concentrated than reserves for every mineral shown, indicating that mining production is controlled by an even smaller group of countries than the resource base itself.
This means that an overwhelming amount of these materials needed for some of the most critical functions for today and for our future rely on three countries for the entire global trade to function.
UNCTAD states: “Mining is capital-intensive and characterized by long lead times, limiting short-term supply responsiveness and leaving concentrated supply chains exposed to geopolitical risks, governance challenges, and environmental and social pressures.”
While the mining process receives much of the attention, UNCTAD argues in their report that refining represents an even larger vulnerability due to processing capacity being concentrated within a even smaller number of countries.
Refining and other downstream stages are even more concentrated” than that of mining, “creating critical bottlenecks in CETM supply chains,” An UNCTAD spokesperson told Inter Press Service. “A country may possess abundant mineral reserves yet remain dependent on a small number of foreign suppliers for refining, separation, precursor materials or advanced components.” They added explaining how there are “technical know-how, industrial capabilities, infrastructure and market power”, which means that “access to mineral resources alone does not necessarily translate into secure access to supply.”
UNCTAD also highlights that the concentration is also within only a few firms, in “several critical mineral markets” where a relatively small number of companies control “significant shares of mining, processing, trading, refining and technology.”
The issue as UNCTAD points out is that refining requires substantial long-term capital investment, access to advanced technologies, significant energy inputs, and specialized infrastructure, along with being an economy of scale to be cost competitive, which creates massive barriers to entry for new players.
Because global supply is concentrated, naturally international trade is the primary mechanism through which these minerals move between countries. The UNCTAD spokesperson remarked that “Cross-border trade in ores, concentrates, refined materials, and downstream components enables access to geographically dispersed stages of production across complex global value chains, particularly in high-technology sectors.”
What this means is that most countries depend on imports of CETMs at some point of their value chain for their manufacturing or developmental needs.
While diversification of processes would be necessary to alleviate risk associated with CETMs, since 2020 restrictive export measures on CETMs have been on the rise.
Mineral-rich economies like China, Indonesia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are seeking to capture higher value stages of production, rather than just exporting raw materials alone. Restrictive export measures are increasingly being introduced to capture more of the downstream value, encouraging domestic refining, industrial development, and manufacturing, rather than solely relying on commodity exports.
Of these measures, licensing requirements, export taxes, and exports bans make the most common measures.
Since 2020, 37 licensing requirements, 31 export tax measures, 29 export bans, and 1 export quota have been recorded. 18 of these export measures were implemented by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with China introducing 16 followed by Indonesia at 12. Other countries such as Burundi and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela have introduced 8 measures each, while Zimbabwe has 7.
While at the moment supply chains are extremely concentrated and are becoming even further concentrated creating higher risk for importers, UNCTAD notes that major CETM importers such as the European Union, Japan, and the United States are adopting strategies to alleviate risk by diversifying import sources, increasing domestic capacity development, recycling, and developing strategic partnerships. In a three-year period, since 2022 such agreements in developmental stages have grown from just 15, to an addition of 58 new agreements targeting a diversification across value chains, and securing mineral access and production in a safe and future proof manner through policy.
As demand for CETMs accelerates, governments are increasingly looking at supply chains with scrutiny, seeing them as a strategic asset. While producing CETM high-capacity nations are seeking to control more value through domestic production of other stages and create more industry, major importers are moving aggressively to diversify supply sources to build more resilient supply chains. The outcome could not only decide the speed at which the global energy transition occurs, but also shape which countries will emerge as the key trading hubs and industrial powerhouses of the clean-energy economy.
IPS UN Bureau Report
GENEVA, Jul 2 2026 (IPS) - A letter to staff unions from economists working in the resident coordinator system, blows the whistle on a restructuring that could damage the development pillar and downgrade support to middle income countries.
For memory, UN resident coordinators are tasked with aligning the work of different UN agencies in 162 countries with respective government priorities.
Resident coordinators don’t have funds to get agencies to work together. They rely on their powers of persuasion and importantly, their office’s analytical and data handling capacity.
They therefore have a country economist, who provides evidence-based advice to the UN country team on improving development impact and helps mobilise financing from international financial institutions. These economists also represent non-resident agencies such as mine, UNCTAD, in discussions with the government. As agencies shut their country offices, this becomes more important.
The current system has existed since 2019 and the General Assembly has asked the Deputy Secretary-General, who oversees the system, for a review.
According to the letter (there is no other source of information as the process is a tightly-guarded secret), the proposal is a restructuring that, surprisingly, reduces analytical capacity resident coordinator offices in the over 100 middle income developing countries through a blanket downgrading of economist posts, undermining resident coordinators in the process.
There doesn’t seem to be an assessment in the rushed process of different countries’ circumstances nor the situations they’re going through.
It is not clear why middle-income countries, which constitute most UN member states, are being targeted and this appears to run counter to UN policy.
DESA has warned against abandoning support for middle income countries (https://lnkd.in/edKWFJgM) noting they “are a large and heterogenous group. They differ widely in their development needs and challenges, and in their capacity to mobilise domestic and external resources.”
Rebeca Grynspan has called out the middle-income country trap.
Last month the Secretary-General warned not to judge the challenges facing countries by GDP alone (https://lnkd.in/eaB85QFg).
Although, member states have already voiced concerns with the restructuring; it is being imposed regardless, and being rushed through before they can have a further say.
A large number of staff, originating from all regions, some recruited only last year, will therefore be removed from their posts, while UN support to and ability to mobilise financing for middle income countries will be reduced.
As the restructuring is cost-neutral, the savings from cutting staff in the field would appear to then provide more posts to regional offices and at senior level, and upgrade management posts.
The letter alleges an absence of meaningful consultation with unions and resident coordinators. In some countries, the entire cadre of international and national professional staff in a country could be replaced.
There is consensus that the resident coordinator system should be improved and we know resources are limited. It’s not clear though if downgrading substantive and analytical capacity is the right solution. Perhaps a more comprehensive assessment is needed, without the ticking clock of the end of mandate, so that the fragile development pillar isn’t damaged further.
Extracts from the letter are published below :
We write as economists serving in UN Resident Coordinator’s Offices across Standard, Complex, and Multi-Country settings. We come from different regions, work in countries spanning very different development contexts and income categories, and some of us started our careers as national officers. We raise these concerns in good faith and ask for a structured dialogue before the proposals are finalised.
1. The case for economic expertise in the RC system
The RCO economist provides analytical support independent of government preference and agency programming logic — on fiscal space, debt dynamics, structural transformation, SDG financing, and trade shocks. It draws on experience across multiple country contexts and IFI networks. The seniority of the posts matters: it enables credible engagement with finance ministers, private sector counterparts, and development finance institutions — the partnerships needed to mobilise SDG financing. Abolishing those posts removes that standing. At the ECOSOC OAS in June 2026, delegations spanning the G77, the African Group, AOSIS, India, Germany, Indonesia, Pakistan, Canada, the United States, and the Republic of Korea called explicitly for “strengthening capacities in strategic planning, economic analysis, SDG financing, data, digitalization, communications, climate and resilience.” The recalibration moves in the opposite direction, weeks after that mandate was given.
• The current moment is the wrong time to reduce analytical capacity. Countries face compounding pressures: COVID-19 structural aftereffects, Russia-Ukraine trade and energy disruptions, US-Iran escalation, and a fragmenting multilateral trading system. At the ECOSOC OAS, USG Li Junhua (DESA) noted ODA fell a record 23% in 2025 and the SDG financing gap stands above USD 4 trillion. Agency analytical capacity is simultaneously contracting: UNDP has abolished its economist programme for Africa and budgets and staffing have been cut across multiple entities. As agency footprints shrink, the RCO economist is often the only independent macroeconomic analyst the RC and host government can draw on.
• The Standard RCO category is a coordination label, not an economic complexity assessment. Across the 101 Standard RCO countries, analytical complexity does not track income category. DESA, UNCTAD, and the regional commissions have all cautioned against using GDP per capita as a proxy for development support needs. Applying that filter to determine where independent economic analysis is necessary is inconsistent with the UN’s own guidance.
• Adding senior headquarters posts while cutting country capacity contradicts a direct General Assembly mandate. The recalibration creates new D2 posts at headquarters and increases regional staffing. In December 2025, paragraph 16 of GA resolution A/C.5/80/L.4 requested the Secretary-General to include proposals “with the aim to reduce or reclassify the overall number of USG, ASG, D-2 and D-1 posts markedly” under UN80. Adding D2 posts at headquarters while abolishing and nationalising field posts moves in the opposite direction. Norway at the ECOSOC OAS stated this is “not the time to weaken” the RC system. Member States including AOSIS, Pakistan, Nepal, Indonesia, Canada, and Switzerland also questioned “whether expertise-on-demand can substitute for sustained presence.” It cannot. Cross-country policy and financing work requires continuity, institutional memory, and relationships — not episodic inputs from a regional hub.
• The recalibration contradicts UN 2.0 priorities and discards a recent investment in talent. Under UN 2.0, the Secretary-General prioritised data-driven decision-making — a competency assessed in recruiting these positions — and called for international staff mobility across headquarters, regional bodies, and the field. The RCO economist role was one of the few routes enabling that rotation. Converting posts to national roles closes it off. Several colleagues joined within the past 12 to 18 months on the basis of a clear signal that country-level analytical capacity was being strengthened. Reversing course without explanation wastes the investment and will deter future talent.
2. The analytical basis for this decision does not hold
The recalibration of 130 RCOs has been summarised on a single slide with four columns — no within-category differentiation, no country-specific analysis, no assessment of capacity lost in any specific setting. The UN80 Staff Support Policy Framework (OHR/PG/2025/4, June 2025) requires that “decision-makers must provide reasons for any administrative decisions, supported by facts.” No such reasons have been provided. Income-based categories — which the UN’s own analytical bodies warn against using as a proxy for development complexity — are the primary basis for determining where independent economic analysis is needed.
3. Process concerns
• RCs were not meaningfully consulted. Engagement happened shortly before public rollout, not during the design phase. Earlier discussions reportedly included giving RCs discretion over the economist profile in their office. That option was dropped without explanation, in direct tension with the principle that country team configurations should reflect RC judgment.
• No written rationale has been provided. The town hall did not explain why economist positions are being nationalised or downgraded, why income categories are the organising variable, or how any of this improves efficiency or advances UN 2.0. Without a written rationale, staff and Member States are being asked to accept a significant structural change on trust.
• The process does not meet the Organisation’s own standards for staff consultation. Staff Regulation 8.1(a) requires “effective participation of the staff in identifying, examining and resolving issues relating to staff welfare, including conditions of work.” OHR/PG/2025/4 commits management to engage through the Staff Management Committee “on a regular and timely basis regarding proposals that will impact staff.” Staff learned of this recalibration at a town hall after the configuration was designed. Whatever engagement occurred with staff representatives fell short of these requirements — and staff at large had no involvement at all.
• The pace of implementation risks bypassing Member State oversight. ACABQ and the Fifth Committee will consider RC system funding in autumn 2026. DCO’s extrabudgetary discretion means restructuring can proceed before that review. Rushing this through before a new Secretary-General is named makes the situation harder to revisit.
4. What we are asking for
• A written rationale — including the evidence base, efficiency gains claimed, and an honest account of what analytical capacity is lost.
• Genuine RC consultation before any finalisation on the economist profile appropriate for each country context. RC discretion should be the default, not the exception.
• Structured Staff Council engagement before the configuration is operationalised, consistent with Staff Regulation 8.1 and Staff Rule 8.1(h).
• Reconsideration of the blanket approach, with scope for RCs to retain or request an international economist where conditions warrant — an option reportedly still under discussion before this proposal was finalised.
• An assessment of the HR costs — relocations, repatriations, terminations — given the RC system’s current financial constraints.
Mohammed Chiraz Baly is a staff representative and former General Secretary of the CCISUA staff union federation. He is also a data analyst at UNCTAD focusing on investment financing in developing countries.
IPS UN Bureau
ROME, Jul 1 2026 (IPS) - When Roberto Savio begins talking about The Global Citizen Handbook, he does not begin with the book itself.
He begins with today’s young people.
Dr. Roberto Savio
That observation forms the starting point of a book that is less about globalization than about citizenship itself.
Co-authored with educator Giuliano Rizzi, The Global Citizen Handbook argues that humanity’s greatest challenge today is not simply climate change, war, inequality or artificial intelligence. It is our growing inability to understand how these crises are connected.
For Savio, the contrast between generations illustrates this transformation.
A new generation faces a world shaped by interconnected crises—from climate change and conflict to inequality and artificial intelligence—raising profound questions about the future of global citizenship. Credit: AI-generated illustration. Image: INPS Japan
Those who emerged from the devastation of the Second World War inherited ruined cities but also a profound belief that reconstruction would create a better future. The creation of the United Nations symbolized that optimism.
By the 1990s, another generation entered adulthood expecting that industrialization, technological progress and expanding economies would provide stable employment, home ownership and a secure future.
Young people today inherit something very different.
Climate disruption, widening inequality, geopolitical rivalry, financial instability, demographic decline, armed conflict and artificial intelligence converge to create unprecedented uncertainty.
Yet, Savio argues, objective uncertainty tells only part of the story.
There is also a crisis of understanding.
Every day, people are exposed to an endless stream of information about climate change, migration, democracy, finance, war and artificial intelligence.
Never before has humanity had access to so much information.
Never before has it been so difficult to understand how that information fits together.
“Ordinary citizens are not encyclopedias,” Savio says.
An endless stream of disconnected information can make today’s global crises appear overwhelming. The Global Citizen Handbook argues that understanding the connections between them is the first step toward informed citizenship. Image:INPS Japan
Daily news encourages people to see isolated events rather than interconnected processes.
Climate change appears separate from migration.
Migration appears separate from inequality.
Artificial intelligence is discussed independently from democracy.
Reality becomes fragmented.
As those connections disappear from public understanding, many people begin to feel that the world has become too complex to comprehend—or to influence.
For Savio, this is one of the defining democratic challenges of the digital age.
Citizens cannot participate meaningfully in public life if they cannot understand the forces shaping it.
Roberto Savio（Right)
Rather than producing another reference book filled with statistics and expert analysis, Savio and Rizzi chose a different approach.
“Our purpose was never simply to explain global problems,” Savio said.
“We wanted to create a handbook that encourages readers to stop, reflect and ask themselves questions.”
Each chapter combines documented evidence with examples of communities that have successfully addressed similar challenges.
Instead of ending with conclusions, every chapter ends with questions.
Facts become understanding.
Understanding becomes judgment.
Judgment becomes participation.
A visual reflection of The Global Citizen Handbook: the promise and perils of artificial intelligence and digital technology, set alongside the authors’ call for active, informed global citizenship grounded in human dignity, shared responsibility and hope. Image: INPS Japan
It is not simply a book about the world.
It is a guide to becoming an informed citizen within it.
For Savio, The Global Citizen Handbook is not a departure from his life’s work.
It is its natural continuation.
Credit: INPS Japan
He wanted to broaden international journalism by bringing global attention to voices and experiences that rarely reached the world’s headlines.
That philosophy became widely known as “Giving Voice to the Voiceless.”
Yet for Savio, journalism should do more than report distant events.
It should help people understand why those events matter to their own lives.
During our conversation, Savio reflected on another chapter of that journey.
Katsuhiro Asagiri(Left) and Roberto Savio(Right)
In 2009, IPS and Soka Gakkai International (SGI) launched an international media partnership dedicated to fostering global citizens committed to a world free of nuclear weapons.
Since then, INPS Japan has served as the Japanese hub of that collaboration, publishing multilingual reporting and developing a growing knowledge platform connecting nuclear disarmament, sustainable development, human rights, climate change and other global challenges.
From the Annual report 2010 with Messages from Dr. Roberto Savio and Dr, Daisaku Ikeda commenting on the launch of media collabolation between IPS and SGI which started in April 2009.
Looking back on the origins of the partnership, Savio immediately recalled the message contributed by Dr. Daisaku Ikeda, third president of Soka Gakkai, to the first annual compilation published in 2010.
“It remains as relevant today as it was then,” Savio said.
In his message, Dr. Ikeda wrote:
“Herein lies the importance of education, in the broadest sense of the word. When people are empowered with accurate knowledge, they naturally understand the actions they need to take. Exchanging views among those close to us, they can learn together and search for the best and most effective forms of action.”
Dr. Ikeda continued:
“The media have an especially important role to play in this educational process. By making objective information widely available and offering analysis from a range of standpoints, the media can bring into sharper focus the nature of issues and the actions to be taken to resolve them.”
Reflecting on the IPS–SGI partnership, Dr. Ikeda added:
“IPS has taken as its special mission the work of ‘giving a voice to the voiceless.’ Soka Gakkai International is dedicated, from a civil society perspective, to building a culture of peace. It is a great joy to be able to collaborate with IPS in this project to provide a forum for dialogue to explore the meaning of solutions to this most critical of issues.”
Savio said he remains deeply encouraged that the vision shared by Dr. Ikeda more than fifteen years ago continues to flourish.
He also recalled his own message written for the same publication, expressing the hope that the INPS Japan – SGI multilingual media platform would become a “base camp” on the climb toward what he described as “sanguine optimism.”
Roberto Savio (far left), then Deputy Director at the World Political Forum (WPF), founded by former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev(2nd from left), welcomes an SGI delegation led by Hiromasa Ikeda (center) to a 2009 international conference on nuclear abolition. The meeting marked the beginning of the long-standing media partnership between Inter Press Service (IPS) and Soka Gakkai International (SGI). Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri / INPS Japan.
Looking back today, Savio said he is delighted to see that the collaboration between IPS, INPS Japan and SGI has continued to grow.
For him, it represents far more than a successful media partnership.
It demonstrates how independent journalism, education and dialogue can work together to cultivate informed and responsible global citizens.
More than fifteen years after those messages were written, The Global Citizen Handbook can be read as a continuation of the same conversation—one that seeks to cultivate citizens capable of understanding an increasingly interconnected world and acting responsibly within it.
Global citizenship, Savio argues, does not mean abandoning one’s country or culture.
It means recognizing that our responsibilities no longer end at national borders.
Our choices, our consumption, our politics and our values increasingly affect people we may never meet.
Understanding those connections is where citizenship begins.
Artificial intelligence offers unprecedented opportunities to advance education, health care and access to knowledge, but its benefits depend on democratic governance, ethical stewardship and informed global citizenship. Image: INPS Japan
For more than sixty years, Roberto Savio has argued that journalism should do more than report events.
It should help people understand the forces shaping their lives.
Through The Global Citizen Handbook, he extends that mission beyond journalism into education.
Understanding, however, is not the final destination.
It is the beginning of citizenship.
In an interconnected world, the future will depend not only on better governments or better technologies, but on better informed citizens who recognize that responsibility no longer ends at national borders.
That is the invitation Roberto Savio extends through The Global Citizen Handbook.
And perhaps, in an age of fragmentation and uncertainty, it is the invitation our time needs most.
SDGs for All media project cover page. Credit: INPS Japan
Roberto Savio – the compass of OtherNews – is a journalist, communication expert, political commentator, activist for social and climate justice and advocate of global governance. In 1964, he founded Inter Press Service (IPS), of which he was Director-General for many years. He is Deputy Director of the Scientific Council of the New Policy Forum (formerly the World Policy Forum), founded by Mikhail Gorbachev and also a member of the International Committee of the World Social Forum (WSF).
Excerpt:
Why Roberto Savio Believes Global Citizenship Matters More Than EverIn an exclusive interview with INPS Japan, Inter Press Service (IPS) founder Roberto Savio reflects on why understanding our interconnected world has become one of the defining responsibilities of citizenship in the twenty-first century. Discussing his new book, The Global Citizen Handbook, co-authored with educator Giuliano Rizzi, Savio argues that humanity's greatest challenge is no longer a lack of information, but a growing inability to understand how the world's crises are connected. He also reflects on the enduring partnership between IPS, INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International (SGI), describing it as a shared effort to cultivate global citizens committed to peace, dialogue and, ultimately, a world free of nuclear weapons.
NEW YORK, Jul 1 2026 (IPS) - Developing countries’ efforts to tackle the ongoing effects of conflict in the Middle East carry a high price that leaves little room for critical investments in education, health and other development priorities, according to a new report by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) released today.
The report – Military Escalation in the Middle East: Cushioning the Global Shock – reveals that low- and middle-income countries have partially protected their populations from soaring oil prices through fossil fuel subsidies, price caps, tax rebates and demand-management measures.
Fossil fuel subsidies, which had been on a downward trend globally, are on track to reach US$1.1 trillion in 2026 – US$ 410 billion more than in 2025, assuming the current average oil price settles at US$88.6 per barrel.
This projection climbs to as much as US$1.43 trillion in a ‘severe’ scenario where oil prices climb to an average of US$110 per barrel.
The UNDP report warns that while fossil fuel subsidies provide temporary relief, they ultimately undermine climate and development goals, locking countries into high-carbon pathways and limiting future investment.
“The global spillover of the Middle East conflict is profound and potentially long-lasting. Developing countries, many already struggling with debt, have temporarily managed to protect people from the worst of the energy shock,” said UNDP Administrator Alexander De Croo. “These countries are doing everything they can, but there is a hidden cost. To deal with today’s crisis, governments are postponing tomorrow’s investments. Money that should be building schools, hospitals, and clean energy systems is being used simply to keep economies afloat. Without international support, these countries won’t escape the shock. They are absorbing it at the expense of future growth.”
Close to half of the world’s poorest countries are already either ‘in’ or at ‘high risk’ of debt distress, and debt continues to crowd out development spending at an increasing rate, according to the report.
This year, it is estimated that the median developing economy will spend 9.53 percent of total government revenue on interest payments alone – double the share of a decade ago and the highest level seen in 25 years.
Averaged over the three-year period 2024 to 2026, 55 developing economies are estimated to pay more than 10 percent of revenue in interest payments, compared to 32 countries a decade ago.
“No country should have to sacrifice its future development to manage a crisis it did not create,” said De Croo. “First, we must unlock multilateral liquidity in ways that are easy to access for low and middle-income countries. Second, we must accelerate investment in renewable energy. Every clean energy investment reduces exposure to future shocks. The crisis has made one thing clear: energy security and the energy transition are no longer separate agendas. They are one and the same.”
The report is being launched in the context of the Hamburg Sustainability Conference (HSC) taking place this week. The HSC is an annual high-level meeting that aims to foster new partnerships and collective action by global policymakers, private sector leaders, academia experts, and civil society representatives. The annual event is a joint initiative of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and the Michael Otto Foundation.
Full report
The full report is available online at https://www.undp.org/publications/military-escalation-middle-east-cushioning-global-shock
IPS UN Bureau
Excerpt:
Ripple effects from the Middle East conflict force developing countries to burn fiscal space on fossil fuel subsidies, wiping out investment in health, education and climate, according to new report.
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 1 2026 (IPS) - From June 22 to 26, the United Nations (UN) commemorated its first annual Peacebuilding Week, marking the 20th anniversary of the UN Peacebuilding Commission’s inaugural session. Featuring discussions among world leaders, policymakers, civil society, and advocates, the event explored how collaboration among governments, international organizations, and the private sector can enhance the visibility and effectiveness of peacebuilding efforts worldwide.
The goals of the Peacebuilding Week are particularly critical today, as increasing geopolitical tensions fracture international cooperation and severe financing shortfalls deplete resources, hindering relief efforts for civilians trapped in conflict. Despite a historic surge in active armed conflicts worldwide recorded over the past two years, peacebuilding and relief funding suffered a severe 40 percent decline between 2024 and 2025, leaving millions of people around the globe in a state of extreme insecurity.
“Peace does not occur automatically. It is built through persistent diplomacy, collective action and political will,” said Annalena Baerbock, President of the UN General Assembly. “Wars that never happen because of peacebuilding, conflict-prevention or sustainable-development efforts rarely make headlines. Yet, like everything else, peacebuilding is only possible when properly resourced.”
On June 26, the Peacebuilding Impact Hub—part of the Peacebuilding and Peace Support Office (PBPSO) within the UN Departments of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and Peace Operations (DPPA-DPO)—launched its inaugural Peacebuilding Overview, titled Investing in Peace When the World Pays for War. This report analyzes data gathered from governments, civil society, scholars, and UN field operations across numerous, diverse contexts.
By addressing the root causes of conflict and encouraging the implementation of digital technologies—alongside active participation from youth and the private sector—the report aims to forge new paths for peacebuilding that are resilient, inclusive, and globally supported. Aiming to identify structural gaps in data sharing that prevent vital information from being shared internationally and from being fully utilized by policymakers and the public, the report was launched alongside a side event titled Building Peace in a Changing World.
At the event, Paul Fargues, one of the report’s authors and a Political Affairs Officer for the UN Department for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA), told reporters that the world is currently at a “crossroads, where conflict is on the rise, good governance is declining, and civic space is shrinking.” He noted that this is compounded by severe budget cuts and disproportionate investment in military expenditure rather than civilian protection and prevention efforts, making humanitarian relief operations increasingly difficult.
According to the report, over the last two decades, the world has invested only one dollar in peacebuilding efforts for every 100 dollars spent on military expenditure. Fargues added that the world’s most vulnerable populations are projected to suffer the most, particularly in dire contexts where aid constitutes more than 60 percent of all external funding and acts as a vital lifeline. Additionally, the DDPA found that roughly two-thirds of the countries whose economies are most dependent on UN aid are also the ones most adversely affected by the funding cuts.
Fargues argued that some of the central obstacles in advancing peacebuilding efforts today are the persistent structural gaps in the dissemination of evidence and data, which is critically underdeveloped when compared to the development and humanitarian sectors.
“Peacebuilding has no underlying framework to create shared data practices, to generate insights at the global level to enhance evidence-based decision-making, or simply to communicate its value to broader non-technical audiences,” Fargues said. “Peacebuilders and those who support them must do a better job at measuring, proving, and communicating this. Given the incredibly challenging contexts, producing more robust data and evidence of impact is a bare minimum.”
Katherina Ahrendts, the Director-General for Global Order, United Nations and Humanitarian Assistance of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany, stated that although the case for investing in protection and prevention efforts is clear, political and financial contributions lag significantly behind. According to figures from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), for every dollar invested in preventive macroeconomic policies, up to 103 dollars could be generated in returns. DPPA also estimated that with adequate investment in prevention and protection measures, humanitarian needs could be reduced by approximately USD 3.6 billion annually.
Despite these potential gains, the economic case for peacebuilding efforts has not sufficiently influenced global investment priorities.“We are indeed at a critical moment when violent conflict is increasing while budgets are under strain and multilateralism as a whole is increasingly challenged,” said Ahrendts. “From a domestic policy standpoint, we need a much stronger business case, more compelling narratives, and better evidence. We need to showcase that peacebuilding is a smart, strategic, and cost-effective instrument that prevents much higher costs later on.”
“This means framing peacebuilding not only as a moral imperative, but as a matter of security, stability, mutual interests and sound investments. In particular, we need to make clear that peacebuilding and investment are an integral component of an effective security strategy,” she added.
Ana Escobar, the UN Representative for Peace Direct, an organization that empowers local peacebuilding efforts and supports community-driven approaches, remarked that peacebuilding must be grounded in a community-based approach and tailored to match the specific needs of vulnerable communities. Peace Direct defines meaningful impact as seeing communities become safer and more resilient long after external support has ceased.
Rather than implementing a pre-established peacebuilding agenda, Peace Direct works with local peacebuilders and community leaders to define what success looks like to them and identify the changes that they want to see. “That means asking different questions,” Escobar said. “Are communities resolving disputes without violence, and how do we measure that? Do women, youth, and marginalized groups have greater influence in decision-making? Is trust increasing between communities and institutions?”
“Peacebuilding is most effective when power, resources, and evidence flow in the same direction, towards the communities that live with conflict every day…. For local peacebuilders, prevention means that children go to school instead of joining armed groups, farmers return to their lands, markets reopen, women move safely, families remain together. Those are the returns communities measure every day,” added Escobar.
Dr. Cedric De Coning, a Senior Researcher in the Peace, Conflict and Development Research Group at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), underscored the importance of adaptive peacebuilding. This approach calls for the continuous monitoring of data and updating of peacebuilding measures, acknowledging that a community’s dynamics are constantly shifting. Rather than framing peacebuilding as a rigid structure being “built”, Dr. De Coning argues that it is more of a continuous process that is “nurtured”.
“What adaptive peacebuilding says is that we cannot know that beforehand; it has to emerge from people affected by conflict or people in societies struggling to achieve peace themselves,” said Dr. De Coning.
“As peacebuilders, we have to accompany these societies, and we have to learn together with them constantly and adapt our understanding of what it is that we can support. But we should be careful not to measure peace as something that only makes sense for donor-funded projects…. Peace is something much broader, and we need to measure that broader social transformation: how societies are experiencing peace, how they are living the things they look at, is what we need to look at rather than measuring projects to please donors.”
IPS UN Bureau Report
PHILADELPHIA, Jul 1 2026 (IPS) - India’s new education policy asks a great deal of its teachers. The National Education Policy of 2020 and its NISHTHA (National Initiative for School Heads’ and Teachers’ Holistic Advancement) training scheme, want teachers to be more than deliverers of syllabus. They are to be empowered professionals, agents of change who shape the future of children and, the policy says, of the nation itself. It is a generous and welcome ambition.
Vani S. Kulkarni
For two decades, the dominant approach to teacher quality in India, as in much of the world, has run in the opposite direction. It judges teachers by individual performance and accountability, by what they deliver and how their classrooms score. Under that logic, a teacher’s agency quietly shrinks until it means doing well what someone else has already decided. The teacher becomes an executor of other people’s choices. This is the very habit NISHTHA hopes to break, and it will not break easily, because a system built to measure compliance tends to produce it.
The real question, then, is not whether we wish teachers to have agency because we do. It is where agency actually comes from.
I spent a year, between 2023 and 2025, looking for an answer in an unlikely place: a small, non-governmental teacher-preparation programme in Gurugram, north India called I Am A Teacher (IAAT), which has spent a decade training teachers in a humanistic tradition that cuts against the accountability grain. What I found there was a claim that sounds almost too soft to matter, until you watch what it does. Agency, in this programme’s account, does not begin with autonomy handed down from above. It begins with self-knowledge. A teacher who has examined her own assumptions, her own fears and habits of judgment, is a teacher who can finally exercise judgment of her own.
That self-knowledge expressed itself, in the teachers I met, in three widening circles.
The first was the classroom. Teachers spoke of designing their own curricula and lesson plans, and of sharing in decisions about assessment, as the very substance of their professional dignity. To be handed instructions to execute, one teacher said, is to have your voice taken away. And teacher autonomy, several insisted, is not for the teacher’s sake alone. When a teacher can read her own classroom and meet children where they are, the children begin to experience an agency of their own, becoming creative and imaginative rather than merely obedient.
The second circle was the inner life of the student. These teachers refused to see their work as the transmission of knowledge and content alone. A child’s social and emotional wellbeing, one told me, matters as much as the subject on the board. They understood it as part of their agency to steady a struggling child, inside the classroom and beyond it, on the conviction that learning and wellbeing cannot be pulled apart.
The third and widest circle was the world the school is embedded in. The most striking thing about these teachers was that their sense of agency did not stop at the classroom door. They spoke about how political and economic forces shape what gets taught and what gets funded, and about the inequality that public education is meant to counter and too often deepens. Education can never be equal, one teacher said plainly, naming the way wealth sorts children into schools and teachers into salaries. Some met that knowledge not with resignation but with initiative, volunteering in underserved areas or starting small independent learning centres of their own. That is agency in its fullest sense, a teacher who sees the system she is part of and acts to make it fairer.
A training module alone can produce none of this, and that is exactly the point. The NEP is right that teachers should be agents of change. But agency is not a permission a policy grants. It is a capacity, and capacities have to be formed, through self-reflection, mentoring, time, and the experience of being trusted to decide. These are precisely the things an accountability-driven system finds hardest to fund, because they do not show up on a dashboard, and their results appear years later, in a classroom run by someone who knows her own mind.
A teacher who has been told only what to do can comply. A teacher who has come to know herself can decide. India’s classrooms, and the children in them, need far more of the second kind. No policy can issue that teacher by order. But a country that understood where her/his agency begins could choose, at last, to help make her/his.
If NISHTHA is to be more than a circular, its success will be measured on the ground, in whether teachers actually come to exercise the agency the policy promises them. And one concrete step is within reach now. The country need not invent this formation from nothing. Small programmes such as IAAT, quietly and against the current, already practise it and have done so for years. Recognising them, learning from them, and resourcing them would cost little and teach a great deal.
Vani S. Kulkarni is a sociologist affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, and has held research and teaching appointments at Harvard and Yale universities. Her research navigates the intricate crossroads of Global Health, Education, Race and Caste, Gender, Sociology of Trust, Development, and Democracy.
IPS UN Bureau
LONDON, Jul 1 2026 (IPS) - In May, Tunisian lawyer and journalist Sonia Dahmani was handed her second conviction of the year. Her latest sentence, a two-year jail term, came in reaction to her criticism of poor prison conditions. She previously received an 18-month sentence for calling out the government’s anti-migrant policies. Dahmani faces five more charges under a 2022 cybercrime law that criminalises the spreading of what it calls ‘false information’.
Dahmani is one of many victims of President Kais Saied, who continues to steer Tunisia in an ever more repressive direction. Saied won a free and fair election in 2019, but in 2021 he removed the prime minister and parliament, ruling by decree instead. The following year, he rewrote the constitution to give himself near-absolute power, approved in a low-turnout referendum held after key opposing voices had been jailed. When he won his second term in 2024, credible opponents had been criminalised and barred from running. It’s all a long way from the democracy that sprang into life after the 2011 Jasmine Revolution.
Growing criminalisation
Saied’s repression operates behind a facade of legality, with the criminal justice system serving as a tool of presidential control. In 2022, Saied sacked judges who disagreed with him and gave himself the power to control judicial appointments. Courts now do his bidding and jail opponents. At least nine staff of civil society organisations have received prison sentences so far this year.
Journalists Borhen Bssais and Mourad Zeghidi received three-and-a-half-year sentences on trumped-up money laundering and tax evasion charges in January. In 2025, 37 journalists, lawyers, opposition politicians and other dissidents were found guilty of terrorism and plotting to destabilise Tunisia. Following a mass trial, some were given decades-long jail terms. A November 2025 appeal court hearing that defendants weren’t allowed to attend upheld almost all convictions and increased some sentences.
The latest phase of the crackdown is targeting anti-racism campaigners. Since 2023, Saied has deployed the populist strategy of attacking Black African migrants to distract from the economic problems he’s failed to address. He’s repeatedly accused migrants of being responsible for crime and disorder, fuelling violence against them from security forces and the public.
Saied has branded organisations that stand up for migrants’ rights as traitors and foreign agents. Vilification prepares the ground for incarceration. In March, Saadia Mosbah, president of Mnemty, a Tunisian association that fights against racism, received a staggering eight-year sentence on bogus illicit enrichment and money laundering charges. Five of her colleagues were convicted alongside her.
Mnemty faces the threat of being closed down, part of an assault on associational freedoms that has seen dozens of other civil society organisations suspended. Hundreds more could face the same treatment. In 2024, courts ordered the closure of the Tunisian Council for Refugees. Last November, two of its leaders, Mustapha Djemali and Abderrazek Krimi, received two-year sentences for offences under a 1975 law on passports and travel documents.
No one appears to be beyond the state’s reach. In March, a judge ordered the pretrial detention of seven people on money laundering charges for their involvement in the first Global Sumud Flotilla, which last October attempted to take humanitarian aid to Gaza’s besieged population. Meanwhile being one of the organisations that won the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize offered no protection for the Tunisian League for Human Rights. The group was slapped with a one-month suspension in April.
For civil society organisations, suspension marks the start of a process that can lead to dissolution. Civil society organisations also face asset freezes, lawsuits and tax investigations. The combination of criminalisation, legal harassment and top-down vilification results in a pervasive chilling effect.
Judges that don’t do Saied’s bidding are also at risk. Anas Hmedi, President of the Association of Tunisian Magistrates, has been subjected to criminal proceedings since 2022, with a summons on fresh charges issued in January.
Europe says little
Tunisians continue to protest. Hundreds marched in the capital, Tunis, on 6 June to demand media freedoms and the release of political prisoners. Protesters in May also called out Saied’s failure to address the economic crisis. But they need international support.
Last October, Saber Ben Chouchane was handed a death sentence for criticising Saied on Facebook. Authorities interpreted his posts as constituting crimes of attempting to change the form of government, insulting the president and spreading false information. But this time the repression backfired. The severity of the sentence caused such an international outcry that Saied was forced to pardon and release him. This shows that international criticism can make a difference.
The European Parliament spoke up last November, passing a resolution calling for the release of political prisoners and the repeal of the false information provisions. But such gestures have limits, as shown by Saied’s dismissal of the resolution as ‘blatant interference’.
Resistance to autocratisation takes more than words, but the EU isn’t acting. It’s in a weak position towards Saied because it pays the Tunisian government to help prevent migrants crossing into Europe, and in April 2025, it classified Tunisia as a safe country of origin. This means it believes migrants can be deported there on the basis that they won’t be at risk of persecution, a claim that rings hollow for the many from civil society now in jail.
EU policies have contributed to the rising number of migrants in Tunisia, since people can make it there but no further. This makes them a ready target for Saied’s scapegoating. The EU must acknowledge its responsibility and change course. It must recognise that migrants’ rights in Tunisia aren’t being protected and that, in the current situation, only civil society can do that. In its dealings with Tunisia, it must insist that civil society freedoms are respected and people are free both to defend migrants’ rights and criticise the government’s decisions. Continuing silence will make it complicit in the consolidation of a dictatorship.
Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.
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