July 09, 2025
Africa: Preventing Pandemics Needs Every Tool in the Toolbox - Including Animal Vaccines
Just five years on from the Covid-19 pandemic, another animal-borne disease is mutating and spreading across borders and species. Read more »
July 08, 2025
Africa: Staff Union Dismisses UN Restructuring As 'Chaotic, Incoherent, Rushed & Lacking Strategy'
A coalition of UN staff unions, led by the 60,000-strong Coordinating Committee of International Staff Unions and Associations (CCISUA), has written to UN member states criticizing… Read more »
July 07, 2025
Kenya: Kenya's Shirika Plan - a New Dawn for Refugee Rights and Integration
When Jean Baremba arrived in Kenya in 2018, he looked forward to rebuilding a life shattered by war in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Read more »
Africa: How Global Fund Is Saving Lives From Malaria, TB, & HIV Across Africa
In Gabú, Guinea-Bissau, a grandmother named N'beta hesitated. Her six-month-old grandson, Seco, was healthy, so why give him medicine? But community health workers Jamilia… Read more »
July 04, 2025
Africa: FFD4 At Sevilla Plants the Seeds of Debtor Unity
UN Member States adopted the 'Compromiso de Sevilla' at the Fourth Financing for Development Forum (FfD4) which concluded July 3- the culmination of months of contentious… Read more »
South Africa: Lessons From South Africa On Monitoring the Impact of Invasive Trees On Water Resources
Concerns about the impacts of invasive species is not new; it dates to the 19th century. The term was popularized in Charles Elton's 1958 book "The Ecology of Invasions by Animals… Read more »
July 03, 2025
Sudan: Sudanese Refugees and IDPs Disproportionately Affected By Crisis
Since the wake of the Sudanese Civil War in 2023, Sudan has faced a dire humanitarian crisis that has been marked by extreme violence, widespread civilian displacement, and an… Read more »
Africa: African Fish Workers Excluded From International Trade Deals - Report
A new report has raised concerns about the exclusion of African fish workers from trade protocols between their governments and developed countries, resulting in impoverished… Read more »
Africa: Does the UN Overstep It's Responsibility to Protect Mandate?
The UN has been criticized by some member states for overstepping the mandate of its Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine during a debate in the General Assembly. Read more »
Africa: UN80 - Alternative Reform Pathways - Fiscal Prudence, Relocation Realities, & Underutilized Charter Mechanisms
Recent proposals to relocate UN operations to lower-cost duty stations ignore demonstrable economic patterns. Empirical evidence suggests that establishing UN hubs often triggers… Read more »
July 02, 2025
Africa: Multi-Year Drought Gives Birth to Extremist Violence, Girls Most Vulnerable
While droughts creep in stealthily, their impacts are often more devastating and far-reaching than any other disaster. Inter-community conflict, extremist violence, and violence… Read more »
South Africa: From Parliaments to the G20 - a Call to Champion Women's Sexual & Reproductive Health & Rights
By Priyanka Chaturvedi, Mokhothu Makhalanyane and Rajat Khosla Read more »
July 01, 2025
Africa: The Juggling of Aid - How WFP Is Delivering More With Less
Serious-to-severe food insecurity has been widely felt among those living through the worst, protracted humanitarian crises. For organizations like the World Food Programme (WFP),… Read more »
Africa: Women and War - Victims of Violence and Voices of Peace
In 2023, approximately 612 million women and girls lived within 50 kilometers of a conflict zone, more than 50 percent higher than a decade ago. During war, they disproportionately… Read more »
June 30, 2025
Africa: Global Tobacco Control Efforts Protect Up to 6.1 Billion People
Tobacco kills up to half its users who don't quit, a grim reality that highlights the urgent mission of global tobacco control. A new report from the World Health Organization… Read more »
Nigeria: The Young Nigerian Innovator Lighting Up Communities With Recycled Solar Innovation
When Stanley Anigbogu heard his name announced as the 2025 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year in London earlier in March, he could hardly believe it. He had not expected to win,… Read more »
Africa: When Life-Saving Treatment Disappears - the Coming Crisis in Child Malnutrition
On July 1st, USAID officially shuts down and transfers operations to the U.S. State Department. Amid growing uncertainty about the future of U.S. foreign assistance structures and… Read more »
Africa: The Demographic Struggle Over International Migration
Approximately 1.3 billion people, or 16% of the world's population, wish to leave their country permanently, while over a billion people believe that fewer or no immigrants should… Read more »
June 27, 2025
Africa: UN Drug Office Warns That Global Drug Crisis Will Intensify
Since 1989, the United Nations (UN) has recognized June 26 as the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in an effort to raise awareness around the global… Read more »
Africa: A Crisis-Stricken UN's Frantic Hunt for Low-Cost Locations - Away From New York & Geneva
In the US, the success of a business enterprise or the value of real estate is reflected in a repetitive and alliterative phrase: "LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION". Read more »
Africa: 'Enabling Machines to Make Life and Death Decisions Is Morally Unjustifiable'
CIVICUS discusses autonomous weapons systems and the campaign for regulation with Nicole van Rooijen, Executive Director of Stop Killer Robots, a global civil society coalition of… Read more »
Africa: Fixing the House the World Built - a Realistic Plan for UN Reform
I've spent much of my life in the machinery of international development, navigating acronyms, crises, and committee rooms with stale coffee. Through it all--amid war zones,… Read more »
Africa: Beyond Disposable Staff, Distracting Reforms and Restoring UN Effectiveness
In an era defined by the gig economy and pervasive job insecurity, advocating for permanent contracts within the United Nations might seem anachronistic, even counterintuitive. Read more »
June 26, 2025
Congo-Kinshasa: Increased Demand for Cobalt Fuels Ongoing Humanitarian Crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
The demand for cobalt and other minerals is fueling a decades-long humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In pursuit of money to support their families,… Read more »
Africa: A Growing Gap Between Principle and Implementation - 20 Years of Responsibility to Protect
United Nations member states this week reiterated their commitment to the prevention of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity--at a time when world… Read more »
