How Mongolia Can Expedite It’s Just Transition Plans to Include Its Nomads

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Youth

Gereltuya Bayanmukh speaks about her motivations to become involved in climate activism. Credit: Leo Galduh/IPS

Gereltuya Bayanmukh speaks about her motivations to become involved in climate activism. Credit: Leo Galduh/IPS

ULAANBAATAR, Jul 9 2025 (IPS) – Youth activist Gereltuya Bayanmukh still reflects on the events in her formative years that inspired her to become a climate activist. When she was a child, she would visit her grandparents in a village 20 km to the south of the border between Russia and Mongolia.


She was happy to see each of the nomadic people in their traditional gers power up their settlements using solar power.

“I remember seeing my neighbors own a solar panel and a battery to accumulate power. They were turning on lights and watching TV using solar power. Nowadays, they even have fridges,” she says.

She thought the herders made a conscious choice about their lifestyles and understood the need of the hour in the face of the looming climate crisis. That is to say, switch to renewable energy and power a safer future.

“This was the reason I became a climate activist,” she says.

No matter how unwitting her notion about her community achieving self-sufficiency with renewable energy was, the findings about what entailed this system revealed something else.

“I later learned that the solar panels were partially subsidized by the government as a part of the nationwide government to equip 100,000 nomadic households with solar energy,” she says.

What she perceived turned out to be a nationwide renewable energy scheme by the Mongolian government for the nomadic herders.

The scheme, called the National 100,000 Solar Ger [Yurt] Electricity Program, introduced in 2000, provided herders with portable photovoltaic solar home systems that complement their traditional nomadic lifestyle.

At least 30 percent of Mongolia’s population comprises nomadic herders. Before 2000, when the scheme came into effect, herders had limited or no access to modern electricity. By 2005, the government managed to equip over 30,000 herder families through funds from several donor nations.

However, the full-scale electrification effort for herders was beginning to stagnate. The 2006 midterm custom audit performance report by the Standing Committee on Environment, Food and Agriculture of the Parliament carried sobering revelations.

The scheme in its initial phase was poorly managed: there was no control over the distribution process, with some units delivered to local areas landing in the hands of non-residents violating the contract, failure to deliver the targeted number of generators, misappropriation of the program funds, and inability to repay the loans within the contractual period.

However, in the third phase–2006-2012–the program was able to expand its implementation with the support of several international donors, including the World Bank.

“At first, I thought how great that we started out with the renewable energy transition, giving access to renewable energy at a lower price. And it was even in 1999. That was when I was just four years old. I believe we were on our way to building a future like this. Like we visualized here. The future of green nomadism. However, my optimism faded when I read the midterm audit report and discovered that the program had been (just as) poorly managed as the first part. It was only with the assistance of the international partners that the program finished well,” says Gereltuya.

Gereltuya is the co-founder and board director of her NGO, Green Dot Climate, which focuses on empowering youth as climate activists and raising awareness and practical skills for climate action.

One of the mottoes of her NGO is to change the youth’s and Mongolian people’s attitudes and practices around climate change issues as well as solutions.

In the past year, the NGO has been successful in reaching over half a million Mongolians, including nomads, helping them become more environmentally conscious and empowering the youth to be climate activists—makers and doers themselves.

“In the past year, we have reached over half a million Mongolians. Our Green Dot youth community has logged more than 100,000 individual climate actions, saving over 700,000 kg of CO₂, 25 liters of water, and 80,000 kilowatt-hours of energy. Next, we will aim for a million collective actions, a stronger community and a minimum of 50 collaborative climate projects in Mongolia,” Gereltuya said during her delegate speech at the One Young World Summit, a global event that brings in young leaders from around the world to discuss global issues, in 2023.

The state of Mongolia’s nomads in the current energy system

Mongolia as a country heavily relies on coal for energy production, which contributes to 90 percent of its energy production. Coming to just transition, the government aims for a 30 percent renewable energy share by 2030 of its installed capacity, as enshrined in the State Policy on Energy 2015-2030. Mongolia is also committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 22.7 percent by 2030 while the energy sector accounts for 44.78 percent of the total emissions as of 2020 according to Mongolia’s Second Biennial Update Report.

Gereltuya’s NGO, Green Dot Climate, has been mapping Mongolia’s energy systems for the past few years now. As of 2024, Mongolia’s electricity sector relies on CHP [combined heat and power] plants and imports from Russia and China to meet its electricity demands.

Only 7 percent of its total installed energy comes from renewable sources, with the Central Energy System accounting for over 80 percent of the total electricity demand. “We found that about 200,000 households remain unaccounted for in the centralized energy grid calculations. These are likely the same nomadic families or their later generations who likely adopted their first solar systems at least two decades ago,” she explains.

Gereltuya says that her organisation meticulously compared the recent household data cited by the Energy Regulatory Commission of Mongolia to that of the total  number of households as per the Mongolian Statistical Information Service to find the numbers that went missing

Mongolia’s backslide into fossil-fuel economy

Although Mongolia has promised to increase its renewable energy share to 30 percent by 2030, it is still far behind in the race to achieve its target.

In the 2020 Nationally Determined Contribution [NDC] submission to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC], Mongolia set its mitigation target to “a 22.7% reduction in total national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030,” which can increase to a 27.2 percent reduction if conditional mitigation measures such as the carbon capture and storage and waste-to-energy technology are implemented. Further, if “actions and measures to remove GHG emissions by forest are determined”, the total mitigation target would rise to 44.9 percent by 2030.

“Instead of focusing on decarbonizing its coal-based economy, Mongolia shifted to focus on carbon-sink and sequestration processes to reduce its emissions. This suggests that despite our many promises, policies and past efforts to mainstream renewables, we may still end up with business as usual. A case of bad governance, stagnation and vicious cycles,” she says.

Recommendations for Mongolia’s energy sector

Gereltuya’s NGO has been actively engaged in the survey ‘Earth Month 2025’ that is aimed at collecting specific recommendations from the youth voices in the country for the NDC 3.0 that the government is expected to submit in COP30. She shares a few recommendations that she believes can help improve the country’s energy systems.

On the demand side, households not connected to the grid should update and improve their solar home systems, especially now that the solutions are much cheaper and more efficient.

According to the 2024 World Bank ‘Mongolia Country Climate and Development Report,’ the average residential tariff for electricity in Mongolia was estimated to be 40 percent below cost recovery, and subsidies were worth 3.5 percent of GDP in 2022. The lack of cost recovery created hurdles in efforts to enhance energy efficiency and investment in renewable energy. In the context, those connected to the grid should pay more for their energy use to reflect the real cost of energy production and support renewable energy feed-in tariffs. There should be responsible voting of citizens demanding better policies and implementations and not trading in policies for short-term gains.

On the supply side, there is a need to stop new fossil fuel projects immediately: there are at least six such projects, including one international project under Mongolia’s current Energy Revival Policy, underway.

Secondly, Mongolia’s electricity infrastructure needs significant improvement. As the UNDP recently highlighted, Mongolia’s infrastructure is aging, inefficient and heavily subsidized.

Thirdly, fully utilize installed energy capacity, which is at only 30 percent, largely owing to the infrastructure inefficiency.

Fourth is to increase the overall renewable energy capacity five times to meet demand, which means 15 times the energy made in full demand. And phase out coal-based power, replacing it with fully renewable energy.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Bangladesh’s Democratic Promise Hangs in the Balance

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Opinion

Credit: Abdul Goni/Reuters via Gallo Images

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Jul 7 2025 (IPS) – When Bangladesh’s streets erupted in protest in mid-2024, few could have predicted how swiftly Sheikh Hasina’s regime would crumble. The ousting of the prime minister last August, after years of mounting authoritarianism and growing discontent, was heralded as a historic opportunity for democratic renewal. Almost a year on, the question remains whether Bangladesh is genuinely evolving towards democracy, or if one form of repression is replacing another.


The interim government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, confronts enormous challenges in delivering meaningful change. While it has taken significant steps – releasing political prisoners, initiating constitutional reforms, signing international human rights treaties and pursuing accountability for past violations – persistent abuses, political exclusion and economic instability continue to cast long shadows over the transition. The coming months will prove decisive in determining whether Bangladesh can truly break from its authoritarian past.

From electoral fraud to revolution

The roots of Bangladesh’s current upheaval trace back to the deeply flawed general election of 7 January 2024. The vote, which saw Hasina’s Awami League (AL) secure a fourth consecutive term, was widely dismissed as a foregone conclusion. The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party boycotted the election in protest at the government’s refusal to reinstate a neutral caretaker system.

The government unleashed an intense crackdown ahead of the vote. It imprisoned thousands of opposition activists and weaponised the criminal justice system to silence dissent, leading to deaths in police custody and enforced disappearances. This repression extended to civil society, with human rights activists and journalists facing harassment, arbitrary detention and violence. The government sponsored fake opposition candidates to create an illusion of competition, resulting in plummeting voter turnout and a crisis of legitimacy.

When opposition rallies occurred, they were met with overwhelming force. On 28 October 2023, police responded to a major opposition protest in Dhaka with rubber bullets, teargas and stun grenades, resulting in at least 16 deaths, with thousands injured and detained.

The situation deteriorated further after the election. In June 2024, the reinstatement of a controversial quota system for public sector jobs triggered mass student-led protests that would ultimately topple Hasina’s government. These protests rapidly evolved into a broader revolt against entrenched corruption, economic inequality and political impunity.

The government’s response was systematically brutal. According to a United Nations fact-finding report, between July and August security forces killed as many as 1,400 people, including many children, often shooting protesters at point-blank range. They denied the injured medical care and intimidated hospital staff. The scale of violence eventually led the military to refuse further involvement, forcing Hasina to resign and flee Bangladesh.

Reform efforts amid political discord

The interim government identified three core priorities: institutional reforms, trials of perpetrators of political violence and elections. Its initial months brought significant progress. The government released detained protesters and human rights defenders, signed the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances and established a commission of inquiry into enforced disappearances.

This commission documented around 1,700 complaints and found evidence of systematic use of enforced disappearances to target political opponents and activists, with direct complicity by Hasina and senior officials. In October, the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal issued arrest warrants for Hasina and 44 others for massacres during the 2024 protests, although the tribunal has a troubled history and retains the death penalty, contrary to international norms.

The Constitution Reform Commission has proposed expanding fundamental rights, with a bicameral parliament and term limits for top offices. However, the process has been undermined by the exclusion of major political players – most notably the AL – and minority groups.

Political tensions escalated as the interim government faced mounting pressure to set a general election date. Opposition parties accused it of deliberate stalling. The army chief publicly demanded elections by the end of 2025, while student groups sought postponement until reforms and justice were secured. After initial uncertainty, the government announced the election would occur in April 2026.

The most dramatic escalation came in May, when the interim government banned all AL activities under the Anti-Terrorism Act following renewed protests. The Election Commission subsequently suspended the AL’s registration, effectively barring it from future elections and fundamentally altering Bangladesh’s political landscape.

Economic challenges compound these political difficulties. Bangladesh remains fragile after devastating floods in 2024, while the banking sector faces stress from surging non-performing loans. Inflation continues outpacing wage growth and economic austerity measures agreed with the International Monetary Fund have sparked fresh protests.

Authoritarian patterns persist

Despite promises of change, old patterns of repression prove stubborn. Human rights groups document ongoing security forces abuses, including arbitrary arrests of opposition supporters and journalists, denial of due process and continued lack of accountability for past crimes. In the first two months of 2025 alone, over 1,000 police cases were filed against tens of thousands of people, mainly AL members or perceived supporters. A February crackdown on Hasina’s supporters led to over 1,300 arrests.

Press freedom remains severely threatened. In November, the interim government revoked the accreditation of 167 journalists. Around 140 journalists viewed as aligned with the previous regime have faced charges, with 25 accused of crimes against humanity, forcing many into hiding. Attacks on media outlets continue, including vandalism of newspaper offices.

The draft Cyber Protection Ordinance, intended to replace the repressive Cyber Security Act, has drawn criticism for retaining vague provisions criminalising defamation and ‘hurting religious sentiments’ while granting authorities sweeping powers for warrantless searches. Rights groups warn this law could stifle dissent in the run-up to elections.

Uncertain path forward

Bangladesh’s journey demonstrates that democratic transitions are inherently difficult, nonlinear and deeply contested processes. Democracy isn’t a guaranteed outcome, but the chances improve when political leaders are genuinely committed to reform and inclusive dialogue, and political players, civil society and the public practise sustained vigilance.

While the interim government has achieved steps unthinkable under the previous regime, the persistence of arbitrary arrests, attacks on journalists and the exclusion of key political players suggests authoritarianism’s shadow still looms large.

The upcoming general election will provide a crucial test of whether Bangladesh can finally turn the page on authoritarianism. The answer lies in whether Bangladeshis across government, civil society and beyond are able to build something genuinely new. The stakes are high in a country where many have already sacrificed much for the promise of democratic freedom.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

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Democracy under Attack: Why the World Needs a New UN Special Rapporteur

Active Citizens, Armed Conflicts, Civil Society, Crime & Justice, Democracy, Featured, Global, Headlines, Human Trafficking, Press Freedom, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

Cover photo by OHCHR

BRUSSELS, Belgium / MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Jul 2 2025 (IPS) – When tanks rolled through Myanmar’s streets in 2021, civil society groups worldwide sounded the alarm. When Viktor Orbán systematically dismantled Hungary’s free press, democracy activists demanded international action. And as authoritarianism returns to Tanzania ahead of elections, it’s once again civil society calling for democratic freedoms to be respected.


Around the world, authoritarian populists have learned to maintain democratic language and rituals while gutting democracy’s substance. They hold fraudulent elections with no real opposition and crack down on civil society when it tries to uphold democratic freedoms. As a result, more than 70 per cent of the world’s population lives in countries where civic space is routinely repressed.

In response, over 175 civil society organisations and 500 activists have united behind a demand to help improve respect for democratic freedoms, calling on the UN to establish a Special Rapporteur on Democracy.

The proposal isn’t coming from diplomatic corridors or academia; it’s a grassroots call from the frontlines of a global democratic struggle. Democracy defenders who face harassment, imprisonment and violence have identified a gap in international oversight that emboldens authoritarians and lets down those fighting for democratic rights when they most need support.

Critical blind spots

While the UN investigates everything from torture to toxic waste through specialised rapporteurs, democracy – supposedly a core UN principle – receives no systematic international oversight. This is a blind spot civil society wants to change.

Today’s threats to democracy are often more subtle than outright coups and blatant election rigging. Repressive leaders have mastered the art of legal authoritarianism, using constitutional amendments to extend term limits, judicial re-engineering to capture courts and media laws to silence critics, all while maintaining a facade of democratic governance.

In countries from Belarus to Venezuela, elections have been turned into elaborate ceremonies emptied of competition. Even established democracies face growing challenges, with foreign influence and disinformation campaigns documented across dozens of recent elections, often amplified by AI that creates deepfakes faster than fact-checkers can debunk them.

The rise of right-wing populism across Europe and in the USA shows how easily democratic processes can elevate leaders who systematically undermine democratic institutions from within, weaponising the law to concentrate executive authority, criminalise opposition and restrict civic space.

These evolving threats expose fundamental gaps in how the international community monitors and responds to democratic regression. The proposed UN Special Rapporteur on Democracy would help fill this gap: unlike current mandates that focus on specific rights, this role would examine how democratic systems function as a whole.

Existing UN Special Rapporteurs have recognised the urgent need for dedicated democracy oversight, with the Special Rapporteurs on freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, freedom of opinion and expression, and the independence of judges and lawyers highlighting how democratic backsliding undermines the rights they’re mandated to protect.

A democracy rapporteur could investigate the full spectrum of threats that escape international attention: how electoral systems become compromised through legal manipulation, how parliamentary oversight gets systematically weakened while maintaining constitutional appearances, how judicial independence is eroded through seemingly legitimate reforms, and how meaningful participation beyond elections gets stifled through bureaucratic restrictions.

Crucially, the mandate could document not just obvious authoritarian crackdowns but the subtler forms of democratic erosion that often escape international notice until democratic institutions are compromised, offering early warnings about gradual processes that transform vibrant democracies into hollow shells.

Legal foundations

The proposal builds on solid legal foundations. Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights establishes that ‘public authority must derive from the will of the people’, while article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights recognises every citizen’s right to participate in public affairs and vote in free, fair and clean periodic elections.

Regional mechanisms provide valuable precedents. The Inter-American Democratic Charter explicitly states that ‘the peoples of the Americas have a right to democracy and their governments have an obligation to promote and defend it’. Building on this, Guatemala has recently requested an advisory opinion to clarify whether democracy constitutes a fundamental human right and what tangible obligations this imposes on states.

These foundations provide an actionable definition of democracy that respects diverse democratic models while upholding universal principles, sidestepping cultural relativist arguments that some authoritarian governments use to avoid accountability.

Momentum building

The proposal has generated remarkable momentum. On the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a broad coalition of civil society groups and think tanks published a joint statement calling for the appointment of a UN Special Rapporteur on Democracy.

Civil society leadership reflects widespread frustration among democracy activists who work under increasingly dangerous conditions and demand better institutional responses. Budget-conscious states should find this proposal attractive given the remarkable cost-effectiveness of the UN mandates system. Following standard UN practice, the new position would be unpaid, relying on voluntary funding from supportive states.

During its recent 58th session, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on human rights, democracy and the rule of law, conferring multilateral legitimacy on governments that want to support stronger democracy oversight. The window for action is open, but it won’t stay open indefinitely.

A test for international institutions

No single initiative will reverse global democratic decline. But this new role would enable systematic documentation, trend spotting and the sustained international attention democracy defenders desperately need. The rapporteur could investigate not just obvious authoritarian crackdowns but early signs of subtler democratic erosion, while highlighting innovations and good practices that others could adapt.

The debate over a UN Special Rapporteur on Democracy offers a test of whether international institutions can adapt to contemporary challenges or will remain trapped in outdated approaches while democracy crumbles. Creating this mandate would communicate that the international community takes democratic governance seriously enough to monitor it systematically – a signal that matters to democracy activists who need international support and serves as a warning to authoritarian leaders who thrive when nobody is watching.

With hundreds of civil society groups leading this charge from the frontlines of democratic struggle, the question isn’t whether this oversight is needed, but whether the UN will act before it’s too late.

Samuel King is a researcher with the Horizon Europe-funded research project ENSURED: Shaping Cooperation for a World in Transition at CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, and Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, writer at CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

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‘Enabling Machines to Make Life and Death Decisions Is Morally Unjustifiable’

Active Citizens, Armed Conflicts, Civil Society, Crime & Justice, Featured, Global, Global Geopolitics, Headlines, Human Rights, TerraViva United Nations

Jun 27 2025 (IPS) –  
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 over 270 organisations that campaigns for a new international treaty on autonomous weapons systems.


Nicole van Rooijen

In May, United Nations (UN) member states convened in New York for the first time to confront the challenge of regulating autonomous weapons systems, which can select and engage targets without human intervention. These ‘killer robots’ pose unprecedented ethical, humanitarian and legal risks, and civil society warns they could trigger a global arms race while undermining international law. With weapons that have some autonomy already deployed in conflicts from Gaza to Ukraine, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has set a 2026 deadline for a legally binding treaty.

What are autonomous weapons systems and why do they pose unprecedented challenges?

Autonomous weapons systems, or ‘killer robots’, are weapons that, once activated by a human, can select and engage targets without further human intervention. These systems make independent decisions – without the intervention of a human operator – about when, how, where and against whom to use force, processing sensor data or following pre-programmed ‘target profiles’. Rather than using the term ‘lethal autonomous weapons systems’, our campaign refers to ‘autonomous weapons systems’ to emphasise that any such system, lethal or not, can inflict serious harm.

The implications are staggering. These weapons could operate across all domains – air, land, sea and space – during armed conflicts and law enforcement or border control operations. They raise numerous ethical, humanitarian, legal and security concerns.

The most troubling variant involves anti-personnel systems triggered by human presence or individuals or groups who meet pre-programmed target profiles. By reducing people to data points for algorithmic targeting, these weapons are dehumanising. They strip away our inherent rights and dignity, dramatically increasing the risk of unjust harm or death. No machine, computer or algorithm can recognise a human as a human being, nor respect humans as inherent bearers of rights and dignity. Autonomous weapons cannot comprehend what it means to be in a state of war, much less what it means to have – or to end – a human life. Enabling machines to make life and death decisions is morally unjustifiable.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has noted it is ‘difficult to envisage’ scenarios where autonomous weapons wouldn’t pose significant risks of violating international humanitarian law, given the inevitable presence of civilians and non-combatants in conflict zones.

Currently, no international law governs these weapons’ development or use. As the technology advances rapidly, this legal vacuum creates a dangerous environment where autonomous weapons could be deployed in ways that violate existing international law while escalating conflicts, enabling unaccountable violence and harming civilians. This is what prompted the UN Secretary-General and the ICRC president to jointly call for urgent negotiations on a legally binding international instrument on autonomous weapons systems by 2026.

How have recent consultations advanced the regulatory agenda?

The informal consultations held in New York in May, mandated by UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 79/62, focused on issues raised in the UN Secretary-General’s 2024 report on autonomous weapons systems. They sought to broaden awareness among the diplomatic community and complement the work around the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), emphasising risks that extend far beyond international humanitarian law.

The UNGA offers a crucial advantage: universal participation. Unlike the CCW process in Geneva, it includes all states. This is particularly important for global south states, many of which are not a party to the CCW.

Over two days, states and civil society explored human rights implications, humanitarian consequences, ethical dilemmas, technological risks and security threats. Rich discussions emerged around regional dynamics and practical scenarios, examining how these weapons might be used in policing, border control and by non-state actors or criminal groups. While time constraints prevented exhaustive exploration of all issues, the breadth of engagement was unprecedented.

The Stop Killer Robots campaign found these consultations energising and strategically valuable. They demonstrated how UN processes in Geneva and New York can reinforce each other: while one forum provides detailed technical groundwork, particularly in developing treaty language, the other fosters inclusive political leadership and momentum. Both forums should work in tandem to maximise global efforts to achieve an international legally binding instrument on autonomous weapons systems.

What explains the global divide on regulation?

The vast majority of states support a legally binding treaty on autonomous weapons systems, favouring a two-tier approach that combines prohibitions with positive obligations.

However, roughly a dozen states oppose any form of regulation. Among them are some of the world’s most heavily militarised states and the primary developers, producers and likely users of autonomous weapons systems. Their resistance likely stems from the desire to preserve military superiority and protect economic interests, and the belief in inflated claims about these weapons’ supposed benefits promoted by big tech and arms industries. Or perhaps they simply favour force over diplomacy.

Whatever their motivations, this opposition underscores the urgent need for the international community to reinforce a rules-based global order that prioritises dialogue, multilateralism and responsible governance over unchecked technological ambition.

How do geopolitical tensions and corporate influence complicate international regulation efforts?

It is undeniable that geopolitical tensions and corporate influence are challenging the development of regulations for emerging technologies.

A handful of powerful states are prioritising narrow military and economic advantages over collective security, undermining the multilateral cooperation that has traditionally governed arms control. Equally troubling is the expanding influence of the private sector, particularly large tech companies that operate largely outside established accountability frameworks while wielding significant sway over political leaders.

This dual pressure is undermining the international rules-based order precisely when we most need stronger multilateral governance. Without robust regulatory frameworks that can withstand these pressures, development of autonomous weapons risks accelerating unchecked, with profound implications for global security and human rights.

How is civil society shaping this debate and advocating for regulation?

Anticipating the challenges autonomous weapons systems would pose, leading human rights organisations and humanitarian disarmament experts founded the Stop Killer Robots campaign in 2012. Today, our coalition spans over 270 organisations across more than 70 countries, working at national, regional and global levels to build political support for legally binding regulation.

We’ve played a leading role in shaping global discourse by highlighting the wide-ranging risks these technologies pose and producing timely research on weapons systems evolution and shifting state positions.

Our multi-level strategy targets all decision-makers who can influence this agenda, at local, regional and global levels. It’s crucial that political leaders understand how autonomous weapons might be used in warfare and other contexts, enabling them to advocate effectively within their spheres of influence for the treaty we urgently need.

Public pressure is key to our approach. Recent years have seen growing weapons systems autonomy and military applications, particularly in ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, alongside rising use of technologies such as facial recognition in civilian contexts. Public concern about the dehumanising nature of these technologies and the lack of regulation has grown online and offline. We frame these concerns along the whole spectrum of automated harm, with autonomous weapons representing the extreme, and highlight the critical need to close the gap between innovation and regulation.

We also collaborate with experts from arms, military and technology sectors to bring real-world knowledge and credibility to our treaty advocacy. It is crucial to involve those who develop and deploy autonomous weapons to demonstrate the gravity of current circumstances and the urgent need for regulation.

We encourage people to take action by signing our petition, asking their local political representatives to sign our Parliamentary Pledge or just spreading the word about our campaign on social media. This ultimately puts pressure on diplomats and other decision-makers to advance the legal safeguards we desperately need.

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Increased Demand for Cobalt Fuels Ongoing Humanitarian Crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Africa, Armed Conflicts, Child Labour, Civil Society, Development & Aid, Editors’ Choice, Featured, Human Rights, Humanitarian Emergencies, Inequality, Labour, Migration & Refugees, Natural Resources, Population, Sustainable Development Goals, TerraViva United Nations, Trade & Investment, Youth

Labour

Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Living in Camp Roe in the Democratic Republic of Congo Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Living in Camp Roe in the Democratic Republic of Congo Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 26 2025 (IPS) – 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, Congolese laborers face abuse and life-threatening conditions working in unregulated mines.


Used in a variety of products ranging from vitamins to phone and car batteries, minerals are a necessity, making daily tasks run smoothly. The DRC is currently known as the world’s largest producer of cobalt, accounting for nearly 75 percent of global cobalt production. With such high demands for the mineral, unsafe and poorly regulated mining operations are widespread across the DRC.

The exploitation of workers is largely seen in informal, artisanal, small-scale mines, which account for 15 to 30 percent of the DRC’s cobalt production. Unlike large industrial mines with access to powerful machines, artisanal mine workers typically excavate by hand. They face toxic fumes, dust inhalation, and the risk of landslides and mines collapsing daily.

Aside from unpaid forced labor, artisanal small-scale mines can be a surprisingly good source of income for populations with limited education and qualifications. The International Peace Information Service (IPIS) reports that miners can make around 2.7 to 3.3 USD per day. In comparison, about 73 percent of the population in the DRC makes 1.90 USD or less per day. However, even with slightly higher incomes than most, miners still struggle to make ends meet.

Adult workers are not the only group facing labor abuse. Due to minimal regulations and governing by labor inspectors, artisanal mines commonly use child labor. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs reports that children between the ages of 5 and 17 years old are forced to work in mineral mines across the DRC.

“They are unremunerated and exploited, and the work is often fatal as the children are required to crawl into small holes dug into the earth,” said Hervé Diakiese Kyungu, a Congolese civil rights attorney.

Kyungu testified at a congressional hearing in Washington, D.C., on July 14, 2022. The hearing was on the use of child labor in China-backed cobalt mines in the DRC. Kyungu also said that in many cases, children are forced into this work without any protection.

Children go into the mines “…using only their hands or rudimentary tools without protective equipment to extract cobalt and other minerals,” said Kyungu.

Despite the deadly humanitarian issue at hand, the solution to creating a more sustainable and safe work environment for miners is not simple. The DRC has a deep history of using forced labor for profit. Starting in the 1880s, Belgium’s King Leopold relied on forced labor by hundreds of ethnic communities across the Congo River Basin to cultivate and trade rubber, ivory and minerals.

While forced and unsafe conditions kill thousands each year, simply shutting down artisanal mining operations is not the solution. Mining can be a significant source of income for many Congolese living in poverty.

Armed groups also control many artisanal mining operations. These groups use profits acquired from mineral trading to fund weapons and fighters. It is estimated that for the past 20 years, the DRC has experienced violence from around 120 armed groups and security forces.

“The world’s economies, new technologies and climate change are all increasing demand for the rare minerals in the eastern Congo—and the world is letting criminal organisms steal and sell these minerals by brutalizing my people,” said Pétronille Vaweka during the 2023 U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) award ceremony.

Vaweka is a Congolese grandmother who has mediated peace accords in local wars.

“Africans and Americans can both gain by ending this criminality, which has been ignored too long,” said Vaweka.

One way to mitigate the crisis is through stricter laws and regulations. Many humanitarian organizations, such as the United Nations (UN) and the International Labour Organization (ILO), strongly advocate for such change.

The UN has deployed a consistent stream of peacekeepers in the DRC since the country’s independence in 1960. Notable groups such as the UN Operation in the Congo (ONUC) and the UN Organization Mission in the DRC (MONUC) were established to ensure order and peace. MONUC later expanded in 2010 to the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO).

Alongside peace missions, the UN has made multiple initiatives to combat illegal mineral trading. They also created the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which is dedicated to helping children in humanitarian crises.

The ILO has seen success through its long-standing project called the Global Accelerator Lab (GALAB). Its goal is to increase good practices and find new solutions to end child labor and forced labor worldwide. Their goal markers include innovation, strengthening workers’ voices, social protection and due diligence with transparency in supply chains.

One group they have set up to coordinate child protection is the Child Labour Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS). In 2024, the ILO reported that the program had registered over 6,200 children engaged in mining in the Haut-Katanga and Lualaba provinces.

Additionally, GALAB is working on training more labor and mining inspectors to monitor conditions and practices.

While continued support by various aid groups has significantly helped the ongoing situation in the DRC, more action is needed.

“This will require a partnership of Africans and Americans and those from other developed countries. But we have seen this kind of exploitation and war halted in Sierra Leone and Liberia—and the Africans played the leading role, with support from the international community,” Vaweka said. “We need an awakening of the world now to do the same in Congo. It will require the United Nations, the African Union, our neighboring countries. But the call to world action that can make it possible still depends on America as a leader.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Lawmakers in Maldives Pledge to Support Women Leaders

Asia-Pacific, Civil Society, Editors’ Choice, Featured, Gender, Headlines, Population, Sustainable Development Goals, TerraViva United Nations, Women in Politics, Youth

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Delegates at AFPPD’s Sub-Regional Parliamentarians’ Meeting on Women Empowerment and Investment in Young People, which focused on the ICPD Program of Action and 2030 Agenda. Credit: People’s Majlis of the Republic of Maldives

Delegates at AFPPD’s Sub-Regional Parliamentarians’ Meeting on Women Empowerment and Investment in Young People, which focused on the ICPD Program of Action and 2030 Agenda. Credit: People’s Majlis of the Republic of Maldives

MALÉ & JOHANNESBURG, Jun 26 2025 (IPS) – A meeting of parliamentarians in Malé, the Maldives, pledged to provide an enabling environment for emerging women leaders by supporting them and promoting a political culture rooted in mutual respect, inclusivity, and equal opportunity.


This was one of the main features of the Malé Declaration, agreed to by more than 40 participants from parliaments, governments, international organizations, NGOs, youth organizations, and academia across 15 countries during the AFPPD’s Sub-Regional Parliamentarians’ Meeting on Women Empowerment and Investment in Young People, which focused on the ICPD Program of Action and 2030 Agenda for sustainable development, aiming to address youth and women empowerment.

The meeting was co-hosted by the People’s Majlis of the Maldives and the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD), with support from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) through the Japan Trust Fund (JTF).

The lawmakers agreed to commission evidence-based research on barriers to women’s political participation. The research will “examine the social, cultural, economic, and institutional impediments to women’s pursuit of political office and leadership roles in the member states in Asia, including the Maldives,” the declaration said, with the outcomes serving as a foundation for targeted policy interventions and legislative reforms to enhance women’s political engagement.

Dr. Anara Naeem (MP, Huraa Constituency/Maldives)

Dr. Anara Naeem, MP, Huraa Constituency/Maldives

In an interview ahead of the meeting, Dr. Anara Naeem (MP, Huraa Constituency/Maldives) told IPS that advocating for women’s rights started when they were young and parliamentarians had an active role in ensuring that women are encouraged to become involved in the economy.

Reacting to a question on the UNFPA research, which shows that 40 percent of young women are not engaged in employment, education, or training (NEET), she noted many core challenges, including high youth unemployment despite free education up to a first university degree. The country, like others, had to deal with gender stereotypes that prioritized women’s domestic role over careers—and with social participation barriers, “stereotypes limit women’s public engagement.”

Policymakers, Naeem said, were focusing on addressing these using multiple strategies, including promoting postgraduate scholarships and vocational training (tourism, tech, and healthcare aligned with job markets), encouraging women into STEM and non-traditional fields via mentorship, and integrating leadership and career advancement programs to address the glass ceiling.

Parliamentarians were also looking at innovative ways to boost the public sector hiring of women and incentivize private sector partnerships through tax benefits, flexible work, and career progression pathways.

“We also host community dialogues (haa saaba) and engage religious leaders to shift mindsets,” Naeem said.

AFPPD’s Sub-Regional Parliamentarians’ Meeting on Women Empowerment and Investment in Young People, held in Malé, Maldives. Credit: People’s Majlis of the Republic of Maldives

AFPPD’s Sub-Regional Parliamentarians’ Meeting on Women Empowerment and Investment in Young People, held in Malé, Maldives. Credit: People’s Majlis of the Republic of Maldives

AFPPD’s Sub-Regional Parliamentarians’ Meeting on Women Empowerment and Investment in Young People, held in Malé, Maldives. Credit: People’s Majlis of the Republic of Maldives

Speakers at the AFPPD’s Sub-Regional Parliamentarians’ Meeting on Women Empowerment and Investment in Young People, held in Malé, Maldives. Credit: People’s Majlis of the Republic of Maldives

The Maldivian government was working to enforce gender equality laws (anti-discrimination, parental leave, and addressing the glass ceiling) and allocate a budget for childcare, job programs, and women’s grants, including the enforcement of paid maternity leave for up to six months and no-pay leave for a year in all government offices. It was also encouraging the private sector to do likewise.

However, the success of these plans requires “coordinated action across government, the private sector, NGOs, and communities to create relevant jobs, dismantle cultural barriers (including the glass ceiling), provide critical support (childcare, robust maternity leave), and enable flexible pathways for young women’s economic and social participation.”

Parliamentarians also committed to working with the relevant Maldivian authorities to undertake a thorough “review and enhancement of national school curriculum to align it with job matrix. This initiative shall integrate principles of gender equality, women’s rights, civic responsibility, leadership, and sustainable youth development, fostering transformative educational content to instill progressive values from an early age.”

Naeem said lawmakers were also playing a special role in addressing issues affecting the youth like drug use and mental health, where they were “combining legislative action, oversight, resource allocation, and public advocacy.”

This included updating drug laws to target traffickers, decriminalizing addiction, and prioritizing treatment. While parliamentarians were lobbying for increased funding for rehab centers and the training of psychologists and medication subsidies, they were using national media to create awareness and holding local dialogues.

“Our key focus in law reform includes better rehab frameworks, funding oversight, public awareness partnerships, building support systems, minimizing service delivery gaps, and reducing relapse—shifting towards prevention and recovery in the Maldivian context,” Naeem said.

Participants at the meeting recommitted themselves to working with all stakeholders to advance the ICPD PoA and achieve the 2030 Agenda and reaffirmed the 2024 Oslo Statement of Commitment.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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