People in Yemen impacted by war and climate shocks receive aid from the IOM. Photo credit: Majed Mohammed/IOM Yemen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 13 2025 (IPS) – Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, driven by conflict, economic collapse and climate shocks, leaves migrants desperate to return to their home countries.
Most migrants come from Ethiopia and Somalia, searching for safety or work in the Gulf countries. However, many become stranded in Yemen due to the harsh conditions and abuse.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) found that in 2024, around 60,900 migrants arrived in Yemen with no means to survive. Subsequently, they are exposed to severe protection risks, including physical and sexual violence, exploitation, abduction, detention, and debt bondage.
“With limited humanitarian resources and few service providers on the ground, migrants often suffer from hunger, untreated medical conditions, and lack of shelter. Many are stranded without access to even the most basic services,” said the IOM to IPS.
“Meanwhile, public hostility toward migrants has increased, as they are increasingly viewed as competing with vulnerable Yemeni populations for scarce assistance. The ongoing conflict in Yemen further compounds these vulnerabilities, with migrants caught in airstrikes, exposed to explosive ordnance, and lacking access to safety.”
Women and girls are the most vulnerable group of migrants traveling through Yemen. They are disproportionately threatened with gender-based and sexual abuse.
“I’ve been beaten, detained, and exploited in Yemen,” said a 24-year-old Ethiopian woman to IOM. “Most nights, I went hungry. After everything that happened to me, I am happy to go back to my home and family.”
Severe climate impacts also make it increasingly difficult for both migrants and Yemenis to access food and water. Around 17.1 million Yemenis are struggling with food insecurity, and climate-related issues are only exacerbating this crisis.
The June 2025 Migration, Environment, and Climate Change (MECC) Country Report on Yemen by the IOM says that Yemen is the 12th most water-scarce country in the world. This significantly influences food insecurity, as rising temperatures caused by climate change create unpredictable rainfall.
In some areas, severe droughts are turning fertile farmland into arid deserts, forcing farmers to plant new crops or move in search of better conditions. Meanwhile, in other communities, heavy rain is sparking extreme flooding. Impacted areas are decimated by soil erosion and disease from contaminated water.
“Areas that used to experience heavy rainfall have now suffered from drought, and farmers have to adapt to this drought by either planting drought-resistant crops, changing their livelihoods, or migrating to another location. And some areas used to suffer from drought but now experience heavy rainfall, where the intensity of rainfall has led to the emergence of new diseases brought by floods,” said an official in the General Authority for Environmental Protection responsible for planning and information to the IOM.
Together, brutal conflict and a lack of access to vital necessities significantly limit migrants’ ability to return to their home countries. The IOM reported that in 2020, around 18,200 people risked their lives traveling by sea. Overcrowded vessels traversing rough waters often capsize, killing dozens on board.
For others, their journey back home leads them through heavily war-inflicted areas. Without proper assistance, migrants are left to navigate through dangerous frontlines, risking death from armed violence and landmines.
However, programs like the IOM’s Voluntary Humanitarian Return (VHR) aim to facilitate migrants’ safe return home. VHR is one of the only solutions for stranded migrants to voluntarily return in a safe and dignified manner.
So far, the IOM has helped 66 migrants safely return this year. This is a significant drop compared to the 5,200 individuals returned in 2024.
“IOM provides lifesaving protection and health service through Migrant Response Points (MRPs) in Aden, Sanaa and Marib and Community-based Care centers in Aden and Sanaa, as well as through mobile teams along the migratory routes funded by ECHO and UK FCDO,” said the IOM to IPS. “Since 2015, IOM has been facilitating Voluntary Humanitarian Return (VHR) as the only viable solution for stranded migrants who wish to return home voluntarily, safely, and with dignity.”
The IOM is backed by numerous groups such as the European Union, the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre (KSrelief), the US State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, and the governments of Germany, France, Norway, and Finland. Unfortunately, despite widespread support for the program, more donations are urgently needed. The IOM is struggling to help migrants due to significant funding cuts.
“As migration flows continue to surge, the demand for safe and dignified return options for migrants has reached critical levels,” said Matt Huber, IOM’s former Chief of Mission in Yemen. “Without immediate funding support, the continuity of this vital programme is at risk, leaving thousands of vulnerable migrants stranded in precarious conditions with many experiencing serious protection violations.”
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.
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.
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
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
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.
For streetside sellers of artificial jewelry and for recyclers toiling under the increasingly torrid temperatures caused by climate change, innovative insurance means not all is lost when their wares are ruined or it is too hot to work. But is this a panacea or an opportunity for the authorities to ignore their responsibilities to the poorest workers of India?
Street vendor Deviben Dhaundhaliya waits by her iron-frame mobile ‘shop’ to be shifted to the marketplace for evening-time sales in Ahmedabad city in Gujarat state. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS
BHUBANESWAR/AHMEDABAD, India, Jun 26 2025 (IPS) – As Deviben Dhaundhaliya, 45, a streetside seller of artificial jewelry, waits for her husband Devabhai to arrive and help her shift their iron-frame mobile ‘shop’ to the Bhadra Fort open-air marketplace in Ahmedabad city, she tells of how “as heat increased, my wares started melting under the direct exposure to the sun, or they got discolored.”
It was not the first time Deviben’s wares got heat-damaged. It has been happening most years ever since Gujarat’s Ahmedabad city in May 2010 experienced an unprecedented week-long deadly heat wave spiking to 46.8°C. Deviben says she feels an unrelenting anxiety deep within her as summer approaches.
“For over a decade our income plummets, sickness stalks us through the hottest months.”
However, succour has arrived in India in the form of a newer kind of income protection insurance against extreme heat. A parametric microinsurance has informal sector self-employed women like Deviben covered, building their resilience to growing extreme heat in India.
Parametric insurance depends on one or a few predetermined indexes or parameters, and if these are triggered, a pre-agreed payout happens quickly, which is its attraction. The payout is regardless of the quantum of loss. This creates a much lower risk and time-effort for daily-wage-dependent insurance participants. Whereas traditional indemnity-based insurances necessitate a loss-assessing survey, taking months for compensation payout.
Parametric insurance beneficiaries often pay a small premium, which is subsidized in these initial stages, but group insurers like SEWA visualize beneficiaries realizing benefits and eventually paying.
“Livelihoods and incomes decrease by 30-50 percent due to decreased work efficiency, reduced work hours, increased raw material expenses, spoilage of goods, loss of customers, and reduced workdays due to heat-related illnesses,” according to Sahil Hebbar, Senior Coordinator in charge of the parametric micro-insurance pilot at Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA).
WMO chart: The 1991-2024 warming average trend has almost doubled from that of 1961-1990.
The World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) just-released State of the Climate in Asia 2024 finds that in 2024, Asia’s average temperature was about 1.04°C above the 1991–2020 average, ranking as the warmest or second warmest year on record, depending on the (final) dataset.
WMO warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. The 1991-2024 warming average trend has almost doubled from that of 1961-1990.
Extreme heat is one of the deadliest climate risks, responsible for almost half a million deaths per year globally, said Swiss RE one of the world’s leading providers of reinsurance. It partnered with SEWA’s group insurance in 2024.
Beyond the impacts on worker health and well-being, extreme heat can also cause a myriad of economic impacts. Globally, 675 billion hours are lost every year because of excessive heat and humidity, amounting to roughly 1.7% of global GDP, according to Swiss RE.
Women in informal employment face climate heat and exclusion
Waste recycler Hansaben Ahir checks a discarded tarpaulin sheet in Ahmedabad city, Gujarat state. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS
Around 90 percent of women workers participate in the informal employment sector in India. If they are unable to go out to work due to extreme heat conditions, they lose their daily wages. Overall, developing nations are the most exposed to the frequency of climate shocks and chronic onset of mainly extreme heat and floods. Women workers are the most impacted.
A workers’ union, SEWA members total 2.9 million informal sector women workers. Salt-pan workers, recyclers from ship-breaking yards, construction site workers, street vendors, farmers, street waste recyclers, head loaders and home-based workers are included as beneficiaries. These women survive from one day to another on daily wages averaging 150-450 rupees (USD 1.74 – USD 5.22).
Deviben sells bangles, neck pieces and eardrops of brightly colored fiber material inset in crudely worked metal and gaudy wristwatches with Tissot or CK emblazoned on their dials.
“Because we all streetside sellers sit directly exposed to the sun, dehydration is common. Sometimes my head reels like a carnival merry-go-round; I can barely stand. I go under a tree shade but for only a short while, fearing I’d lose customers,” Deviben said.
When it is really bad, she buys a packet of Oral Dehydration Solution but cannot always afford the 20 rupees (US 0.23 cents) cost.
Hansaben Ahir, 49, a waste collector and recycler, has been a SEWA member for 15 years. She said dehydration, a resultant urinary tract infection, and sudden heat cramps in her legs are so painful, she just has to sit herself down, even if on a road. Last summer she also developed hypertension, mainly stressing over a rising-cost home loan and plummeting income.
“Late-March till the end of June almost every year, my daily earnings fall to 250 rupees (USD 2.90), just half of my normal income, because customer footfall drops drastically,” Deviben, the street vendor, said.
Out-of-pocket medical expenses for the entire family take a chunk from their meager savings. “The insurance payout helps us meet medical expenses,” she said.
Where traditional insurance hesitates, parametric climate insurance can spread its reach
Home-based worker Dipikaben with her teenage friends in Odni Chawl slum, gluing stones and beads on a fabric length in Ahmedabad city in Gujarat. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS
While SEWA’s 2023 parametric heat insurance pilot was a non-starter, nevertheless, “It was a pilot, and we learned a lot of lessons,” Sahil Hebbar told IPS earlier when the parametric insurance failed to trigger any payout although 2023 was the second warmest on record in the country since 1901 according to the India Meteorological Department.
The single parameter that was considered for the 6-week pilot was satellite-determined maximum daytime temperature. Only when a consecutive 3-day average temperature topped 45-46 degrees Celsius would the women have seen a payout.
Hebbar said there is a difference between satellite-recorded temperature and that on the ground where SEWA women worked. Wet-bulb effect, that dangerous effect of heat combined with humidity that inhibits sweating to cool off the body, should be another parameter. So should high nighttime temperature, which is more harmful for health than daytime heat. Hebbar is also a consulting physician with SEWA.
The challenge, in this case of extreme temperatures, was that the perception of heat and its tolerance can be relative, with significant degrees of variation depending on the location (even within the same Indian province). Somehow local climate variations need to be reflected in the final design of the solution, according to Swiss RE which designed SEWA’s 2024 parametric insurance.
That year, with modifications to design, mainly using locale-by-locale historic temperature data, the parametric insurance was scaled up to 50,000 members across 22 districts in three provinces—Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra—up from the pilot’s 21,000 members across just 5 districts in Gujarat alone.
From getting zero payout in 2023 because of the unrealistically high trigger of 45-46 degrees Celsius, in 2024, the insurance was triggered in 17 out of the 22 districts, and 46,339 SEWA members received payouts ranging from 151-1651 rupees (USD 1.75-USD 19).
In 2023 the climate adaptation equipment that the insurance beneficiaries got for the USD 3 premium they paid were umbrellas and cooler water flasks for urban workers, while rural workers got tarpaulin and solar lanterns. In the summer of 2024, these were replaced by a cash assistance layer that triggered in all 22 districts, and members received cash assistance of 400 rupees (USD 4.64).
The two-layered combination of insurance payouts and a direct cash assistance programme helps reduce marginalized women workers’ burden of income losses from climate events.
Similarly, another Gujarat women-centric non-profit, Mahila Housing Trust (MHT), has also, in 2024 introduced parametric heat insurance as a financial safety net for urban poor communities vulnerable to extreme heat.
However, parametric insurance is now also bailing out extreme monsoon victims, and this time not non-profits but a provincial government itself, the first in India, has disaster-insured the entire State of Nagaland in India’s northeast.
Nagaland’s annual rainfall averages between 70 and 100 inches, concentrated over May to September. However, torrential rainfall squeezed into just a few days can cause havoc, triggering landslides and home and crop damage in the mountainous topography.
The pre-agreed payouts here are based on high, medium, or low flood risk zones. The parametric monsoon coverage by the Nagaland State Disaster Management Authority (NSDMA) is provided under the Disaster Risk Transfer Parametric Insurance Solution (DRTPS). It saw its first successful payout in May this year for damages during the monsoons of 2024.
However, the new insurance may not be the panacea it’s being visualized to be. A section of policy experts and climate activists questions the long-term sustainability of parametric insurance.
Such mechanisms nudge governments to abdicate responsibility, providing social safeguards
“In the face of escalating climate impacts, the notion that insurance can serve as a panacea is not only misguided but dangerous. As climate impacts grow more severe, large areas of our planet are becoming impossible to insure. This means that the safety net of insurance is disappearing, even in the most developed parts of the world. Moreover, the structure of parametric insurance, which disburses funds based on predetermined triggers rather than actual losses, starkly fails those in dire need, often leaving them with a fraction of what is required to rebuild their lives,” climate activist Harjeet Singh told IPS.
“Such mechanisms not only deepen existing inequalities but also perilously nudge governments towards abdicating their duty to provide essential social safeguards. These very protections are vital for communities to rebuild their livelihoods and homes after disasters,” Singh, a lead campaigner for the United Nations’s Loss and Damage movement, added.
“We must pivot towards social protection mechanisms, such as unconditional cash transfers post-disaster, subsidized food grains, guaranteed wage employment for the able-bodied, and financial support for reconstructing homes, livelihoods, and ecosystem restoration. These not only assist in immediate recovery but also strike at the heart of vulnerability, fostering a resilient recovery from the climate-induced devastation,” he said.
“This is not merely a matter of policy preference but a fundamental human right for communities on the front line of the climate crisis. Robust social protection is required for genuine resilience and a fairer, more equitable response to the climate emergency,” he asserted.
Note: This feature is published with the support of Open Society Foundations.
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Jun 25 2025 (IPS) – Poland’s embattled Prime Minister Donald Tusk emerged bruised but still standing after his government survived a parliamentary vote of confidence on 11 June. He’d called the vote, which he won by 243 to 210, just days after the presidential candidate of his Civic Platform (PO) party suffered an unexpected defeat.
Karol Nawrocki, an independent nationalist conservative backed by the former ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) defeated liberal pro-European Union (EU) Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski in a nail-biting presidential runoff. The result offers a broader test of Poland’s democratic resilience that could have implications across the EU.
The electoral blow
Nawrocki’s path to victory was anything but predictable. The 42-year-old former president of Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance had never held elected office before emerging as PiS’s chosen candidate. Yet his populist message resonated with frustrated voters.
Economic grievances provided fertile ground for nationalist appeals. Despite Poland’s relatively low unemployment, youth unemployment of over 10 per cent is an understandable source of anxiety for younger voters. Increasingly, they’re reacting by rejecting mainstream political offerings.
This helped cause the fragmented results of the 18 May first round. Trzaskowski won only 31.36 per cent of the vote and Nawrocki took 29.54 per cent. The combined vote share of right-wing candidates – Nawrocki and far-right politicians Grzegorz Braun and Sławomir Mentzen – exceeded polling expectations. Braun and Mentzen took over 21 per cent between them, thanks to the support of many young voters.
The 1 June runoff saw Nawrocki win 50.89 per cent to Trzaskowski’s 49.11 per cent, a margin of under two percentage points. Nawrocki took 64 per cent of the rural vote while Trzaskowski commanded 67 per cent in urban centres – an established geographic divide that reflects an enduring ideological division between a conservative, nationalist Poland and its liberal, cosmopolitan counterpart.
Election interference
Disinformation is helping fuel polarisation. The election campaign unfolded against a backdrop of foreign interference concerns that echoed troubling developments across the region – particularly in Romania, where the Supreme Court cancelled the 2024 presidential election due to evidence of Russian interference.
Just days before the first round, Poland’s Research and Academic Computer Network discovered evidence of potentially foreign-funded Facebook ads targeting all major candidates. According to an investigation by fact-checking organisation Demagog, TikTok was flooded with disinformation, particularly but not exclusively against Trzaskowski. The platform’s algorithm displayed far-right content twice as often as centrist or left-wing content to new users, with pro-Nawrocki videos appearing four times more frequently than pro-Trzaskowski content. Over 1,200 fake accounts systematically attacked Trzaskowski, while another 1,200 promoted Nawrocki.
The influence operation extended beyond individual character assassination to sowing distrust in the democratic process and sharing broader far-right narratives. Fake accounts systematically promoted anti-Ukrainian sentiment and anti-immigration conspiracy theories.
Donald Trump also gave Nawrocki an unprecedented level of support: he received him at the White House just before the election and sent his Homeland Security Secretary to campaign for him in Poland as she attended the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). This year, CPAC, a US conservative platform, held two international events, in Hungary and Poland. The Polish one, timed to coincide with the runoff, offered a clear indication of how the nationalist far right has become internationalised.
Institutional paralysis
The viability of Tusk’s ideologically diverse coalition and his own political future have been called into question by the result. With critics in the Civic Coalition blaming the election defeat on the government’s communication failures and Tusk’s personal unpopularity, the confidence vote became a key test.
But even though Tusk has survived the confidence vote, it will be a tall order to implement the reforms needed to restore the democratic institutions that came under strain during the PiS administration. In eight years in power, PiS dismantled judicial independence, made public media its propaganda mouthpiece and undermined women’s rights by introducing one of Europe’s harshest anti-abortion laws. The new government’s attempts to reckon with this legacy had already been hampered by outgoing President Andrzej Duda, who used his veto power to block key reforms. Nawrocki will continue that, leaving Tusk unable to realise his promises to Polish voters and the EU.
The European Commission had counted on Tusk completing promised judicial reforms as it unlocked billions in pandemic recovery funds frozen over rule-of-law concerns during PiS rule. With progress now unlikely, the Commission faces the difficult decision of whether to maintain its funding even if the government’s unable to deliver promised changes.
Beyond the EU, Nawrocki’s foreign policy positions threaten to complicate Poland’s previously staunch backing of Ukraine. Although supportive of continued aid, Nawrocki has pledged to block any prospects of Ukraine joining NATO and prioritise Polish interests over refugee support.
High stakes
The razor-thin margin of victory in the presidential election, combined with record turnout of 72.8 per cent, tells a complex story of a divided society. While high participation suggests robust civic engagement, the deep polarisation reflected in the results reveals faultlines that extend far beyond conventional political disagreements.
The outcome offers further evidence that, when economic grievances aren’t addressed, institutional trust is allowed to erode and information environments are left vulnerable to manipulation, opportunistic politicians will exploit social divisions and anti-establishment anger.
For Poland, the coming years will test whether democratic institutions can withstand the pressures of sustained political deadlock. Poland faces potential institutional paralysis that could further erode public trust in democratic governance. Poland’s institutions will need to try to demonstrate their continuing effectiveness, and civil society and independent media will need to maintain their credibility, to help protect and nurture democratic values.
Sarah Strack, Forus Director and Christelle Kalhoule, Forus Chair
Farmer in Colombia. Credit: Both Nomads/Forus
SEVILLE, Spain , Jun 23 2025 (IPS) – Can the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4) be a turning point? The stakes are high. The international financial system—so important to each and every one of us—feels out of reach and resistant to change, because it is deeply entrenched in unjust power imbalances that keep it in place. We deserve better.
Under its current form, the Compromiso de Sevilla – the outcome document of FFD4 adopted on June 17 ahead of the conference – reads like a mildly improved version of business as usual with weak commitments. To avoid being derailed, decision-makers at FFD4 must act with clarity and courage, and here’s why.
With predatory interest rates, the international financial system is pushing hundreds of millions into misery as several nations continue to be shackled by a deepening debt crisis. While millions struggle without adequate food, healthcare, or education – basic services and rights – their governments must funnel billions to creditors.
Shockingly, 3.3 billion people – almost half of humanity – disproportionately in Global South nations, live in countries where debt interest payments outstrip education, health budgets and urgent climate action. This imbalance is particularly pernicious toward women, who bear the brunt of the failure of the gender-blind global financial architecture. This system fails to acknowledge and redistribute care and social reproduction responsibilities, resulting in women, especially those located in the Global South, lacking access to adequate essential services and decent jobs.
“The current model of international cooperation is not working, and its financing is also not working while we are facing a series of interconnected crises,” says Mafalda Infante, Advocacy and Communications Officer at the Portuguese Platform of Development NGOs, sharing their recently released Civil Society Manifesto for Global Justice calling for change and a restoration of fairness at FFD4 and beyond.
“Gender equality perspectives are absolutely central to how we understand global justice and financial reform, because let’s be clear: the current system isn’t neutral. It produces and reinforces inequalities, including gender-based ones. The debt crisis and climate emergency disproportionately affect women and girls, especially in the global south. We’ve seen it again and again when public services are cut, when healthcare is underfunded or when food systems collapse, it’s women who carry the heaviest burden. But at the same time, feminist economics also offer solutions. They challenge the idea that GDP growth is the ultimate goal. They prioritise care, sustainability and community well-being. They demand that financing should be people-centered and rights-based and accountable as well. So the role of civil society has been to bring these ideas into the FFD4 space to connect macroeconomic reform with everyday realities and to insist that justice – economic, climate, racial, gender justice – is indivisible,” Infante adds.
FFD4 offers an opportunity to reimagine a financial architecture that can be just, inclusive, and rights-based. This is not a technical summit for experts alone. It is the only global forum where governments, international institutions, civil society organisations, community representatives and the private sector sit together to shape the future of global finance, and it’s happening after 10 years since the latest edition in Addis Ababa.
But there are realities that decision-makers just can’t shy away from. While some powerful countries borrow at rock-bottom rates, other nations face interest charges nearly four times higher. We must thus ask ourselves: is this really a pathway to truly sustainable development or a continuation of profound financial injustices through something akin to “financial colonialism” ?
“Many countries like us in the South, are totally concerned that there can be no development with the current debt situation not discussed. The issue of debt vis-a-vis taxes is vitally important. The money that countries are collecting from the domestic mobilization of resources is all channeled to self-debt servicing. And debt handcuffs social policy. Without these resources, these countries cannot deliver on public services like health and education. There can be no way of improving people’s social indicators without addressing the question of debt stress,” says Moses Isooba , Executive Director of the Uganda National NGO Forum (UNNGOF).
We call for a radical transformation of global finance that moves away from a system that enables “tax abuse” and outsized influence from a powerful few.
A crucial step for transformation is creating a UN Convention on Sovereign Debt to fairly and transparently restructure and cancel illegitimate debt, as many countries spend more on debt than on essential services.
In today’s context of shrinking development aid, the role of public development banks is ever more important in support of Agenda 2030 and the Paris Agreement on climate change. Forus therefore calls on public development banks to work in partnership with civil society and community representatives through a formal global coalition and local engagement to ensure development finance is locally-led and reflects the real needs of people, rooted in consent and mutual trust.
Official development assistance (ODA) must be protected and increased, reversing harmful aid cuts that damage civil society as well as urgent and basic services. The UN has warned that aid funding for dozens of crises around the world has dropped by a third, largely due to the decrease in US funding slashed US funding and announced cuts from other nations.
Finally, governments should support a new UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, adopting gender-responsive, environmentally sustainable fiscal policies while disincentivizing polluters and extractive industries.
“Development financing must not perpetuate cycles of debt, austerity, and dependency. Instead, it must be grounded in democratic governance, fair taxation, climate justice, and respect for human rights. It’s also crucial to promote inclusive decision-making by strengthening the role of the United Nations in global economic governance, countering the dominance of informal and exclusive clubs such as the OECD,” says Henrique Frota, Executive Director of the Brazilian Association of NGOs (ABONG) and former C20 Brazil Chair.
FFD4 must ensure that there is a genuine space for civil society engagement, where all voices are heard and can influence financial decision making, to strengthen accountability and transparency, and to promote greater inclusion.
“The voices of the communities most affected should be included, otherwise large-scale development projects are not sustainable. Local communities and local civil society are the point of contact to make implementation more inclusive,” says Pallavi Rekhi, Programmes Lead at Voluntary Action Network India (VANI), reinforcing that FFD4 must shift from vague aspirations to binding, systemic reforms that rebalance power and serve justice.
“Don’t take stock of what has been done. Instead, look at what has not yet been done at this conference and you will see the immense challenges that lie ahead for the future of our planet,” says Marcelline Mensah-Pierucci, President of FONGTO, the national platform of civil society organisations in Togo.
“The continuous cycle of unfairness and social inequality must come to an end. The time to act is now,” adds Zia ur Rehman, Chairperson of Pakistan Development Alliance.
For many, the road to Sevilla has been long and hard and still, the world’s majority are left behind on this journey. The hard work continues after FFD4 on the need for bold leadership, real action and transformative change that can lead to a more effective and responsive global financial architecture.
