Afrique

Le CHU d’Oran passe à la vitesse supérieure en officialisant le recours à la cranioplastie assistée par impression 3D. Portée par une synergie entre recherche […]

L’article Une prouesse médicale 100 % algérienne : La chirurgie crânienne en 3D devient une réalité au CHU d’Oran est apparu en premier sur .

La survenue d'une crise financière du format de celle qui s'annonce n'appelle pas des actes de gestion mais de faire de la politique. La finance néolibérale est une structure tellement puissante, tellement asservissante que lorsqu'elle nous fait la grâce de s'abattre toute seule, on ne la loupe pas. On fait de la politique – transformatrice. Cette crise, dont tous les éléments sont en place, n'est pas encore ouverte. Ça viendra. Vraisemblablement pour le dernier trimestre. Ce qui laisse encore un peu de temps pour se préparer. Car il faudra être prêt.

- La pompe à phynance / Finance, Politique, Crise financière, Néolibéralisme

Le gouvernement accélère ses réformes dans des secteurs clés, alliant santé publique et planification territoriale. Réuni ce mercredi 20 mai 2026 sous la présidence du […]

L’article Réunion du gouvernement : un nouveau dispositif pour mieux répartir les aides et réduire les inégalités est apparu en premier sur .

A tea picker in the Bearwell tea estate of Sri Lanka. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Boubaker Ben Belhassen
ROME, May 20 2026 (IPS)

The tea in your cup this morning began its journey in someone else’s hands. Hands whose work most of us never think about. Almost certainly, those hands belonged to a smallholder farmer tending a small plot of land, plucking leaves by hand beneath long mornings of mist and rain.

Two leaves and a bud. Two leaves and a bud. Thousands of times. Smallholders account for about 60 percent of global tea supply. The industry built on their labor is worth US$19.5 billion a year and supports the economies of some of the world’s poorest countries. Yet the conditions that sustain that work – ecological, economic and climatic – are under growing pressure.

Smallholders account for about 60 percent of global tea supply. The industry built on their labor is worth US$19.5 billion a year and supports the economies of some of the world's poorest countries. Yet the conditions that sustain that work – ecological, economic and climatic – are under growing pressure

Tea is the most popular drink on earth after water. Global production reached 7.3 million tonnes last year, and per capita consumption continues to rise steadily. From the outside, the sector appears healthy.

Yet the millions of smallholder farming families driving that growth in China, India, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Malawi, Rwanda and beyond need stronger support if the sector’s momentum is to endure.

The geography of tea production is also a geography of economic necessity, linked to patterns of economic dependence and rural livelihoods. Kenya is the world’s largest tea exporter.

Sri Lanka, Uganda, Malawi and Rwanda rank among the global top ten. In these economies, revenues from tea exports help finance food imports and sustain rural livelihoods across entire regions. The sector remains a major source of employment and income for millions of poor families worldwide.

That income is more fragile than the industry’s headline numbers suggest. International tea prices, adjusted for inflation, have been declining for four decades.

The sector’s nominal value has expanded, while the real purchasing power of many producers has stagnated. FAO has documented what this means at the household level: when farmgate prices fall, smallholder families reduce spending on food, education and health care.

Smallholder producers also face limited market access, inadequate extension services, weak access to credit and technology, and persistent asymmetries in how value is distributed across the supply chain.

As production costs rise and price increases transmit unevenly through markets, many farming families struggle to generate sufficient returns to reinvest in farm renewal, climate adaptation or productivity improvements. These pressures heighten income volatility and make long-term planning increasingly difficult.

Tea production and processing are major sources of employment and income for women across East Africa and South Asia. When smallholder tea farming families prosper, women’s economic participation will determine whether that prosperity and stability hold.

Programmes that support women directly through training, market access and financial resources consistently produce stronger outcomes for both households and communities. In many tea-growing regions, women sustain not only household economies, but also the continuity of the knowledge and labor on which the crop depends.

Tea cultivation relies on highly specific agro-ecological conditions: altitude, rainfall patterns and temperatures shaped gradually over centuries in the regions where production became concentrated.

These conditions are becoming harder to predict and increasingly difficult to sustain. More erratic rainfall, fluctuating temperatures, and extreme weather events are already impacting both yields and quality.

For a smallholder farmer without savings or insurance, a lost harvest is not a temporary setback. It immediately affects household spending on food, medicine and schooling.

The unevenness of that burden is a central challenge. Larger operations often possess greater capacity to adapt through irrigation, diversification, upgrading and financial reserves.

Smaller producers, by contrast, frequently get trapped between increasing climate risks and limited investment capacity. Investment needs to be calibrated to the realities of smallholder tea farming rather than assumptions drawn from larger commercial operations.

What is at stake extends beyond a commodity market. Several tea-growing landscapes have been formally recognized by FAO as Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems. These landscapes were shaped over generations through accumulated farming knowledge and long relationships between land, crop and community.

Tea cultivation depends on delicate balances of shade, slope, rainfall, soil health, and inherited knowledge built gradually over generations. Climate-related stress threatens these landscapes alongside the livelihoods and agricultural continuity they sustain.

More efficient, inclusive and sustainable value chains, including greater local value addition and stronger producer participation in markets, are essential if the benefits of the growing tea economy are to reach both the people and the environments that sustain it. Per capita tea consumption in many producing countries remains relatively low, meaning the sector’s growth potential is still substantial.

Ensuring the sector’s viability, however, requires more than rising consumption levels. Smallholder producers need better access to finance, markets, technology, and climate adaptation support calibrated to their realities.

More transparent and balanced value chains, targeted investment that reaches women directly, and stronger incentives for reinvestment at farm level will determine whether the industry’s future growth will remain economically and socially sustainable.

The farmer who grew your tea will get up again tomorrow morning before sunrise. The future of the sector depends on ensuring this remains a viable livelihood option.

You want to see a bright tea future? Join us in celebrating International Tea Day on 21 May!

Boubaker Ben-Belhassen is Director of the Markets and Trade Division at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

Exclusivité BBC World Service : l'univers privé de l'une des femmes politiques les plus influentes d'Afrique.

EGYESÜLT ÁLLAMOK

Közel-keleti konfliktus és olajválság – Washington nyomás alatt

Az Egyesült Államok áprilisban továbbra is a Közel-Keleten zajló fegyveres konfliktus egyik kulcsszereplője maradt, miután a február végén kirobbant amerikai–izraeli–iráni összecsapások nem csillapodtak. A hadműveletek során amerikai erők több iráni stratégiai célpont ellen hajtottak végre csapásokat, beleértve energetikai és közlekedési infrastruktúrát is.

A konfliktus gyorsan regionális válsággá szélesedett: Irán válaszlépései és a Hormuzi-szoros részleges lezárása súlyos fennakadásokat okozott a globális energiaszállításban. A világ egyik legfontosabb olajútvonalának blokkolása miatt az olaj ára néhány hét alatt drasztikusan, akár 50%-kal is megemelkedett, ami világszinten inflációs nyomást generált. Az amerikai vezetés többször jelezte, hogy a hadműveletek célja Irán katonai képességeinek gyengítése, ugyanakkor a konfliktus lezárása bizonytalanná vált. Bár politikai nyilatkozatok szerint rövidtávon befejeződhetne a hadjárat, a terepen zajló események inkább az eszkaláció irányába mutatnak.

Április közepén diplomáciai próbálkozások is történtek: az Egyesült Államok és Irán között tárgyalások indultak, azonban ezek eredménytelenül zárultak, ami tovább növelte a katonai feszültséget. A konfliktus következményei az Egyesült Államokon belül is érezhetők. A Kongresszus több tagja részletes elszámolást követel a katonai műveletek céljáról és jogi alapjáról, miközben a gazdasági hatások – különösen az energiaárak emelkedése – a választók körében is egyre nagyobb aggodalmat váltanak ki.

Elemzők szerint a következő hetek kulcsfontosságúak lehetnek: vagy sikerül diplomáciai úton enyhíteni a feszültséget, vagy a konfliktus tovább szélesedhet, akár több térségi szereplő bevonásával is.

Szerző:

Merény Vivien

 

KANADA

Védelmi ipari beruházások (PrairiesCan)

A biztonsági kihívások és a nemzetközi rend változásának fényében Kanadának kulcsfontosságú kérdés lehet, hogy a hazai védelmi ipar képes-e a szükséges katonai technológiák, felszerelések önálló előállítására, fejlesztésére. Ennek érdekében, az éppen zajló védelmi ipari fejlesztések keretében, a PrairiesCan kormányzati szerv a Regional Defence Investment Initiative keretein belül jelentős beruházásokat jelentett be Saskatchewan tartományban illetve Winnipegben. Az összesen nagyjából 28 millió dolláros befektetésből Saskatchewan ipara, többek között a Saskatchewan Polytechnic’s Digital Integration Centre of Excellence (DICE), amely MI alapú dróntechnológiával foglalkozik, 8,2 millió dolláros támogatásban részesül. Winnipeg, mint tartománya fővárosa, 19,5 millió dollárt elsősorban a régió légvédelmi kapacitásainak, illetve repülőgép-alkatrész-gyártásának támogatására kapja. Ezek a beruházások nem csupán a védelmi képességeket erősítik, hanem a regionális hadiipar diverzifikációjához és a technológiai szuverenitáshoz is érdemben hozzájárulnak.

CRIEN Kiberbiztonsági Program

Április 17-én jelentette be Raji Gupta, a Kanadai Kiberbiztonsági Központ vezetője az új Critical Infrastructure Resilience and Escalated Threat Navigation (CIREN) nevű programját. A növekvő geopolitikai feszültségek következtében egyes államok által támogatott csoportok számára a kritikus infrastruktúra egyre növekvő célpont lehet. Független elkövetők pedig akár anyagi haszon érdekében is cselekedhetnek, mindezek mellett pedig a mesterséges intelligencia rohamos fejlődése is több támadási felületet biztosít. Ezen fenyegetések könnyedén vezethetnek a lakosság biztonságának veszélyeztetéséhez, de az állam működőképességét is befolyásolhatják. A következő időszakban fennálló fenyegetések elkerülésére, azok elleni védekezéshez a CIREN program 3 főbb lépést javasol minden érintett szervezetnek; felkészülés a kritikus rendszerek hálózatról való leválasztására akár 3 hónapra, reagálási tervek kidolgozása, esetleges támadás utáni újjáépítési terv kidolgozása.

Balikatan 2026 hadgyakorlat

Április 20. és május 8. között kerül megrendezésre a „Balikatan” elnevezést viselő hadgyakorlat, az Egyesült Államok és a Fülöp-szigetek rendezésével. Az indo-csendes-óceáni gyakorlat azért is különleges, mivel történelme során először aktív résztvevő Kanada, Japán mellett. A legfontosabb a HMCS Charlottetown Halifax-osztályú fregatt részvétele, amely a partvédelmi és mélytengeri műveletek mellett a többnemzeti koordináció fejlesztésében is részt vesz. A részvétel egy határozott lépés az indo-csendes-óceáni térségben található partneri kapcsolatok mélyítésére.

Szerző:

Faragó Bulcsú

 

LATIN-AMERIKA

Militarizált biztonsági doktrína és növekvő regionális feszültségek

2026 áprilisában az Egyesült Államok Latin-Amerika-politikája látványos keményedést mutatott: a szervezett bűnözés elleni küzdelmet Washington immár nem rendészeti, hanem direkt katonai kampányként keretezi. Stephen Miller elnöki tanácsadó kijelentette, hogy a kartellek kizárólag katonai erővel győzhetőek le, ezt a váltást pedig az amerikai tisztségviselők a Kína elleni stratégiai versengéssel és a féltekei biztonsági célokkal hozták összefüggésbe. Ennek gyakorlati megnyilvánulásaként az amerikai erők Ecuadorban helyi támogatással hajtottak végre éles műveleteket, Salvadorban pedig nagyszabású multinacionális hadgyakorlatok kezdődtek a védelmi együttműködés jegyében.

Venezuela és Kuba továbbra is a biztonságpolitikai figyelem középpontjában áll. Bár történtek diplomáciai kísérletek a konzuli kapcsolatok helyreállítására, washingtoni elemzők egy átfogó „Plan Venezuela” kidolgozását sürgetik. Ez a Plan Colombia mintájára épülő stratégia hosszú távú finanszírozását és a biztonsági erőknek nyújtott közvetlen támogatást irányoz elő a politikai átmenet elősegítése érdekében, Ezzel párhuzamosan Kuba ellen is fokozódott a nyomásgyakorlás, amely a szigetország politikai és gazdasági destabilizálását célozza.

Az andoki régióban Ecuador és Kolumbia viszonya jelentősen megromlott, Ecuador fokozta műveleteit a fegyveres csoportok ellen, majd a biztonsági együttműködés hiányára hivatkozva védővámokat vezetett be a kolumbiai árukra. Gustavo Petro kolumbiai elnök élesen bírálta az Egyesült Államok doktrínáját, figyelmeztetve, hogy a folyamatos nyomás regionális „lázadást” válthat ki. A feszültséget tovább fokozza, hogy a statisztikák szerint Latin-Amerika a helyi tisztviselők számára a világ második legveszélyesebb régiójává vált, ahol a bűnözés és a politikai instabilitás miatt Kubában és Venezuelában ismét felerősödtek a tömegdemonstrációk.

Szerző:

Rohoska Réka

 

A Amerika, 2026. április bejegyzés először Biztonságpolitika-én jelent meg.

The ongoing crisis in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz continue to put immense stress and risk on the global economy. A new UN report highlights that slowing growth, re-emerging inflation rates and heightened uncertainty affect the world entirely, but they are playing out differently across different economic brackets. Developing […]

U.S. Coast Guard cutter USCGC Aquidneck (WPB-1309) in the Strait of Hormuz, with a large container ship visible in the background as it transits the critical global trade route (Dec. 2, 2020). Credit: MC2 Indra Beaufort

By Lulseged Desta and Jonathan Mockshell
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, May 20 2026 (IPS)

Sharp surges in energy, fertilizer, and food prices triggered by the ongoing conflict in the Persian Gulf strikingly illustrate the deep interconnections between geopolitical conflict, food insecurity, and the fragility of fossil fuel–dependent food systems.

Besides carrying roughly 20 million barrels of oil per day (about 27 percent of global oil exports), the Strait of Hormuz also handles 20–30 percent of internationally traded inorganic fertilizers, which uses natural gas as a key ingredient in its production. Its closure has immediately disrupted the flow of these essential commodities, triggering sharp price spikes in fuel and key agricultural inputs.

This situation demonstrates how geopolitical instability can rapidly disrupt essential agricultural functions under current input-dependent, industrial production systems that rely heavily on external energy and supply chains. This crisis highlights, more clearly than ever, a critical reality: food systems tied to fossil fuels are inherently unsustainable, continually undermine food sovereignty, and disproportionately affect farmers, particularly smallholders in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). World Food Programme estimates warn that, if the conflict continues, the soaring oil, shipping and food costs will push an additional 45 million people into acute hunger, driving the global total beyond its record 319 million1.

Reducing food systems’ reliance on fossil fuels and external inputs is essential to strengthen our collective resilience to future shocks. The truth is that fossil fuels courses through every stage of the food system – from fertilizers and pesticides to processing, preservation, transportation, packaging, food waste disposal, and even food preparation. Moreover, entrenched economic and political structures lock in this fossil-fuel dependence through massive subsidies and price protections – estimated at over $1 trillion in recent years2.

Food systems account for at least 15 percent of total fossil fuel use – mostly through synthetic fertilizers 4 – but also to power machinery and vehicles, and generate electricity and heat for key processes like irrigation, grain drying, livestock housing, and food storage.

Agroecological approaches to food production offer an alternative to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels while still meeting the needs of a growing global population. This supports a transition from energy-sink systems to regenerative ones, radically enhancing food systems’ resilience in the face of escalating geopolitical instability and environmental vulnerability.

Agroecology is based on natural processes and local resources for sustainable soil fertility. Crucially, many of these practices draw directly from indigenous knowledge systems, where local communities have long maintained soil health through time. Practical steps include the use of organic fertilization (often blended with minimal synthetic inputs), efficient soil microorganisms, nitrogen-fixing plants, and soil health practices like crop rotation, cover cropping, intercropping, reduced tillage, and crop-livestock integration.

Research consistently shows that agroecological approaches – such as farm diversification and tree integrated systems – outperform conventional systems in climate resilience, nutrient cycling, and soil health5,6, often while boosting yields7-9. Agroforestry also provides a source of wood fuel, making it a valuable alternative during fossil fuel shortages and price spikes.

Examples can be found worldwide. Peruvian cocoa farmers are using bokashi and bio-oil amendments to restore soil organic matter, regenerate microbial activity, and enhance nutrient cycling10. In Vietnam, rice-fish coculture systems optimize nutrient cycling, curb pests, and diversify outputs – lowering costs while stabilizing farmer incomes11. Ethiopian farmers practicing wheat-fava bean rotations are cutting fertilizer needs while improving soil structure and building long-term fertility11. India’s agroecology programme, ‘Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF)’, delivers biodiversity benefits while more than doubling farmers’ economic profits and maintaining comparable crop yields, than chemical-based farming 12,13.

Other farm-level steps to curb fossil fuel dependence include integrating renewable energy sources for on-site generation and operations – like solar panels, biogas digesters, and wind turbines; solar water pumps, adopting fuel-efficient engines and draft animals; and embracing practices such as minimum tillage, precision irrigation, integrated pest management, and low-input crop-livestock systems.

More fundamentally, shifting from global, industrial commodity chains toward territorial, agroecological food networks can relocalize production, processing, and consumption – shortening supply chains and reducing energy-intensive operations. Shorter, localized supply chains reduce reliance on long-distance transport, lower packaging demand, and promote reusable packaging systems, thereby decreasing fossil fuel consumption.

These efforts can be reinforced by complementary practices that strengthen food sovereignty, such as home gardens and urban agriculture. Crucially, agroecology also aligns with reduced production of ultra-processed foods – among the most energy-intensive products – helping to curb fossil fuel use while potentially improving public health.

In the short term, it is crucial that the allocation of emergency funds are earmarked to procure or purchase organic alternatives to synthetic fertilizers, particularly in the most affected regions. Longer-term, it is necessary to reduce structural barriers to farmers’ adoption of these agroecological approaches including reforms to agricultural subsidies and strengthening support for technical assistance and local governance.

References
1. Farge, E. Iran war may push 45 million people into acute hunger by June, WFP says. Reuters https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-war-may-push-45-million-people-into-acute-hunger-by-june-wfp-says-2026-03-17/ (2026).

2. IPES-Food. Fuel to Fork: What Will It Take to Get Fossil Fuels out of Our Food Systems? https://ipes-food.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/FuelToFork.pdf (2025).

3. FAO, UNDP, and UNEP. A Multi-Billion-Dollar Opportunity – Repurposing Agricultural Support to Transform Food Systems. (FAO, UNDP, and UNEP, 2021). doi:10.4060/cb6562en.

4. Global Alliance for the Future of Food. Power Shift: Why We Need to Wean Industrial Food Systems off Fossil Fuels. https://futureoffood.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/ga_food-energy-nexus_report.pdf (2023).

5. Niether, W., Jacobi, J., Blaser, W. J., Andres, C. & Armengot, L. Cocoa agroforestry systems versus monocultures: a multi-dimensional meta-analysis. Environ. Res. Lett. 15, 104085 (2020).

6. Beillouin, D., Ben‐Ari, T., Malézieux, E., Seufert, V. & Makowski, D. Positive but variable effects of crop diversification on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Glob. Change Biol. 27, 4697–4710 (2021).

7. Dittmer, K. M. et al. Agroecology Can Promote Climate Change Adaptation Outcomes Without Compromising Yield In Smallholder Systems. Environ. Manage. 72, 333–342 (2023).

8. Rodenburg, J., Mollee, E., Coe, R. & Sinclair, F. Global analysis of yield benefits and risks from integrating trees with rice and implications for agroforestry research in Africa. Field Crops Res. 281, 108504 (2022).

9. Jones, S. K. et al. Achieving win-win outcomes for biodiversity and yield through diversified farming. Basic Appl. Ecol. 67, 14–31 (2023).

10. Altieri, M. A. & Nicholls, C. I. Agroecology and the reconstruction of a post-COVID-19 agriculture. J. Peasant Stud. 47, 881–898 (2020).

11. FAO. The State of Food and Agriculture 2022. (FAO, 2022). doi:10.4060/cb9479en.

12. Berger, I. et al. India’s agroecology programme, ‘Zero Budget Natural Farming’, delivers biodiversity and economic benefits without lowering yields. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 9, 2057–2068 (2025).

13. O’Garra, T. Agroecology benefits people and planet. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 9, 1973–1974 (2025).

14. IPES-Food. Food from Somewhere: Building Food Security and Resilience through Territorial Markets. https://ipes-food.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/FoodFromSomewhere.pdf (2024).

15. Einarsson, R. Nitrogen in the Food System. https://tabledebates.org/building-blocks/nitrogen-food-system (2024) doi:10.56661/2fa45626.

Lulseged Desta, CGIAR Multifunctional Landscapes Science Program; Jonathan Mockshell, Alliance Biodiversity International – CIAT

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Cet outil interactif vous présente les dates, les horaires, les résultats, les classements des groupes et les tableaux des phases à élimination directe des 104 matchs du tournoi.

Cet outil interactif vous présente les dates, les horaires, les résultats, les classements des groupes et les tableaux des phases à élimination directe des 104 matchs du tournoi.

Parliament wants the Commission to assess whether there could be a clear risk of a serious breach of the EU’s founding values by Slovakia’s government.
Committee on Budgetary Control
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Fracture idéologique, mémoire des années 1990 et stratégie anti-Vučić, le nouveau « Mémorandum sur le Kosovo et la Metohija » des étudiants serbes provoque une onde de choc au sein de la diaspora et relance le débat sur la place du nationalisme dans le mouvement civique.

- Libres opinions. L'espace de débat du Courrier des Balkans / Grand Bazar - Diaporama, Serbie

Le ministre de la Santé a reconnu que les médecins essayaient de rattraper leur retard face au virus après avoir mis du temps à le détecter.

La piraterie au large des côtes somaliennes a repris de plus belle, alors que la guerre en Iran attise l'instabilité dans la région.

Credit: Bibbi Abruzzini/Forus - Rabat, Morocco

By Silla Ristimäki, Miguel Santibañez, Emeline Siale Ilolahia and Aoi Horiuchi
HELSINKI, Finland / SANTIAGO, Chile / SUVA, Fiji / TOKYO, Japan, May 20 2026 (IPS)

Just four years of the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development remain. What comes after 2030 is already a political battleground.

The next global development framework is being shaped now: through quiet agenda-setting, shifting alliances, financing choices, contested norms, and decisions about who gets to participate and who is pushed to the margins. That matters because the world that will shape what comes next is not the world that adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015.

The context is harsher, more fractured and less generous. Geopolitical fragmentation is deepening. Armed conflicts are distorting priorities. Climate impacts are accelerating. Development finance is under growing strain. Civic space is shrinking. Public trust in multilateralism is weaker. And too often, the rights, equality and accountability commitments that gave the SDGs their normative force are treated as negotiable.

“We step into the next decade against the background of climate chaos, growing inequality and increasing poverty. The scaffolding for positive change shall be to infuse democratic values in the blood stream of all our governments from the Right to the Left,” says Dr. Moses Isooba, executive director of the Uganda National NGO Forum and Vice-Chair of Forus.

The post-2030 debate must confront the political and structural weaknesses that limited implementation the first time around.

As a civil society network, we have been here from the very beginning. We have secured the adoption of the SDGs with the Beyond 2015 campaign, pushed for innovation and ambition, challenged power, brought forward the voices of communities, and held systems accountable. That role evolves and as we now look “beyond 2030”, we remain present, engaged, and determined to influence what comes next.

One message comes through clearly: the next agenda will only be credible if we are clear about three things — what must be defended, what must be demanded, and what must be declined.

What must be defended

Some foundations of the current framework remain essential and must not be traded away for the sake of political convenience.

The first is universality. One of the most important achievements of the SDGs was to establish that sustainable development is not only a concern for lower income countries, but a universal responsibility. Policies, consumption patterns and economic models that drive inequality, exclusion and ecological harm must be addressed in all regions. High-income countries must not only finance development but also reform their own adverse policies. If the next framework weakens the recognition that sustainable development must integrate social justice, equality, environmental sustainability, peace and human rights, it will not move us forward. It will mark a retreat.

The second is civic space. Civil society participation is one of the conditions that makes accountability, inclusion and implementation possible yet it is increasingly constrained by financial pressures, exclusion from global decision-making processes and erosion of fundamental rights. A future agenda which prioritises resources and protection for civil society supports the building of stable, sustainable societies.

The third is local leadership. Communities and local civil society actors remain closest to the realities that global frameworks claim to address, yet they are still structurally under-resourced and under-represented. Localisation beyond the “buzzword” can bring essential resources for problem diagnosis and planning, increasing effectiveness and legitimacy for sustainable development and peacebuilding.

And finally, what must be defended is multilateralism itself, not as an abstract ideal, but as the shared political space where common commitments can still be built.

“Safeguarding the structures created to advance peace, cooperation and rights sustains global hope and possibilities to address common global challenges. This is in the interests of us all, future generations and the planet.” Silla Ristimäki, Adviser at Fingo. “This is why ambitious reform of the UN cannot be separated from the post-Agenda 2030 discussion.”

What must be demanded

Defending core principles is not enough. Negotiations about the future must also correct what the Agenda 2030 left unresolved.

At the centre of this is financing. A credible post-2030 framework cannot rest on the same unequal financial architecture that has constrained implementation for years. Debt burdens, unequal fiscal space, volatile aid flows and weak commitments have all narrowed the room for governments and communities to act. Financing reforms must include debt restructuring and relief, fairer lending terms, increased concessional finance, stronger domestic resource mobilisation, tax justice, policy coherence and predictable support for civil society.

“Many countries are spending more on debt than education or health. We need to reform the current unjust international financial architecture,” says Aoi Horiuchi, Senior Advocacy Officer at JANIC, the civil society network for international cooperation in Japan.

Accountability must also be stronger. Voluntary reporting and soft review mechanisms have not been enough. A future agenda must be backed by mandatory, transparent and regular review, with independent oversight and a formal role for civil society and local actors in tracking progress and exposing implementation gaps.

And participation must mean more than consultation after decisions are already taking shape. Civil society needs a formalised, meaningful and safe role in both negotiating and implementing the future framework, especially for local actors and groups continuing to face structural or political exclusion.

“Meaningful change comes from meaningful participation. That’s why we need to defend civic space,” says Horiuchi.

What must be declined

Some directions already visible in early discussions must be rejected outright.

A thinner agenda that lowers ambition in the name of consensus must be declined. So must any attempt to weaken universality, rights, gender equality, civic freedoms or climate ambition for political expediency.

The continuation of a financial status quo that deepens inequality while speaking the language of partnership must also be declined. So must accountability arrangements that remain symbolic, selective or performative.

And tokenistic participation must be named for what it is. A process that brings civil society into the room for appearance’s sake while excluding it from agenda-setting, decision-making and follow-through is managed exclusion.

Finally, as development governance evolves, the expanding role of private and philanthropic actors must not come without public-interest safeguards, democratic oversight and accountability. Public goals cannot be left to unaccountable power.

We must get out of silos, create spaces of dialogue, of co-responsibility and raise the question of whether the post-2030 framework will be more honest about power, more serious about accountability, more capable of confronting structural inequality, and more open to those whose lives and rights are most at stake.

Our answer is here:
Defend what must not be lost.
Demand what must be corrected.
Decline what would weaken the future.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Credit: Amnesty International
 
Vanuatu has spearheaded a UN General Assembly resolution, expected to be tabled on May 20, 2026, to endorse and operationalize the 2025 International Court of Justice (ICJ) Advisory Opinion, which confirmed that nations have binding legal duties to prevent and repair climate-related harm. The resolution, supported by a core group including Singapore and the Netherlands, calls for implementing these legal standards to protect vulnerable states from climate disasters, despite resistance from major polluters.

By Shristi Gautam and Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, May 20 2026 (IPS)

Normally, resolutions voted at the United Nations General Assembly do not make the headlines.

As nonbinding and mostly symbolic, rich in principles yet empty and lacking the power to carry consequences, these statements are shrugged off and ignored.

But there are exceptions, and today’s (May 20) UNGA vote is one of them. The reason is that a positive vote would constitute a significant development in the evolution of international environmental law. To understand what we are referring to, let us allow a small flashback.

Far from South Asia, a trailblazing effort to hold a private corporation accountable for climate-damaging harm played out in a German court in recent years. For the first time, a Peruvian farmer filed a case against a major German energy company, accusing it of gravely damaging his livelihood due to its contributions to climate warming.

Even though this case, known as Lliuya v. RWE, was ultimately rejected in May 2025, it opened a new era in one of the most promising fields for achieving climate justice: climate litigation.

In the words of experts from the Grantham Research Institute, Lliuya v. RWE “established a powerful legal precedent that can be replicated in courts worldwide and will shape the trajectory for future climate litigation: corporate greenhouse gas emitters can, in principle, be held liable for their contribution to climate change impacts.”

Climate litigation, as an approach to pursue justice, is relatively new but is on the rise worldwide. There are more and more legal cases being filed in courts of law to uphold the principles of climate equity and climate justice and to pursue the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, a precondition to the enjoyment of other rights, such as the right to life, health, and an adequate standard of living.

After years of litigation, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that the state has an obligation to reduce emissions because adaptive efforts alone are insufficient. More groundbreaking cases followed. In the Los Cedros case, the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court established another pioneering precedent, affirming the primacy of the Right of Nature over mining concessions.

These rulings created momentum for bolder climate action, both in courts and in the streets, where millions of people across the Global South and North protested vigorously against climate injustice.

Within the international climate regime established by the Paris Agreement in 2015, the voices of developing nations, especially small island developing states, grew louder in opposition to unchecked greenhouse gas pollution, mostly from the Global North.

Unfortunately, there have been only very partial advancements within the UNFCCC framework. Last year, Climate COP 30, chaired by Brazil in Belém and supposed to be the COP of action and implementation, ended in another major disappointment. It is difficult to find optimism that the upcoming COP 31 in Türkiye will bear the transformative results humanity so desperately needs.

But an extraordinary legal effort, initially launched by law students from the Pacific in 2021 and later embraced by the Government of Vanuatu, paid off. On 23 July last year, the International Court of Justice issued the landmark Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change. It was a truly game-changing moment for the fight for climate justice, even if the AO is non-binding.

Among its several remarkable aspects, the Paris Agreement’s obligations are not only procedural but also substantive, and states have stringent due diligence obligations. The ICJ also rejected the concept of “Lex Specialis,” clarifying that states’ obligations extend beyond the Paris Agreement, which, as a treaty, does not take precedence over other sources of law.

In plain terms, governments cannot hide behind the negotiations within the various climate COPs. They must do more. The ruling explicitly demands that states do whatever they can, within their means, to meet their commitments to reduce climate change.

It is not enough for a state to submit a Nationally Determined Contribution, its national plan to mitigate greenhouse emissions. A state may also be considered responsible for failing to take regulatory and legislative measures to limit not only its own emissions but also greenhouse gases produced by the private sector within its own borders.

The AO could not be clearer: “A breach by a State of any of the obligations identified by the Court in relation to climate change constitutes an internationally wrongful act entailing the responsibility of that State.”

Today, the Pacific island of Vanuatu, a true trailblazer showing that small developing nations can punch above their weight with moral leadership, is once again attempting to make history by bringing a UNGA Resolution on the AO.

Even without enforceable power, this resolution wants to reaffirm the principles enshrined in the Advisory Opinion, marking another step toward states’ accountability under international law.

According to the Climate Litigation Database, hosted by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, more than 3,000 lawsuits have been filed against governments and private-sector carbon emitters, including banks and asset management companies.

Today’s UNGA Resolution was supported by a diverse coalition including the Netherlands, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Barbados, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Jamaica, the Philippines, and Burkina Faso.

Despite Nepal’s limited international engagement in recent months due to its own political transitions and elections, the new government led by Prime Minister Balendra Shah must join this group of nations.

Nepal must devise a strategy to revamp its climate efforts at the international level and, critically, do so beyond the Paris Agreement negotiations. There must be recognition that future negotiations within the UNFCCC will not be less fraught or complicated.

A series of policy papers published by the British think tank ODI exposed the hypocrisy of many governments that, in theory, are sympathetic and supportive of the climate fight of small island developing states, yet in their own submissions before the ICJ, resisted and opposed further legal obligations beyond the Paris Agreement.

This duplicity is embraced not only by developed nations but also by India and China, two of the most vocal defenders of the rights of developing nations within the Paris Agreement framework.

The incredibly complex politics of climate negotiations mean only one thing: courts of law may end up offering the only realistic venue for climate-vulnerable nations to pursue redress. As explained by The Guardian, Vanuatu was even forced to compromise some of the most progressive and climate-justice-centered aspects of this resolution in order to build the widest possible coalition of supporting nations.

Meanwhile, the ongoing tensions in the Gulf are offering a silver lining: more and more nations are realizing that phasing out carbon emissions is becoming irreversible. A few weeks ago, a pioneering gathering was held in Santa Marta, Colombia, the first-ever conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels. Although Nepal was invited, there was no news of the government’s participation.

While climate negotiations within the UNFCCC should not be dismissed, it is time to embrace another approach to seeking climate justice. The pursuit of climate justice through local and international courts may offer the most effective remedy to ensure the primary goal of the Paris Agreement, limiting climate warming to 1.5°C, is realistically pursued.

Nepal’s government will surely cast the right vote at the UNGA today. At the same time, we hope the new federal government will do whatever it takes to reiterate and expand its commitment to international law to stop climate change in the highest courts and global forums. We also hope it will create a conducive environment for climate litigation to thrive and become a tool for climate accountability that reaches everyone.

Shristi Gautam is the Past Co-Lead of World’s Youth for Climate Justice, Nepal, and Founder of Nyaya Vatika; Simone Galimberti is the pro bono co-founder of The Good Leadership.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Wednesday 20 May

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Le président croate Zoran Milanović a refusé d'accréditer Nissan Amdur comme nouvel ambassadeur d'Israël à Zagreb, invoquant à la fois une entorse au protocole diplomatique et son opposition à la politique du gouvernement de Benjamin Netanyahou.

- Le fil de l'Info / Courrier des Balkans, Israël-Palestine , Croatie, Relations internationales

On Wednesday morning, Parliament and Council reached a provisional agreement on two pieces of legislation implementing EU tariff commitments under the August 2025 EU-US Joint Statement.
Committee on International Trade

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

The health minister has acknowledged that medics are playing catch-up with the virus after being slow to detect it.