The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 18 2026 (IPS) - Urbanization can help concentrate jobs, services, and investments; however, it can also concentrate unaffordable housing, insecure employment, and unequal exposure to contamination and environmental threats. A recent report from the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, argues that the difference is not urbanization itself, but how cities are planned, governed, and financed.
Elena Díaz Galán’s report, Cities and Poverty, issued earlier in July and examines social exclusion and the structural drivers of poverty in cities. In it, Galán looks at how land use, housing infrastructure, public services, and participation can either exacerbate or mitigate poverty.
In an exclusive interview with Inter Press Service, Anacláudia Rossbach, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN-Habitat, highlighted how the report’s findings closely align with UN-Habitat’s priorities, particularly in how “the central challenge lies not in urbanization itself, but in addressing the inequalities, deprivations and climate risks that accompany it, which affect people differently based on factors such as gender, age, or socio-economic status.”
UN-Habitat’s World Cities Report 2026: The Global Housing Crisis – Pathways to Action paints a bleak picture of the global housing crisis. Worldwide, at least 3.4 billion people lack access to adequate housing, with 1.1 billion people living in slums or informal settlements. As informal settlements become home to a significant and growing share of the world’s urban population, Rossbach emphasized how “informal settlements hold significant potential to contribute to more inclusive and sustainable urban development”. Informal settlements are often characterized by inadequate housing, limited access to basic services, infrastructure deficits, and insecure tenure; however, “they provide housing, livelihoods, social networks, and opportunities for millions of urban residents.”
Addressing Galán’s point in her report that urbanization has the power to reduce poverty or deepen inequality, Rossbach shared how UN-Habitat’s Strategic Plan 2026-2029 focuses on housing, land, and basic services as the foundation for sustainable development.
“We work to ensure that urbanization contributes to improving living conditions and increasing access to adequate housing, while preventing the deepening of existing inequalities and vulnerabilities, particularly for women and other groups that face multiple and overlapping forms of exclusion,” said Rossbach.
The Cities and Poverty report illustrated how poverty and inequality appear in spatial patterns. For example, low-income individuals are often pushed into more outlying and environmentally hazardous areas, leaving them vulnerable and lacking access to services, jobs, schools, and healthcare. Examples within the report illustrated how informal settlements in Dandora and Korogocho, located near Nairobi’s main landfill, are exposed to toxic environments, including polluted air and groundwater. Cycles of poverty often reinforce themselves in informal settlements. For example, in the peri-urban areas of Woldia, Ethiopia, due to the lack of formal water, sanitation, and electricity networks, the price of water can be up to 1,645 percent more than the price paid by those with private water pipes. These examples and additional costs illustrate the unequal cost of urban life. Showing how people who have the fewest resources are often times forced to pay more for lower-quality essential goods and services.
Building off of these points, Rossbach told IPS how UN-Habitat considers participatory in-situ upgrading as the most effective approach for improving living conditions in informal settlements. Instead of focusing on the eradication of settlements, policy responses should build on the social, economic, and environmental potential in these settlements and support their progressive improvement.
As informal settlements house a growing share of the world’s urban population, they hold potential for contributing to more inclusive, sustainable urban planning. Credit: Nikko Balanial/Unsplash
Successful interventions engage residents along all phases, from design, implementation, and maintenance, to ensure that local priorities, needs, and context-based solutions are taken into account. Most importantly, successful interventions require coordinated responses to integrate informal settlements into the wider urban fabric.
“When combined with broader housing policies and planning reforms, participatory in-situ upgrading can contribute to more inclusive, sustainable, and equitable urban development outcomes,” Rossbach said.
The Cities and Poverty report discussed urbanization through the lens of the processes that lead to it and the impact on human rights. Two urbanization models were included, the first of which is the “15-minute city”. The 15-minute city is an inclusive vision of urban development which seeks to ensure that all residents have access within a short walk or bicycle ride to essential daily services and opportunities. Examples include Shanghai’s Anshan Xincun 15-minute community life circles, which have shown increased mobility in the aging population, helping to make more equitable and inclusive cities.
However, greater accessibility within these 15-minute cities can also lead to gentrification. “When neighbourhoods become more attractive and better connected, land values and housing costs can rise, potentially displacing existing residents,” said Rossbach. In order to protect existing residents and ensure that these changes do not lead to displacement or exclusion, Rossbach proposed three principles for protection:
1. Proximity-based planning should help reduce spatial inequalities, not reinforce them.2. Neighborhood improvements need to go hand in hand with measures to protect housing affordability and tenure security.
3. The communities and residents need to be involved at all levels and should have a meaningful role in deciding what is developed and how.
“The success of a 15-minute city should not be measured only by how quickly people can reach services, but by whether existing residents can continue to live in their communities and benefit from the improvements around them,” said Rossbach.
The second urbanization model discussed was ‘smart cities’. Smart cities utilize digital technologies, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence to improve upon the management and delivery of urban services. However, the report also warns that digitization and smart cities can reinforce existing inequalities and create a sense of double vulnerability where material poverty combines with exclusion from devices, connectivity, and digital skills.
Rossbach discussed how UN-Habitat promotes a “people-centered smart cities approach that puts people and their needs, rather than technology, at the center.” In particular, services and digital services need to be designed to address the realities of low-income neighborhoods and informal settlements, many of which lack affordable connectivity, devices, digital skills, and formal addresses. Most importantly, Rossbach said, “digitization should close existing inequalities, not reinforce them.”
UN-Habitat is working to close these existing inequalities through programs such as the United Nations Innovation Technology Accelerator for Cities (UNITAC). It developed the Building and Establishment Automated Mapper (BEAM), which helps cities better understand informal settlements and fast-growing urban areas by rapidly mapping buildings from aerial imagery. BEAM provides municipalities with better information to plan infrastructure, target upgrading programmes, and improve basic services.
Nonetheless, data itself does not ensure or create more equitable cities. The Cities and Poverty report emphasized how developing human rights indicators are essential, and so are inputting monitoring tools to evaluate the efficiency of government policies and action. Rossbach added that “inclusive digital transformation is about making people visible — both in data and in decision-making”.
Rossbach and Galán, through her report, have called for urban planning that puts human rights at the center. This means promoting affordable housing in well-connected areas, secure tenure, universal basic services, and more equitable investments across neighborhoods. Implementation needs to be people-centered and measured by whether existing residents can remain in their communities and share in the benefits.
IPS UN Bureau Report
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Sep 18 2026 (IPS) - Migrants now send home more money than foreign aid, and this is pulling rural families out of poverty, according to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
A new report, Sending Money Home, released this week, asserts that remittances have become the world’s largest and most resilient source of household finance during overlapping economic, environmental and geopolitical shocks.
“Those who receive remittances become more resilient in the end, but what we have seen and is most staggering is that remittances continue to dwarf any flow back to low- and middle-income countries,” said Pedro de Vasconcelos, manager of the IFAD Financing Facility for Remittances (FFR) and lead author of the report.
“What we have seen is that both Official Development Assistance (ODA) and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) combined add to a figure less than what migrants do in sending small amounts on a regular basis back home,” De Vasconcelos said in response to a question from IPS.
Pedro de Vasconcelos, manager of the IFAD Financing Facility for Remittances (FFR) and lead author of the report, Sending Money Home. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS
“What is striking, and more importantly, any crisis that is thrown at it, migrants are the first responders because we are talking about their families; they are the first ones to support in addressing hardships and realities of the family back home.”
De Vasconcelos noted that remittances were a tremendous contribution hidden in plain sight at global proportions because families in low- and middle-income countries will receive approximately US$3.6 trillion between 2026 and 2030.
According to the OECD, overseas development aid from the world’s richest nations to poorer countries fell by 23.1% in 2025 to $174.3 billion, while the World Bank indicates that FDI flows to developing economies reached approximately $877 billion to $901 billion in 2025, and net inflows of about $379 billion specifically for low- and middle-income countries were recorded.
According to the report, remittances into the low- and middle-income countries have since 2016 increased by 94%, outpacing both population growth and emigration, as an estimated 220 million migrants and diaspora members support 1.1 billion relatives, meaning roughly one in six people worldwide are connected through remittances.
Remittances: From coping to resilience. Credit: IFAD
Bigger and Growing
The report shows that remittance inflows rose from US$375.6 billion in 2016 to US$728.6 billion in 2025, with five countries receiving nearly half of all remittances. India received the most at US$150.7 billion, followed by Mexico with US$64.4 billion, the Philippines with US$41.6 billion, Egypt with US$41.5 billion and Pakistan with US$40.5 billion.
Nigel Brett, Director, Sustainable Production, Markets and Institutions Division (PMI) at IFAD, highlighted that ten years ago the average remittance amount was $200 sent on a regular basis. That figure has increased not only in frequency but also in amounts to between $400 and $450 on the global average.
“Migrants are much more aware of the daily lives of their families, and remittances remain a lifeline,” he said, observing that fees for sending money on average were still high at 6.4%, which was far from the SDG target of 3%.
“While digitalisation has made a big impact, more has to be done to reduce the cost of remittance fees,” Brett said, noting that the high fees have been influenced by other factors such as the lack of greater competition, technology, foreign exchange margins and infrastructure around payments.
Securing Food, Health Care and Coping with Climate Change
Studies by IFAD have shown that about $22 billion has been invested in agrifood systems in rural areas, suggesting that when offered the opportunity, remittance families will invest in livelihoods, said Brett.
“What is needed is more data, making it crucial for governments to better understand the realities of remittance recipients to understand the impact in rural areas,” Brett said.
Noting that remittances strengthen households’ capacity to absorb shocks by helping them to cope and recover, emerging research shows that remittances can finance short-term adaptation measures and contribute to longer-term resilience, particularly when combined with access to financial services, markets and infrastructure, as well as supportive public policies, the IFAD report said.
For example, in Senegal, 73 per cent of remittance-receiving households adopted an agricultural risk-management strategy, compared with 22 per cent of households without remittances. Recipients were also nearly twice as likely to save, strengthening their ability to manage losses without resorting to more damaging coping strategies.
In Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia and Ghana, remittances have helped households prepare for and withstand climate shocks. In the Western Sahel and northern Kenya, they have supported investment in drought-resistant seeds, small-scale irrigation and, in Burkina Faso, wider adoption of soil and water conservation techniques.
IFAD is an international financial institution exclusively focused on transforming rural economies and the lives of rural people.
President of IFAD, Alvaro Lario, in a statement said as remittances help families meet their basic needs, they are also building financial growth and resilience to shocks. He noted that the potential benefits of remittances are “greatest when families have access to affordable and trusted financial services, together with the knowledge, freedom and appropriate options to use their resources according to their own needs and aspirations”.
Recommendations to Reduce Costs and Expand Financial Access
The report recommended that government and development sectors should create conditions for remittances and diaspora investment to advance sustainable development.
“The question on the importance of remittances in comparison with ODA is that in terms of volume, the answer is yes, remittances are four times larger than ODA, but they are no substitutes, as they serve an entirely different purpose,” he said. “Remittances are private money sent by migrants to support families, and ODA is public money financing public goods such as roads and markets that families cannot finance on their own. We need both, and while very different, they can reinforce and complement each other.”
Furthermore, the report recommends the building of enabling and inclusive markets, modernisation of proportionate regulation and strengthening of connectivity, agent networks and cash-out liquidity so that digitalisation does not exclude families who still depend on cash.
While the private sector was urged to deliver affordable, inclusive and resilient services for migrants, families and diaspora investors, it was also called upon to ensure that these services are affordable, transparent and trusted. In addition, the private sector should also partner with governments, development organisations and civil society to provide accessible financial and digital education for migrants and remittance recipients while offering insurance, savings, credit, and investment mechanisms tailored to rural remittance-recipient households and their enterprises, helping them prepare for, respond to, and recover from climate-related shocks.
Key findings:
Asia and the Pacific remains the centre of the global remittance economy, receiving US$384.9 billion, or 53 per cent of the total covered by the 10-year report. Latin America and the Caribbean recorded the fastest growth; remittances to the region increased by 132 per cent over the decade, reaching US$168.6 billion. Remittance inflows to Africa rose by 86 per cent, to US$124.2 billion. In 23 countries, remittances represent more than 10 per cent of gross domestic product. In nine countries, remittance inflows exceed the total value of exports of goods and services.IPS UN Bureau Report
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 18 2026 (IPS) - When a child is diagnosed with cancer, their chances of survival should not depend on where they live, yet according to the WHO, more than 80 percent of children with cancer in high-income countries are cured, compared with fewer than 30 percent in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
The key gap lies in access to available medicines. In East Africa, hospitals report frequent stockouts of essential chemotherapy agents, with shortages affecting 32–49 percent of critical medicines such as methotrexate and etoposide. Survival therefore depends less on the discovery of new therapies and more on whether children are able to access and complete uninterrupted treatment.
“No child should be denied a chance of survival because the medicines they need are unavailable, unaffordable, or out of reach,” affirmed Dr Carlos Rodriguez-Galindo, Executive Vice President of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
In efforts to combat this issue and in honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, the World Health Organization (WHO) and its collaborators at the Global Platform for Access to Childhood Cancer Medicines published a new strategy report with a roadmap to strengthen the global market and improve the circulation of childhood cancer medicines in many LMICs.
Each year, an estimated 400,000 children develop cancer. Unlike many adult cancers, childhood cancer is generally not preventable. As a result, the most effective strategy for improving outcomes is to ensure that children receive a prompt and accurate diagnosis, followed by effective, evidence-based treatment and tailored supportive care.
The report highlighted many key barriers LMICs face when implementing this strategy. First, the supply of essential childhood cancer medicines is unreliable and depends on a small number of manufacturers, especially for medicines that meet international quality standards.
Secondly, LMICs often buy small amounts of cancer medicines, making supply less reliable and prices higher due to perceived low demand. Limited government funding and poor planning can also lead to shortages. Cancer medicines may take years to become available in LMICs because of slow approval processes. There is little investment in medicines designed specifically for children, especially for low-resource settings. This is partly because childhood cancer affects fewer people, making it a smaller market for companies.
“Persistent market challenges continue to affect access for children, and it is critical that we continue to work together to enhance the reliability and affordability of childhood cancer medicines,” said Dr. Kennedy Lishimpi, Permanent Secretary for Technical Services, Ministry of Health, Zambia.
Most types of childhood cancer can be cured with widely available generic medicines and other forms of treatment, including surgery and radiotherapy. Yet children in LMICs often face significant barriers to accessing these lifesaving interventions. Lower survival rates are driven by delays in diagnosis, difficulties obtaining an accurate diagnosis, limited access to appropriate therapy, treatment abandonment, death from treatment-related toxicity, and avoidable relapse.
Improving access to childhood cancer care, including essential medicines and technologies, has the potential to improve survival across all income settings.
The report also mentions how cost of treatment was another big barrier to care. In some cases, More than 70 percent of children being treated for leukaemia stop or do not complete their cancer treatment due to financial reasons.
The Global Platform prioritized a set of ten interventions in the report that will be implemented over 2026-2030. These included working more closely with medicine companies, increasing the number of reliable suppliers, speeding up medicine approval, improving planning and purchasing, and strengthening access to affordable, quality-assured childhood cancer medicines. The interventions also focused on supporting research, improving price information, including these medicines in national health coverage, and encouraging the development of new treatments.
“Rather than focusing only on individual products or prices, market shaping interventions aim to strengthen overall market health by improving the conditions required for sustainable access,” the report states.
In practice, this could look like integrating childhood cancer medications into national health benefit packages. For example, in 2024, Nepal declared free treatment for children with cancer at public health facilities.
“Where the price is more friendly, there are plenty of suppliers; that’s sort of the goal we’re trying to reach,” said Rongrong Liu, program manager from St. Jude’s global operations.
Additionally, the report also mentions that voluntary licensing could play an important role in improving access to new childhood cancer medicines in LMICs by allowing other quality-assured manufacturers to produce medicines that are still protected by patents. This could increase the number of suppliers, improve competition, lower prices, and help medicines reach LMICs sooner, reducing delays caused by high costs or dependence on a single manufacturer. The Global Platform plans to work with companies that own these medicines to negotiate licensing agreements for priority medicines. These agreements would allow selected manufacturers to produce and supply the medicines in LMICs under agreed conditions.
“At the beginning, we have focused only on clinical forecast, but in reality there are a lot of logistical parameters that we need to consider,” said Alessio Mola, pharmacist at WHO, emphasizing the importance of the proposed market strategies.
The newly launched roadmap provides good guidance on strengthening child cancer medicine markets and supply systems and is an essential step toward closing the survival gap and ensuring that where a child is born does not determine whether they survive cancer.
IPS UN Bureau Report
NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 18 2026 (IPS) - For the young women I met through Global Give Back Circle’s HER Lab in Kenya, displacement was not the end of ambition. It had interrupted school, separated families from stability, and narrowed the choices available to them. But it had not erased their hopes. What they wanted was not pity. They wanted skills, work, confidence and the chance to rebuild their lives with dignity.
Linda Latsko Lockhart
Their stories point to what migration debates often miss: displacement is not only about movement, but also about whether people can rebuild their lives in safety and dignity. If work and opportunity do not exist locally, the question is not only how to manage migration. It is how to create opportunity in their host country.
Kevine and Monica’s experiences reflected a wider reality. UNHCR recorded 117.8 million people forcibly displaced worldwide in 2025. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre reported 83.4 million people living in internal displacement across 117 countries and territories in 2024.
This is where Africa’s local experience matters, not as a continent people are simply leaving, but as one already hosting many of its own displaced people. African migration remains predominantly regional. The African Union and the International Organisation for Migration reported that 20.8 million people had moved between African countries. They also found that 86% of refugees and asylum seekers from African countries were hosted within Africa, compared with 9.6% in Europe.
This should reset the debate. Most African refugees and displaced people are already hosted within the continent. The challenge is not simply whether Europe or the United States should receive more people, but whether African host countries have the systems, resources and investment to help refugees rebuild locally. When opportunity exists, onward migration becomes less about desperation and more about choice.
This is not an argument against migration or the right to seek asylum. Migration can benefit individuals, communities and economies. But forced movement should not be the only route to dignity. Refugees need recognised skills, training, routes into work and confidence that their futures are not on hold. That means investing in education, accredited training, entrepreneurship, financial inclusion and community acceptance, so refugees can contribute to host economies.
The kind of local capacity needed is not abstract. In Kenya, Global Give Back Circle’s HER Lab, delivered in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, shows what this can look like in practice. Across Kajiado and West Pokot counties, HER Lab supports 32 young refugee women: 19 in Kajiado from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and 13 in West Pokot from South Sudan, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. They are receiving training in fields ranging from coding and electrical installation to fashion, food production, cosmetology and agriculture. The HER Lab model combines market-aligned skills, mentorship, confidence-building, financial inclusion and pathways into employment or enterprise.
HER Lab reflects a broader shift. Through its $300 million partnership with UNHCR, the Mastercard Foundation is supporting half a million young refugees and displaced people across Africa to complete their education and enter dignified work.
In Dadaab, Dadaab Refugee Voices is applying the ILO’s Rural Employment Services model to connect refugees and host communities with job registration, guidance, matching, skills support and digital training. Already, 6,189 jobseekers have registered and received support, showing how local systems can move people towards work and self-reliance.
During and after the 12-month HER Lab programme, young women are building businesses in poultry, beauty, beadwork, retail and regenerative farming, while others are gaining skills in plumbing, agribusiness, digital literacy and electrical work. Through the HER Financial Freedom Programme, hundreds of previously unbanked rural women have gained access to savings and credit in addition to membership in a women-operated tea production cooperative. These are local routes to dignity, income and self-reliance.
That is why local capacity is central to the future of migration policy. Without the resources to educate, train and economically include refugees, displacement will continue to drive onward migration. With support for local initiatives and building inclusive systems, host countries can address some of the pressures that force people to move.
The policy response is clear. Governments, donors, development finance institutions, philanthropies and the private sector should back efforts that are locally rooted, measurable and designed for scale. Western governments, in particular, have a role beyond deterrence or crisis response. Investing in African countries and locally led initiatives can expand education, skills, livelihoods and financial inclusion for refugees and host populations alike. It can also turn migration partnerships into a shared effort to reduce forced movement.
The strongest migration policy is not one that pretends movement can simply be stopped. It is one that gives people real choices before movement becomes unavoidable. Africa is showing what inclusion can look like when opportunity is built locally.
The world should not look away. It should invest in helping that approach scale.
Linda Latsko Lockhart is the Founder and CEO of Global Give Back Circle, a serial social entrepreneur focused on the empowerment of women and girls in Africa and beyond. Named to Forbes “50 Over 50: Impact List”, she brings over 25 years of global leadership designing scalable, gender-based financial independence models. Through her organisation, Lockhart helps marginalised women and girls gain education, financial tools, and lasting economic resilience.
IPS UN Bureau
Excerpt:
Without the resources to educate, train and economically include refugees, displacement will continue to drive onward migration
KUNMING, China, Sep 17 2026 (IPS) - The world may have enough money to protect nature. The bigger problem, according to the head of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), is that too much of it is still being spent on activities that destroy it.
With just four years left to meet the world’s 2030 biodiversity goals, Astrid Schomaker, Executive Secretary of the CBD, said governments must urgently change where money flows if they are to slow the loss of nature.
Her warning comes just weeks before governments meet in Yerevan, Armenia, for COP17, the UN biodiversity conference scheduled for October 19-30.
Speaking at a press conference organised by the CBD Secretariat on September 11 – after the three-day Kunming Dialogue, Schomaker said governments need to redirect financial flows and reform incentives that encourage activities harmful to nature. Without such changes, she warned, progress under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) will remain too slow.
What’s Slowing Biodiversity Action?
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted in Montreal in 2022, sets 23 targets for protecting and restoring biodiversity by 2030. Since its adoption, governments have been carrying out the first-ever global stocktake of how the framework is being implemented, examining progress across countries and individual targets.
The stocktake began after COP16 and is looking at the full picture of implementation, from the targets countries have set for themselves to the policies, plans, finance and other measures they are putting in place to achieve them. Its findings are being compiled in the forthcoming State of Biodiversity Action report, which will present the final global assessment at COP17.
The three-day Kunming Dialogue, held from Sept. 7 to 9, offered governments, scientists, Indigenous Peoples, youth representatives and civil society organisations an early look at the trends emerging from this stocktake. While more than 70 percent of countries have submitted national reports and over 90 percent have established biodiversity targets aligned with the global framework, the emerging picture is far less encouraging. Progress remains uneven, with implementation lagging behind the scale and pace needed to achieve the 23 targets by 2030. The emerging findings suggest that global efforts are not yet moving fast enough or at the scale needed to achieve the 23 targets by 2030. In other words, while countries have made progress in setting commitments, implementation remains well behind what is required.
“Progress is being made clearly, but it is uneven, and it is clearly also not at the pace and scale required,” Schomaker told IPS.
Gap Between Global Goals and National Action
One of the biggest problems is that biodiversity commitments have not yet been fully carried into national policies, budgets and economic decisions.
According to Schomaker, some of the largest gaps are in finance, resource mobilisation and efforts to bring biodiversity into the work of government ministries and economic sectors beyond the environment.
Jillian Campbell, Head of Planning, Monitoring and Knowledge at the CBD Secretariat, said the problem is not that countries have failed to set targets. Rather, there is often a gap between what was agreed globally and what countries have committed to doing at home.
“Most parties have set national targets covering almost every global target. However, the national targets often don’t cover the full extent of the global targets,” she told IPS.
As countries turned the global framework into their own national plans, some of its ambition was lost along the way. This is particularly visible in areas where action depends on ministries beyond the environment, including finance, agriculture, infrastructure and development.
That raises a bigger question — and one that is likely to be central at COP17: is the problem really a lack of money for biodiversity, or is it where existing money is going?
For Schomaker, the answer is clear.
“The biggest elephant in the room of all of that is the misalignment of financial systems,” she told IPS. “There is enough money around in the world economy. The question is, where does that money go?”
Money Flowing in the Wrong Direction
Governments, businesses and financial institutions continue to channel large amounts of money into activities that damage ecosystems, even as they commit themselves to protecting nature.
Changing that pattern, Schomaker said, should be one of the central priorities for COP17.
The discussions in Kunming highlighted a growing understanding that biodiversity loss is not caused only by what happens in forests, rivers and oceans. It is also shaped by decisions made in boardrooms, government ministries and financial institutions.
Participants pointed to subsidies, investments and other financial incentives that continue to make activities harmful to nature more attractive or profitable.
Asad Naqvi, Secretary of the Subsidiary Body on Implementation, said the answer to the biodiversity funding problem may therefore lie partly in changing how existing money is used rather than simply searching for new sources of funding.
He noted that governments are still spending large sums on incentives that undermine biodiversity, particularly through harmful subsidies in agriculture and fossil fuels. Redirecting those resources, he suggested, could help close financing gaps while addressing some of the root causes of nature loss.
Biodiversity Beyond Environment Policy
Finance, however, is only part of the challenge.
The Kunming Dialogue also highlighted the need for governments to treat biodiversity as an issue that cuts across the entire economy, rather than something that belongs mainly to environment ministries.
Agriculture, finance, infrastructure and development ministries all make decisions that can either protect or damage ecosystems. Unless biodiversity is considered in those decisions, governments may find themselves trying to repair environmental damage with one hand while creating more of it with the other.
That broader approach is expected to be an important part of the discussions at COP17.
For many observers, the significance of COP17 will depend on how governments respond to the findings of the State of Biodiversity Action report — and whether they can turn commitments into action faster.
The conference is expected to focus on speeding up implementation, closing finance gaps and tackling the targets where progress remains furthest behind.
As delegates prepare to meet in Yerevan, the debate is moving beyond whether governments support the global biodiversity framework.
With only four years left before the 2030 deadline, bringing finance into line with the needs of nature may become one of the defining tests of the global biodiversity agenda.
IPS UN Bureau Report
TORONTO / LONDON, Sep 17 2026 (IPS) - Chung Sun-cha started collecting cardboard, plastic, and other recycling materials off the streets of Incheon, South Korea, to sell when she was in her mid-70s. She is now 87. Without an adequate pension, Chung worked six days a week, sometimes seven, in the wind, rain, and snow until she fell and broke her arm while working in 2025. “I couldn’t find any other work because of my age,” she said.
Chung Sun-cha is not alone. In 2024-2025, Human Rights Watch interviewed 41 women ages 28 to 87 in researching working conditions for women in South Korea. They described how their career opportunities narrowed drastically from their 40s onward to a handful of low-paid, precarious jobs that often caused physical and mental harm, and eroded their sense of belonging.
Work by Belonging Forum in the UK indicates that this loss of belonging in older age is not confined to South Korea. Data from the Belonging Forum’s UK-wide 2026 Belonging Barometer reveals that nearly 19 percent of people ages 65 and older reported that they “not really” or “not at all” feel they belong. Furthermore, 16 percent of respondents 65 and older said they felt lonely “often or some of the time.”
October 1 marks the annual International Day of Older Persons. The United Nations theme for 2026 is “Rethinking Longevity.” Longer lives may bring increased opportunities, including in employment, but for many women, gender discrimination begins early and accumulates over time, leading to a narrowing of job opportunities and loss of belonging as they get older.
These entrenched, negative attitudes, known as “gendered ageism,” coupled with discriminatory employment policies and practices, lock women out of the broader workforce as they age, and isolate them in narrow and undervalued roles
Governments have a vital opportunity when they meet in October at the United Nations in Geneva to continue work on a new international treaty on the rights of older people. The proposed treaty should not merely add age-specific language to existing rights; it should fundamentally reimagine how we value older age.
In South Korea, Jung Kyong-sook, 55, worked as a bookkeeper before stopping work in 1994 to raise her three children. When she re-entered the workforce in 2013, the door was largely shut: “Most of us [women] in our 50s go to work in supermarkets as a cashier or cook in schools. We can’t really pursue our career.”
These outcomes stem from systemic gender and age discrimination that restrict women’s economic opportunities and reduce their sense of belonging and value in society. These entrenched, negative attitudes, known as “gendered ageism,” coupled with discriminatory employment policies and practices, lock women out of the broader workforce as they age, and isolate them in narrow and undervalued roles.
Even the government reflects these prejudices. Jobs the Ministry of Employment and Labor promotes for women in their 30s to 50s on Work24, its online hiring platform, revolve predominantly around beauty, caregiving, and education. The platform funnels women ages 50 or over into low-paid care work, cleaning, kitchen assistance, cooking, and social service jobs, reflecting societal expectations.
For many older women, work is necessary for survival, not a matter of choice. In 2025, women in their late 50s in South Korea faced a 50 percent gender pay gap. Women eligible for the National Old Age Pension faced an average gender pension gap of 47 percent. The average monthly pension for women was just KRW367,000 (£200), 18 percent of the national minimum wage.
Yet work offers something beyond economic survival. Work also gives many of the older women we interviewed a sense of purpose, agency, and belonging. This sense of purpose is a key determinant of the internationally protected right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. Being systematically segregated into ever-narrowing workplaces simply for being a woman considered “too old” – undermines this sense of belonging.
Research from the Belonging Forum shows that belonging does not happen by accident. It is built or broken by the systems, services, and environments that surround people throughout their lives. It depends on access to economic and social structures that determine whether older people have the time, resources, support, and security to participate in family and community life on an equal footing.
Older people can experience an erosion of dignity when society fails to recognize their equal rights and inherent value, operating under the ageist assumption that older age is a period of inevitable decline rather than continued development. The UK Belonging Barometer found that approximately 51 percent of respondents 65 and older “rarely/never” feel that they are working together with others for mutual benefit – pointing to the risk of social marginalization and exclusion in older age.
By embedding dignity, inclusion, equality, economic security, and belonging in the international treaty, we can ensure that women like Chung Sun-cha and Jung Kyong-sook are no longer treated as invisible low-wage workers, but instead as active and valued rights holders thriving in older age, in line with spirit of the International Day of Older Persons.
Kim Samuel is founder and chief architect at the Belonging Forum. Bridget Sleap is senior researcher on the rights of older people at Human Rights Watch.
Sep 17 2026 (IPS) -
CIVICUS discusses renewed conflict and a growing crackdown on independent media in Ethiopia with Yonas Kedir, Editor-in-Chief of the independent news outlet Addis Standard, who was recently abducted and detained by government forces.
Yonas Kedir
What’s the current situation in Ethiopia?
Ethiopia is facing overlapping humanitarian, political and security crises. Armed conflict continues in Amhara and Oromia states, while Tigray remains scarred by the devastating 2020-2022 war. Displacement continues, territorial disputes remain unresolved and the peace agreement has only been partly implemented.
Armed conflict and insecurity have also spread to Benishangul-Gumuz, Gambela and other parts of Ethiopia. Tensions between the federal government and Tigrayan authorities have intensified. The government alleges that Eritrea is backing the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and other armed groups. Relations with Eritrea are strained, particularly by disputes over Red Sea access and regional security, and Ethiopia is under growing scrutiny over its alleged role in Sudan’s civil war.
The government says Ethiopia faces an anti-federal military movement involving Eritrea, Sudan, the Oromo Liberation Army, Tigray forces and Fano, an Amhara nationalist militia, accusing them of working as an alliance to unseat the federal government. These are highly contested claims, but they shape the government’s framing of the security environment.
Why are journalists being targeted, and why is the pressure escalating?
Journalists are targeted because independent reporting can challenge official narratives and expose abuses, civilian harm and government conduct. When journalists investigate alleged abuses by government forces, authorities present their work as damaging Ethiopia’s national security or serving foreign interests.
There’s a growing tendency to treat independent journalism as a national security threat. Government officials often call on the media to prioritise the national interest and national unity, while treating critical reporting on sensitive issues as inherently harmful to the country.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented a deteriorating environment for independent media, including detention, intimidation, restrictions and the use of broad national security and national interest arguments against critical reporting. In this context, legitimate public-interest reporting can be interpreted by authorities or politicians as taking sides.
The pressure has intensified because several politically sensitive issues are converging at the same time, including the political environment, the security situation, the unresolved consequences of the Tigray war, tensions involving Eritrea and Sudan and debates over Ethiopia’s constitutional and political future.
The most recent election was held in a highly contested political environment, with several major opposition parties boycotting the process. This has raised questions about the inclusiveness and broader political legitimacy of the electoral process, particularly in a context where political space for opposition political figures and independent voices remains constrained.
These issues make independent reporting particularly important, but also make journalism on governance and political issues increasingly sensitive.
Why were you detained, and what happened while you were held?
I don’t know for sure who ordered my detention, and nor can I establish the full motive. But the questions I was asked and the circumstances around them strongly suggest my journalistic work was central to what happened.
On 1 August, security personnel took me, assaulted me, blindfolded me and held me for around 24 hours. They questioned me about my work and about Addis Standard’s reporting. While I was detained, security forces raided Addis Standard’s office and seized cameras and other newsroom equipment. They also searched my home and confiscated company and personal equipment. I was released the next day.
For me, this was bigger than myself. The fact that I was questioned about my work and that newsroom equipment was seized raises concerns about the safety of all journalists and the ability of independent media to operate freely.
What conditions do journalists face in Ethiopia, and what are the consequences of the loss of independent reporting?
Journalists in Ethiopia operate in an environment of fear and uncertainty, facing administrative restrictions, arrest, detention, harassment, online intimidation, physical attacks and surveillance. This is particularly true for those in conflict areas, where access can be restricted, sources are often afraid to speak and journalists face pressure from multiple sides, not only federal authorities but also armed and political groups.
This encourages self-censorship. Journalists avoid particular subjects, soften their language or decide not to publish information that could put themselves, colleagues or sources in danger. This leaves people with very limited access to reliable information about decisions that affect their lives.
Independent journalism provides a mechanism for documenting alleged abuses, civilian casualties, displacement and humanitarian needs. A healthy information environment is essential for meaningful public participation, national dialogue and peacebuilding. When independent reporting is weakened, victims and communities lose a public platform to raise concerns. It also becomes harder for people to distinguish verified information from disinformation, propaganda and politically motivated narratives.
What support do Ethiopian journalists and civil society need?
The international community should help build stronger protection and rapid-response mechanisms for when journalists are attacked, detained and threatened, and should press for meaningful accountability for abuses against journalists and media organisations.
International partners should provide legal and institutional support to help media organisations challenge arbitrary licence revocations, unlawful restrictions and other forms of administrative pressure. They should support efforts to strengthen the independence of Ethiopia’s judiciary, so it can protect fundamental rights and provide meaningful remedies when state institutions act unlawfully.
International partners should also give very serious attention to protecting people’s right to organise around their aspirations, grievances and interests, which is essential to peaceful political participation. Expanding civic space can strengthen peace processes and peacebuilding, while suppressing these rights can contribute to the expansion of conflict.
Finally, international partners should continue to monitor Ethiopia’s civic space, engage authorities and support independent investigations. Reporting on abuses shouldn’t be treated as a threat to national interest. It’s part of the public’s right to know. International engagement should also look beyond whether constitutional initiatives, elections and national dialogue processes take place on paper, and assess whether these processes are genuinely inclusive, participatory and protective of fundamental rights.
CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.
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