How the UN Can Prevent AI from Automating Discrimination

Posted on August 14, 2025 by admin

Civil Society, Featured, Global, Global Governance, Headlines, IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse, TerraViva United Nations

The AI for Good Global Summit took place in Geneva on 8 July 2025. Credit: ITU/Rowan Farrell

The Summit brought together governments, tech leaders, academics, civil society and young people to explore how artificial intelligence can be directed toward Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – and away from growing risks of inequality, disinformation and environmental strain, according to the UN.

“We are the AI generation,” said Doreen Bogdan-Martin, chief of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) – UN’s specialized agency for information and communications technology – in a keynote address. But being part of this generation means more than just using these technologies. “It means contributing to this whole-of-society upskilling effort, from early schooling to lifelong learning,” she added.

ABUJA, Nigeria, Aug 14 2025 (IPS) – Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping the world at a speed we’ve never seen before. From helping doctors detect diseases faster to customizing education for every student, AI holds the promise of solving many real-world problems. But along with its benefits, AI carries a serious risk: discrimination.

As the global body charged with protecting human rights, the United Nations—especially the UN Human Rights Council and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)—has a unique role to play in ensuring AI is developed and used in ways that are fair, inclusive, and just.

The United Nations must declare AI equity a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) by 2035, backed by binding audits for member states. The stakes are high. A 2024 Stanford study warns that if AI bias is left unchecked, 45 million workers could lose access to fair hiring by 2030, and 80 percent of those affected would be in developing countries.

The Promise—and Peril—of AI

At its core, AI is about using computer systems to solve those problems or perform those tasks that us to use human intelligence. Algorithms drive the systems that make these possible—sets of instructions that help machines make sense of the world and act accordingly.

But there’s a catch: algorithms are only as fair as the data they are trained on and the humans who designed them. When the data reflects existing social inequalities, or when developers overlook diverse perspectives, the result is biased AI. In other words, AI that discriminates.

Take, for example, facial recognition systems that perform poorly on people with darker skin tones. Or hiring tools that favor male candidates because they’re trained on data from past hires in male-dominated industries.

Or a LinkedIn verification system that can only verify NFC-enabled national passports that the majority of Africans don’t yet possess. These are more than technical glitches; they are human rights issues.

What the UN Has Already Said

The UN is not starting from scratch on this. The OHCHR has already sounded the alarm. In its 2021 report on the right to privacy in the digital age, the OHCHR warned that poorly designed or unregulated AI systems can lead to violations of human rights, including discrimination, loss of privacy, and threats to freedom of expression and thought.

The report asked powerful questions we must keep asking:

These are very vital, practical questions that go to the heart of how AI will shape our societies and who will benefit or suffer as a result, and I commend the UN for conceptualizing these questions.

UNESCO, another UN agency, has also taken a bold step by adopting the Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, the first global standard-setting instrument of its kind. Their Recommendation emphasizes the need for fairness, accountability, and transparency in AI development, and calls for banning AI systems that pose a threat to human rights.

This is a good start. But the real work is just beginning.

The Danger of Biased Data

A major driver of AI discrimination remains biased data. Many AI systems are trained on historical data; data that often reflects past inequalities. If a criminal justice algorithm is trained on data from a system that has historically over-policed Black communities, it will likely continue to do so.

Even well-meaning developers can fall into this trap. If the teams building AI systems lack diversity, they may not recognize when an algorithm is biased or may not consider how a tool could impact marginalized communities.

That’s why it’s not just about better data. It’s also about better processes, better people, and better safeguards.

Take the ongoing case with Workday as an example.

When AI Gets It Wrong: 2024’s Most Telling Cases

In one of the most significant AI discrimination cases moving through the courts, the plaintiff alleges that Workday’s popular artificial intelligence (AI)-based applicant recommendation system violated federal antidiscrimination laws because it had a disparate impact on job applicants based on race, age, and disability.

Judge Rita F. Lin of the US District Court for the Northern District of California ruled in July 2024 that Workday could be an agent of the employers using its tools, which subjects it to liability under federal anti-discrimination laws. This landmark decision means that AI vendors, not just employers, can be held directly responsible for discriminatory outcomes.

In another case, the University of Washington researchers found significant racial, gender, and intersectional bias in how three state-of-the-art large language models ranked resumes. The models favored white-associated names over equally qualified candidates with names associated with other racial groups.

In 2024, a University of Washington study investigated gender and racial bias in resume-screening AI tools. The researchers tested a large language model’s responses to identical resumes, varying only the names to suggest different racial and gender identities.

The financial impact is staggering. A 2024 DataRobot survey of over 350 companies revealed: 62% lost revenue due to AI systems that made biased decisions, proving that discriminatory AI isn’t just a moral failure—it’s a business disaster. It’s too soon for an innovation to result in such losses.

Time is running out. A 2024 Stanford study estimates that if AI bias is not addressed, 45 million workers could be pushed out of fair hiring by 2030, with 80 percent of those workers living in developing countries. The UN needs to take action now before these predictions turn into reality.

What the UN Can—and Must—Do

To prevent AI discrimination, the UN must lead by example and work with governments, tech companies, and civil society to establish global guardrails for ethical AI.

Here’s what that could look like:

6. Mandate Intersectional Audits: AI systems should be required to go through intersectional audits that check for combined biases, such as those linked to race, disability, and gender. The UN should also provide funding to organizations to create open-source audit tools that can be used worldwide.

The Road Ahead

AI is not inherently good or bad. It is a tool, and like any tool, its impact depends on how we use it. If we are not careful, AI could lengthen problem-solving time, deepen existing inequalities, and create new forms of discrimination that are harder to detect and harder to fix.

But if we take action now—if we put human rights at the center of AI development—we can build systems that uplift, rather than exclude.

Ahead of the UN General Assembly meeting in September, the United Nations must declare AI equity a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) by 2035, backed by binding audits for member states. The time for debate is over; the era of ethical AI must begin now.

The United Nations remains the organization with the credibility, the platform, and the moral duty to lead this charge. The future of AI—and the future of human dignity—may depend on it.

Chimdi Chukwukere is a researcher, civic tech co-founder, and advocate for digital justice. His work explores the intersection of technology, governance, and social justice. He holds a Masters in Diplomacy and International Relations from Seton Hall University and has been published at Politics Today, International Policy Digest, and the Diplomatic Envoy.

Gift Nwammadu is a Mastercard Foundation Scholar at the University of Cambridge, where she is pursuing an MPhil in Public Policy with a focus on inclusive innovation, gender equity, and youth empowerment. A Youth for Sustainable Energy Fellow and Aspire Leader Fellow, she actively bridges policy and grassroots action. Her work has been published by the African Policy and Research Institute addressing systemic barriers to inclusive development.

IPS UN Bureau

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Bending the Curve: Overhaul Global Food Systems to Avert Worsening Land Crisis

Posted on August 13, 2025 by admin

Biodiversity, Civil Society, Climate Action, Climate Change, Combating Desertification and Drought, Conferences, Conservation, COP30, Development & Aid, Editors’ Choice, Environment, Featured, Food and Agriculture, Food Systems, Global, Headlines, Human Rights, Humanitarian Emergencies, Natural Resources, Sustainable Development Goals, TerraViva United Nations

Food Systems

Scientists say replacing just 10 percent of global vegetable intake with seaweed-derived products could free up large portions of land. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

Current rates of land degradation pose a major environmental and socioeconomic threat, driving climate change, biodiversity loss, and social crises. Food production to feed more than 8 billion people is the dominant land use on Earth. Yet, this industrial-scale enterprise comes with a heavy environmental toll.

Preventing and reversing land degradation are key objectives of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and are also fundamental for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

These three conventions emerged from the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to address the interconnected crises of biodiversity loss, climate change and land degradation. A paper published today in Nature by 21 leading scientists argues that the targets of “these conventions can only be met by ‘bending the curve’ of land degradation and that transforming food systems is fundamental for doing so.”

Lead author Fernando T. Maestre of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia, says the paper presents “a bold, integrated set of actions to tackle land degradation, biodiversity loss, and climate change together, as well as a clear pathway for implementing them by 2050.”

“By transforming food systems, restoring degraded land, harnessing the potential of sustainable seafood, and fostering cooperation across nations and sectors, we can ‘bend the curve’ and reverse land degradation while advancing towards goals of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification and other global agreements.”

Co-author Barron J. Orr, UNCCD’s Chief Scientist, says, “Once soils lose fertility, water tables deplete, and biodiversity is lost, restoring the land becomes exponentially more expensive. Ongoing rates of land degradation contribute to a cascade of mounting global challenges, including food and water insecurity, forced relocation and population migration, social unrest, and economic inequality.”

“Land degradation isn’t just a rural issue; it affects the food on all our plates, the air we breathe, and the stability of the world we live in. This isn’t about saving the environment; it’s about securing our shared future.”

The authors suggest an ambitious but achievable target of 50 percent land restoration for 2050—currently, 30 percent by 2030—with enormous co-benefits for climate, biodiversity and global health. Titled ‘Bending the curve of land degradation to achieve global environmental goals,’ the paper argues that it is imperative to ‘bend the curve’ of land degradation by halting land conversion while restoring half of degraded lands by 2050.

“Food systems have not yet been fully incorporated into intergovernmental agreements, nor do they receive sufficient focus in current strategies to address land degradation. Rapid, integrated reforms focused on global food systems, however, can move land health from crisis to recovery and secure a healthier, more stable planet for all,” reads parts of the paper.

Against this backdrop, the authors break new ground by quantifying the impact of reducing food waste by 75 percent by 2050 and maximizing sustainable ocean-based food production—measures that alone could spare an area larger than Africa. They say restoring 50 percent of degraded land through sustainable land management practices would correspond to the restoration of 3 Mkm² of cropland and 10 Mkm² of non-cropland, a total of 13 Mkm².

Stressing that land restoration must involve the people who live on and manage the land—especially Indigenous Peoples, smallholder farmers, women, and other vulnerable people and communities. Co-author Dolors Armenteras, Professor of Landscape Ecology at Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, says land degradation is “a key factor in forced migration and conflict over resources.”

“Regions that rely heavily on agriculture for livelihoods, especially smallholder farmers, who feed much of the world, are particularly vulnerable. These pressures could destabilize entire regions and amplify global risks.”

To support these vulnerable segments of the population, the paper calls for interventions such as shifting agricultural subsidies from large-scale industrial farms toward sustainable smallholders, incentivizing good land stewardship among the world’s 608 million farms, and fostering their access to technology, secure land rights, and fair markets.

“Land is more than soil and space. It harbors biodiversity, cycles water, stores carbon, and regulates climate. It gives us food, sustains life, and holds deep roots of ancestry and knowledge. Today, over one-third of Earth’s land is used to grow food – feeding a global population of more than 8 billion people,” says Co-author Elisabeth Huber-Sannwald, Professor, the Instituto Potosino de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica, San Luis Potosí, Mexico.

“Yet today,” she continues, “Modern farming practices, deforestation, and overuse are degrading soil, polluting water, and destroying vital ecosystems. Food production alone drives nearly 20 percent of global emissions of greenhouse gases. We need to act. To secure a thriving future – and protect land – we must reimagine how we farm, how we live, and how we relate to nature – and to each other.”

With an estimated 56.5 Mkm² of agricultural land, cropland, and rangelands being used to produce food, and roughly 33 percent of all food produced being wasted, of which 14 percent is lost post-harvest at farms and 19 percent at the retail, food service and household stages, reducing food waste by 75 percent, therefore, could spare roughly 13.4 Mkm² of land.

The authors’ proposed remedies include policies to prevent overproduction and spoilage, banning food industry rules that reject “ugly” produce, encouraging food donations and discounted sales of near-expiry products, education campaigns to reduce household waste and supporting small farmers in developing countries to improve storage and transport.

Other proposed solutions include integrating land and marine food systems, as red meat produced in unsustainable ways consumes large amounts of land, water, and feed and emits significant greenhouse gases. Seafood and seaweed are sustainable, nutritious alternatives. Seaweed, for example, needs no freshwater and absorbs atmospheric carbon.

The authors recommend measures such as replacing 70 percent of unsustainably produced red meat with seafood, such as wild or farmed fish and mollusks. Replacing just 10 percent of global vegetable intake with seaweed-derived products could free up over 0.4 Mkm² of cropland.

They nonetheless note that these changes are especially relevant for wealthier countries with high meat consumption. In some poorer regions, animal products remain crucial for nutrition. The combination of food waste reduction, land restoration, and dietary shifts, therefore, would spare or restore roughly 43.8 Mkm² in 30 years (2020-2050).

The proposed measures combined would also contribute to emission reduction efforts by mitigating roughly 13.24 Gt of CO₂-equivalent per year through 2050 and help the world community achieve its commitments in several international agreements, including the three Rio Conventions and UN SDGs.

Overall, the authors call for the UN’s three Rio conventions—CBD, UNCCD and UNFCCC—to unite around shared land and food system goals and encourage the exchange of state-of-the-art knowledge, track progress and streamline science into more effective policies, all to accelerate action on the ground.

A step in the right direction, UNCCD’s 197 Parties, at their most recent Conference of Parties (COP16) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, have already adopted a decision on avoiding, reducing and reversing land and soil degradation of agricultural lands.

The Findings By Numbers

56%: Projected increase in food production needed by 2050 if we stay on our current path
34%: Portion of Earth’s ice-free land already used for food production, headed to 42% by 2050
21%: Share of global greenhouse gas emissions produced by food systems
80%: Proportion of deforestation driven by food production
70%: Amount of freshwater consumption that goes to agriculture
33%: Fraction of global food that currently goes to waste
USD 1 trillion: Estimated annual value of food lost or wasted globally
75%: Ambitious target for global food waste reduction by 2050
50%: Proposed portion of degraded land to be restored by 2050 using sustainable land management
USD 278 billion: Annual funding gap to achieve UNCCD land restoration goals
608 million: Number of farms on the planet
90%: Percentage of all farms under 2 hectares
35%: Share of the world’s food produced by small farms
6.5 billion tons: Potential biomass yield using 650 million hectares of ocean for seaweed farming
17.5 million km²: Estimated cropland area saved if humanity adopts the proposed Rio+ diet (less unsustainably produced red meat and more sustainably sourced seafood and seaweed-derived food products)
166 million: Number of people who could avoid micronutrient deficiencies with more aquatic foods in their diet

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Four Ways Asia Can Strengthen Regional Health Security Before the Next Pandemic

Posted on August 13, 2025 by admin

Civil Society, Featured, Global, Headlines, Health, Humanitarian Emergencies, IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

Regional cooperation can help countries respond more effectively to future pandemics. Credit: Asian Development Bank (ADB)

MANILA, Philippines, Aug 13 2025 (IPS) – In an interconnected world when infections can circle the globe in hours, cooperation in preparing for pandemics is essential. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted just how vulnerable countries are when surveillance is fragmented, laboratory networks are underfunded and underequipped, and vaccines are not dispersed equitably.

To safeguard regional health security, several health interventions must be treated as regional public goods.

Regional public goods are services or assets that benefit multiple countries but cannot be provided by a single nation alone. They allow developing economies to cooperate on costs, expertise, and technology for greater development impact than they could achieve individually.

For example, efficient regional infrastructure and trade facilitation brings down transportation and trade costs and promotes freer movement of people and goods; delivering energy across borders improves access to sustainable energy; and financial agreements, such as the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization, boost regional financial stability during crises.

Regional public goods fall into three broad categories: economic initiatives such as transport infrastructure, energy networks, and trade agreements like the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership; environmental efforts including river basin management, pollution control, and cross-border conservation programs; and social investments such as public health systems, regional education platforms, and collaborative research networks.

Countries in Asia and the Pacific already work together on trade, infrastructure, and climate action. Broadening areas of cooperation, however, can help countries meet their development goals and address increasingly complex health challenges, including emergencies.

This partnership is particularly important in the area of health emergency response.

A succession of human and animal infections including SARS, avian influenza, African swine fever and COVID-19 have shown just how quickly pathogens can go from a local problem to one that threatens regional and even global security. Countries can protect themselves through early alerts and early action via coordinated surveillance, data-sharing, and equitable vaccine access.

Responses to many recent outbreaks, including the COVID-19 pandemic, have been slow, fragmented, and unfair. Greater regional cooperation can mitigate the impacts of epidemics, especially for the most vulnerable, by pooling expertise, resources, and response capacities.

Health intersects with transport, trade, gender equality, education, and livelihoods. A healthy population underpins a resilient economy and supports social stability. Supporting each other to build systems that can prevent and respond to outbreaks makes sense for countries and the region.

To respond faster and smarter to the next pandemic, countries in Asia and the Pacific should focus on four high-impact areas regional integration and collective action:

Contact Tracing Networks

Early detection saves lives but only if data move faster than the disease. A regional contact tracing network, using interoperable digital tools and shared protocols, can help track outbreaks across borders.

By linking national systems through common standards and real-time data-sharing agreements, countries can monitor risks in high-risk areas, such as along borders and major transit corridors, and prevent spread.

Health Communications Coordination

Misinformation was a major problem during the COVID-19 pandemic, eroding public trust and weakening response efforts. A regional health communications framework, backed by multilingual messaging templates, rumor tracking systems, and coordinated press briefings, can ensure consistent, culturally relevant, and science-based public information across countries. Successes in reaching vulnerable populations and mobile communities can also be quickly shared.

Telemedicine for Cross-Border Care

Regional telemedicine platforms can connect healthcare providers across borders, especially in remote or small island states, ensuring continued access to care even when in-person services are disrupted. Joint investments in infrastructure, digital health standards, and clinician training can allow countries to offer virtual consultations, diagnostics, and even specialist referrals across the region.

Region-wide Public Health Funds

Collaborative procurement of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics have helped countries respond to disease outbreaks, and eradicate public health threats. Region-wide public health funds maintained by cooperating counties offer a means of improving timely access to life saving countermeasures.

Effectively preventing and preparing for pandemics requires countries to work in concert. These approaches can strengthen all types of health services and build resilience to all kinds of health threats. Now is the time to act decisively and secure a healthier, more prosperous future for all.

This article was originally published on the Asian Development Blog, and is based, in part, on research related to ADB’s 1st INSPIRE Health Forum: Inclusive, Sustainable, Prosperous and Resilient Health Systems in Asia and the Pacific. Ben Coghlan contributed to this blog post.

Dr. Eduardo P. Banzon is ADB Director, Health Practice Team, Human and Social Development Sectors Office, Sectors Group, who champions Universal Health Coverage and has long provided technical support to countries in Asia and the Pacific in their pursuit of this goal.

Dr. Michelle Apostol is a Health Officer for the Health Practice Team of ADB supporting the bank’s initiatives in strengthening health systems of member countries and advocating for the advancement of Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

Anne Cortez is a communications and knowledge management consultant with ADB. She brings over a decade of experience working with governments, think tanks, nonprofits, and international organizations on initiatives advancing health equity, climate action, and digital inclusion across Asia and the Pacific.

IPS UN Bureau

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Women in Sudan are Starving Faster than Men; Female-Headed Households Suffer

Posted on August 12, 2025 by admin

Active Citizens, Africa, Armed Conflicts, Civil Society, Crime & Justice, Food and Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition, Gender, Headlines, Health, Human Rights, Humanitarian Emergencies, Migration & Refugees, TerraViva United Nations

In Sudan, women-led households are three times more likely to deal with serious food insecurity compared to male-led households. Credit: UN Women Sudan

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 12 2025 (IPS) – The food crisis in Sudan is starving more day by day, yet it is affecting women and girls at double the rate compared to men in the same areas. New findings from UN-Women reveal that female-headed households (FHHs) are three times more likely to be food insecure than ones led by men.

Women and girls make up half of the starving in Sudan, at 15.3 million of the 30.4 million people currently in need. In the midst of the current humanitarian crisis brought on by the Sudanese civil war, women are increasingly seen to be leading households in the absence of men due to death, disappearances or displacement amidst the civil war, making simply living in a FHH a statistical predictor of hunger.

“With conditions now at near famine thresholds in several regions in the country, it is not just a food crisis, but a gender emergency caused by a failure of gender-responsive action,” said Salvator Nkuruniza, the UN-Women representative for Sudan.

Famine Risks for Sudan’s Women

This famine has left only 1.9 percent of FFHs food secure, compared to 5.9 percent of male-headed households (MHHs) reporting food security. 45 percent of the FHHs reported poor food consumption which was nearly double the rate as compared to MHHs at 25.7 percent. Considering this, only one third of FHHs have an acceptable diet in comparison to half of MHHs. In these worsening conditions 73.7 percent of women nationally are not meeting the minimum dietary diversity, which is limiting nutrient intake and thus endangering maternal and child health.

Rates of poor food consumption have doubled in one year across FHHs, meaning a longer drawn conflict will see even worse numbers leading to the ultimate starvation of many. Nearly 15 percent of FHHs are living in conditions that meet or are near famine thresholds compared to only 7 percent of MHHs meeting the same threshold.

With all available funding, the World Food Programme (WFP) has scaled assistance to support nearly 4 million people per month, leaving an additional 26 million people still in need of support. As one representative from the UN Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told IPS, under these circumstances WFP has had to make tough calls, either shrinking assistance packages or reducing the amount of people who receive assistance. There have been cases where they have been forced to cut off all assistance in general.

Within Sudan’s civil society, women-led organizations (WLO) are playing a central role in delivering vital meals to affected groups across Sudan. Nkurunziza told IPS that “WLOS are the backbone of response in many areas,” who can access areas which the international system cannot reach. WLOs in West Kordofan are solarizing clinics, running nutrition outreach, managing mobile maternal health care, and operating informal shelters. In North Kordofan, WLOs. are running protection hotlines, distributing food, and helping displaced families find safety. Many times they are providing these services without institutional funding.

UN Women has been supporting 45 WLOs with institutional support, funding and technical assistance, which has allowed these organizations to operate across sixteen states. However, underfunding still remains a critical issue for WLOs. Nkurunziza explained how due to funding deficits, one WLO that operates across eight states was forced to shut down thirty-five of its sixty food kitchens. WLOs must also deal with serious logistical and digital constrains, making it nearly impossible to have any form of coordination meetings. Sudan is also facing the world’s largest displacement crisis, making a shrinking of operations among deteriorating consumption rates detrimental to attempts to elevate food security.

Aid Delivery Challenges

Amidst funding shortfalls, supply chains have struggled reaching critical locations due to Sudan’s size, lack of infrastructure, and weather difficulties. WFP shared that Sudan is “roughly the size of western Europe”, and as such they and other humanitarian actors are having to transport humanitarian items over 2500 kilometers across deserts and challenging terrain. They added that road infrastructure in remote areas such as Darfur and Kordofan has further increased the difficulty. The rainy season between April and October has also added further complications, which has made many roads completely flooded or impassable.

WFP said that the conflict has not only affected supply chains, but trade routes themselves. Among the besieged cities of El Fasher and Kadulgi, supplies remain limited and far and few. WFP is “extremely concerned about the catastrophic situation, especially in El Fasher and Kadulgi and urgently [needed] guarantees of safe passage to get supplies in – while we continue supporting with digital cash transfer”. This comes amidst not being able to deliver food and aid supplies by road.

Gender Disparities and Solutions

Nkurunziza told IPS that even before the conflict, women and girls “faced challenges in accessing their rights due to cultural norms and traditional practices”, adding that this conflict has only widened these gaps.

Food access is only one example of how gender inequality manifests during this crisis. Nkurunziza noted that food queues are often dominated by men compared to women from FHHs. He added that women have been “largely left out” of decision-making spaces, therefore their specific needs are “frequently overlooked”.

The search for food has caused an increase in harmful coping mechanisms like child marriage, sexual exploitation, female genital mutilation, and child labor. The nature of these harmful instances come from unchecked sexual exploitation and abuse due to the lack of law enforcement and government in many areas. Since April 2023, 1,138 cases of rape have been recorded, including 193 children. This number is expected to be even higher, as social and security fears may be preventing accurate reporting of gender-based violence crimes.

“The conflict has magnified every existing inequality,” Nkurunziza said, adding that this created the need for responsive action, moving beyond simple rhetoric.

In their report, UN Women outlined several measures that needed to be adopted in order to diminish famine conditions among women, including prioritizing food distribution and assistance planning to FHHs and establishing localized distribution sites, thus reducing movement-related risks for women. They also recommended increased representation in local aid committees and decision-making spaces by at least 40 percent. They called for increasing investment and funding to WLO’s, which are currently receiving less than 2 percent of humanitarian aid funds.

Despite these challenges, Nkurunziza said that WLOs are still working to feed families. “They are not waiting for permission — they are responding. The question is whether the system will finally recognize them as equal partners or continue to leave them behind.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Beyond Lives Saved: Why Early Warning Systems Are a Smart Investment

Posted on August 8, 2025 by admin

Asia-Pacific, Civil Society, Climate Change, Development & Aid, Environment, Featured, Global, Headlines, International Justice, Natural Resources, Sustainable Development Goals, TerraViva United Nations, Trade & Investment

Opinion

A buoy in a sea of Vladivostok, Russia is tracking movement of waves. Early warning system is vital for effective disaster management. Credit: Unsplash/Ant Rozetsky

BANGKOK, Thailand, Aug 8 2025 (IPS) – Significant progress has been made globally in implementing national and local disaster risk reduction strategies. Yet, the impact of disasters on lives and economies persists and disaster resilience is one of the most regressed areas in Sustainable Development Goal implementation.

Moreover, climate change is intensifying the frequency and severity of disasters. Under a 1.5°C warming scenario, average annualized losses could reach 2.4 per cent of GDP.

Traditionally, early warning systems (EWS) have focused on saving lives. While reasonable, this narrow framing often leaves potential co-benefits untapped. Given today’s strained economic and political context, investments in resilience must also generate broader economic and developmental benefits.

This potential payoff is no myth, latest studies show that every US$1 invested in adaptation is expected to yield over $10.50 in benefits over a 10 year period.

The Triple Dividend of Resilience model offers a comprehensive rationale for investment, emphasizing three interconnected benefits:

1: Saving lives and avoiding losses

The 2024 Global status on MHEWS found that countries with less comprehensive multi-hazard early warning systems (MHEWS) have a disaster-related mortality ratio that is nearly six times higher than that of countries with ‘substantial’ to ‘comprehensive’ MHEWS. Moreover, providing just 24 hours’ notice of an impending storm can reduce potential damage by 30 per cent.

For small island developing states, this potential can be higher – one study found that over 80 per cent of Cyclone Evans’ economic destruction in Samoa, amounting to 28 per cent of the country’s GDP, could have been avoided through efficient EWS.

Largely untapped, heat early warning systems also have proven benefits, from saving lives (see Ahmedabad’s Heat Action plan, which averts an estimated 1,190 heat-related deaths annually) to demonstrating clear economic benefits (for example, Adelaide’s Heat Health Warning System with a benefit-cost ratio of 2.0–3.3 by reducing heat-related hospital admissions and ambulance callouts).

2. Resource Management and Optimization

EWS enhance decision-making across sectors such as agriculture, water management, and energy, providing reliable, timely forecasts to support more efficient and sustainable operations. Crop advisory services boost yields by an estimated $4 billion and $7.7 billion annually in India and China, respectively. Some studies demonstrating that a 1 per cent increase in forecast accuracy results in 0.34 per cent increase in crop yields.

Similarly, fisherfolk earnings can be optimised when supported by Fishing Zone advisories that take into account the changing climate (in the same study, India’s fisherfolk are reported to earn Rs.17,820 more each trip when using the Potential Fishing Zone advisory of INCOIS).

3. Unlocking Co-Benefits

In disaster-prone regions, the constant threat of extreme weather creates persistent uncertainty that discourages long-term investments, limits entrepreneurship, and shortens planning horizons. By improving hazard detection and forecasting, EWS boosts confidence for both local and foreign investments. Beyond economic gains, the third dividend also delivers social and environmental co-benefits, regardless of whether disasters occur.

When EWSs are developed with active community involvement, social cohesion often follows (Viet Nam’s community-based early warning demonstrate this intangible benefit clearly).

Regional collaboration is a pathway to unlocking the triple dividend of resilience.

A key outcome of the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) in Seville reaffirmed the importance of multilateralism as a framework for addressing global challenges.

Initiatives like ESCAP’s multi-donor Trust Fund for Tsunami, Disaster and Climate Preparedness, has proven the success of pooled investments in regional early warning solutions. A recent Cost Benefit Analysis funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, reviewed 20 years of Trust Fund investments and found that each dollar invested had generated equivalent 3.7-5.5 dollars in benefits (see Figure below).

Source: ESCAP Authors

Established by the Trust Fund is an example of reduced DRR costs maximising benefits: the Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System (RIMES) has developed into a fit-for-purpose operational hub, now supporting 62 countries across Asia, Africa and the Pacific with advances and interoperable early warning solutions.

Through shared infrastructure, forecasting data, and governance mechanisms, these partnerships help countries lower individual costs, improve transboundary risk monitoring, and attract more sustained technical and financial support.

These regional disaster risk management approaches go beyond saving lives and deliver social, economic, and environmental co-benefits, unlocking a cycle of development and risk reduction. As disasters are turning more complex with compounding and cascading impacts, our shared early warning should remain agile, sustained and leverage the advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Looking ahead, the pay-off from preparedness will be realised when policy and financial environments are reframed to truly optimise the return on investment of sustained DRM efforts at all levels.

As the UNDRR Global Assessment Report 2025 highlights, disaster and climate risks must be embedded at the heart of financial decisions and policy frameworks, not simply as crises to respond to. To do this, dedicated financing mechanisms are required to ensure sustained and predictable support for regional DRM initiatives. Of equal importance is national governments support for the integration of EWS into national and regional development planning.

ESCAP is uniquely placed to support this shift by scaling multi-hazard early warning systems that deliver the triple dividend of resilience., The upcoming ESCAP Committee on Disaster Risk Reduction provides a timely opportunity for countries to endorse a forward-looking agenda that reinforces early warning as essential infrastructure.

In today’s climate-uncertain world, the policy case for investing in disaster resilience is clear. DRM is crucial not only for lifesaving but also a driver of sustainable growth.

Temily Baker is Programme Management Officer, Disaster Risk Reduction Section (DRS); Morgan Schmeising Barnes is Intern, DRS; and Sanjay Srivastava is Retired, Former Chief DRS.
SDGs 1, 13, 17

IPS UN Bureau

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Embracing the Innovation Imperative: Tech-Governance at a Crossroads

Posted on August 6, 2025 by admin

Civil Society, Featured, Global, Global Governance, Headlines, IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

Against the backdrop of disruptive global forces that create new challenges, risks, and opportunities for development, security, and the global order itself, the need for effective “tech-governance” – including the engagement of all countries, big and small, through existing global institutions – has never been more urgent

Technological change is unleashing a new era in productivity and creativity with far-reaching implications for global development and security. But, beyond adopting new, non-binding normative frameworks, all UN member states must come together to improve the management of new and emerging technologies to better leverage their many benefits, while mitigating multiple risks. Credit: istock

DOHA / WASHINGTON, DC, Aug 6 2025 (IPS) – Technological progress and the course of human history have moved forward together; more recent technological innovations have emerged with unprecedented speed and reach, deeply influencing many areas of human activity.

Advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning (consisting of neural networks), for instance, enable machines to process new information in real-time. As federated learning becomes more widespread, machine learning models can collaborate without the need to share sensitive data, thereby enhancing privacy and security.

These and other recent technological developments will find applications in sectors such as healthcare, where advanced algorithms can support personalized diagnosis and treatment. New and emerging technologies, including nanotechnology and human enhancement technology, have implications for international peace and security too.

Amidst the highest number of armed conflicts since 1946, military technologies are evolving rapidly in both damage potential and distribution.

Artificial intelligence and other technologies are fast expanding the autonomous capabilities of weapons and accelerating the spread of digital dis- and misinformation. At the same time, if present trends persist, only a few countries may dominate this space, in terms of both technological innovation and “setting-the-rules” for their governance.

Against the backdrop of disruptive global forces that create new challenges, risks, and opportunities for development, security, and the global order itself, the need for effective “tech-governance” – including the engagement of all countries, big and small, through existing global institutions – has never been more urgent.

In short, effective tech-governance helps countries to employ common principles (including safety and transparency), codes of practice, and regulation to implement shared values and protect basic human rights.

Successful governance of new and emerging technologies at the global level will require the UN’s 193 member states to not only adopt new, non-binding normative frameworks (such as the recently endorsed Global Digital Compact), but also to build upon them by pursuing targeted innovations in global governance.

In the Future of International Cooperation Report 2024, produced by the Doha Forum, the Stimson Center, and the Global Institute for Strategic Research, we call for assembling an International Scientific Panel on AI (ISPAI) that extends beyond the Global Digital Compact’s limited description focused on promoting “scientific understanding through evidence-based impact, risk and opportunity assessments.”

Feeding into current intergovernmental deliberations in New York co-facilitated by the Governments of Spain and Costa Rica, we believe the ISPAI should be tasked with producing knowledge products and increasing awareness of AI risk, principles, and regulations for policy-makers.

Modeled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the ISPAI’s ultimate objective could be to understand and address the impact of emerging digital information technologies on the world’s social, economic, political, and natural systems.

The extraordinary pace of AI innovation requires an agile and fast-paced approach to scientific assessment by continually evaluating the technology’s evolving capabilities and ramifications.

A community of practice through an AI Frontier Collaborative would further assist the ISPAI with a new international public-private partnership for expanding access to – as well as investing in – AI technology from leading private sector AI developers, where much of the innovation happens outside the public realm.

Such an initiative would build upon public-private conversations at the recent AI Action Summit in Paris and complement the Global Digital Compact’s commitment to stand-up a Global Dialogue on AI Governance, designed to engage the 118 UN Member States (primarily from the Global South) that do not belong to any of the current seven major international AI governance initiatives.

Additionally, the International Scientific Panel on AI could function as a subsidiary of, and with direct administrative support from, an International Artificial Intelligence Agency (IA2), as elaborated in this forum.

Advising the UN General Assembly and Security Council, the IA2 would boost visibility, advocacy, and resource-mobilization for global AI regulation, while monitoring, evaluation, and reporting on AI industry safeguards. It could further help countries to combat AI-enabled disinformation and the resulting misinformation that can fuel violence and aid terrorist and criminal organizations.

Critically, a scientific panel (like the ISPAI) requires an agile policy platform (like the IA2), as a chief beneficiary of ISPAI’s analysis and recommendations. This will help to ensure its policy relevance and impact, as well as to serve as a central coordination mechanism for AI and related cybertech expertise across the UN system.

Artificial intelligence and other new and emerging technologies make possible powerful new tools for problem-solving. But they also raise serious governance challenges, including in the spheres of global development and security. Effective regulation to maximize their benefits and minimize risks requires the astute combination of advanced knowledge, multistakeholder approaches, and an agile policy interface.

To prevent unbridled competition – dominated by only a select few large companies backed-up by equally large and powerful countries – from leaving everyone worse off, let alone precipitating a serious lose-lose confrontation, we must continuously update global governance tools and mechanisms to keep pace with technological advances.

Improving their effective global management will continue to usher in benefits for potentially billions of people worldwide while, simultaneously, mitigating technological risks.

Mubarak Al-Kuwari is Executive Director of the Doha Forum; Richard Ponzio is Director of the Global Governance, Justice, and Security Program and a senior fellow at the Stimson Center;

Mohamed Ali Chihi is Executive Director of the Global Institute for Strategic Research.

IPS UN Bureau

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