The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Oct 15 2026 (IPS) - Kenia Hernández is an Indigenous Mexican lawyer and human rights defender dedicated to advancing women’s rights and social justice.
Arrested in October 2020, she has faced multiple criminal proceedings that human rights organisations, including CIVICUS, have denounced as politically motivated and linked to the criminalisation of her activism. This piece is the second in our series on the campaign that advocates for the immediate release of unjustly imprisoned or persecuted human rights defenders globally.
Additional reference: Five years of resistance: The case of Kenia Hernández and the battle against the fabrication of crimes
Additional research and reporting: Cecilia Russell
Note: This feature is published with the support of CIVICUS: Stand As My Witness Campaign.
IPS is solely responsible for the editorial content, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of CIVICUS.
IPS UN Bureau Report
LONDON, Oct 14 2026 (IPS) - At this year’s highest-profile UN event, Donald Trump publicly mused over his ‘big decision’ about whether to ‘annihilate’ Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as dozens of delegates walked out, branded those who condemn genocide in Gaza ‘moral cowards’.
The UN was established in the devastating aftermath of the Second World War with the explicit aim to ‘save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’. Its charter commits all UN members to settling disputes peacefully. Yet at the UN General Assembly’s annual high-level session, held in September, several national leaders used a podium meant for peace and international cooperation to justify and threaten violence.
The bellicose tone of many speeches signalled a broader crisis of multilateralism. Autocrats are throwing their weight around, determined to prove that might makes right, or, as Trump put it when boasting of US control of Venezuelan oil, ‘to the victor belong the spoils’. Such leaders care little for international laws, norms, institutions and processes.
Powerful states are withdrawing from institutions, defunding them, refusing to cooperate and forming rival, more selective and less formal groupings. Nakedly transactional deal-making is replacing collective action, fragmenting the multilateral system. As a rules-based order gives way to something more chaotic, civil society’s opportunities to engage are withering. All this is happening as huge transnational problems mount up, including the climate crisis, economic inequality, impunity for conflict atrocities and the repression of civic space.
The race to succeed Guterres
Against this backdrop, someone new will take the helm. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s second term expires at the end of the year, and states are now choosing his successor.
Civil society is calling for a feminist woman leader who puts human rights first. Yet human rights feature little in the debate. A former UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, has pulled out because straw polls among the 15 Security Council members, a key stage of the process, showed she lacked support.
In each poll, states can ‘encourage’ or ‘discourage’ a candidacy, or express ‘no opinion’. So far, five rounds have proved inconclusive. Former Costa Rican Vice President Rebeca Grynspan has emerged as frontrunner, but the latest poll saw her receive six ‘discourage’ votes compared to three in the round before. No candidate commands overwhelming backing and it’s possible other candidates will come forward.
Civil society is trying to engage, but ultimately states don’t have to publicly justify their decisions. Because the Security Council is central to the process, the final say rests with its five permanent members, China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA, any of which can veto a candidate they dislike. Opaque negotiations are therefore likely to produce a compromise candidate that China, Russia and the USA find sufficiently inoffensive.
As the race heats up, there are signs candidates are avoiding speaking about issues that may be seen as contentious for fear of losing support. States that back particular candidates may decide not to ask difficult questions that could cost them votes. As a result, important matters such as Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the rights of excluded groups are being sidelined. Anyone who sees themselves as a world leader should be taking these issues on, but candidates’ refusal to do so shows how firmly powerful states are calling the shots.
One candidate, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, has been the target of a Wall Street Journal hit piece over comments condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide, made in her role as Guyana’s ambassador to the UN. The intent is clearly to encourage the USA to block her.
Civil society expects a global voice of conscience, someone prepared to go further than serving states and willing to speak up on the issues candidates are now avoiding. History shows that, even in difficult times, the personality and leadership style of the secretary-general can make a difference. Whoever prevails will have to steer the UN through crisis and rebuild respect for the institution and the broader promise of multilateralism, and that means putting human rights first.
Access needed
When they next meet, national leaders will have the opportunity to shape the future of development. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the set of 17 interconnected goals agreed by every UN member state in 2015, expire in 2030. Next year’s SDG Summit will consider what should come next.
In these difficult times, civil society faces the challenge of asserting a progressive vision and pushing for goals that make a real difference. But civil society remains excluded. It was once again forced to the sidelines for this high-level session. The passes of organisations that have cleared accreditation hurdles and normally have access to UN headquarters are suspended at these annual meetings. This speaks of a broader exclusion. The UN has failed to advance even modest proposals to recognise civil society’s role, such as instituting a UN civil society day or appointing an envoy to coordinate civil society engagement.
Meanwhile, the UN’s funding crisis is further impacting on civil society’s participation. The USA is the chief culprit, owing around US$4.2 billion in contributions. The USA and other powerful states are defunding and sidelining the UN’s human rights functions, which civil society most engages with. The result is job cuts, curtailed mandates and fewer opportunities for civil society participation.
The arrival of a new secretary-general and the debate on new development goals bring not just challenges but also opportunities. To seize them, civil society will need to build stronger coalitions and collaborate more closely than ever. It must engage constructively with the next secretary-general while raising expectations, putting stronger access and partnerships on the table.
A state-centric UN will fail. A UN that hopes to make a difference on big problems, rebuild respect for human rights and win an increasingly contested argument for the value of multilateralism can’t keep excluding civil society. The next secretary-general must champion an open and accountable UN that recognises civil society as an essential partner.
Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.
For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org
BERLIN, Germany/WASHINGTON, D.C., USA , Oct 14 2026 (IPS) - The world lost more than 7 million hectares of forest to deforestation in 2025, a modest improvement on recent years but still far from what is needed to meet global forest protection targets by 2030, according to a new assessment of international conservation efforts.
The Forest Declaration Assessment 2026, prepared by a coalition of civil society organisations and researchers and released worldwide on October 14, says deforestation remains stubbornly high despite international commitments to halt and reverse forest loss. The average annual area cleared since 2021 has exceeded 8 million hectares, highlighting the gap between government promises and progress on the ground.
Ivan Palmegiani, senior consultant at Climate Focus and one of the key report authors, told Inter Press Service in an exclusive interview that a key reason deforestation remains so high is that commitments have not been matched by the scale of action needed, and where action has been taken, it has not always been sufficient to deliver lasting impact.
“We have seen what is possible under dedicated political leadership, such as the Lula administration in Brazil, where targeted policies, enforcement, and political will reduced deforestation within a single term. However, these successes remain the exception rather than the norm, and they can be quickly reversed when priorities change.”
He added that at a deeper level, forest commitments have not been translated into the structural transformation in how natural resources are governed and used. Forests, Palmegiani said, continue to face strong economic pressures from agriculture, infrastructure, extraction, and other land uses, while decision-making systems and incentives still frequently favour the powerful few, who are physically and emotionally disconnected from forests, rather than the many who depend on them for their livelihoods, well-being, and cultural identity. “Until our societies, political and economic systems change how decisions about forests and other ecosystems are made, forest loss is likely to remain high despite global pledges.”
Ivan Palmegiani, senior consultant at Climate Focus and one of the authors of the Forest Declaration Assessment 2026. Credit: Supplied
The report also found that at least 65.4 million hectares of forest worldwide lost ecological integrity in 2024 because of human activities. The figure highlights a problem that extends beyond the complete removal of trees. Forests can remain standing while losing biodiversity, carbon storage capacity and their ability to sustain wildlife and local communities.
“Both figures reflect a persistent gap between global ambitions to conserve and restore forests and enduring practices that keep destroying them,” the report says.
The assessment examines progress on forest protection, sustainable production, finance and governance. It finds that some initiatives are moving forward, including efforts to improve forest monitoring and recognise Indigenous land rights. But these developments have not yet produced the scale of change required to reverse forest destruction.
More than 140 countries pledged under the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, announced at the 2021 United Nations climate conference, to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030.
Five years later, the latest assessment suggests that the world remains far from achieving that objective.
Tropical forests face particular pressure from agricultural expansion, infrastructure development and commercial activities. The report says these pressures are reinforced by weak enforcement of environmental laws and economic incentives that continue to favour activities associated with forest destruction.
‘We No Longer Look at Country-Level Figures’
Tropical Latin America recorded the largest absolute area of deforestation among the regions assessed but also made the most significant progress compared with the 2018-20 baseline. Deforestation there fell by 33 percent in 2025.
Tropical Africa, however, experienced a continued rise in forest loss. Annual deforestation in the region reached about 2.4 million hectares in 2025, comparable to the 2.5 million hectares recorded in tropical Latin America.
Tropical Asia lost approximately 1.6 million hectares of forest in 2025. That represented a 12 percent reduction compared with the 2018-20 baseline, although the report cautions that the underlying causes of deforestation remain largely unchanged.
The assessment describes tropical Asia’s progress as ambiguous. Two consecutive years of modest declines may indicate that the worst recent peaks have passed, but they do not establish that the region is on a sustained path towards forest recovery.
Tropical Oceania was the only tropical region assessed as being on track to meet its 2030 forest goals. Its relatively small share of global tropical forest area and lower current pressure on forests partly explain this difference.
The findings underline how national policies, commodity production and enforcement capacity can produce sharply different outcomes across regions.
When asked which countries have contributed most to this progress and what challenges continue to prevent deeper reductions in terms of deforestation, Palmegiani said, “We no longer look at country-level figures because the global datasets used for our calculations can sometimes misrepresent national trends. In fact, to avoid overstating the precision of the data, we only publish regional and global aggregates for our indicators.”
He added, ”That said, independent analyses and regional initiatives suggest that Indonesia and Malaysia have been important contributors to the decline in deforestation observed across tropical Asia. Despite this progress, the region continues to face significant economic pressures. These include growing demand for critical minerals, particularly nickel, of which Indonesia is the world’s leading exporter, as well as broader economic uncertainty linked to geopolitical conflicts and disruptions in global markets. When these pressures intensify, short-term economic priorities can outweigh environmental considerations, and forests often bear the cost.”
Agricultural Expansion and Commercial Interests
Agriculture remains a major driver of forest loss, with commercial production and growing demand for food, animal feed and bioenergy putting pressure on natural ecosystems.
The report says between 61 and 94% of tropical deforestation linked to commercial agriculture may be illegal. It estimates that environmental crime, including illegal deforestation and timber and wildlife trafficking, generates as much as US$281 billion annually.
Such activities often overlap with other criminal enterprises.
A 2025 study by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, cited in the assessment, found links between environmental offences and crimes including drug trafficking, illegal mining and human trafficking.
The scale of these activities presents a major challenge for governments seeking to protect forests while regulating international commodity supply chains.
The assessment also points to gaps in corporate accountability. Companies in sectors linked to forest loss have increasingly adopted sustainability commitments and reporting systems, but disclosure and implementation remain uneven.
Financial institutions have begun to recognise deforestation as an environmental and financial risk. Yet the report says many regulatory frameworks lack detailed guidance on how banks should assess and manage those risks.
More than 60 percent of the countries assessed had yet to establish disclosure requirements covering deforestation-related risks for banks or insurance companies.
The report’s findings suggest that voluntary commitments and corporate reporting need to be accompanied by stronger enforcement and clearer requirements if they are to produce measurable changes in production and investment.
Forest Finance Remains a Major Challenge
The assessment identifies the scale and distribution of finance as another obstacle to forest protection.
Although international funding commitments have increased, financial support for conservation remains difficult to reconcile with the economic incentives that encourage activities harmful to forests.
The report estimates that subsidies linked to the production and use of fossil fuels reached $921 billion in 2024. Emergency measures introduced in 2026 to ease high energy prices could push the global total above $1 trillion this year.
The assessment warns that such subsidies can undermine efforts to shift to less harmful energy sources.
It also highlights the potential benefits of redirecting public support to activities that restore nature.
“Every dollar of agricultural support that is repurposed to support farming practices that restore nature, such as agroforestry, silvopasture, and low-carbon agriculture, can generate up to USD 30 in economic benefits, especially for rural communities,” the report says.
The findings point to an opportunity for governments to reform existing spending rather than rely entirely on new funding.
However, the report notes that international forest finance does not consistently reach the Indigenous peoples and local communities who manage and protect forest territories.
Community-led funding mechanisms can help direct resources towards local priorities, but they remain secondary recipients of direct funding from governments and multilateral institutions.
Indigenous Rights and Participation
The assessment identifies recognition of Indigenous land rights as an important part of effective forest governance.
At the 2025 United Nations climate conference, known as COP30, an intergovernmental commitment involving 16 countries and one subnational jurisdiction pledged to recognise or strengthen rights over an additional 160 million hectares of Indigenous lands and territories.
The launch of the Tropical Forests Forever Facility also created a provision reserving 20 percent of country-level payouts for direct transfers to Indigenous and local community organisations.
These developments represent progress, but the report says participation in international policymaking does not necessarily translate into decision-making power.
Indigenous coalitions have stressed that their increased presence at COP30 remained largely consultative. Indigenous peoples still lack formal standing in the United Nations climate negotiations, such as COP 31, which will take place in Antalya, Türkiye, from November 9 to 20.
National climate plans also frequently mention Indigenous peoples and local communities without specifying how they will participate in designing or implementing policies.
A 2026 review of 84 national climate plans found that 61 referred to under-represented groups, including Indigenous peoples and local communities. However, the assessment says most references were descriptive rather than linked to concrete measures.
The report argues that meaningful participation requires more than recognition in policy documents. It requires secure land rights, opportunities to influence decisions and access to the financial resources needed to manage territories.
Environmental Defenders Face Continuing Threats
Forest protection also carries serious risks for people who challenge illegal activities and defend community land.
The assessment cites Global Witness data showing that at least 124 land and environmental defenders were killed in 2025. More than half of the documented killings were linked to land disputes, and nearly three-quarters of the victims were Indigenous people, small-scale farmers or people of African descent.
Front Line Defenders separately reported that at least 358 human rights defenders were killed in 28 countries in 2025. Those working on land, environmental and peasant rights, as well as Indigenous rights, were among the groups that were frequently targeted.
Erin Matson, a lead consultant of Climate Focus and report author, told IPS in an interview that the statistics from Global Witness that we cite each year are always humbling. It’s important to remember that that figure is likely a significant underestimate, as many killings and disappearances go unreported.
Erin Matson, a lead consultant of Climate Focus and one of the authors of the Forest Declaration Assessment 2026. Credit: Supplied
“There are many factors at play, most of which are rooted in governance. The vast majority of environmental defenders are killed over land disputes, for example, when a mining operation encroaches on Indigenous territories. If those Indigenous communities do not have secure, recognised tenure rights to their territories, it makes it that much harder for them to resist operators who are acting illegally.”
She added that, therefore, securing tenure rights is a major step that governments need to enable. Next, Matson added that an environment of corruption and impunity allows actors to literally get away with murder. “In locations where government actors and law enforcement are under the sway and on the payroll of special interests, they will look the other way when people are harmed. Rooting out corruption, therefore, and instituting reforms to corrupted systems is essential. It must be ensured that public officials are paid well for their services so that they won’t be susceptible to corruption in the first place.”
The report identifies weak enforcement, limited government capacity and impunity for powerful actors as major obstacles to effective forest governance.
It also warns that environmental defenders face forms of intimidation beyond lethal violence, including criminalisation, threats and harassment.
Improved technology is helping authorities detect illegal forest clearance. Satellite monitoring, traceability systems and new investigative tools can help identify offences and strengthen cooperation across borders.
In Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve, for example, researchers are testing artificial intelligence-powered acoustic sensors designed to recognise chainsaws, gunshots and engines. The technology can alert rangers to potential illegal logging in remote areas that are difficult to patrol regularly.
But the report stresses that improved detection must be matched by fair and effective enforcement. Otherwise, small-scale producers and local communities may carry a disproportionate share of the burden while more powerful actors escape accountability.
The report reveals further that deforestation in 2025 was lower than in much of the preceding decade, and forest finance has increased. Monitoring systems have also improved, while several countries have taken steps towards recognising Indigenous land rights.
But the report cautions against interpreting these gains as evidence of a lasting turnaround.
It says the reduction in deforestation may partly reflect temporary factors, including stronger enforcement in some jurisdictions, changing commodity prices and economic conditions that slowed land conversion.
“These wins should not be mistaken for the transformation still needed,” reads the report.
IPS UN Bureau Report
KYIV, Ukraine, Oct 14 2026 (IPS) - Medicine is supposed to protect human life and dignity. Yet testimonies from Ukrainians released from Russian captivity reveal a disturbing reality: medical personnel in places of detention have not only denied prisoners necessary treatment but, in documented cases, participated in torture and ill-treatment.
Anna Trushova
The research draws on testimonies from 16 people released from Russian captivity, including former detainees and medical professionals. Their accounts describe the denial of medical assistance, the neglect of serious injuries and illnesses, degrading treatment, and the concealment of evidence of violence. Some testimonies describe medical personnel directly participating in acts of torture.
One of the most troubling findings is the consistency of these accounts. Previous reports have documented abuses by medical staff, but this research systematically examines testimonies alongside the legal and regulatory framework governing medical professionals in Russia. Its findings suggest that the violations cannot be dismissed as isolated misconduct.
Russian medical personnel are bound not only by international humanitarian law and professional medical ethics but also by domestic rules that require them to provide care and to refrain from causing harm. The documented abuses, therefore, raise questions about violations of both international obligations and Russia’s own legal standards.
The consequences extend far beyond the detention facilities. People returning from captivity often require prolonged medical treatment and rehabilitation. Their families, meanwhile, must cope with the lasting effects of imprisonment, serious illness, and loss.
Sofia Krokhmaliuk, whose father, Oleksandr Krokhmaliuk, headed the Azov brigade’s medical service and died in captivity, described the pain of receiving his body back in Ukraine. She said the condition of his remains indicated that he had not died of natural causes.
Another family has spoken about the consequences that can persist after release. Ukrainian serviceman Oleksandr Savov spent more than 1,000 days in Russian captivity and returned home on March 19, 2025. He died of heart failure on November 16 that year, aged 46. His daughter, Anastasiia Savova, has emphasized that release does not mean the end of a crime: its consequences can last for the rest of a person’s life.
These stories demonstrate why the right to medical care in captivity cannot be treated as a secondary humanitarian concern. For people held in conditions where they have little or no access to independent assistance, medical care may be essential to their survival. Its deliberate denial can itself become a form of cruel treatment.
The Center for Civil Liberties’ research adds another dimension by examining the role of medical personnel within this system. It also reinforces the need to document individual responsibility and preserve evidence for future investigations and prosecutions.
Accountability is possible, even when it takes years. Thorough documentation can help identify those responsible, establish patterns of abuse, and provide evidence for national and international legal proceedings. Impunity, by contrast, creates conditions in which violations can continue.
That is why more than 90 Ukrainian organizations and institutions have appealed to the World Health Organization (WHO), urging it to respond to the systematic denial of medical care and the documented involvement of medical personnel in torture and ill-treatment.
The appeal calls for stronger international monitoring of detention facilities, including through cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross, United Nations mechanisms, and independent medical organizations. It also urges support for documenting abuses, identifying those responsible, and securing medical evacuation for severely wounded and seriously ill prisoners of war and unlawfully detained civilians.
The WHO cannot replace international investigators or courts. But its professional authority and international reach can help bring these violations to the attention of the global medical community and strengthen calls for independent access, accountability, and protection.
The immediate priority must be to help those still held in captivity receive the medical care they need. At the same time, the international community must ensure that allegations of medical personnel participating in torture are investigated rather than ignored.
Medicine must never become an instrument of repression. When those entrusted with protecting life become involved in abuse, the response must extend beyond professional condemnation. It must include independent monitoring, effective pressure, evidence preservation, and accountability.
For Ukrainians who remain in Russian captivity, these measures are not abstract questions of ethics or international law. They may determine whether they receive treatment, whether their suffering is documented, and whether they live to return home.
Anna Trushova is human rights defender and communications manager at the Center for Civil Liberties
IPS UN Bureau
GENEVA, Oct 13 2026 (IPS) - An additional 11.7 million women and girls could face food insecurity by the end of 2026, as the escalation in the Middle East and disruption to the Strait of Hormuz drive up food prices and strain livelihoods and household resources, according to a new UN Women analysis published today.
“Food security risks of the Middle East escalation for women and girls” finds that women and girls account for 53 per cent of the projected 22 million additional people who could face food insecurity by the end of the year across 28 countries analyzed. This is in addition to an estimated 208 million women and girls who were already food insecure or undernourished in these countries. These are scenario-based estimates, not forecasts.
“We know, as a matter of fact, that when food becomes scarce, women eat less and last. They often shift to less nutritious diets or skip meals altogether to prioritize the needs of others. Gender inequalities dictate who has access to food and the resources to obtain it. Therefore, investing in women and girls is a sure way of ensuring the well-being of families and communities,” said UN Women Deputy Executive Director Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda.
Disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz are driving up energy, fertilizer and transport costs, pushing up food prices. Combined with potential income and livelihood losses, these rising costs could make food harder to afford. For many women, existing inequalities in employment and access to financial services leave them with fewer resources to absorb these shocks.
More populous countries were found to have the largest numbers of women and girls who could face food insecurity. However, countries such as South Sudan, Sudan, Haiti, Yemen and Palestine face more concentrated risks, as multiple sources of vulnerability overlap.
In South Sudan, the additional number of women and girls who could face food insecurity represents around 14 per cent – or one in seven – of the South Sudanese female population – the highest proportion across the countries analyzed. In Lebanon, the additional number of women and girls who could face food insecurity represents nearly 4 per cent of the Lebanese female population, the second-highest proportion.
In many countries, women and girls make up a higher proportion of people who could face food insecurity. For example, in Afghanistan, women and girls are estimated to make up 60 per cent of people who could face food insecurity; in Yemen, more than 57 per cent; and in Sudan, nearly 56 per cent.
Employment also affects food security. In Egypt, Iraq, Palestine, Sudan and Syria, around 80 per cent of women are outside the labour force. In Afghanistan and Yemen, this rises to around 95 per cent, the report notes. Among employed women, more than 80 per cent are in vulnerable employment in Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Haiti, Mali and South Sudan.
According to the analysis, access to financial services could provide a buffer, but many women lack access to these services. In Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan and Yemen, fewer than one in five women owns a bank or mobile money account. This can limit women’s ability to save, receive remittances or cash assistance, or borrow safely when prices rise or incomes fall, increasing reliance on informal lenders, relatives or other household members and potentially putting their safety and protection at risk.
UN Women calls for an integrated response that combines food and cash assistance with nutrition, protection, livelihoods and agricultural support, while ensuring women can access land, credit, services and other productive assets. It also urges resources to be targeted to places where women and girls face multiple, overlapping risks, and delivered at the right time – including ahead of agricultural seasons. Better data are needed to identify where food insecurity is worsening and who is eating less, losing livelihoods, taking on more unpaid care work, or facing heightened nutrition and protection risks within households.
UN Women joins the calls for de-escalation and respect for international law and echoes the Secretary-General’s call to all concerned parties to work towards diplomatic solutions that advance regional and international peace and security.
IPS UN Bureau
Excerpt:
Disruption to the Strait of Hormuz is driving up food prices and putting further strain on the livelihoods and household resources of millions of women and girls, according to a new UN Women analysis.
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 13 2026 (IPS) - The United Nations has once again revived a longstanding problem that has been left lingering behind closed doors for decades – racism and racial discrimination at the UN Secretariat.
A message sent to UN staffers last week reads: “The United Nations is founded on the bedrock principle that all people are equal in rights and dignity. Racism has no place in our Organization, and we are committed to fighting it on every front”.
“But racism often hides within systems, becoming entrenched through policies and practices that may appear neutral, but in fact reinforce biases and deepen inequities. Bringing these patterns to light is crucial, and for that we need data.”
“That is why, on 17 October, we will be launching a voluntary race data collection initiative. This exercise invites all Secretariat staff to provide information about their race, to help the Organization better identify and address discrimination. It is optional. It is anonymous. And it is one of the best tools we have to discover where action is needed.”
Approximately 3,600 to 4,800 Secretariat staff members, including UN agencies, are based in New York.
Meanwhile, the UN Secretariat in New York, faltered ingloriously last year, as it withdrew its own online survey on racism, in which it asked staffers to identify themselves either as “black, brown, white, mixed/multi-racial, and any other”.
But the most offensive of the categories listed in the survey was “yellow” – a longstanding Western racist description of Asians, including Japanese, Chinese and Koreans.
Subsequently, a non-apologetic message emailed to staffers read: “The United Nations Survey on Racism has been taken offline and will be revised and reissued, taking into account the legitimate concerns expressed by staff.”
Dr Palitha Kohona, a former Chief of the UN Treaty Section in the Office of Legal Affairs (OLA) told Inter Press Service (IPS) racism today is not overly evident at the United Nations which was founded on ideals that were very much ahead of their times, but an undercurrent of racial superiority and racial bias exists among certain elements of the Organization. This is evident in certain appointments and deep-seated attitudes, even among some delegates.
“Racism in international bodies could be traced even to the founding of the League of Nations where President Woodrow Wilson strenuously opposed the Japanese proposal to incorporate the principle of racial equality in the constitution of the Organization. His vision of international order was hierarchical and implicitly based on a racial hierarchy that placed white, Western nations at the top”.
While the United Nations is staffed by many enlightened individuals, some bias based on race still prevails at the highest levels, he pointed out, despite the organization itself having been headed by two Asians and an African in recent times.
“Curiously certain positions have been held only by Europeans. For example, the position of the UN Legal Counsel has been held only by white Europeans. There are other positions apparently reserved for European countries”.
Some delegates are also still affected by racial prejudices of an unenlightened past.
In a well reported incident, the not-so-white chairman of the WEOGs ( a Western European group) from a Southern European country once told the recently-arrived Australian delegate (an Australian citizen of Asian ancestry) that the developing countries of the Group of 77 were meeting in an adjoining room—(implying he was an Asian at the wrong meeting).
In an Organization created on the high ideals of equality and merit there is no logical reason for reserving certain positions on the basis of race, even sub consciously.
“Having gone a long way in minimizing gender bias, it is time to ensure that all vestiges of racial bias are also eliminated. One way to ensure equality and equity in appointments might be to subject all appointments to an open application process with selections being made by racially and gender mixed panels,” declared Dr Kohona, a one-time Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the UN, and until recently, Ambassador to China.
Ian Richards, President of the UN Geneva Staff Union told IPS: “We are concerned this is being tackled very much from a North American perspective.”
“Race is only a useful indicator if it is combined with where you grew up, which indicates opportunities or disadvantages in formative years, and where you work now. Each region has its own history and attitudes. We don’t feel this has been taken on board,” he said.
Meanwhile, the circular to staffers also points out that by understanding how colleagues identify their race, we can:
• Pinpoint areas where racial bias or disparities may exist;• Examine institutional factors that may contribute to racist misconduct, underreporting of incidents, or barriers to racial justice; and
• Develop remedial measures to build a workplace free from racial discrimination.
Staff will be invited to participate by selecting a race category on Inspira. To ensure data protection and maintain privacy, your data will be anonymized and aggregated. It will not be used in connection with any individual human resources management processes, such as recruitment or promotions. It will not be visible to recruiters or hiring managers.
The collection of race data will be managed strictly in line with the parameters outlined in General Assembly resolutions A/RES/80/238 and A/RES/80/243 B, as well as the provisions set out in ST/SGB/2024/3.
The racial categories listed echo the language used in past United Nations staff engagement surveys. An additional question will ask staff if they consider themselves to be a member of a racialized community.
Speaking on condition of anonymity. a former UN staff member expressed concerns about the UN Secretariat Administration’s proposed race data collection initiative, particularly regarding its methodology, suitability for the UN’s diverse global workforce, and safeguards for sensitive personal information.
It was pointed out that a fundamental question remains unanswered: Is the lack of race-disaggregated data genuinely preventing the Organization from addressing racism, or does the real problem lie in the implementation of existing policies, the enforcement of accountability, and the failure to translate commitments into effective action?
This distinction must be established before sensitive personal data are collected on such a scale.
“Any approach to addressing racism and racial discrimination within the UN should also recognize the experiences of affinity groups and other minority and underrepresented communities, whose experiences of exclusion may not be adequately captured by standardized racial classifications”.
The absence of meaningful consultation with staff representatives, together with insufficient clarity regarding the conceptual or empirical basis for the selected racial categories, data protection measures, future use of the data, and independent oversight, further undermines confidence in the initiative.
The United Nations must demonstrate its commitment to equality through action, transparency, and accountability. Collecting sensitive racial data must not become a substitute for enforcing existing protections, addressing substantiated concerns, and correcting discriminatory institutional practices, the former staff member said.
“The ultimate measure of success is not how much data the Organization collects, but whether it can demonstrate that racism has been reduced, accountability strengthened, and the working environment made fairer for all staff”.
IPS UN Bureau Report
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Oct 13 2026 (IPS) - The protracted demise of dollar-gold convertibility and associated fixed exchange rates did not end dollar hegemony. With crucial and timely help from political allies, confidence in the dollar system has persisted, albeit much diminished.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
On August 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon announced that the US would no longer convert dollars into gold, as promised under the 1944 Bretton Woods (BW) agreement.
But the BW payments arrangements and the US promise of dollar convertibility to gold were not sustainable. As Robert Triffin noted in 1960, the system was ‘failing by design’ from the outset, which US authorities denied and refused to address.
Vietnam War spending, rising inflation, and a run on US gold reserves forced this decision after allied Western central banks quietly gave up defending the gold-dollar peg in 1968.
Decades later, then-US Undersecretary for Monetary Affairs Paul Volcker revealed he had initiated a Treasury working group in 1969.
As the US balance of payments was already proving unsustainable, suspending gold-dollar convertibility was no longer considered an option to be avoided at all costs.
Portraying the gold peg’s failure as due to arithmetic, not politics, Volcker argued that suspending it involved implementing contingency planning that the group had long considered.
Two days before, Nixon summoned 15 advisors to a secret retreat at Camp David to draft his announcement. He also imposed a 90-day wage-price ‘freeze’ and a 10% tariff on imports.
Thus, Nixon presented the suspension of dollar convertibility to gold as part of a larger economic policy reform package, rather than as the long-overdue default on earlier US pledges.
With his 1972 re-election campaign approaching, Nixon and his Treasury Secretary, John Connally, claimed to be ‘freeing’ US economic policy by ending dollar-gold convertibility and associated fixed exchange rate obligations.
Clearly, Nixon’s mid-August 1971 announcement was not an improvised response to an emergency or even the sudden break he implied, although the Volcker group preferred a more ‘controlled demolition’.
US dollar, others’ problem
When allied finance ministers were negotiating a replacement arrangement in Rome in November 1971, Connally bluntly told them that the dollar was America’s currency but their problem, belatedly confessing to BW’s true nature.
Nonetheless, their December 1971 Smithsonian Agreement still sought to patch things up rather than explicitly abandon the 1944 arrangement and the later efforts to defend it.
The dollar was devalued against gold for the first time since 1934, with its price rising from $35 to $38 an ounce. Trading bands around other currencies were widened to give central banks more flexibility.
Nixon pronounced the 1971 Smithsonian Agreement the most significant monetary arrangement in world history before the dollar was devalued again 14 months later, in February 1973.
National authorities politically aligned with the US had defended it, but eventually stopped paying to maintain the charade. Thus, a year and a half after August 1971, BW was finally buried.
Within weeks, the major currencies abandoned fixed exchange rates altogether, allowing them to float against one another. Although the transition to floating rates was not smooth, it has survived, with modifications, ever since.
But the ‘settlement gap’ time lag under floating exchange rates is so problematic that international banking regulators have long sought to reform the way cross-border currency trades are cleared.
Charade over?
Although BW is now long gone, the dollar system has proven durable. The end of gold convertibility was not fatal to the dollar’s role at the centre of world finance.
Instead, the end of the BW dollar-gold convertibility obligation removed one constraint on it. After the final break with gold in 1973, the dollar was only backed by US government promises.
Gold’s formal demonetisation was confirmed with the 1976 Jamaica Accords when IMF member governments quietly amended its charter to strip the precious metal of any official role.
Freed from its earlier BW obligation to redeem dollars with gold, the US has financed its trade, current account, and fiscal deficits, as well as foreign and domestic government spending, with ever more dollar debt.
The world has increasingly financed the growth of US debt as the dollar remains the main currency in which most international trade, especially in commodities, is priced and settled.
The IMF had policed fixed exchange rates and gold-dollar convertibility for over two decades after the war. It has since changed roles to oversee floating exchange rates, selectively serve as ‘lender of last resort’ and manage sovereign debt crises.
International oil transactions were mainly settled in ‘petrodollars’, due to an arrangement with Saudi and other Gulf producers to use oil sales revenue to buy US Treasury securities.
The status quo is now based on others’ willingness to hold dollars. But growing concerns about US willingness to honour its commitments have caused governments to consider alternatives. But dollar hegemony has weathered such recent storms so far.
IPS UN Bureau