Louis Charbonneau is UN director, Human Rights Watch
Karla Quintana (centre), head of the Independent Institution on Missing Persons in Syria, visits Al Marjeh Square in Damascus, a place where families of missing persons display photos in the hope of finding their loved ones. Credit: IIMP Syria
May 8 2025 (IPS) – Major-power cutbacks and delayed payments amidst conflict and insecurity are testing the very principles and frameworks upon which the international human rights infrastructure was built nearly 80 years ago.
Human rights need defending now more than ever, which is why the United Nations leadership needs to ensure that its efforts to cut costs don’t jeopardize the UN’s critical human rights work.
China, the second biggest contributor, continues to pay but has been delaying payments, exacerbating the UN’s years-long liquidity crisis. With widespread layoffs looming, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been forced to dig deep for cost-saving measures.
The proposals include consolidating apparently overlapping mandates, reducing the UN’s presence in expensive locations like New York City, and cutting some senior posts.
While some UN80 proposals have merit, the section on human rights is worrying. It suggests downgrading and cutting several senior human rights posts and merging different activities. But at a time when rights crises are multiplying and populist leaders hostile to rights are proliferating, any reduction of the UN’s human rights capacities would be shortsighted.
Efficiency and cost-effectiveness are important, but the UN’s human rights work has long been grossly underfunded and understaffed. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights gets just 5 percent of the UN’s regular budget.
Countless lives depend on its investigations and monitoring, which help deter abuses in often ignored or inaccessible locales. Investigations of war crimes and other atrocities in places like Sudan, Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, and elsewhere are already struggling amidst a UN-wide hiring freeze and pre-Trump liquidity shortfall.
For years, Russia and China have lobbied to defund the UN’s human rights work. There is now a risk that the United States, which has gutted its own funding for human rights worldwide, will no longer oppose these efforts and will instead enable them.
During these trying times, the UN should be reminding the world that its decades-long commitment to human rights is unwavering.
KATHMANDU, Nepal, May 7 2025 (IPS) – A UN groundbreaking report published in 1982 laid the legal ground for defining the inalienable rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The document, written by José Martínez Cobo, a United Nations Special Rapporteur, analyzed the complex discrimination patterns faced by Indigenous Peoples.
If the international community is serious about protecting and safeguarding their rights, then it is indispensable to go back to one of the central questions raised in that report: the identity of indigenous people has always been intrinsically interconnected to their lands.
This tenant, now a legal concept mainstreamed in the international human rights jurisprudence, is with few exceptions, unheeded.
Disregarding and violating the rights of Indigenous Peoples to their own lands had led to disenfranchisement, alienation and countless suffering.
Upholding the Declaration’s principles and ensuring its implementation remains one of the key challenges faced by Indigenous Peoples worldwide. It was also the theme of this year’s United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, (UNPFII) the most important UN sanctioned gathering of Indigenous Peoples.
In its 24th session, hosted at the UN HQ in New York from 21 April to 2 May 2025, discussions were focused on how power sharing should underpin any quests of implementing the UNDRIP.
Because, essentially and let’s not forget it, the UNDRIP, is about recognizing Indigenous Peoples’ power. Ensuring Indigenous Peoples’ rights to their lands is paramount if we really want to ensure an inclusive form of governance that respects them.
Discussions over more inclusive forms of governance for Indigenous Peoples should yield to venues for them to have a much stronger saying over their own affairs. After many years of advocacy and legal battles, there have been some victories.
New Zealand, before the rise to power of its current conservative government, and Canada made major strides to respect and uphold the sovereign rights of their Indigenous Peoples.
There have also been strides also on other fronts, more locally.
A research presented at last year’s session of the Forum, showed some encouraging practices. For example, the Sami Parliament in Norway, the concept of Indigenous Autonomies in Mexico City and some traditions from the Tharu and Newar Peoples of Nepal, do offer some models of self-governance.
But, overall, the picture is grim.
Despite the legal framework that has been established and despite many declarations, still, the right to self-determination of Indigenous Peoples, paramount to their quest towards autonomous decision making, is contested and fought back.
And the only way to ensure its realization is when states will accept that in case of governance, whenever the rights of Indigenous Peoples are implied, it should be shared.
To be clear, this process should not be seen as a devolution of power. Rather it should be understood as a legitimate reclamation of power. The just concluded UNPFII tried to underscore this concept.
One of the conclusions of this year’s session underscored that “there has been growing recognition of the need for formal UN mechanisms that ensure Indigenous Peoples’ meaningful participation in global governance”.
The Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, acknowledged, in his opening remarks at the Forum, the violations and abuses faced by Indigenous Peoples.
“The difficulties facing Indigenous Peoples around the world are an affront to dignity and justice. And a source of deep sorrow for me personally”.
The daunting challenges posed by climate warming and the imperative to transition to a net zero economy are going to further challenge the compliance of the UNDRIP.
At the 24th Session, a central focus was the role of Indigenous Peoples in the context of the extraction of critical minerals that are indispensable to ensure a just transition.
On this aspect, a major study, submitted by Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim and Hannah McGlad, two members of the Forum, highlighted that there is no quest for critical minerals nor any just transition unless Indigenous Peoples are put at the front of this epochal shift.
One of the key questions is to think how governments, already pressed by geopolitical imperatives and in many cases already not compliant with the UNDRIP, can really involve, engage and consult with Indigenous Peoples.
The principle of Free, Prior, Informed Consent (FPIC) a foundational pillar of the UNDRIP, is normally only paid lip service to. But without respecting the FPIC, there won’t be a “Just Transition”.
In this regard, the worst performers in upholding this right are often multilateral and bilateral banks. Some difficult questions must be solved.
What could be done to ensure that Indigenous Peoples are at the center of the decision making whenever their lives and lands are concerned?
How to shift from a legal landscape in which the few positive exceptions become the norm? How can Indigenous Peoples better channel their grievances and come forward with their own solutions?
The UNPFII remains the only major platform that Indigenous Peoples can leverage. Yet, no matter its relevance, we are still dealing with a tool driven by symbolism that holds no binding powers.
If the former can offer valuable insights, the latter, as all the special procedures within the United Nations Human Rights Council, lacks teeth and enforceable powers.
One of the major requests at UNPFII, since several years, has been the appointment of a Special Representative or Advisor on Indigenous Issues to the Secretary General. Yet, even if this demand were to be fulfilled, such a new role would not lead to any substantial impact.
Even within the UNFCCC process, Indigenous issues do struggle to get attention. The recently approved Baku Work Plan could be seen just as unambitious document and the existing
More promising it is the upcoming debate to create an Indigenous Voice, the so called on Article 8(j), within the framework of the UN Convention on Biodiversity but the negotiations are going to be contentious.
The real crux is how to engage the many governments that, even now, do not recognize the unique identities of Indigenous Peoples. But here is still a lot that the United Nations system could do on its own.
This was a major point of discussion at UNPFII because UN agencies and programs must do a much better job at involving and engaging Indigenous Peoples beyond tokenism.
The probable restructuring process that the UN might be forced to undertake following the cuts in official aid by the new American Administration, should simplify its governance. But such redesign should lead to imagining new spaces that, at minimum, would enable Indigenous Peoples to have their voice heard.
The call for a “Second World Conference on Indigenous Peoples” to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the UNDRIP in September 2027, offers an important opportunity for Indigenous Peoples.
But the advocacy work needed to hold such a historic event would only be justified if the focus in 2027 will be on measures to return the decision making to Indigenous Peoples. Essentially, any new World Conference on Indigenous Peoples should be centered on new forms of governance and power sharing.
These are the two key but inconvenient concepts that must be analyzed and discussed and ultimately internalized with the overarching goal of finally giving back Indigenous Peoples what is due.
Simone Galimberti writes about the SDGs, youth-centered policy-making and a stronger and better United Nations.
Janet Ngombalu is Kenya Country Director, Christian Aid
Aerial view of Diff in Wajir South submerged in floodwaters, highlighting the devastating impact of heavy rains on homes and livelihoods – 2024. Credit: Pasca Chesach/Christian Aid Kenya
NAIROBI, Kenya, May 5 2025 (IPS) – Reflecting on this year’s IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings, one word lingers in my mind: uncertainty. The shifting global geopolitical landscape loomed large—none more so than the US administration’s initial threat to withdraw from the Bretton Woods institutions.
Although that threat was later withdrawn, it’s clear the US wants sweeping reforms. What exactly those changes will look like remains unknown, but it’s clear that the US wants the IMF and World Bank to focus more on its biggest shareholders rather than people and the planet. For countries in the Global South, like my own—Kenya—that could be disastrous.
As the world knows, the people of Kenya made their frustrations against the IMF known last year, with protests against IMF fiscal and austerity policies. And this unrest led to President William Ruto withdrawing a finance bill aiming to raise more than $2 billion in taxes.
Then, just last month, a four-year $3.6 billion IMF deal was terminated by mutual agreement. A new deal is now being negotiated—but finding balance will be difficult. The IMF is demanding fiscal consolidation, while the government is under immense pressure to ease the burden on a struggling population.
Without raising taxes, Kenya faces drastic cuts to public spending. But the people have had enough—and they shouldn’t be forced to endure more.
Dead livestock in Bubisa, Marsabit County due to prolonged drought: Credit: Pasca Chesach/Christian Aid Kenya
This is happening at a critical moment. The IMF is undergoing two major reviews this year that will shape its lending and surveillance approach for the next five years. If the Trump administration gains more sway over IMF leadership, civil society fears a regression to the 1990s era of even harsher austerity.
The reality on the ground in Kenya makes this unacceptable. We already face high taxes, and cuts to essential services are tearing the social fabric apart. Our health system is stretched beyond its limits.
Last year, doctors were driven to suicide under the weight of low pay, impossible hours, and the heartbreak of losing patients due to inadequate care.
School feeding programmes – lifelines for many children – have been cut. For some, that was the only meal of the day. Businesses are closing, jobs are vanishing, and those of us still employed are helping family members who are struggling.
A resident of Makueni fetches water from a community booth made possible through Christian Aid Kenya’s sand dam project, offering a reliable water source amid prolonged drought. Credit: Fauzia Hussein/Christian Aid Kenya
Meanwhile, the US is calling on the IMF and World Bank to scale back focus on gender equality and climate change. This is deeply alarming. As Kenya’s country director for Christian Aid, I am currently seeking emergency funds to respond to severe flooding in Marsabit and Wajir in the northeast of the country, which have also been heavily affected by drought.
Kenya loses up to KSh870 billion every year, around 3–5% of GDP, due to climate impacts. Yet we’ve done almost nothing to cause this crisis.
Women in particular continue to bear the brunt of IMF-imposed austerity. They face rising food prices head-on, as the ones more responsible for food shopping. They dominate the informal and public sectors – precisely the sectors most affected by spending cuts.
We had started to make scant progress in getting the IMF to consider these gendered impacts. Now, that progress is under threat.
There’s also growing unease about the politicisation of global financial governance. If the US gains even more influence over the IMF, will there be favouritism in lending decisions? The recent cancellation of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s trip to Kenya, following President Ruto’s visit to China, raises eyebrows.
The rise of this selfish, unilateral approach is troubling—and it’s already hurting us. Massive aid cuts are hitting hard. In addition to the proposed $60 billion USAID budget reduction, the UK, Germany, France, and the Netherlands have announced cuts totalling over $11 billion combined.
It feels as though the Global South is being abandoned in a power struggle we didn’t start. The IMF and World Bank, created in the colonial era, have always tilted toward northern interests. The US holds 16% of IMF voting power and therefore a veto over most important decisions which require 85% agreement. Meanwhile, the entire African continent holds just 4.7%. That imbalance is not only unjust; it’s unsustainable.
And now, it could get worse. But there is hope.
The upcoming Financing for Development Conference in Seville this June offers a rare and crucial opportunity. It is the only global forum where all countries negotiate economic governance on equal terms.
We must seize this moment to push for meaningful reform—debt relief, fairer international tax rules, and real climate finance. These are the changes we need to unlock a future where all countries have the tools and autonomy to shape their own development.
We cannot afford more uncertainty. We need control over our economic destiny, not to be tossed around by the shifting whims of the Global North.
Protestors gather in front of the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue in 1966 to protest the Vietnam War. Credit: White House Historical Association
SAN FRANCISCO, USA, May 2 2025 (IPS) – Eight years before the U.S.-backed regime in South Vietnam collapsed, I stood with high school friends at Manhattan’s Penn Station on the night of April 15, 1967, waiting for a train back to Washington after attending the era’s largest antiwar protest so far.
An early edition of the next day’s New York Times arrived on newsstands with a big headline at the top of the front page that said “100,000 Rally at U.N. Against Vietnam War.” I heard someone say, “Johnson will have to listen to us now.”
But President Lyndon Johnson dashed the hopes of those who marched from Central Park to the United Nations that day (with an actual turnout later estimated at 400,000). He kept escalating the war in Vietnam, while secretly also bombing Laos and Cambodia.
During the years that followed, antiwar demonstrations grew in thousands of communities across the United States. The decentralized Moratorium Day events on October 15, 1969 drew upward of 2 million people. But all forms of protest fell on deaf official ears. A song by the folksinger Donovan, recorded midway through the decade, became more accurate and powerful with each passing year: “The War Drags On.”
As the war continued, so did the fading of trust in the wisdom and morality of Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon. Gallup polls gauged the steep credibility drop. In 1965, just 24 percent of Americans said involvement in the Vietnam War had been a mistake. By the spring of 1971, the figure was 61 percent.
The number of U.S. troops in Vietnam gradually diminished from the peak of 536,100 in 1968, but ground operations and massive U.S. bombing persisted until the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in late January 1973. American forces withdrew from Vietnam, but the war went on with U.S. support for 27 more months, until – on April 30, 1975 – the final helicopter liftoff from the roof of the U.S. embassy in Saigon signaled that the Vietnam War was indeed over.
By then, most Americans were majorly disillusioned. Optimism that public opinion would sway their government’s leaders on matters of war and peace had been steadily crushed while carnage in Southeast Asia continued. To many citizens, democracy had failed – and the failure seemed especially acute to students, whose views on the war had evolved way ahead of overall opinion.
At the end of the 1960s, Gallup found “significantly more opposition to President Richard Nixon’s Vietnam policies” among students at public and private colleges than in “a parallel survey of the U.S. general public: 44 percent vs. 25 percent, respectively.” The same poll “showed 69 percent of students in favor of slowing down or halting the fighting in Vietnam, while only 20 percent favored escalation.
This was a sharp change from 1967, when more students favored escalation (49 percent) than de-escalation (35 percent).”
Six decades later, it took much less time for young Americans to turn decisively against their government’s key role of arming Israel’s war on Gaza. By a wide margin, continuous huge shipments of weapons to the Israeli military swiftly convinced most young adults that the U.S. government was complicit in a relentless siege taking the lives of Palestinian civilians on a large scale.
A CBS News/YouGov poll in June 2024 found that Americans opposed sending “weapons and supplies to Israel” by 61-39 percent. Opposition to the arms shipments was even higher among young people. For adults under age 30, the ratio was 77-23.
Emerging generations learned that moral concerns about their country’s engagement in faraway wars meant little to policymakers in Washington. No civics textbook could prepare students for the realities of power that kept the nation’s war machine on a rampage, taking several million lives in Southeast Asia or supplying weapons making possible genocide in Gaza.
For vast numbers of Americans, disproportionately young, the monstrous warfare overseen by Presidents Johnson and Nixon caused the scales to fall from their eyes about the character of U.S. leadership. And like President Trump now, President Biden showed that nice-sounding rhetoric could serve as a tidy cover story for choosing to enable nonstop horrors without letup.
No campaign-trail platitudes about caring and joy could make up for a lack of decency. By remaining faithful to the war policies of the president they served, while discounting the opinions of young voters, two Democratic vice presidents – Hubert Humphrey and Kamala Harris – damaged their efforts to win the White House.
A pair of exchanges on network television, 56 years apart, are eerily similar.
In August 1968, appearing on the NBC program Meet the Press, Humphrey was asked: “On what points, if any, do you disagree with the Vietnam policies of President Johnson?”
“I think that the policies that the president has pursued are basically sound,” Humphrey replied.
In October 2024, appearing on the ABC program The View, Harris was asked: “Would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?”
“There is not a thing that comes to mind,” Harris replied.
Young people’s votes for Harris last fall were just 54 percent, compared to 60 percent that they provided to Biden four years earlier.
Many young eyes recognized the war policy positions of Hubert Humphrey and Kamala Harris as immoral. Their decisions to stay on a war train clashed with youthful idealism. And while hardboiled political strategists opted to discount such idealism as beside the electoral point, the consequences have been truly tragic – and largely foreseeable.
Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. The paperback edition of his latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, includes an afterword about the Gaza war.
NEW YORK, May 1 2025 (IPS) – Press freedom is no longer a given in the United States 100 days into President Donald Trump’s second term as journalists and newsrooms face mounting pressures that threaten their ability to report freely and the public’s right to know.
A new report released April 30 by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)– “Alarm bells: Trump’s first 100 days ramp up fear for the press, democracy,” noted that the administration has scaled up its rhetorical attacks and launched a startling number of actions using regulatory bodies and powerful allies that, taken together, may cause irreparable harm to press freedom in the U.S. and will likely take decades to repair.
The level of trepidation among U.S. journalists is such that CPJ has provided more security training since the November election than at any other period.
“This is a definitive moment for U.S. media and the public’s right to be informed. CPJ is providing journalists with resources at record rates so they can report safely and without fear or favor, but we need everyone to understand that protecting the First Amendment is not a choice, it’s a necessity. All our freedoms depend on it,” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg.
Emerging challenges to a free press in the United States fall under three main categories: 1) The restriction of access for some news organizations; 2) The increasing use of government and regulatory bodies against news organizations; and 3) Targeted attacks against journalists and newsrooms.
While The Associated Press (AP), a global newswire agency serving thousands of newsrooms in the U.S. and across the world, has faced retaliation for not adhering to state-mandated language, the Federal Communications Commission is mounting investigations against three major broadcasters – CBS, ABC, and NBC – along with the country’s two public broadcasters – NPR and PBS – in moves widely viewed as politically motivated.
“The rising tide of threats facing U.S. journalists and newsrooms are a direct threat to the American public,” said Ginsberg. “Whether at the federal or state level, the investigations, hearings, and verbal attacks amount to an environment where the media’s ability to bear witness to government action is already curtailed.”
Journalists who reached out to CPJ in recent months are worried about online harassment and digital and physical safety. Newsrooms have also shared with us worries about the possibility of punitive regulatory actions.
Since the presidential election last November until March 7 of this year, CPJ has provided safety consultations to more than 530 journalists working in the country. This figure was only 20 in all of 2022, marking an exponential increase in the need for safety information.
Globally, the gutting of the U.S. Agency for Global Media resulted in the effective termination of thousands of journalist positions, and the elimination of USAID independent media support impoverished the news landscape in many regions across the globe where the news ecosystem is underdeveloped or information is severely restricted.
As the executive branch of the U.S. government is taking unprecedented steps to permanently undermine press freedom, CPJ is calling on the public, news organizations, civil society, and all branches, levels, and institutions of government – from municipalities to the U.S. Supreme Court – to safeguard press freedom to help secure the future of American democracy.
In particular, Congress must prioritize passage of the PRESS Act and The Free Speech Protection Act, both bipartisan bills that can strengthen and protect press freedom throughout the United States.
The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit, and nonpartisan organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. We defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal.
Titon Mitra is Resident Representative, UNDP Myanmar
The 7.7 magnitude earthquake, which struck central Myanmar, has created an even deeper crisis for a country and a people who were already suffering from conflict and displacement. Credit: UNDP Myanmar/Su Sandi Htein Win
NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar, Apr 21 2025 (IPS) – As I walked through the streets of Sagaing and Mandalay, the scenes unfolding in the wake of the 7.7 earthquake were hard to comprehend.
Tall buildings and hundreds of homes are now lying in rubble. Of those that are still standing, many are lurching at dangerous angles, defying gravity for now, but could collapse at any moment.
In Sagaing, 80 percent of buildings have been destroyed and entire sections of one of the main bridges over the Irrawaddy River have snapped off and sunk into the water, like a child’s broken toy. Roads have deep fissures that could swallow cars.
Everywhere you look, families are living on the streets in temperatures that can reach 40°C. Even if their homes are still standing, they are fearful to enter them.
Disease always follows disaster, and in Sagaing and Mandalay, many people are forced to defecate in open spaces and clean water is scarce. Reports of cholera, hepatitis, and typhoid are surfacing, even among aid workers.
Hospitals, already understaffed due to ongoing civil unrest, are overwhelmed and urgently need critical medical supplies like trauma kits and antiseptics. Buildings are unsafe and patients are now housed in carparks.
Local markets are mostly closed and transport links relying on useable roads and bridges are severely affected. If there is food available, it’s extremely expensive, and jobs and incomes have been disrupted so many people can’t even buy food.
The human toll is heart breaking and will likely get worse. One week on, the focus is now grimly shifting from rescue to recovery, as the chances of finding survivors fast dwindles. It’s expected that the death toll, now at around 3,000, will increase significantly.
This is an absolutely devastating and ever deeper crisis for a country and a people who were already suffering from conflict and displacement. Myanmar’s devastated economy, still reeling from the shocks of COVID-19, last year’s typhoons, and years of conflict, has produced hyperinflation, high unemployment, and crushing levels of poverty, particularly amongst children.
The poor and vulnerable simply have no further to fall.
A UNDP report has found that 75 percent of the population or over 40 million people are living near to, or well below, subsistence levels. Myanmar’s middle class has shrunk by an astounding 50 percent in recent years. Even life’s basics are unattainable luxuries for most.
In Sagaing, 80 percent of buildings have been destroyed, including one of the main bridges across the Irrawaddy River. Credit: UNDP Myanmar/Su Sandi Htein Win
The sheer scale of the disaster, compounding the pre-existing deep vulnerability, requires a massive and sustained international response.
As in all emergencies, over the first few weeks or month, urgent needs in health, water and sanitation, food, and shelter must be met. But this is a crisis where many of those affected are in urban areas or where farming was taking place, even if at a very basic level.
Areas where it is important to quickly transition from emergency relief to economic and social service support and reconstruction. So, provision of medicines and medical supplies should be quickly followed by making hospitals and health clinics functional.
Distributing water must quickly shift to rehabilitating water supply infrastructure. General food distributions need to transition to targeted supplementary feeding and creation of jobs, incomes, and functioning of markets.
Temporary shelter should be replaced with repair of housing. Most of all, dignity and agency must be preserved – a helping hand up is so much better than perpetual handouts.
UNDP’s focus is twofold—to provide for immediate essential needs while also looking to the future. Despite extensive damage to infrastructure, UNDP teams are distributing shelter materials, clean water, and solar kits to some 500,000 people.
We are providing cash for work to the poor and working with the private sector to remove debris safely and recycle what they can. We are providing equipment and expertise to workers handling hazardous materials like asbestos without proper protection.
We are providing temporary shelters, assessing damaged homes and working with local tradespeople to effect repairs.
But we are also laying the groundwork for the longer term—restarting small businesses, repairing vital public service infrastructure and training young people so that they can get jobs in the huge amount of reconstruction that will be required.
The other thing I noticed walking around Sagaing and Mandalay were the huge, gilded ancient pagodas and statues of Buddha now also in rubble. Not so long ago, they stood grand and seemingly removed from the chaos engulfing the country. They stood as symbols of detachment and compassion.
One of the key tenets of Buddhism is the understanding that life is connected to suffering (dukkha). But how much more can the people of Myanmar suffer? And how much more can those who are suffering depend on the compassion of the ordinary people and first responders who are trying their best to ease the suffering?
Just like the pagodas and statues, resilience of the people of Myanmar cannot be assumed or a given. They desperately need the help of the international community to cope with the compounding crises. The cameras that are now focused on Myanmar will soon turn away. But one hopes that Myanmar will not continue to be the neglected crisis it is.
The international community must come together and meet the resolve and courage of Myanmar and its people, and to imagine a better future. We can at least try to make sure that when disaster strikes again, its blow will not cut so deep.
The long road to recovery will require a concerted effort to rebuild infrastructure, restore livelihoods, and address the many existing needs of the vulnerable. The world’s attention, and sustained commitment, will be crucial in helping the people of Myanmar navigate this devastating chapter.
UNDP’s response to the earthquake in Myanmar, and its work in other crisis contexts, is made possible by the support of core funding partners.
