The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Jan 20 2026 (IPS) - In December, the dust settled on Guinea’s first presidential election since the military took control in a 2021 coup. General Mamady Doumbouya stayed in power after receiving 87 per cent of the vote. But the outcome was never in doubt: this was no a democratic milestone; it was the culmination of Guinea’s denied transition to civilian rule.
Doumbouya has successfully performed an act of political alchemy, turning a military autocracy into an electoral one. By systematically dismantling the opposition, silencing the press and rewriting laws to suit his ambitions, he has made sure to shield his grip on power with a thin veil of electoral legitimacy.
The architecture of autocracy
The path to this moment was paved with precision. In April 2025, Doumbouya announced a constitutional referendum, a move that may have looked like it would herald the beginning of the end of military rule. But it was something else entirely. By June, Doumbouya had further centralised control by creating a new General Directorate of Elections. This body, placed firmly under the thumb of the Ministry of Territorial Administration, reversed previous efforts to establish an independent electoral institution.
The constitution was drafted in the shadows by the National Council of the Transition, the junta-appointed legislative body. While early drafts reportedly contained safeguards against lifetime presidencies, these were stripped away before the final text reached the public. The result was a document that removed a ban on junta members running for office, extended presidential terms from five to seven years and granted the president the power to appoint a third of the newly created Senate.
When the referendum was held on 21 September, it rubber-stamped de facto rule. Official figures claimed 89 per cent support with an 86 per cent turnout, numbers that defied the reality of a widespread opposition boycott and a palpable lack of public enthusiasm.
A climate of fear
With a blanket ban on protests in effect since May 2022, those who’ve dared challenge the junta’s controlled transition have been met with security force violence. On 6 January 2025, security forces killed at least three people, including two children, during demonstrations called by the opposition coalition Forces Vives de Guinée.
The political landscape was further cleared through administrative and judicial means. In October 2024, the government dissolved over 50 political parties. By August 2025, major opposition groups such as the Rally of the People of Guinea had been suspended. Key challengers, including former Prime Minister Cellou Dalein Diallo, remain in exile, while others, among them Aliou Bah, have been sentenced to prison – in Bah’s case, for allegedly insulting Doumbouya.
The atmosphere of fear has been reinforced by a brutal crackdown on the media. Guinea plummeted 25 places in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index, the year’s largest fall. Independent outlets have had their licences revoked and journalists have been detained. Those still working have learned to practise strict self-censorship to avoid becoming the next target. This meant that as voters went to the polls, there was nobody to provide diverse perspectives, scrutinise the process, investigate irregularities or hold authorities accountable.
Coup contagion
Guinea is no outlier. Since 2020, a coup contagion has swept through Africa, with military takeovers in Burkina Faso, Chad, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Mali, Niger and Sudan. In each instance, the script has been similar: military leaders seize power promising to ‘correct’ the failures of the previous regime, only to break their promises of a return to civilian rule.
Guinea is now the third country among this recent wave to move from a military dictatorship to an electoral autocracy. It follows in the footsteps of Chad, where Mahamat Idriss Déby secured victory in May 2024 after the suspicious killing of his main opponent, and Gabon, where General Brice Oligui Nguema won a 2025 election with a reported 90 per cent of the vote.
The international community does little. Doumbouya routinely ignored deadlines and sanctions from the Economic Community of West African States, which once prided itself on a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy for coups, and no consequences ensued. The African Union and the United Nations offered rhetorical concern, but their warnings were not accompanied by tangible diplomatic or economic repercussions.
The world’s willingness to maintain business as usual while Doumbouya steered through a fake transition sends a dangerous message to other aspiring autocrats, in the region and beyond.
Democracy denied
When Doumbouya seized power in 2021, he was greeted with a degree of cautious optimism. His predecessor, Alpha Condé, had controversially amended the constitution to secure a third term amid violent protests and corruption and fraud allegations. Doumbouya promised to fix things, but instead became a mirror image of the man he ousted, using the same tactics of constitutional revision and repression to secure his power.
The statistics of the December election – an 87 per cent victory on a claimed 80 per cent turnout – do not reflect a genuine mandate but rather a vacuum: with no independent media to scrutinise the process and no viable opposition allowed to run, the election was a technicality.
The prospects for real democracy in Guinea appear remote. Doumbouya has secured a seven-year mandate through an election that eliminated the essential infrastructure needed for democracy. In the absence of stronger international pressure and tangible support for Guinean civil society, Guinea faces prolonged authoritarian rule behind a democratic facade, with dismal human rights prospects.
Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Head of Research and Analysis, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report. She is also a Professor of Comparative Politics at Universidad ORT Uruguay.
For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org
UNITED NATIONS & SRINAGAR, India, Jan 20 2026 (IPS) - The world has entered what United Nations researchers now describe as an era of Global Water Bankruptcy, a condition where humanity has irreversibly overspent the planet’s water resources, leaving ecosystems, economies, and communities unable to recover to previous levels.
The new report, released by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, titled Global Water Bankruptcy: Living Beyond Our Hydrological Means in the Post-Crisis Era. The report argues that decades of overextraction, pollution, land degradation, and climate stress have pushed large parts of the global water system into a permanent state of failure.
“The world has entered the era of Global Water Bankruptcy,” the report reads, adding that “in many regions, human water systems are already in a post-crisis state of failure.”
According to the report, the language of “water crisis” is no longer sufficient to explain what is happening. A crisis implies a shock followed by recovery. Water bankruptcy, by contrast, describes a condition where recovery is no longer realistically possible because natural water capital has been permanently damaged.
In an exclusive interview with Inter Press Service, former Deputy Head of Iran’s Department of Environment Prof. Kaveh Madani, who currently is the Director at United Nations University, Institute for Water, Environment and Health, said that declaring that the planet has entered the era of water bankruptcy must not be interpreted as universal water bankruptcy, as not all basins, aquifers, and systems are water bankrupt.
Prof. Kaveh Madani, Director at the United Nations University, Institute for Water, Environment and Health, addresses the UN midday press briefing. Credit: IPS
“But we now have enough critical basins and aquifers in chronic decline and showing clear signs of irreversibility that the global risk landscape is already being reshaped. Scientifically, we know recovery is no longer realistic in many systems when we see persistent overshoot (using more than renewable supply) combined with clear markers of irreversibility—for example aquifer compaction and land subsidence that permanently reduce storage, wetland and lake loss, salinization and pollution that shrink usable water, and glacier retreat that removes a long-term seasonal buffer. When these signals persist over time, the old “bounce back” assumption stops being credible,” Madani said.
According to the report, over decades, societies have drawn down the renewable flow of rivers and rainfall besides long-term reserves stored in aquifers, glaciers, wetlands, and soils. At the same time, pollution and salinization have reduced the share of water that is safe or economically usable.
“Over decades, societies have withdrawn more water than climate and hydrology can reliably provide, drawing down not only the annual income of renewable flows but also the savings stored in aquifers, glaciers, soils, wetlands, and river ecosystems,” the report says.
The scale of the problem, as per the report, is global. Nearly three-quarters of the world’s population now lives in countries classified as water insecure or critically water insecure.
Around 2.2 billion people still lack safely managed drinking water, while 3.5 billion lack safely managed sanitation. About 4 billion people, as per the report findings, experience severe water scarcity for at least one month every year.
Madani said, adding that water bankruptcy is best assessed basin by basin and aquifer by aquifer, not by country.
“Please note that, based on the water security definition used by the UN system, water insecurity and water bankruptcy are not equivalent. Water bankruptcy can drive water insecurity, but water insecurity can also stem from limited financial and institutional capacity to build and operate infrastructure for safe water supply and sanitation, even where physical water is available,” he explained.
Madani added that the regions most consistently closest to irreversible decline cluster in the Middle East and North Africa, Central and South Asia, parts of northern China, the Mediterranean and southern Europe, the southwestern United States and northern Mexico (including the Colorado River system), parts of southern Africa, and parts of Australia.
The Aral Sea, which lies between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, shows dramatic water loss between 1989 and 2025. Credit: UNU-INWEH
Surface Water Systems Are Shrinking Rapidly
The report shows how more than half of the world’s large lakes have lost water since the early 1990s, affecting nearly one quarter of the global population that depends directly on them. Many major rivers now fail to reach the sea for parts of the year or fall below environmental flow needs.
Massive losses have occurred in wetlands, which serve as natural buffers against floods and droughts. Over the past five decades, the report claims that the world has lost roughly 410 million hectares of natural wetlands, almost the size of the European Union. The economic value of lost ecosystem services from these wetlands exceeds 5.1 trillion US dollars.
Groundwater depletion is one of the clearest signs of water bankruptcy. Groundwater, says the report, now supplies about 50 percent of global domestic water use and over 40 percent of irrigation water. Yet around 70 percent of the world’s major aquifers show long-term declining trends.
“Excessive groundwater extraction has already contributed to significant land subsidence over more than 6 million square kilometers,” the report says, warning that in some locations land is sinking by up to 25 centimeters per year, permanently reducing storage capacity and increasing flood risk.
In coastal areas, overpumping has allowed seawater to intrude into aquifers, rendering groundwater unusable for generations. In inland agricultural regions, falling water tables have triggered sinkholes, soil collapse, and the loss of fertile land.
These satellite images show a dramatic impact of the Aru glacier collapses in western Tibet. First image was taken in 2017 and the second in 2025. Credit: UNU-INWEH
The cryosphere, glaciers and snowpacks that act as natural water storage systems are also being rapidly liquidated. The world has already lost more than 30 percent of its glacier mass since 1970. Several low- and mid-latitude mountain ranges could lose functional glaciers within decades.
“The liquidation of this frozen savings account interacts with groundwater depletion and surface water over-allocation to lock many basins into a permanent worsening water deficit state,” says the report.
This loss, as per the report, threatens the long-term water security of hundreds of millions of people who depend on glacier- and snowmelt-fed rivers for drinking water, irrigation, and hydropower, particularly in Asia and the Andes.
Madani said the biggest failure was treating groundwater as an unlimited safety net instead of a strategic reserve.
He says that when surface water tightened, many systems defaulted to “drill deeper” without enforceable caps.
“Authorities often recognize the consequences when it is already late, and meaningful action then faces major political barriers. For example, reducing groundwater use in farming can trigger unemployment, food insecurity, and even instability unless farmers are supported through short-term compensation and a longer-term transition to alternative livelihoods,” he added.
According to Madani, that kind of transition cannot be implemented overnight.
“So, business as usual continues. The result is predictable: groundwater gets “liquidated” to postpone hard choices, and by the time the damage is obvious, recovery is no longer realistic,” he told IPS news.
Agriculture Lies at the Heart of the Crisis
According to the report, farming accounts for approximately 70 percent of global freshwater withdrawals. About 3 billion people and more than half of the world’s food production are located in regions where total water storage is already declining or unstable.
The report states that more than 170 million hectares of irrigated cropland are under high or very high water stress. Land and soil degradation are making matters worse by reducing the ability of soils to retain moisture. The degradation of more than half of the global agricultural land is now moderate or severe.
Drought, once considered a natural hazard, is increasingly driven by human activity. Overallocation, groundwater depletion, deforestation, land degradation, and climate change have turned drought into a chronic condition in many regions.
“Drought-related damages, intensified by land degradation, groundwater depletion and climate change rather than rainfall deficits alone, already amount to about 307 billion US dollars per year worldwide,” the report states.
Water quality degradation further shrinks the usable resource base. Pollution from untreated wastewater, agricultural runoff, industrial effluents, and salinization means that even where water volumes appear stable, much of that water is unsafe or too costly to treat.
The report adds that the planetary freshwater boundary has already been crossed. Both blue water, surface and groundwater, and green water, soil moisture, have been pushed beyond a safe operating space.
Current governance systems, the authors argue, are not fit for this reality. Many legal water rights and development promises far exceed degraded hydrological capacity. Existing global agendas, focused largely on drinking water access, sanitation, and incremental efficiency gains, are inadequate for managing irreversible loss.
“Water bankruptcy must be recognized as a distinct post-crisis state, where accumulated damage and overshoot have undermined the system’s capacity to recover,” the report says.
Water bankruptcy could result in a further increase in conflicts. Credit: UNU-INWEH
It warns that the implications of water bankruptcy are dire.
UN Under-Secretary-General Tshilidzi Marwala, Rector of UNU explains, “Water bankruptcy is becoming a driver of fragility, displacement, and conflict. Managing it fairly—ensuring that vulnerable communities are protected and that unavoidable losses are shared equitably—is now central to maintaining peace, stability, and social cohesion.”
Policy Implications
Instead of crisis management aimed at restoring the past, the report actually pitches for bankruptcy management. That means acknowledging insolvency, accepting irreversibility, and restructuring water use, rights, and institutions to prevent further damage.
The authors lay stress on the fact that water bankruptcy is also a justice and security issue. The costs of overshoot fall disproportionately on small farmers, rural communities, women, Indigenous peoples, and downstream users, while benefits have often accrued to more powerful actors.
“How societies manage water bankruptcy will shape social cohesion, political stability, and peace,” the report warns.
Furthermore, it urges governments and international institutions to use upcoming UN Water Conferences in 2026 and 2028 as milestones to reset the global water agenda, calling for water to be treated as an upstream sector central to climate action, biodiversity protection, food security, and peace.
“This is about a crisis that might arrive in the future. The world is already living beyond its hydrological means,” reads the report.
When asked why the report frames water bankruptcy as a justice and security issue and how governments can implement painful demand reductions without triggering social unrest or conflict, Madani said the demand reduction becomes dangerous when it is treated as a technical exercise instead of a political economy reform. In many water-bankrupt regions, according to him, water is effectively a jobs policy: it keeps low-productivity farming and local economies afloat.
“If you cut water without an economic transition, you create unemployment, food insecurity, and unrest. So the practical pathway is to decouple livelihoods and growth from water consumption. In many economies, water and other natural resources are used to keep low-efficiency systems alive. In most places, it is possible to produce more strategic food with less water and less land, and with fewer farmers—provided that farmers are supported through a transition and offered alternative livelihoods.”
According to Madani, governments should protect basic needs but target the big reductions where most water is used, especially agriculture and besides that, pair caps with a just transition package for farmers—compensation, insurance, buy-down or retirement of water entitlements where relevant, and real income alternatives.
He further suggests that the governments should invest in diversification, including services, industry, value-added agri-processing, and urban jobs, so communities can earn a living without expanding water withdrawals.
“In short, you avoid conflict by making demand reduction part of a broader economic transition, not a standalone water policy.”
IPS UN Bureau Report
BERLIN, Germany, Jan 20 2026 (IPS) - As democracy faces pressure around the world and confidence in international law drops, a new global survey reveals that citizens in a vast majority of countries support the idea of creating a citizen-elected world parliament to deal with global issues.
The survey, commissioned by Democracy Without Borders and conducted across 101 countries representing 90% of the world’s population, finds that 40% of respondents support the proposal, while only 27% are opposed. It is the largest poll ever carried out thus far on this subject.
Support is strongest in countries of the Global South, especially Sub-Saharan Africa, and among groups often underrepresented in national political systems—young people, ethnic minorities, and those with lower income or education levels. In 85 out of 101 countries surveyed, more respondents support the idea than oppose it.
“The message is clear: people around the world are ready to expand democratic representation to the global scale,” said Andreas Bummel, Executive Director of Democracy Without Borders. “This survey shows there is a growing global constituency that wants a voice in decisions affecting humanity as a whole,” he added.
The findings come at a time when the international system is under increasing strain from climate change, war, geopolitical conflicts, authoritarian resurgence, and stalled global cooperation. The results suggest that many citizens—especially in less powerful countries—see a world parliament as a pathway to fairer and more effective global governance.
In countries with limited political freedoms, support for a world parliament is particularly high. According to Democracy Without Borders, this points to a public perception that global democratic institutions could help advance democracy at home as well.
A notable 33% of respondents globally selected a neutral stance, suggesting unfamiliarity with the concept. An analysis of the survey results argues that this indicates a wide-open space for public engagement. If the idea gains visibility, support could grow substantially, it says.
“The international system created in the last century to prevent war and mass violence is built on the United Nations. But many UN member states do not represent their people. They represent oppressive authoritarian elites who have seized power.
The proposed vision of a citizen-elected world parliament could be a vital step in the discussion about building a more democratic global order,” said Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of the Centre for Civil Liberties in Ukraine awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize.
According to the survey, net opposition found in individual countries is most concentrated in high-income democracies. “This is not a rejection of democracy. It is a reminder that privilege may breed complacency, and that those who benefit from existing arrangements may underestimate how urgently they need renewal,” commented George Papandreou, Greek Member of Parliament and former Prime Minister.
Democracy Without Borders, an international civil society organization, advocates for the establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly as a step toward a democratic world parliament. The organization says the survey results reinforce the urgency for democratic governments to consider this long-standing proposal.
IPS UN Bureau
Jan 19 2026 (IPS) -
The Trump administration’s recent announcement of its withdrawal from 66 international organisations has been met with a mixture of alarm and applause. While the headline number suggests a dramatic retreat from the world stage, a closer look reveals a more nuanced, and perhaps more insidious, strategy. The move is less a wholesale abandonment of the United Nations system and more a targeted pruning of the multilateral vine, aimed at withering specific branches of global cooperation that the administration deems contrary to its interests. While the immediate financial impact may be less than feared, the long-term consequences for the UN and the rules-based international order are profound.
At first glance, the withdrawal appears to be a sweeping rejection of global engagement. The list of targeted entities is long and diverse, ranging from the well-known UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to more obscure bodies like the International Lead and Zinc Study Group. However, as Eugene Chen has astutely observed, the reality is more complex. The vast majority of the UN-related entities on the list are not independent international organisations, but rather subsidiary bodies, funds, and programmes of the UN itself. The administration is not, for now, withdrawing from the UN Charter, but rather selectively defunding and disengaging from the parts of the UN system it finds objectionable.
This selective approach reveals a clear ideological agenda. The targeted entities are overwhelmingly focused on issues that the Trump administration has long disdained: climate change, sustainable development, gender equality, and human rights. The list includes the UN’s main development arm, the Department of Economic and Social Affairs; its primary gender entity, UN Women; and a host of bodies dedicated to peacebuilding and conflict prevention. The inclusion of the UN’s regional economic commissions, which play a vital role in promoting regional cooperation and development, is particularly telling. This is not simply a cost-cutting exercise; it is a deliberate attempt to dismantle the architecture of global cooperation in areas that do not align with the administration’s narrow, nationalist worldview.
The decision to remain a member of the UN’s specialised agencies, such as the World Health Organization (from which the administration has already announced its withdrawal in a separate action) and the International Atomic Energy Agency, is equally revealing. This is not a sign of a renewed commitment to multilateralism, but rather a cold, calculated decision based on a narrow definition of US national security interests. The administration has made it clear that it sees these agencies as useful tools to counter the influence of a rising China. This ‘à la carte’ approach to multilateralism, where the US picks and chooses which parts of the system to support based on its own geopolitical interests, is deeply corrosive to the principles of collective security and universal values that underpin the UN Charter.
What, then, should be done? The international community cannot afford to simply stand by and watch as the UN system is hollowed out from within. A concerted effort is needed to mitigate the damage and reaffirm the importance of multilateral cooperation.
First, other member states must step up to fill the financial and leadership void left by the United States. This will require not only increased financial contributions, but also a renewed political commitment to the UN’s work in the areas of sustainable development, climate action, and human rights. Second, civil society organisations and the academic community have a crucial role to play in monitoring the impact of the US withdrawal and advocating for the continued relevance of the affected UN entities. Finally, the UN itself must do a better job of communicating its value to a sceptical public. The organisation must move beyond bureaucratic jargon and technical reports to tell a compelling story about how its work makes a real difference in the lives of people around the world.
The Trump administration’s latest move is a stark reminder that the post-war international order can no longer be taken for granted. It is a call to action for all who believe in the power of multilateralism to address our shared global challenges. The UN may be a flawed and imperfect institution, but it remains our best hope for a more peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable world. We must not allow it to wither on the vine.
Related articles by this author:
Venezuela and the UN’s Proxy War Moment
The Danger of a Transactional Worldview
The Choice Is Still Clear: Renewing the UN Charter at 80
Jordan Ryan is a member of the Toda International Research Advisory Council (TIRAC) at the Toda Peace Institute, a Senior Consultant at the Folke Bernadotte Academy and former UN Assistant Secretary-General with extensive experience in international peacebuilding, human rights, and development policy. His work focuses on strengthening democratic institutions and international cooperation for peace and security. Ryan has led numerous initiatives to support civil society organisations and promote sustainable development across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. He regularly advises international organisations and governments on crisis prevention and democratic governance.
IPS UN Bureau
SYLHET, Bangladesh, Jan 19 2026 (IPS) - While other children her age prepared for school, eight-year-old Tania once began her workday. Each morning, she picked up a jharu—the household broom—and cleaned floors inside a private home. At the same time, another child of her age in that household lifted a schoolbag and left for class. One carried a broom. The other carried books.
For years, this was Tania’s daily reality. And for thousands of children across Bangladesh, it still is.
Tania A, who has transitioned from child labour to mainstream school. Credit: UKBET
Child rights organisations note that many domestic child workers face neglect, mistreatment, and abuse. Most cases go unreported because the work happens behind closed doors, beyond public scrutiny and accountability.
Despite clear legal safeguards, child labour persists. Bangladeshi law prohibits the employment of children under the age of 14 and limits work for those aged 15–17 to non-hazardous conditions. Yet an estimated 3.4 million children are engaged in illegal labour, and thousands of them work as domestic workers. Exact figures remain uncertain, as domestic labour is informal, unregulated, and largely hidden.
In the north-eastern city of Sylhet, UK Bangladesh Education Trust (UKBET), a UK-based international NGO, has developed a community-based intervention aimed at reaching these children. Through its Doorstep Learning Programme, UKBET trains and deploys community teachers to identify children involved in domestic labour and provide education at their places of work, with the consent of employers. Learning sessions may take place in a kitchen corner or shared courtyard—wherever space is available and permitted.
Alongside education, the programme addresses the economic drivers of child labour. Parents receive small livelihood grants to start or expand family businesses, reducing dependence on a child’s earnings. As household income stabilises, children are supported to transition into formal schooling or vocational training. Awareness sessions further promote child rights and discourage the recruitment of child domestic workers.
Today, UKBET operates in 21 of the 42 wards of Sylhet City. Even within this limited coverage, the need is substantial, with thousands of domestic child workers still waiting for attention and support.
Early evidence suggests the model works. An independent evaluation supported by Shahjalal University of Science and Technology found that 80% of enrolled children between programme inception and 2024 are continuing in school, 74% of family support businesses remain active, and no supported families have sent children back to work. Among girls receiving vocational training, nearly 69% are earning in safer employment. Interviews with employers also indicated they did not hire replacement child workers after children were withdrawn from domestic labour.
For Tania, the shift has been transformative. In January 2026, she enrolled in school. She no longer starts her day with a jharu in her hand. She now carries her own schoolbag. Her family has secured a stable source of income and no longer depends on the money she once earned.
Tania’s story illustrates what targeted, community-based interventions can achieve. But her experience is still not typical. Thousands of domestic child workers remain hidden inside private homes, excluded from education, and denied their rights.
Children like Tania do not need sympathy alone. They need visibility, opportunity, and sustained action. Their lives may be hidden—yet they must not remain invisible.
For further information about UKBET’s work with children engaged in domestic labour:
Mohammed A. Sayem
Director, UKBET – Education for Change
Email: msayem@ukbet-bd.org, Web: www.ukbet-bd.org
IPS UN Bureau
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, Jan 19 2026 (IPS) - On a rainy Wednesday morning, in Dodoma, the capital of Tanzania, the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) terminal bustled with a steady flow of passengers. Women ushered toddlers along. Snack bags dangling on their hands. Tourists dragged wheeled suitcases across the floor. Students scrolled through smartphones as they returned to campus. Each had been attracted by the speed, reliability and comfort of the electric train.
Inside the terminal, passengers streamed effortlessly into waiting lounges. Tickets were briskly scanned. Security checks moved swiftly. Above it all, e-departure boards flickered assuredly. Then, by mid-morning, everything changed. A female voice crackled over the loudspeaker, confirming what many travelers had already begun to suspect: Trains bound for Morogoro and Dar es Salaam would be delayed.
The delay, the announcement explained, was caused by heavy rains that had caused a technical fault somewhere along the line. Hours dragged on. No train moved.
“I wasn’t worried when I left home this morning,” said Neema Msuya, a nurse travelling to Dar es Salaam to attend a family funeral. “The train is usually on time.” She sat near the information desk, her suitcase by her feet, scrolling through Instagram to pass time. Hours later, her confidence had drained away “We have been here too long,” she complained. “And no one is telling us clearly what is happening.”
For Msuya, the delay was a big inconvenience. Funerals in Tanzania follow tight cultural timelines, and any delay can result into missing burial rites. Around her, other passengers were also complaining about missed meetings, medical appointments, and even court dates.
The rain-soaked delay offered a human glimpse into a larger problem: how climate change is beginning to test Tanzania’s flagship low-carbon railway—and what those vulnerabilities reveal about the wider problems facing Africa’s development ambitions in a warming world.
At the COP30 climate talks in Belém, Brazil, railways were cast into seemingly contradictory roles: increasingly exposed to climate stress, yet among the most overlooked tools for cutting emissions. Transport accounts for nearly a quarter of global greenhouse gas output, and as negotiators sparred over adaptation finance and the future of fossil fuels, campaigners argued that the goals of the Paris Agreement will remain at bay without a decisive shift away from roads and air toward low-carbon rail.
Speakers from the International Union of Railways pressed that point forcefully. Rail, they said, remains one of the most energy-efficient ways to move people and goods, yet it receives only a tiny slice of global climate finance for transport. They urged governments to slot rail in national climate plans, unlock investments, and fortify infrastructure against extreme weather.
A Boon for Modernity
Tanzania hailed its sleek electric train as a national treasure when it unveiled it in 2024. The USD 2 billion project, built by the Turkish firm Yapi Merkezi, replaced the aging meter-gauge railway and re-anchored the Central Corridor—a vital artery linking the port of Dar es Salaam to hinterlands, onward to landlocked Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
With opulent terminals, gliding escalators, digital ticketing and spacious carriages, SGR quickly became a symbol for modernity. Travel times dropped sharply. Road congestion eased as passengers and cargo shifted from diesel-powered trucks to electric rail.
Less than two years later, that optimism has collided with a harsher reality of extreme weather that scientists link to climate change.
Cascading Floods
On December 31, 2025, authorities suspended train services between Dodoma and Morogoro after heavy rains damaged key infrastructure. Floodwaters washed away a riverbank, leaving the railway bridge dangerously exposed.
Machibya Masanja, director general of the Tanzania Railways Corporation (TRC), confirmed the hitch but dismissed claims that it was caused by a faulty design.
“This is not a failure of design or construction,” he said, adding that the bridge foundations extend 30 to 40 meters below ground and were designed to last at least 120 years.
Instead, Masanja blamed human activity—farming and settlement in floodplains—for eroding the earth near the line. He said plans were underway to construct dams and other control structures to control water flow and stabilize vulnerable sections.
However, urban planners say frequent disruptions expose deeper flaws in how the multimillion-dollar project was planned and executed, raising questions about its viability.
“The railway isn’t strong enough to cope with flooding,” said Honesty Mshana, an urban planner and infrastructure resilience expert based in Dar es Salaam. “When you invest millions of dollars of public money, you expect a system that can withstand climate stress. Flooding isn’t a new phenomenon in Tanzania. It should have shaped their engineering decisions.”
Mshana said long stretches of the line cut through floodplains and river basins without adequate culverts, raised embankments or reinforced drainage.
“This is not just an engineering failure,” he said. “It is a planning failure. You cannot copy designs from elsewhere and drop them into a very different ecological and climatic setting. Resilient transport systems require local knowledge, climate projections and the willingness to spend more upfront to avoid far greater losses later.”
As climate change accelerates, he warned, the cost of such oversights will only rise—forcing governments to choose between endless repairs and prolonged service disruptions.
Passengers arrive at the SGR terminal, not knowing their trip would be cancelled. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS
Passengers Caught in Between
For passengers, such explanations offer little comfort.
By late morning the Dodoma terminal was still flocked with wide-eyed passengers. Children slept across benches. Business travelers clustered around charging points.
“I had meetings lined up in Dar es Salaam,” said Emmanuel Kweka, a consultant. “This train has been reliable. That’s why I planned everything around it. Now I don’t know whether to keep waiting or catch a bus.”
Still, frustration has not translated into calls for risky operations. “I don’t want them running trains if it’s unsafe,” said Msuya, the nurse delayed in Dodoma. “But they have to prepare better. These rains are not a surprise anymore.”
Climate Exposed
Around the world, railways are considered as pillars of climate action. Electric trains produce fewer emissions than road or air transport, and for countries like Tanzania, investment in rail aligns neatly with commitments under the Paris Agreement.
Yet the experience of the SGR highlights a growing paradox: infrastructure designed to be climate-friendly is itself increasingly exposed to climate shocks.
“Mitigation on its own is no longer sufficient,” said Edmund Mabhuye, a climate adaptation researcher at the university of Dar es Salaam. “You can cut emissions, but if your infrastructure cannot withstand floods, heatwaves or landslides, you are simply building future losses into the system.”
Studies on railway systems worldwide offer a clear warning: extreme rainfall can weaken embankments, scour bridge foundations, flood tracks and break power systems.
Management Under Scrutiny
The breakdown of Tanzania’s SGR has also raised questions about management capacity and transparency.
In October 2025, an electric train derailed at Ruvu Station shortly after leaving Dar es Salaam. No one was killed, but the incident forced a temporary suspension of services.
TRC described the derailment as a minor operational failure, not related to weather conditions. Yet the onset of rainy season has reinforced a growing perception of a struggling system.
“Every new railway has teething problems,” said Mabhuye. “The risk comes when public trust erodes faster than the government’s ability to fix the problem.”
Waiting in Vain
At the SGR terminal in Dodoma, passengers pressed security officers for answers. Departure boards remained frozen on the same delay notice. Announcements, when they came, offered little beyond apologies.
“We’ve been here since morning and nobody tells us what’s happening,” shouted Hamisi Juma, a trader from Morogoro. “You keep telling us to wait—but wait for what? Some of us have children and jobs to get back to.”
For many, it was not the delay itself that irritated them, but the silence around it.
“If the train is cancelled, say it,” said Peter Mwinyi, a university student travelling to Dar es Salaam. “If it’s delayed, explain why. What makes people angry is being kept in the dark. That’s when you feel cheated.”
This feature is published with the support of Open Society Foundations.
IPS UN Bureau Report
Excerpt:
Around the world, railways are considered as pillars of climate action. Electric trains produce fewer emissions than road or air transport. Yet the experience of Tanzania’s Standard Gauge Railway highlights a growing paradox: infrastructure designed to be climate-friendly is itself increasingly exposed to climate shocks.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jan 19 2026 (IPS) - After condemning pragmatic responses to the 1997-98 Asian financial crises, the West pursued similar policies in response to the 2008 global financial crisis without acknowledging its own mistakes.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
After US Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker sharply raised interest rates from late 1979 to curb inflation, the dollar’s value strengthened despite deepening stagnation.
US exports could barely compete internationally, particularly with Germany and Japan. During his first term, Trump initially pursued a strong dollar policy, which undermined exports and encouraged imports.
The September 1985 ‘Plaza Accord’ among the G7 grouping of the world’s largest economies, held at New York’s Plaza Hotel, agreed that the Japanese yen and the Deutsche mark must both appreciate sharply against the US dollar.
The ‘strong yen’ period, or endaka in Japanese, ensued for a decade until mid-1995. This made Japanese imports less competitive, enabling the Reagan era boom.
By accelerating reunification with the East and the new euro currency, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl prevented the mark strengthening as much as the yen.
Thus, Germany avoided the Japanese catastrophe after its decades-long post-war miracle ended abruptly with the disastrous 1989 Big Bang financial reforms.
Liberalising capital flows
As the IMF urged national authorities to abandon capital controls, East Asians borrowed dollars, expecting to repay later on better terms.
Meanwhile, the dollar only stopped weakening after the US allowed Japan to reverse yen appreciation in mid-1995.
Under Managing Director Michel Camdessus, the IMF began pushing capital account liberalisation. This contradicted the intent of the Fund’s sixth Article of Agreement, affirming national authorities’ right to manage their capital accounts.
Despite considerable evidence to the contrary, Camdessus’ IMF preached the ostensible virtues of capital account liberalisation.
East Asian emerging financial markets were initially delighted by the significant capital inflows before mid-1997. After the strong yen decade, the US dollar appreciated from mid-1995.
When financial inflows reversed after mid-1997, some East Asian monetary authorities were unable to cope and turned to the IMF for emergency funding .
Many paths to crises
The Asian financial crisis is typically dated from 2 July 1997, when the Thai baht was ‘floated’ and its value quickly fell without central bank support. The ensuing panic quickly spread like contagion across national boundaries via financial markets.
Financial investors – in Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, London and New York – hastily withdrew their funds, often mindlessly following perceived ‘market leaders’ without knowing why, like animal herds in panic.
Funds fled economies in the region, like frightened audiences in a dark theatre hearing a fire alarm. Capital even fled the Philippines, which had received little finance, because it was in Southeast Asia, the ‘wrong neighbourhood’.
After earlier celebrating Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand as ‘East Asian miracle’ economies, confidence in Southeast Asian investments fell suddenly.
Central banks in the region were sceptical of IMF prescriptions but believed they had little choice but to comply.
Press photographs showed Camdessus standing sternly, with arms folded like a displeased schoolmaster, over the Indonesian President bowing deeply to sign the IMF agreement.
This humiliating image probably expedited Soeharto’s shock resignation soon after, in mid-1998, over three decades after he seized power in a brutal military putsch in September 1965.
Following an earlier financial crisis, a 1989 Malaysian law had prohibited some risky banking and financial practices, but the authorities sought to attract foreign investments into its stock market.
Thailand had become vulnerable by allowing borrowers direct access to foreign banks through the Bangkok International Banking Facility and its provincial counterpart.
Debtors could thus bypass central bank regulation and supervision. The Thai currency float prompted massive funds outflows from the country.
As market confidence waned, funds fled Malaysia’s bourse, triggering a massive collapse in the currency’s value against the dollar, which had steadily weakened against the yen between 1985 and 1995.
Following massive capital outflows, Malaysia finally introduced capital controls on outflows from September 1998, fourteen months after the crisis began!
The controls enabled Malaysia to stabilise its currency and the economy temporarily, but also ended the earlier decade of accelerated industrialisation and growth.
Learning from experience
Rather than acknowledge and address the worsening problem due to earlier capital account liberalisation, the Fund made things worse with its prescriptions.
It insisted on keeping capital accounts open and raising interest rates to reverse outflows. This slowed economic growth as borrowing – and hence, both spending and investing – became more costly.
As investment and spending are necessary for economic growth, IMF prescriptions exacerbated the problems instead of providing a solution.
The East Asian financial crisis was undoubtedly avoidable. Experience has shown that financial markets and capital flows do not function as mainstream theories claim.
Thus, financial dogma and its influence on economic theory and policy obscured more realistic understanding of how markets actually operate and the ability to develop more pragmatic and appropriate policy alternatives.
History never fully repeats itself. But better policymaking for financial crisis avoidance and recovery will only emerge from more informed, historically grounded analysis.
IPS UN Bureau