Colombia’s next President: A Reckoning for Peace, Climate and Human Rights

On 21 June Colombians made their choice. By the narrowest of margins, Abelardo de la Espriella, a far-right criminal lawyer who’s never held elected office, became president-elect. Climate activists, human rights defenders, Indigenous communities and peace advocates have the most to lose from the incoming government’s agenda.

Aid Is Falling Fast. What Can African Countries Do?

For decades, official development assistance has been a central pillar of financing in sub-Saharan Africa. That pillar is now weakening—quickly and broadly.

UNCTAD: A Shift of Risk, Geopolitical Tension Weighs on Global Markets Heavier than Trade Policy

Amidst increased geopolitical tensions, the risk of volatile energy markets, trade corridors, and regional stability in the Middle East has garnered more attention than trade policy in terms of its power to alter the global economy, according to new findings from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Beyond Commemoration: Why Conflict-Related Sexual Violence Demands Urgent Global Attention

Three years ago, during a mission to the Central African Republic from United Nations Headquarters, I met a woman whose story has remained with me ever since. She had survived rape during the conflict. Yet what stayed with her most was not only the violence she had suffered, but the stigma that followed it. When she returned home, her family refused to take her back. In a society where survivors of sexual violence are too often burdened with shame that rightfully belongs to perpetrators, she found herself isolated and struggling to rebuild her life. In that moment, it became painfully clear that for survivors, the violence does not end when the assault ends, it continues through stigma, exclusion, and the resulting silence for most.

Social Business – It’s Time

June 27-28 is the 16th Social Business Day, observed in Savar (Dhaka) Bangladesh. In June 2024 at the Western Sydney University’s graduation ceremony where I was conferred Emeritus Professor status, I urged the new business graduates to:

• purge the world of the… obnoxious Friedmanite idea that is destroying our planet and tearing our communities apart; • look instead to the “Social Business Model” of Bangladesh’s Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus; and • work on the right side of history; stand up for justice and liberation; spread the “moral violence” for peace; and put people and the planet before profit.

Of 40 Million People Living with HIV today, 32.1 Million are now on Treatment, Living Long & Healthy

I am honoured to address this High-Level Meeting. I thank very much the President of the General Assembly for her leadership, our Co-Facilitators, and all the Member States for the extraordinary effort that brought us here now.

AI is Already Rewriting Reality for Billions of People– But It is Getting Women Wrong

A study of 133 AI systems found that 44 per cent demonstrated gender bias and 26 per cent demonstrated both gender and racial bias. Yet only 51 per cent of marketers currently use human oversight to test AI-generated creative before release. Ahead of the United Nations Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Governance from 6 – 7 July and AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, Switzerland from 7-10 July, UN Women sets out what is at stake – and what must change – to build a gender-equal digital future.

Global South Leaders Redesigning International Cooperation

The fallout from the sudden collapse of the old system of financing international cooperation has been disastrous, unleashing a wave of harm and leaving the world more vulnerable to shocks and less able to respond to them. The wreckage is plain to see. The issue is what to do next.

A UN Secretary-General who Defied the US – and Suffered a Backlash

When Egypt’s onetime Foreign Minister Boutros Boutros-Ghali was running for the post of U.N. Secretary-General in late 1991, he had to contend with the rival candidacy of Bernard Chidzero, then foreign minister of Zimbabwe.

Will US Opposition to UN’s Socio-Economic Goals Play a Decisive Role in the Vote for Next Secretary-General?

As the campaign for a new UN secretary-general gathers momentum, will the US exercise the decisive vote -- or the veto-- in the final selection?

Trump Declared Peace in Congo. This Is the Reality

“General” Sultani Makenga stood before thousands of newly trained armed group recruits in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in February and offered them a promise. “You are now part of an army that has risen up to liberate the country and to really liberate the people,” declared Makenga, the military leader of the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group.

Global Economy Endures War Shock—So Far

More than three months into the war in the Middle East, the global economy appears to be holding up. Commodity prices, inflation and expectations for it, and financial conditions have all been impacted—but not yet in ways that signal a global slowdown. And we have seen strong economic momentum in the world’s biggest economies, the United States and China.

Fiscal Reform Needs More Than Strong Finance Ministries

In the human body, connective tissue rarely gets the attention given to the heart, lungs or brain. But without it, even the strongest organs cannot function as a system. It binds, supports and connects a healthy body. Fiscal systems work in a similar way.

This Is Not Just Ukraine: The Global Danger of Normalising Russia’s Occupation Crimes

People often discuss Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine in terms of drones, missiles, shifting front lines, and territorial borders. But this war has another dimension — the human one.

How the G7 Can Reset Global Finance

When G7 leaders arrive in Evian-les-Bains this month, France will host more than another summit. It will host a test of whether rich-country coordination can still solve problems that no country can manage alone. Aid budgets are shrinking, debt-service bills are crowding out investment, climate shocks are damaging infrastructure, and private capital remains scarce and expensive where it is needed most.

Nuclear Nonproliferation Outcomes Stall in Backdrop of Geopolitical Strife

On principle, the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons is an issue that unites the international community. But for a select few states, these principles came with conditions and a refusal to compromise on their security strategy.

The End of the Gulf Model?

The German government, along with a number of other countries, are currently organising flights to evacuate travellers and influencers stranded in the Gulf states. For many citizens of other nationalities, however, there is no such assistance. They remain stuck in precarious situations, marked by exploitation and insecurity.

The Moral, Practical, Necessary Invigoration of Nuclear Sanity

Martin Luther King Jr. , when he received the Nobel Peace Prize, reminded us of “The fact that most of the time human beings put the truth about the nature and risks of the nuclear war out of their minds because it is too painful and therefore not ‘acceptable’, does not alter the nature and risks of such war. The device of ‘rejection’ may temporarily cover up anxiety, but it does not bestow peace of mind and emotional security.” I have devoted many decades of my life to not ignoring the risk of nuclear annihilation and since 1995 have attended every Review Conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to learn and hopefully contributed to a saner safer world.

Amid Rising Military Tension in War Zones, World’s Nuclear Powers are Modernizing Their Arsenals

As ongoing military conflicts in Europe and the Middle East continue with no signsof winding down, there is increasing focus on nuclear weaponsamid heightened risks of escalation.

New Geopolitics Threatens More Food Crises

Recent geopolitical trends threaten more food crises, especially in developing countries. A new IPES-Food report urges a strategy of ‘resilient self-reliance’, proposing available opportunities to improve equity, sustainability and solidarity.