The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia, Sep 23 2026 (IPS) - Rightsholders came to Ulaanbaatar from across the world, carrying declarations, demands and years of experience defending the lands on which their communities depend. Indigenous Peoples, local communities, Afro-descendant Peoples, women and youth were equally clear about what they needed from COP17. But being in the room is not the same as having power in the room.
In a year when the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists and the three Rio Conventions were supposed to create momentum for rights, recognition and implementation, the negotiations showed how quickly those gains can be diluted when the people concerned are not able to shape the language that governs their lands.
What happened in Ulaanbaatar should concern anyone advancing land restoration, climate resilience and biodiversity conservation. These cannot succeed while the rights of the people who govern these landscapes remain negotiable.
Ahead of COP17, the demands were clear: 2026 could not be a symbolic year. It had to be a year when secure and customary tenure for Indigenous Peoples, local communities, pastoralists, Afro-descendant Peoples, women and youth was translated into real protections and implementation across the Rio Conventions.
Pastoralists, Mobile Peoples, Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples and local communities are proven leaders in land stewardship, biodiversity conservation and climate resilience. Achieving global restoration goals requires recognizing their rights, knowledge and leadership.
Secure and flexible tenure and mobility rights were an urgent ask in the context of the IYRP. RRI’s legal analysis of seven countries found that only Nepal and Niger recognize pastoralists as distinct rightsholders and only Niger considers mobility as a fundamental right. Even where rights exist on paper, they routinely fail against agricultural encroachment, mining, conservation expansion and green energy projects. Tenure should not be secondary to these initiatives, but a pre-condition before any projects are attempted in community lands.
Communities requested land and customary governance rights as a formal and permanent agenda item following past land tenure decisions, with customary institutions recognized as implementing bodies rather than consulted stakeholders and Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) as a precondition for any Land Degradation Neutrality action.
Finance is not a technical question. It is a question of power. At a COP supposedly focused on implementation, it should have been a central matter that communities cannot implement priorities they did not define, using resources they do not control. Yet too much climate, biodiversity and land finance still travels through institutions far removed from the communities whose territories generate environmental benefits.
For communities, direct and flexible finance is about more than getting money to the last mile. It is about trusting organizations and customary institutions to decide what resilience, restoration and development mean in their own territories.
Rightsholders were ready to advance their distinct rights during COP17. The presence of pastoralists at COP17 was significant, but presence alone does not translate into influence. Pastoralists arrived organized, with a global declaration and clear demands, yet the experience of the negotiations showed that meaningful participation requires more than being present in the conference halls. It requires the knowledge, resources, relationships and sustained capacity to follow negotiating texts, understand procedures, build alliances and influence language as decisions are being shaped.
On Land and People Day, the Indigenous Peoples Caucus delivered the Sacred Lands Declaration directly to the UNCCD Executive Secretary, demanding recognition grounded in self-determination, a permanent seat on the Committee on Science and Technology, and a dedicated fund for Indigenous-led restoration.
The local communities caucus asked for institutional status equal to the Indigenous Peoples’, Gender and Youth Caucuses rather than as a facilitative mechanism sidelined when convenient, plus a self-determined representation model and sustained funding for its operation.
Afro-descendant Peoples asked for what the other two Rio Conventions have already conceded: to be named. Afro-descendant Peoples across Latin America and the Caribbean steward territories degraded or acutely at risk — drylands, deforested frontiers, dry forests, riverine and coastal lands. They asked the UNCCD to open an Afro-descendant desertification agenda for the first time.
Women’s demands cut across all of this. Parties have built agreed gender language across three COPs. The ask was that it hold and be implemented.
For youth, being called “the future” has become another way of postponing their participation in the present. Young rightsholders are already living the consequences of drought, shrinking mobility, changing economies and pressures on their territories. They are not waiting to inherit these challenges. What they need is more than a voice now, it is representation, resources and authority in the institutions making decisions about their future. Their minimum requests included recognition as drivers of present-day adaptation, a permanent space within UNCCD processes, culturally appropriate education, and direct financing for youth-led organizations.
How the Negotiations Went
Based on prior COP decisions, COP17 should have been the continuation of a road towards implementation. Instead, the days in Ulaanbaatar became much more focused on protecting past progress rather than operationalizing it.
The institutional failures began on day one. At the opening plenary on 17 August, only two State Parties objected to agenda items, yet no vote was held and instead the presidency provisionally adopted the agenda. Future Strategic Framework, synergies with other conventions, gender, and participation of civil society were all deferred pending consultation. The COP closed with no decision at all on civil society participation, the Riyadh mandate to bring the Indigenous Peoples’ Caucus and the Local Communities’ Caucus to full Terms of Reference under Decision 5/COP.16 was pushed to COP18, and Rio synergies were removed from all decisions. Gender never reached the negotiation floor; instead, a quiet Gender Caucus convened in Plenary as the agenda block was sustained.
Still, IYRP advocacy proved successful to some extent. Parties agreed to recognize the critical role of pastoralists as stewards of rangeland ecosystems, including the importance of transboundary mobility. However, compromise language was adopted, replacing “traditional knowledge” with “knowledge accumulated by pastoralists” in order to remove wording related to Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
This distinction matters. Pastoralist knowledge is not simply a body of information accumulated over time; it is embedded in living institutions, relationships, territories and systems of customary governance. When knowledge is separated from the peoples and institutions that hold and transmit it, it becomes a technical resource while the rights and authority of its holders remain unrecognized. Draft decisions on land tenure and sand and dust storms also advanced, but only by leaving the naming of rightsholders behind. The lack of language on Indigenous Peoples and local communities was one of the biggest gaps. Many negotiators backed Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ rights in plenary, but behind closed doors, agreed to language so general it protects no one in particular. Language proposed replacing references to Indigenous Peoples with “common places” or “common people.” In the land tenure text, “affected areas” was pushed toward “common areas,” a phrase with no grounding in any multilateral mechanism and no obligations attached.
This dilution of language is particularly consequential as pressure on rangelands grows from competing global agendas. Rangelands are increasingly being presented as spaces for carbon sequestration, renewable energy, conservation and large-scale restoration, often without adequately recognizing the pastoralists who already govern and steward these landscapes.
And this is where the politics of rangelands becomes unavoidable.
Rangelands are increasingly being seen as spaces for carbon, renewable energy, conservation and large-scale restoration. The danger is that landscapes already governed and stewarded by pastoralists begin to be treated as empty spaces available for solving someone else’s global environmental problem.
A green transition cannot become a new form of land dispossession.
If pastoralists are displaced in the name of renewable energy, excluded in the name of conservation, or turned into carbon credits in the name of climate action, then changing the colour of development does not change its underlying politics.
Climate, biodiversity and land restoration objectives must not be pursued by treating pastoralist territories as empty spaces or global environmental infrastructure while sidelining the people whose livelihoods, cultures and institutions are rooted in them.
The same principle applies to emerging carbon and other environmental markets. Pastoralist rangelands cannot be reduced to carbon sinks whose value is defined externally while the cumulative ecological, economic and cultural value of pastoralism remains invisible. Any financing or market mechanism operating in these territories must begin with secure tenure, meaningful participation, Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), and fair recognition of the rights and contributions of pastoralist communities.
Right through the final day, negotiators discussed whether to reference synergies among the Rio Conventions, and whether to include gender at all. These questions were either resolved by adopting ambiguous and broad language that betrays the protection from past COP decisions or by simply delaying any decisions to COP18.
Across every draft negotiating text currently available, rangelands, drought, sand and dust storms, land tenure, Afro-descendant Peoples do not appear at all. Not contested and diluted; simply absent. On the year of the three Rio Conventions, this demonstrates how UNCCD is lagging. CBD Decision 16/6 made the Convention on Biological Diversity the first Rio Convention to name them explicitly and at UNFCCC COP30 they appeared in core negotiating text. The bridge that could have carried that recognition into the UNCCD was the synergies item blocked on day one. These synergies are urgent to deal with the intersections across climate, land degradation and biodiversity conservation.
When it came to drought, the COP also fell short. Decision ICCD/COP(17)/L.15 runs to four operative paragraphs: continue discussions at COP18 with a view to adopting a decision on proactive drought management; make drought a stand-alone agenda item; ask the secretariat and Global Mechanism to keep supporting Parties; and report back. After deferring at COP16 and again here, the working group toward a binding instrument did not materialize; the next window is 2028. In the current text, Indigenous Peoples and local communities appear as people affected by drought and consulted, rather than as rightsholders.
COP17 presented an unprecedented situation in which a small number of Parties blocked key issues from meaningful consideration. There is no Land Degradation Neutrality without human rights, no resilience without gender equality, no sustainable land governance without Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples and local communities.
COP17 also taught us something uncomfortable about participation. It is possible to be visible everywhere at a COP and still have very little influence over what finally enters the negotiating text.
Influence requires preparation. It requires people who understand the Convention, know the procedures, follow the text, build relationships with negotiators, organize across constituencies and remain engaged long after the cameras leave. Pastoralist movements have strong knowledge of their lands and livelihoods. What they need now is equal investment in the political and technical capacity required to defend that knowledge and those rights in global decision-making spaces.
If pastoralists want to shape the next COP, they cannot only prepare declarations. They must prepare negotiators.
What Happens Next
The answer cannot be another declaration.
The remaining COPs of 2026 must turn recognition into implementation. That means three things: name the peoples whose rights are at stake; put resources directly into the hands of their organizations and institutions; and give them meaningful authority over the decisions affecting their territories.
At CBD COP17 and UNFCCC COP31, Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples and local communities must be recognized as rights-holders and implementing partners, not folded into generic “vulnerable groups” language. At UNCCD COP18, the gains made on pastoralists, tenure and customary governance must not be allowed to disappear into vague language.
But the responsibility does not rest with the conventions alone. Pastoralist movements must also build the capacity to influence these processes. The period between COPs must be used to coordinate positions, prepare negotiators, track decisions and negotiating texts, build alliances across the Rio Conventions and engage governments between sessions. Pastoralist organizations need investment not only to attend COPs, but to understand and shape what happens inside them.
COP18 must deliver the adoption of Terms of Reference for the Indigenous Peoples’ and Local Communities’ Caucuses, restore gender and synergies to the agenda, open an Afro-descendant desertification agenda, advance a drought decision with the communities who live its consequences first, and restore the full recognition of traditional knowledge.
Vague language does not merely fail to establish obligations. It blurs the content of rights and leaves earned recognition in a regression limbo.
Naming peoples is the beginning of recognition, not the end of it. Recognition must lead to rights, rights must be backed by institutions and finance, and those institutions must have the authority to shape the decisions that affect their territories.
The peoples who shepherd the vast majority of the world’s lands do not need another symbolic year. They need their names written into the decisions, and their voices, institutions and authority protected long after the COP is over.
Bayarsaikhan Namsrai (Steps Without Borders), Gregoria Jimenez Amaya (CITAFRO/ODECO), Isabel Davila Pereira (Rights and Resources Initiative), Stephen Basele (Pastoralist Goals Foundation)
IPS UN Bureau
NEW YORK, Sep 22 2026 (IPS) - The Climate Group’s annual conference in New York City has attracted thousands of attendees this year, among them world leaders, corporate heads, philanthropists, and climate advocates. Those leaders present at the opening ceremony of Climate Week have made clear calls to collectively tackle climate issues.
Climate Week NYC’s opening ceremony and conference began on Monday in conjunction with the United Nations General Assembly Debate and High-Level Week (21-29 September). In addition to the main conference, held in the Glass House on 12th Avenue, there are multiple events hosted across New York City—more than 1,500. This is slated to be the biggest Climate Week yet, according to the Climate Group, the organizers of this week-long event.
Each year, Climate Week focuses on the most urgent issues when it comes to tackling climate change, from the transition to renewable energy, corporate and government responsibility, and scaling climate and economic progress.
The consequences of climate change, including extreme weather events, rising temperatures, and sea levels, are being felt worldwide. Global conflicts like the war between Russia and Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East have disrupted the world’s energy supply of oil and gas, which has put developed and developing countries alike in prolonged stress over energy needs.
Australian PM M Anthony Albanese. Credit: Climate Group
It is the latter point that the day’s first speakers urged on, as even in the face of mounting evidence that clean energy is more affordable, countries still rely on fossil fuels. But blaming the situation solely on fossil fuel companies would not be accurate. Helen Clarkson, the founder of Climate Group, pointed out in her opening remarks that incumbents still use and rely on fossil fuels for their energy needs. She also pointed her finger at right-wing pundits in traditional and social media that spread misinformation about renewable energy and politicians who “weaponize people’s fear.” Meanwhile, some leaders and even media outlets choose not to use the word ‘climate’ in relation to these issues in a form of erasure or denial. Silence is a form of inaction, Clarkson noted soberly, and that inaction leads to more climate change.
“It’s time to face the truth, and that’s hard in a world where truth has lost so much of its currency. But the truth is, we’ve been making ourselves smaller and quiet at the exact moment we should be bigger and louder,” said Clarkson.
Climate and nature loss should also be treated as a matter of national security, said Ed Miliband, the United Kingdom’s Foreign Minister. Miliband, who served as the energy secretary under Prime Ministers Gordon Brown and Keir Starmer, remarked that climate destruction was once treated as a peripheral matter that was separate from economic growth or energy security. The job growth in the clean energy sector proves their potential for a sustainable transition. The latest conflicts in Ukraine and Iran underline the dependence of countries on fossil fuels while also highlighting the “energy independent imperative” of clean energy.
Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs of the United Kingdom at Climate Week. Credit: Climate Group
Countries struggle with the overlapping consequences driven by climate change, for they are no longer confined to borders. In 2026 alone, over 150 million hectares burned in the first four months. This year has also confirmed a “super” El Niño that will likely drive global recorded temperatures and extreme weather events to new levels.
“This is why these facts, what is happening in our world, and why climate breakdown, in my view, must be an issue for foreign ministers and prime ministers, as well as energy and climate ministers,” said Miliband.
Miliband recommended governments pool information on climate issues so that it can be used to inform forecasts and early warning systems to “[act] before the crisis hits, rather than picking up the pieces afterwards.”
This sense of collective responsibility between countries was the core of the keynote speech, delivered by Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
“The global community cannot afford to be frozen in time while the world falls around us,” said Albanese. “Australia understands the dangers of global warming and the emergency of climate action as well as any nation. We’ve seen it up close from increasingly intense bushfires and floods.”
Albanese also spoke to the specific context of the Pacific region, where states are uniquely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and have been among the most vocal advocates for climate action. He cited Australia’s efforts to fund and support Pacific Island states in their climate resilience plans. There is also the Pacific Resilience Facility, established last year, which he claimed was the first Pacific-led climate financing mechanism.
Adopting climate-friendly and sustainable initiatives is possible and better in the longterm to build necessary resilience. Iceland provides one such example, as a country that holds geothermal reserves but had been running on imported oil until the early 1970s during the oil crisis that disrupted their supplies. Through financing, political will, and cutting-edge technology, Iceland began developing large-scale geothermal heating districts across the country. Today, over 90 percent of households in Iceland are heated by geothermal energy. For Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir, the lesson that countries should take from their example is to invest in climate-friendly infrastructure and initiatives before the next shock.
“The transition each of you is managing—in energy, in supply chains, in infrastructure, in economic competitiveness—won’t be won by the country or the company that reacts fastest to the next disruption. It’ll be won by the one that has already built the capacity to absorb it, years before it arrives. Resilience, in other words, isn’t a response. It’s a foundation you pour long before anyone tells you the storm is coming,” Frostadóttir said.
As Frostadóttir and the other world leaders remarked in their addresses, the solutions to climate change already exist. But it will require an equal measure of financing and political will to push through with the necessary steps. It cannot be a matter of waiting for the next climate or geopolitical shock to adopt those changes.
IPS UN Bureau Report
APEX, North Carolina / SAN FRANCISCO, California / VIENNA, Austria / SHEFFIELD, United Kingdom / GENEVA, Switzerland, Sep 22 2026 (IPS) - In March 2025, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres launched “UN80”. Recognizing that the world is in a state of dramatic and rapid change at a time when funding for the UN is under threat from budget cuts, Guterres declared that, on the anniversary of the UN’s 80th birthday, a review of its work was long overdue. Now, UN80 is coming to a head with a set of recommendations that cover almost every aspect of the UN’s work.
Some of the recommendations are focused on reducing budgets. With some major governments cutting their funding and heavily in arrears, the UN needs to cut its spending.
The current target is a reduction of roughly 20%. This has already resulted in a decision to shift staff from high-cost duty stations like New York or Geneva, to lower-cost locations such as Bonn and Nairobi.
There has also been more “structural and programmatic alignment”—in other words, finding ways to make different parts of the UN work together more efficiently, or even merge different groups. So far, this has included the UN General Assembly agreeing to merge the UN System Staff College (UNSSC) and the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) into the UN Institute for Capability and Learning Innovation.
On the research side, the UN Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) has been integrated into the UN University. Meanwhile, the UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) has been absorbed into the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
Finally, in the development agenda, there have been proposals to merge the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS), and to join together the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and UN Women, while also integrating the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) into existing programs.
Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation: Improving Multilateral Environment AgreementsBut what about all-important environmental issues? Does UN80 address the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution?
The short answer is, yes. UN80 includes “Work Package 27” dealing with the environment. We are delighted to see the inclusion of several issues we believe would improve how multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) are organized, including the idea of “clustering.”
The UN80 process of the past 18 months has generated some excellent ideas. The window for acting on them is narrower than it looks: a new Secretary-General takes office in January 2027, and proposals that have not been anchored in a mandate by then will be inherited by someone who did not make them. Now is the time to bring them to fruition
Over the past year, we have advocated taking up an idea first mooted by UNEP’s Executive Director Klaus Töpfer back in the 2000s. He proposed grouping—or clustering—MEAs and making them work more closely and effectively together. These could be grouped along the lines of the triple planetary crisis (or “polycrisis”): (i) chemicals, waste and pollution; (ii) biodiversity loss and (iii) climate change.
The logic of the groupings matters. Chemicals and waste are fundamentally about pollution and health; biodiversity is about conservation and sustainable use, while climate change sits at the nexus of these challenges. This means effectively exploiting all synergies. Treating the polycrisis as one undifferentiated agenda has never worked; treating them as three coherent families might.
Achim Steiner, who took over from Töpfer as Executive Director of UNEP in 2006, made the first attempt at clustering. The chemicals and waste conventions—Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm—agreed a synergies process that produced joint decisions and, from 2010, back-to-back conferences of the parties, a shared secretariat structure and common administrative services.
It has been largely a success on the terms it set itself: it improved collaboration and cut costs, even if programmatic integration has gone less far than administrative integration.
Steiner also started efforts to cluster MEAs focused on biodiversity. However, this process was never completed. We believe UN80 provides an ideal opportunity for this to be revisited and moved forward.
We are pleased to see that UN80 recommends establishing “a time-limited, independent and regionally representative Consultative Group of Ministers or High-level representatives of UN Member States to evaluate benefits, feasibility and possible options for MEA consolidation.” (Action 5.1)
This group should focus on two areas: clustering the three biodiversity conventions administered by UNEP—the Convention on Biological Diversity, CITES and the Convention on Migratory Species—with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework as a unifying umbrella; and bringing the Minamata Convention on Mercury closer to the other chemicals and waste MEAs (Basel, Rotterdam, Stockholm).
If achieved, such clustering would strengthen both the treaties seeking to address biodiversity loss and those dealing with chemicals and waste.
Clustering the three UNEP-administered biodiversity conventions is only the start: working relationships will also be needed with the biodiversity-related conventions outside UNEP—Ramsar (wetlands), World Heritage, the Plant Treaty, and Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) —and with the other Rio conventions.
We already have more than a decade of experience of what the chemicals and waste cluster has achieved and believe there is much to learn from it, and to replicate.
Better ScienceAnother recommendation that should be implemented is the better coordination of environmental science, and closer links between science and policy.
This matters because so many environmental issues, such as biodiversity loss and climate change, are interlinked. Connecting the scientific work in these areas helps us “join the dots” and also develop and implement better policy.
The UN80’s recommendations include several very good ones on science coordination and science policy. For instance, it proposes that we:
“Institutionalize a periodic science–policy dialogue anchored in UNEP’s science function that informs UNEA, as well as MEAs and other UN entities governing-bodies, as appropriate.” (Action 2.1) “Promote structured coordination and collaboration among chairs of MEA scientific and technical bodies and other science-policy interfaces, using existing mechanisms while respecting mandates.” (Action 3.1) “Build a user-driven, modern knowledge ecosystem and repository of environmental science and knowledge as a shared UN asset, linking country-to-global data and existing science platforms through shared standards and interoperable search.” (Action 3.2)These are also the cheapest recommendations on the list, and the ones with the widest benefit. It is worth making this very clear at a moment when everything is being weighed against a 20% savings target: coordination costs very little and duplication costs a great deal.
With the global community appearing to be so divided and splintered across so many issues, we understand that not all ideas will command universal support.
This is why we applaud the idea of developing “coalitions of the willing” or communities of practice around various MEAs. We believe UNEP can and should play a convening role in this, as well as related discussions about how the Rio treaties dealing with climate change, desertification and biodiversity loss can work more closely and effectively together.
Environmental InterlinkagesWhen UNEP was set up in 1972, one of its key missions was to help coordinate environmental work by different UN bodies. Much of this has fractured over the years as new MEAs and organizations have emerged to address major environmental issues like climate change. However, we believe it is time to reinvigorate UNEP’s mission.
UN80 addresses this by proposing that the UN’s Environment Management Group (which is chaired by the head of UNEP) should:
“Develop and roll-out a new EMG strategy and operating model. (Action 4.1) “Adopt a common UN system-wide results framework for environmental mainstreaming.” (Action 4.2) “Establish effective linkages with the UN Secretary-General and key governing bodies (e.g., UNEA, World Health Assembly, Human Rights Council, World Meteorological Congress, etc.).” (Action 4.3)It is worth being clear about which of these the UN can simply decide to do, and which it cannot. The science function, the knowledge ecosystem and a reinvigorated Environment Management Group are Secretariat matters: they can be delivered by the UN system itself. Clustering conventions is not.
MEAs are autonomous treaties, and only their Parties can agree to consolidate them. That is precisely why Action 5.1 proposes a group of ministers rather than an administrative decision—and why governments, not officials, will determine whether this part of UN80 goes anywhere.
Strengthening Political LeadershipWhat else should be done? In 2025, we proposed reintroducing the Global Ministerial Environment Forum—a body that met annually through the 2000s in conjunction with UNEP’s Governing Council, until it was superseded by the creation of the UN Environment Assembly. The Forum’s goal was to elevate discussions on environmental issues to a high political level.
Work Package 27 suggests a slightly different approach, but with similar aims. It suggests a Global Environment Leaders’ Summit, to be held every four years and attended by heads of state and government. We support this (or similar) initiatives intended to bring presidents and prime ministers to the table. In short, we need decision makers at the highest level coming together to address global environmental matters.
But four years is almost too long given the speed and acceleration of global environmental change. A simpler answer is available: a ministerial segment attached to each session of the Environment Assembly, which already meets every two years and already has universal membership, with a leaders’ summit every four. That adds almost no additional costs, and it builds political attention into a cycle that already exists rather than competing with it.
A New Secretary-General — and the Question of Who Carries This ForwardThere is one complication none of this can avoid. UN80 is António Guterres’ initiative, and his term ends in December 2026. The recommendations in Work Package 27 have been prepared for a Secretary-General who will not be in office to implement them.
Whoever succeeds him will inherit these proposals rather than own them—and on the evidence of the selection process so far, will arrive with no particular commitment to them. Eight candidates have published vision statements and taken part in interactive dialogues with the General Assembly since April.
So, what can we expect? Continuity on the efficiency agenda, almost certainly. Every candidate has endorsed UN80 in some form, and the Organization’s financial position leaves little choice.
Several have committed to sustained mandate discipline, which the General Assembly’s March 2026 resolution on the creation, implementation and review of mandates now underpins. That is genuinely useful, and over time it should reduce reporting burdens across the system.
But it carries a risk worth naming. Mandate discipline affects Secretariat mandates. It does not reach the treaty bodies, whose mandates are made by their own Parties.
If an incoming Secretary-General treats Work Package 27 primarily as a savings exercise, clustering becomes consolidation by austerity. This means the functions most likely to be cut are precisely those with no treaty constituency to defend them: science coordination, the knowledge ecosystem, the Environment Management Group.
Two practical conclusions follow. The first is that the Consultative Group proposed under Action 5.1 should be established now, with a mandate and a reporting line designed to survive the transition, rather than left to a successor to constitute. The second is that in whatever dialogue remains before the appointment, candidates should be asked a question none has yet been put to them: what do you intend to do with Work Package 27?
Optimism and ActionThe suggestions in UN80 and Work Package 27 offer a new approach to environmental issues and show great potential. A more empowered UNEP could provide stronger systemwide coordination across the UN and significantly enhance the integration and coherence of science, policy, and environmental protection.
To succeed, decision makers will need to be bold and to move forward quickly and decisively. The UN80 process of the past 18 months has generated some excellent ideas. The window for acting on them is narrower than it looks: a new Secretary-General takes office in January 2027, and proposals that have not been anchored in a mandate by then will be inherited by someone who did not make them. Now is the time to bring them to fruition.
Prof. Felix Dodds and Chris Spence have participated in United Nations talks on climate change and other environmental negotiations since the 1990s. They co-edited Heroes of Environmental Diplomacy: Profiles in Courage (Routledge, 2022) and wrote Environmental Lobbying at the United Nations: A Guide to Protecting Our Planet (Routledge, 2025). Their next book, Political Heroes of the Environment: Profiles in Courage, is due for release in 2027.
Hugo-Maria Schally is former Head of the Multilateral Environmental Cooperation Unit at the Directorate-General for Environment, European Commission.
Peter Bridgewater is an Associate Researcher at the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University, UK.; Adjunct Professor at the University of Canberra, Australia; a former Director of the Division of Ecological Sciences in UNESCO; and former Secretary General of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.
Craig Boljkovac is Executive Director of Green Cross International, a Geneva-based Senior Advisor with a Regional Centre for the Basel and Stockholm Conventions, and an independent international environmental consultant with over 35 years of experience in relevant fields. He has participated in several INCs and related meetings for the global plastics agreement.
The opinions expressed in this article are the personal views of the individuals listed and do not necessarily reflect those of the organizations with which they are affiliated.
PORTLAND, USA, Sep 22 2026 (IPS) - Marriage is declining in many countries, with fewer people marrying and many postponing marriage until later in life. At the same time, increasing numbers of men and women are choosing cohabitation instead of marriage.
Various social, economic, and legal factors have contributed to this shift from marriage to cohabitation. Moreover, cohabitation is increasingly not simply a prelude to marriage but, in many cases, an alternative to it. Although its prevalence varies considerably across regions and countries, cohabitation among unmarried couples has continued to rise in many parts of the world.
Historical demographic trends indicate that marriage has become less common over the past several decades, with particularly pronounced declines among younger adults. Nearly 90% of the world’s population lives in a country where marriage rates are declining. This change in union formation is part of the broader transformation in family and household patterns around the world.
In the mid-20th century, about 65% to 70% of adults worldwide were married. By 2021, however, the global share had declined to approximately 50% to 55%.
The proportion of married adults has declined across major age groups. In the United States, for example, the share of adults who were married decreased across all major age groups between 1960 and 2010 (Figure 1).
Source: U.S Census Bureau.
In addition, declines in marriage rates have been accompanied by substantial delays in marriage. Several decades ago, women in many countries typically married in their early or mid-twenties. Today, the median age at first marriage for women has risen to the late twenties or early thirties in many developed countries.
Historical demographic trends indicate that marriage has become less common over the past several decades, with particularly pronounced declines among younger adults. Nearly 90% of the world’s population lives in a country where marriage rates are declining. This change in union formation is part of the broader transformation in family and household patterns around the world
Marriage is therefore becoming less common in an increasing number of countries. At the same time, cohabitation has become increasingly widespread.
Once more common among people with lower levels of education and socio-economic status, cohabitation has in recent decades spread across educational and socioeconomic groups, making it a more broadly established form of partnership.
Cohabitation is particularly common in Central and South America, where levels are among the highest in the world. Rates of 40% or more of all unions are found in Panama, Nicaragua, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti.
Brazil provides another striking example. In 2022, nearly 40% of couples were in consensual or cohabiting unions, compared with about 38% in civil and religious marriages. For the first time, consensual unions surpassed civil and religious marriages as the most common form of union.
The rise of cohabitation in Latin American countries has also been accompanied by increasing proportions of children being born outside of marriage. From roughly 2016 to 2020, approximately 75% of children in Latin America were born outside marriage. The proportions ranged from about 60% in Guatemala and Ecuador to more than 80% in Colombia and Panama.
By contrast, cohabitation remains less common in Asia and the Middle East. These lower rates are generally attributed to the continuing influence of traditional family structures, marriage practices, and cultural and religious norms.
In addition, some countries have cultural restrictions and laws prohibiting sex outside of marriage, effectively making cohabitation illegal. These include Afghanistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. In most of these countries, a large majority of adults aged 18 to 49 are married.
Various factors have contributed to the shift from marriage toward cohabitation in many countries. Unlike marriage, cohabitation generally involves fewer legal procedures, costs, and formalities and may avoid some of the financial and legal complications that may arise from divorce (Table 1).
Source: Author’s compilation.
Cohabitation also gives men and women opportunities to get to know each other, assess their compatibility, financial circumstances, and make decisions about their future without immediately assuming the legal obligations of marriage. For many couples, therefore, cohabitation has become an alternative to marriage rather than simply a step toward it.
The widespread availability of modern contraceptives has given men and women greater flexibility in forming personal relationships and greater control over the timing and number of their children. Other important factors include urbanization, rising educational attainment, increasing female labor-force participation, financial pressures and unemployment, changing priorities regarding careers, personal growth, and independence, and evolving social and economic roles of men and women.
Additional factors include the rising costs associated with marriage, the potential financial consequences of divorce, changes in laws governing unmarried couples, and growing social acceptance of cohabitation.
Among OECD countries, about 12% of adults aged 20 and older lived in a cohabiting union around 2023. The proportions were considerably higher in some OECD countries, including Iceland (22%), Sweden (20%), and France (19%).
As in many Latin American countries, a large proportion of the births in OECD countries now occur outside marriage. A half century ago, fewer than 10% of children were born outside of marriage in most OECD countries. By 2020, that share had risen to more than 30% in most countries and to more than half in several, including Denmark, Estonia, France, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.
In sum, although substantial regional variations persist, particularly in more traditional and religious societies, marriage has declined significantly in most countries over the past several decades. Many men and women are also postponing marriage until later in life. At the same time, cohabitation among unmarried couples has become increasingly common, reflecting a broader transformation in partnership patterns.
Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer and a former director of the United Nations Population Division.
SYDNEY, Australia, Sep 22 2026 (IPS) - In the remote Highlands region of Papua New Guinea (PNG), humanitarians are life-saving beacons to women and girls facing myriad forms of violence. Despite years of awareness programmes and advocacy, the incidence of domestic and sexual violence is not declining. But Janet Kilea is one survivor who has rejected the fear and stigma of her experience and now dedicates her energy to transforming other women’s lives.
“I feel for other women who are going through the challenges I went through,” Kilea, who works in communities with the international medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in the mountainous Jiwaka Province, told IPS. “I need to use my experience to advocate for and empower women. Women should come out and not be silent about gender-based violence.”
Globally, about 31.6 percent of women have been subjected to physical or sexual violence, reports the World Health Organization (WHO), compared to an estimated 64 percent, more than double, in PNG, which has a population of about 10 million. Yet abuse of women, whether physical, psychological or economic, is of worldwide concern. It affects women and girls in both developed and developing countries, with the WHO claiming that SDG 5.2, which aims to eliminate it, is severely off-track and will not, on current trends, be achieved by 2030.
MSF’s Community Engagement Supervisor, Janet Kilea (L), with Community Health Worker, Judith (C), and Village Health Volunteer, Cathy (R), in Mondumil Village, Jiwaka Province, PNG. Credit: Sophie McNamara/MSF
And, in the PNG highlands, there are numerous barriers to changing the behaviours that endanger women’s lives and getting medical and support services to those who desperately need them. Most people live in isolated communities scattered across a vast rugged terrain of impenetrable forests, arduous high-altitude areas and deep valleys. Many do not have access to roads, while state services, including law enforcement, rarely reach far beyond major towns.
Across the Pacific, rural women and girls are particularly vulnerable, given they are twice as likely to live in poverty as those in urban centres, reports the UN Women, and face entrenched customary beliefs and practices that reinforce notions of gender inequality. Polygamous marriage, for instance, increases the risk of intimate partner violence by 24 percent, according to the World Bank. In the Pacific, “men still see women and girls as their property and believe that they are entitled to control them. And so far there are no efforts led by men to change the situation,” Colin Tukuitonga, Professor of Public Health at New Zealand’s University of Auckland, told IPS.
“In Jiwaka Province, it is estimated that 60 percent of women and girls are experiencing some form of violence,” Frédérique Butez, co-ordinator of MSF’s project in Jiwaka Province, told IPS. And “right now there is only one operational facility in Minj town, one facility providing family support centre services, which are integrated services within the public health facility with medical consultations and direct first aid and support. And then appropriate referrals to protection or legal services, according to the needs of the survivor,” she elaborated.
The suffering of survivors can be immense. Their ordeals may have involved weapons, such as knives or machetes, and resulted in chronic pain, sexually transmitted diseases, reproductive health issues, severe trauma or depression. The provision of external support services is crucial, too, as women frequently contend with stigma and pressure within families and communities to not report their abuse to authorities.
But that has not diminished Kilea’s resolve to make a difference. Gender-based violence (GBV) “is a very sensitive issue in our culture, which is taboo. So, when we go into the community, we talk with the women about their daily lives. We then talk about the root causes of GBV and start a conversation with the women. We create a space to share experiences,” Kilea explained.
MSF also trains village-health volunteers, critical first responders who are trusted within communities. “They are the heart of the project, because they are the focal point inside each community to give the first crucial aid care. They are the ones giving women access to the support and care that they need,” said Butez.
Jiwaka is a relatively new province established on the PNG mainland in 2012, and the provincial government, which provides for a rural-based population of about 343,987 people, is still developing its service outreach. “In terms of the scale of the needs and services, it is quite huge,” Butez said. But MSF, in partnership with Jiwaka Province, is using its expertise and resources to boost the skills of local healthcare workers and the capacity of medical and psychosocial services and support the government’s policy planning.
The scale of the public health needs is also recognised at the national level. Legislation, including the Criminal Code and 2013 Family Protection Act, outlaw domestic violence and violence against women and children. PNG’s gender-based violence response strategy promotes zero tolerance and outlines objectives, such as the development of effective response and service delivery to those affected and the scaling up of public message programs aimed at prevention.
Some political leaders have also spoken out. In March, Prime Minister James Marape told the PNG parliament that ‘domestic violence is a no amidst us. You cannot chest-beat as a leader if you are abusing your wife at home. Simple. Period,’ he declared, claiming that the country ‘will not progress if the fundamental fabric of our society is weakened.’
Nevertheless, women are still struggling to access timely support, and impunity continues for the vast majority of perpetrators. A progress review by the National Gender-Based Violence Secretariat last year reported a fall in the proportion of respondents witnessing domestic violence in their homes from 70 percent in 2016 to 51 percent in 2025. But, in contrast, it found a 210 percent increase in reported cases of violence against women since 1986 and a major shortfall in objectives being implemented. ‘Governance structures remain fragmented and under-resourced, with only 5 of 22 provinces having functional GBV secretariats and just 12 receiving annual funding,’ claims the report, while ‘the justice system is failing survivors with conviction rates for GBV cases as low as 0.5 percent in some regions.’
“Implementation is a challenge across the [Pacific Islands] region,” Tukuitonga emphasised. One hurdle is that strategic plans often exceed the budgetary capacity of governments, and “the second issue is that there are often not the skills locally to implement the plans effectively.”
Kilea, in coming to the aid of women and girls facing life-threatening situations every day, is part of efforts to address the latter. “I remember a woman I supported, who had three sons and one daughter. Her husband beat her regularly and took the money,’ Kilea recounted. She had no income and wasn’t working. She was also illiterate and uneducated and found it very difficult to know what to do. But Kilea was able to guide her on how to be patient and focus on her children while searching for opportunities to gain financial independence. “Soon she heard about an opportunity to do voluntary work, which has now led to daily paid work,” enabling her to leave the abusive relationship she was in and move to safer accommodation with her children.
Butez is buoyed to see the project leading to successes and being welcomed in the province. “The communities really accept us. And, as an organisation, it is very important that the trust with the communities is there, because without it we couldn’t work,” said Butez. “It is something that we are really proud of.”
The work of humanitarians will be critical now and in the future, to addressing the hardships and suffering that gender-based violence causes, with PNG’s GBV secretariat predicting that it could affect up to 8 million women in the country by 2046.
IPS UN Bureau Report
KIGALI, Rwanda, Sep 22 2026 (IPS) - Africa is emerging as the world’s fastest-growing technology market, with its innovation ecosystem attracting increasing global investment. The European Investment Bank’s recent €40 million commitment to the sector underscores this growing confidence.
However, this surge in technological innovation has yet to address some of the continent’s most persistent challenges – hunger, food insecurity, and poverty. Agricultural productivity still depends more on land expansion than on innovation and efficiency gains. The recently concluded Africa Food Systems Forum in Kigali focused on investing in Africa’s agrifood systems, exploring policy interventions to attract investment, boost productivity, build resilience to multidimensional shocks, and improve livelihoods. Discussions at the 9th Africa Agriculture Science Week in Abuja reinforced a clear message: Africa must invest far more in agricultural innovation systems and capabilities.
The continent’s population is projected to reach nearly 2.5 billion by 2050, thereby accounting for a quarter of the world’s population. Rapid urbanization and changing diets are accelerating food demand, creating significant opportunities for market expansion. However, climate shocks and slow-growing productivity have stalled progress toward food security.
The productivity gap is not rooted in a lack of promising technologies. Rather, it reflects limited adoption, weak complementary investments, and high transaction costs that constrain farmers and markets alike. Accelerating progress toward ending hunger and eradicating poverty in Africa will therefore require a coordinated bundle of technical, institutional, and socio-political innovations, designed not only to raise yields but also to strengthen the systems that enable productivity gains to take hold and endure.
Shaping Africa’s Technological Transformation: The Policy Landscape
Africa already possesses sound policy frameworks designed to promote technology-driven transformation. Agenda 2063, the continent’s blueprint for sustainable and inclusive socio-economic development, places technology at the center of Africa’s long-term trajectory.
Similarly, the Digital Transformation Strategy for Africa sets out a continental framework to harness digital technologies for inclusive growth, job creation, poverty reduction, and the narrowing of digital divides, while safeguarding Africa’s ownership of its digital future.
Together with the recently adopted Kampala Declaration, these frameworks lay important foundations for technological acceleration.
How, then, can Africa make the technological leap? The answer lies not in a proliferation of new pilot projects, but in the systematic deployment and scaling of existing technologies, backed by coordinated action across institutions and sectors.
The “technology frontier” is therefore not a single breakthrough, but the integration of biological, digital, engineering, ecological, and institutional innovations within a supportive political economy that enables scale, equity, and resilience.
Scaling Technological Interventions for Africa’s Agrifood System Transformation
Across the continent, the building blocks of technological advancements are already visible. From climate-resilient seeds and precision irrigation to AI-enabled advisory platforms and digital marketplaces, many of the tools needed to raise productivity and strengthen food security are already being deployed.
For example, in Mali and Senegal, AI-enabled geospatial tools are improving yield forecasting, helping farmers plan further ahead. Meanwhile, digital advisory platforms in Kenya are improving decision-making and market access, helping farmers increase productivity and sell their produce. Advances in gene-edited crops, such as drought-tolerant and pest-resistant crops, are narrowing yield gaps and strengthening resilience in countries like Nigeria, where improved maize and cowpea varieties are already delivering measurable productivity gains.
The challenge is coordination and scale. The 17th edition of the Annual Trends and Outlook Report underscores this point, calling for deliberate, system-wide interventions to expand the application of existing and emerging technologies and ensure their widespread, efficient use.
Africa’s Path to Technology Leadership
Against the backdrop of a rapidly expanding portfolio of complementary tools, Africa is well-positioned to translate its technological potential into system-wide performance. Realizing that ambition, however, will require coordination across five key areas.
First, Africa must invest in its innovation ecosystems. Frontier technologies cannot scale without strong science institutions, stable R&D financing, and coherent regulatory systems. Scaling new technologies demands long-term public investment and regional collaboration, not episodic pilot projects.
Second, technological dissemination must become inclusive and structured. Technologies spread fastest when embedded within trusted networks. Digitally enabled producer organizations, strengthened extension systems, and service-market models for mechanization and irrigation can aggregate demand, lower transaction costs, and ensure that marginalized groups and small-scale farmers are not excluded from the benefits of innovation.
Third, digital and climate intelligence infrastructure must expand. Precision agriculture, digital twins, and AI forecasting depend on reliable geospatial data, weather networks, compatible data standards, and rural connectivity. In this data-powered era, digital public infrastructure will become as essential to agriculture as roads and irrigation canals.
Fourth, climate adaptation and resilience must be mainstreamed into technological agendas. Drought-tolerant crops, solar-powered irrigation, water-efficient production systems, low-emission livestock practices, and circular bio-based innovations are not optional enhancements but prerequisites for resilient growth across the continent as it battles the harshest impacts of climate change.
Finally, governance and accountability must keep pace with innovation. An estimated US$77 billion in annual financing will be needed for transforming Africa’s agrifood systems by 2030. Coordinated public–private partnerships, harmonized regulatory frameworks, and transparent monitoring systems will be key to mobilizing private capital, boosting productivity, scaling innovation, and sustaining reforms – while placing farmers at the center of Africa’s agrifood transformation.
With its vast arable land, youthful workforce, and expanding digital capacity, Africa is uniquely positioned to pioneer climate-smart, resource-efficient agricultural models. The continent does not need another wave of breakthrough inventions to transform its food systems; what it requires is a decisive shift from fragmented adoption to system-wide modernization. The challenge is no longer to experiment at the margins, but to redesign the system at scale.
Debisi Araba is Managing Director, AKADEMIYA2063
IPS UN Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 22 2026 (IPS) - On September 16, at the lead-up to the 81st UN General Assembly, Equality in Family Law (GCEFL), Equality Now, TrustLaw, and the World Bank Group convened in New York City for the event titled The Gender Equality Dividend: Investing in Women’s Economic Prosperity Through Family Law Reform. Hosted by APCO, the event introduced new data on barriers to family law reform and highlighted strategies to help the international community maximize women’s economic participation.
Bringing together experts in legal reform and economic development, the event marked the launch of a landmark joint brief by the World Bank Group and Equality Now, titled Unlocking Women’s Economic Rights through Family Law Reform: Lessons from Case Studies across Five Regions. Drawing upon data collected from Chile, Kenya, Malaysia, Morocco, and Nepal, the brief examines the legal, social, and economic barriers that hinder gender equality, economic growth, and sustainable development.
Targeting the reform of 20 discriminatory laws by 2030, the report highlights the persistent and widespread disparities that women around the world continue to face in marriage, divorce, inheritance, and household decision-making. At the event, Antonia Kirkland, Director of Legal Equality and UN Liaison at Equality Now, stressed that no country has achieved full legal equality for women in terms of economic autonomy and social freedoms.
Additional data from the World Bank Group’s Women, Business, and the Law 2026 project reveals that 22 economies still lack laws granting women equal rights to immovable property, while 43 economies continue to deny women equal inheritance rights. Furthermore, women are estimated to be 33 percent less likely than men to participate in the formal labor market.
Over the past 50 years, family law reform has enabled more than 600 million women to access better economic opportunities, while approximately 118 countries have enacted laws that allow women improved access to employment. However, progress has stalled in recent decades, largely because family law reform is rarely treated as an interconnected policy, cultural, and economic issue.
Removing systemic discriminatory barriers against women yields immense social, financial, and developmental benefits. Granting women control over economic and financial resources can significantly strengthen their household bargaining power, foster greater individual autonomy, and considerably expand their access to formal employment.
Julia Braunmiller, Senior Private Sector Development Specialist with Women, Business and the Law, informed reporters at the briefing that if women had equal access to employment, global GDP could increase by up to 20 percent. Figures from UN Women’s Gender Snapshot 2026 report show that not a single indicator on the Sustainable Development Goal for gender equality (SDG 5) is on track to be met by 2030.
“Family law is economic policy. It is not something private,” Braunmiller said. “Marriage, divorce, and inheritance; these are the rules that can change who can work, who can own property, who can make financial decisions, who can earn and spend money. When rights are restricted, we are limiting the productive potential of half our societies. Family law is an overlooked driver of growth, productivity, and economic resilience.”
When women have equal access to formal employment, they are able to achieve significantly greater influence in decision-making, household affairs, and the ability to support themselves, separate from their husbands. In Nepal, landmark legal reforms have enabled widows to access marital assets and property, allowing families to stay afloat during periods of economic hardship.
“Many women, particularly in rural areas, who have lost their husbands or are divorced are in financially precarious situations. Obtaining a share of marital property enables them to invest in income-generating opportunities, educate their children, and even obtain further education themselves to better their lives,” said Gyanu BC, a Nepali women’s rights advocate.
Furthermore, improved family laws could significantly accelerate national productivity, strengthen social security systems, and benefit all household members. Control over family resources, such as access to credit, inheritance, and immovable property, is directly linked with household wellbeing.
Amy Hutchinson, Chief Development Officer of Equality Now, noted that working women invest roughly 90 percent of their incomes in their families, which has “profound” impacts on child nutrition, development, and education. National economies could also save significant aid dollars in social services and programs addressing and preventing gender-based violence by investing in family law reform. According to Hutchinson, women who lack access to formal employment are “infinitely” more vulnerable to violence and exploitation.
“This is not charity, this is an investment that is not just in women and girls, but in sustainable development and economic prosperity for all,” said Hutchinson. “It’s an investment in families, communities, and our global economies…this is an opportunity to invest in ground-floor systemic solutions that scale, not just mitigating the symptoms in perpetuity. Unfortunately, gender equality has become very polarizing and political.”
All of the speakers at the event emphasized that continued support from the international community in establishing legal equality is a crucial first step in closing persistent gender gaps, underscoring the global benefits in driving sustainable growth, preventing gender-based violence, and strengthening community resilience to economic shocks. GCEFL, Equality Now, TrustLaw, and the World Bank Group continue to work alongside national governments to close these gaps and secure a safe and equitable future for all.
IPS UN Bureau Report