Shaken and Strained: Myanmar’s Earthquake Adding to the Misery of 4 Years of Conflict

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Opinion

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.

And more than 1.3 million people are internally displaced in Sagaing alone, fleeing the conflict, with little to sustain them, and never entirely safe in their refuge.

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.

Source: UN Development Programme (UNDP)

IPS UN Bureau

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Standing Firm: Civil Society at the Forefront of the Climate Resistance

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Opinion

Credit: Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

LONDON, Apr 15 2025 (IPS) – The recent US court case that ordered three Greenpeace organisations to pay damages of over US$660 million to an oil and gas company was a stunning blow against civil society’s efforts to stop runaway climate change and environmental degradation. The verdict, following a trial independent witnesses assessed to be grossly unfair, came in reaction to Indigenous-led anti-pipeline protests. It’s vital for any prospects of tackling the climate crisis that Greenpeace’s appeal succeeds, because without civil society pressure, there’s simply no hope of governments and corporations taking the action required.

Civil society is more used to winning climate and environmental court cases than losing them. As CIVICUS’s 2025 State of Civil Society Report outlines, litigation has become a vital part of civil society’s strategy. Just last year, a group of Swiss women won a groundbreaking precedent in the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled the government was violating their rights by failing to cut greenhouse gas emissions. South Korea’s Constitutional Court found that the lack of emissions reduction targets breached young people’s constitutional rights. Other positive judgments came in countries including Ecuador, India and Italy. At the last count, climate lawsuits had been filed in 55 countries.

But fossil fuel companies have noticed civil society’s litigation successes and are also taking to the courts. They have the deep pockets needed to hire expensive lawyers and sustain legal actions over many draining years. Fossil fuel companies have filed over 150 lawsuits intended to silence criticism in the USA alone since 2012.

Protest restrictions

Civil society is doing all it can to demand climate action that matches the scale of the crisis, winning victories by combining tactics such as street protest, non-violent direct action and litigation, but it’s coming under attack. Peaceful protesters are being jailed and activists are facing violence in many countries. Alongside the chilling effect on protests of lawsuits such as the one against Greenpeace, governments in several countries are criminalising legitimate forms of protest. Globally, climate activists and defenders of environmental, land and Indigenous rights are among the groups most targeted for repression.

Security force violence and mass arrests and detentions, particularly of protesters, are in danger of becoming normalised. Last year in the Netherlands, authorities detained thousands for taking part in mass roadblock protests demanding the government keep its promise of ending fossil fuel subsidies. In France, police used violence at a protest against road construction in June and banned another in August. In Australia, activists opposing a huge coal terminal and a gas project were among those arrested in 2024.

In Uganda, campaigners against the East African Crude Oil Pipeline continue to face state repression. Last year, authorities arbitrarily arrested 11 activists from the campaign. These activists have faced intimidation and pressure to stop their activism.

Campaigners from Cambodia’s Mother Nature group paid a heavy price for their work in trying to stand up to powerful economic and political interests seeking to exploit the environment. Last July, 10 young activists were given long jail sentences after documenting river pollution.

Some states, like the UK, have rewritten protest laws to expand the range of offences, increase sentences and strengthen police powers. Last July, five Just Stop Oil activists were handed brutally long sentences of up to five years for planning a roadblock protest. The UK now arrests environmental protesters at three times the global average rate.

Italy’s right-wing government is introducing new restrictions. Last year, parliament passed a law on what it calls ‘eco-vandals’ in response to high-profile awareness-raising stunts at monuments and cultural sites. Another repressive law is being introduced that will allow sentences of up to two years for roadblock protests.

The struggle continues

Yet civil society will keep striving for action, which is more urgent than ever. 2024 was the hottest year on record, and it was crammed with extreme weather events, made more likely and frequent by climate change. Far too little is being done.

Fossil fuel companies continue their deadly trade. Global north governments, historically the biggest greenhouse gas emitters, are watering down plans as right-wing politicians gain sway. International commitments such as the Paris Agreement show ambition on paper, but not enough is achieved when states come together at summits such as last December’s COP29 climate conference.

There’s a huge funding gap between what’s needed to enable countries to transition to low-carbon economies and adapt to climate change. Global south countries want the most powerful economies, which have benefited from the industries that have caused the bulk of climate change, to pay their share. But of an estimated annual US$1.3 trillion needed, the most global north states agreed to at COP29 was US$3 billion a year.

Nor are fossil fuel companies paying their share. Over the past five decades the oil and gas sector has made profits averaging US$2.8 billion a day. Yet companies are currently scaling back renewable energy investments and planning still more extraction, while using their deep pockets to lobby against measures to rein them in. Making the global tax rules fairer and more effective would help too: US$492 billion a year could be recovered by closing offshore tax loopholes, while taxes on the excessive wealth of the super-rich could unlock US$2.1 trillion a year, more than enough to tackle the climate crisis.

Civil society will keep pushing, because every fraction of a degree in temperature rises matters to millions. Change is not only necessary, but possible. For example, following extensive civil society advocacy, last September the UK shut down its last coal-fired power station.

Civil society played a major role in campaigning for the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, which requires large companies to align with the Paris Agreement. And last December, the International Court of Justice began hearing a case brought by a group of Pacific Island states, seeking an advisory opinion on what states are required to do to address climate change and help countries suffering its worst impacts. This landmark case originated with civil society, when student groups urged national leaders to take the issue to the court.

Trump’s return to the White House has made the road ahead much rockier. The world’s biggest historical emitter and largest current fossil fuel extractor has again given notice of its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, torn up renewable energy policies and made it easier to drill for fossil fuels. In response, other high-emitting nations must step up and show genuine climate leadership. They should start by committing to respecting the right of civil society to hold them to account. States and companies must cease their attacks on climate and environmental activists and instead partner with them to respond to the climate emergency.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, 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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Genocide Prevention & Responsibility to Protect

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Opinion

Commemorating Genocide Prevention and Awareness Month

NEW YORK, Apr 15 2025 (IPS) – April marks Genocide Prevention and Awareness Month, a time to reflect on the history, causes and victims of past genocides and to mobilize the necessary resolve to confront risks facing populations around the world today who face the threat of genocide and other mass atrocity crimes not for anything they have done, but for who they are.

As we solemnly observe this month of commemoration, we also reflect on the 20th anniversary of the UN General Assembly’s unanimous adoption of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle – a concept which emerged in particular response to the international community’s failure to prevent the atrocity crimes committed in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

By shifting the focus to every state’s ‘responsibility to protect’ rather than the big powers’ ‘right to intervene,’ by emphasizing prevention as well as reaction, and by committing to international collective action – including, when necessary, through the collective security provisions of the UN Charter – R2P made possible a global consensus completely lacking in previous decades.

The 2005 World Summit brought us closer than ever to translating the post-Holocaust dream of “never again” into a meaningful reality. It was a significant diplomatic achievement for all heads of state and government worldwide to acknowledge that genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing – even when committed within a sovereign state – are matters of international concern and thus demand timely and decisive response.

But 20 years later – with all too obvious horrors and civilian suffering still occurring in Gaza, Sudan, the DRC, Myanmar and elsewhere – it is clear that R2P is still at best a work in progress. It is time to reflect on what we have learned about preventing and responding to the atrocity crimes outlined in the World Summit Outcome Document, and to focus on how we can do better.

On the plus side, considerable progress has been made in our collective knowledge of the risk factors, causes and dynamics that drive mass atrocity crimes and in enhancing our responsiveness to warning signs, including through the development of the UN’s Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes. There is now a solid understanding of the wide range of preventive measures available, which includes not only a response to imminent and emerging risks, but also instituting policies, practices and structures that build long-term societal resilience to atrocity crimes.

Alongside these advances is a growing awareness that the different tools available for changing the behavior of would-be perpetrators, or for making victims less vulnerable, must be situated in a more coherent preventive strategy that is tailored to each context.

Moreover, the atrocity prevention agenda has been operationalized across the UN system. The creation of the Joint Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect has been central to strengthening the UN’s early warning capabilities, as well as for developing the conceptual and practical aspects of R2P.

Since the inception of the Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect role, successive Special Advisers have been instrumental in identifying risk factors and clarifying best practices by states, regional organizations and the UN system in response to the threat of atrocity crimes.

In addition, the regular cycle of UN Secretary-General reports and General Assembly debates has reinforced the principle and fostered greater consensus and shared understanding within the UN system. The Group of Friends of R2P, with over 55 members from across all regions, is an important mobilizing force within the UN to advance effective atrocity crime prevention and response.

Over 60 countries from all regions of the world, along with the European Union and Organization of American States, have also appointed an R2P Focal Point, an important step for institutionalizing atrocity prevention at the national level. The appointment of a national R2P Focal Point is crucial for strengthening domestic capacity to fulfill the responsibility to protect, including by improving intra-governmental and inter-governmental efforts to prevent and halt atrocity crimes.

Furthermore, the international community has also made strides in its willingness and capacity to hold perpetrators responsible through international investigative bodies and mechanisms, international courts and tribunals, and in national courts under the principle of universal jurisdiction. Transitional justice and memorialization also remain hallmarks of a broader commitment to deal with the past and promote truth, justice and non-recurrence.

Nonetheless, for all these significant institutional advances, we are all acutely aware that, 20 years on from the World Summit, the principle of R2P is under acute strain. There is a deeply troubling disconnect between the unanimous commitment to protecting populations from atrocity crimes and achieving consistent implementation and concrete preventive action.

All too often, effective national, regional and international action is inhibited by self-interested political arguments advanced in key institutions with a capacity to make a difference, including the UN Security Council. When principles and their practical application are contested it is time, more than ever, for UN member states to stand firm and do the hard work of continuing to find and build the consensus needed to protect populations at risk.

Moreover, there is a worrying decline in attention to atrocity crime prevention and the role of the Special Adviser on R2P within the UN Secretariat. This stands in stark contrast to the still very strong support from the great majority of UN member states and from civil society, human rights defenders, affected communities and victims’ and survivors’ groups around the world.

To consolidate the effectiveness of R2P, there is much more that needs to be done, and the work needs to start at home – not least at the UN Headquarters, but also on a national and regional level. At the core of R2P is a responsibility to invest in the institutional architecture to prevent the drivers of atrocity crimes from emerging or intensifying.

This anniversary year presents a crucial opportunity for the UN system, and particularly the UN Secretary-General and the Secretariat, to demonstrate ongoing commitment to fulfilling the responsibility to protect across all regions of the world.

The UN has proven time and again that it can mobilize resources and expertise to safeguard those at risk, with a notable track record of defending human rights and protecting vulnerable populations despite facing immense challenges. Rather than retreating from these efforts, it is critical that the UN and its member states redouble them, by honing and strengthening the capabilities needed to deliver effective prevention and response. Political and ideological differences must not be allowed to distract us from identifying signs of increased risk, wherever they may be, and taking early action to prevent atrocity crimes.

The strong commitments made in 2005 are as relevant today as they were 20 years ago. At a time of escalating conflicts, as well as threats to multilateralism and international justice, the UN Secretary-General and the UN must provide an alternative vision for the future in which a key element is the consistent implementation of R2P.

The future of R2P will only be secured if we – the UN system, intergovernmental and regional organizations, governments, civil society organizations and affected communities – fight for it and generate the political will to act. It would be a tragedy to give in to cynicism and skepticism, to overlook the continuing power of R2P as an inspiring ideal and to abandon the goal of seeing it fully and effectively implemented in all its dimensions.

This month of commemoration must serve as a reminder that indifference and inaction should never be an acceptable response whenever and wherever populations face the threat of genocide and other atrocity crimes.

Professor Gareth Evans is Co-Chair, International Advisory Board, Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect; Dr. Jennifer Welsh is Chair, International Advisory Board, Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect.

IPS UN Bureau

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How to Ensure Election of the First Woman Secretary-General: A Daunting Challenge Before the United Nations

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Opinion

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury is former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the UN and Chairman of the UN’s Administrative and Budgetary Committee in 1997-1998 that approved Kofi Annan’s first reform budget.

A participant addresses a townhall meeting between the UN Secretary General and civil society groups. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

NEW YORK, Apr 14 2025 (IPS) – On 21 March 2025, the 69th session of the Commission for the Status of Women, popularly referred to as the CSW69, concluded its two-week-long annual meet which commenced on 10 March.

It is considered to be the largest annual gathering under the United Nations umbrella of women activists from various parts of the world representing mainly their civil society organizations. This year an astounding number of over 11,000 participants registered on the NGO CSW69 Forum platform.

This year’s session, publicized as Beijing+30, focused on the status of the implementation of the Declaration and Platform for Action adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995. Some of the civil society activists reminded that 2025 was also the 25th anniversary of the pioneering UN Security Council resolution 1325 adopted in 2000 highlighting the need for recognizing the women’s positive contributions in the area of peace and security.

This year for the first time the civil society events organized parallel to the CSW69 included the issue of electing a woman Secretary-General of the United Nations (UNSG) in its 80-year-old existence. Two such events focused solely on the dire urgency of electing the next and first woman UNSG.

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury

The first deliberation on this subject was held on 5 March as a pre-event for the CSW69 and was titled “A Historic First? Tracking State Responses to Having a Feminist Woman UN Secretary-General” and sponsored by the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP), NYU School of International Studies and 1 For 8 Billion.

The second event was held on the last day the CSW69 titled “Gender Equality at the Highest Level: Electing a Woman Secretary-General” sponsored by WomanSG campaign and the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS). I was invited to speak at both of these events.

The incumbent Antonio Guterres, a former Prime Minister of Portugal, is scheduled to end his 10-year-old two-term tenure on 31 December 2026. The decision to elect the new UNSG is expected not earlier than October of that year. Article 97 of the UN Charter mentions that “… The Secretary-General shall be appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. He shall be the chief administrative officer of the Organization.”

The UN Member States may have taken the last sentence of this article too literally and elected only men as UNSG. As we all know, the Charter of the United Nations, when signed in 1945, was the first international agreement to affirm the principle of equality between women and men.

I recall Eleanor Roosevelt’s words asserting that “Too often the great decisions are originated and given shape in bodies made up wholly of men, or so completely dominated by them that whatever of special value women have to offer is shunted aside without expression.”

It is a reality that politics, more so security, is a man’s world.

Talking of political participation of women, sadly the United Nations, being the greatest champion of women’s equality and rights, sadly its own record is not something which we can be proud of.

To assist the UN move in the right direction and assert its credibility, in September 2012, a “Call to Action” was issued to world leaders gathering at the UN by IMPACT Leadership 21 and co-signed by me as the Founder of the Global Movement for The Culture of Peace (GMCoP) – and reiterated in 2016 – asking for urgent action, particularly for the appointment of a Woman as the next Secretary-General of the United Nations.

In its eight decades of existence, the world body has elected ONLY MEN to that post, as if only men are destined to lead the United Nations.

In an opinion piece titled “The Elusive Woman Secretary-General” published in the IPS Journal on 14 October 2016, the day after election of the current Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, I expressed my frustration saying that “The Security Council members were totally insensitive to a groundswell of support worldwide for a woman as the next Secretary-General.

They advanced the legacy of ignoring the 50 per cent of humanity in their action. This is an absolute aberration of the system whereby the 15 members of the Council impose their choice prompted by P-5 pressure and manipulation upon the total membership of 193, not to speak of the wide swath of civil society opinion and activism for a woman Secretary-General.”

I went on to ring the alarm bell by cautioning that “It is so very unfortunate that in the selection process politics has trumped women’s equality, violating UN Charter’s Article 8 which underscores the eligibility and equality of men and women to participate in any capacity in all its organs – principal or subsidiary.”

In another opinion piece published on 20 June 2011, a little more than five years before the earlier one, titled “Ban’s Second Term: The Case for a Woman Secretary-General”, I wrote that “And the most important “reform” that is needed for the choice of the U.N. leader is in the mindset of the Member States.

At this point of time in human progress, it is a shame that in the 65 years (that was in 2011) of its existence, the U.N. was not able to elect a woman to lead. Not only that, but there has been no candidate even nominated to be considered for election.”

Continuing I wrote that “Notwithstanding all the U.N. resolutions, treaties, declarations and pronouncements asserting the equality of women, it is a pity that the U.N. has kept 50 percent of humanity out of consideration for its highest office. The organisation is undoubtedly poorer as it restricted its choice only to half of the potential candidates.”

I also added that “The suffering image and credibility of the U.N. in the eyes of the international community in recent years underscores the increasing need for effective and committed leadership that puts the organisation before self and is not solely triggered by ‘command-and-control’ mode.”

Coincidentally these words are increasingly valid at the present time. There are certain reality-checks which need to be kept in mind in connection with the election of a woman SG.

For example,

– In 2016, none of the P-5 has voted for a woman candidate when there were a number of accomplished ones to choose from.

– Geographic rotations among the five regions of the UN Member States for the SG’s nomination are NOT followed in the Security Council as it is done meticulously in the election of the President of the General Assembly. P-5 decides unilaterally.

– A Member State may publicly support a woman SG in principle but may decide to vote otherwise for political reasons. Secret ballot would not let us know how the country voted.

– Another accompanying reality is that a Member State may vote for a woman to begin with but changes the vote if its vote is needed for a decision in favour of a man. Again, secret ballots keep us in the dark.

– P-5 meets for coordination outside the UN premises more often than envisaged. SG’s election is a major issue needing such coordination.

Now the big question is how to ensure the election of a woman as the next UNSG considering all the known or hidden realities. Member States – and I mean all 193 of them, not just 15 belonging to the Security Council – need to fulfil their role and responsibility accorded to them by the UN Charter for the appointment of the UN SG.

I have three suggestions to offer:

First, easiest and most natural choice for getting a woman elected SG is for the Security Council to nominate the current Deputy Secretary-General, a woman, a staunch believer in the feminist principles, a competent, respected leader, acclaimed as the midwife of the SDGs and above all, knows well the workings of the Organization. In case you wonder about the name, she is Amina Mohammad hailing from Nigeria.

Second, In recent times, names of a number of women from the Latin America and the Caribbean regional Group (GRULAC) of the United Nations are being floated asserting that, according to rotational practice for the post of UNSG, it is the turn of that Group to provide the next UNSG.

That situation would facilitate election of a woman UNSG on two conditions, one, there has to be a unanimous agreement among the Security Council members that it is GRULAC’s turn; and two, the GRULAC members should decide to nominate ONLY women candidates to the SC. In that case, the choice for the SC is restricted to only women candidates from GRULAC.

And finally, probably an outrageous but, at the same time, still workable Third suggestion

If the none of the earlier suggestions work in getting a woman SG, the General Assembly, which decides upon recommendation of the Security Council, should, by a big majority, reject the “man” candidate nominated by the SC.

Thereafter, the SC is likely to deliberate and assess the situation and hopefully change its nomination to a woman. If the SC nominates another “man“ again, the GA should reject that nomination by vote again forcing the SC to change, at the end, its nomination to a woman.

To get a sizable majority from the General Assembly Member States, the civil society need to lobby and mobilize more and more countries to vote for the General Assembly’s action for a woman SG.

I have in mind the model of the civil society campaign that Jody Williams and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997, mobilized for the Landmines Ban Treaty* as the governments failed to agree.

This unconventional and untried last suggestion is a potential game-changer. A firm, united and determined assertion by the UN General Assembly of its Charter-mandated role to appoint the UN SG can bring back the lost credibility of the UN by electing a woman as its next leader after eight decades of aberration.

* The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction of 1997, known informally as the Ottawa Treaty or the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention.

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury was also the initiator of the Security Council resolution 1325 as the Council President in March 2000 underscoring women’s equality of participation; President/Chairman of the UNICEF Executive Board on two occasions; and a well-known analyst of the UN system’s work.

IPS UN Bureau

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How to Put the ‘Sexy’ Back into Agriculture – Thoughts From CGIAR Science Week

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Food Systems

Dr Ismahane Elouafi, Executive Managing Director of CGIAR. Credit: Busani Bafana

Dr Ismahane Elouafi, Executive Managing Director of CGIAR. Credit: Busani Bafana

NAIROBI, Apr 11 2025 (IPS) – This week presented a beacon of hope for young people so that the “girl from the South and the boy, of course” could stay in the developing world, Dr Ismahane Elouafi, Executive Managing Director of CGIAR, said during a press conference on the final day of the CGIAR Science Week.

Science and innovation could whet their appetites, especially as research and innovation can change the perception that it is a drudgery-filled occupation to one where there is room for ambition – and it made business sense.

“In the face of slow productivity and rising risks, the case is clear. Investing in agricultural research is one of the smartest and most future-proof decisions that anyone can make,” she said.

Elouafi, along with the other panellists Dr Eliud Kiplimo Kireger, the Director General of KALRO and Eluid Rugut, a youth agri-champion at the Ban Ki-moon Centre, alluded to the broad value chain of agriculture, which will make it attractive to young people.

Dr Eliud Kiplimo Kireger, the Director General of KALRO. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

Dr Eliud Kiplimo Kireger, the Director General of KALRO. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

Kireger commented that people say, “Agriculture is not sexy, and so we need to make it sexy,” and encourage young people into science. Apart from encouraging young kids into science, there was a space in it for young people who don’t want to see returns on their investments in years but in months.

Rugut’s personal experience backs the claim up; he told the press conference that he first had to convince his father to give him a little land – and this wasn’t an easy task. Rugut, who represents both the youth and a smallholder, said it was only once his father saw the benefits of the new technologies that he was prepared to give his son the benefit of the doubt.

“It was very hard to convince my dad to give us land, but over time, these technologies that I was trying to bring to the farm – like drip irrigation, water pumps and drought-tolerant seeds,” Rugut said, but in the end, “I was able to convince him. Also, my mom was able to convince him.”

Kireger said the week-long conference had shown the power of collaboration, especially because research was expensive and the need was great. However, digitisation had meant that a lot of the research was no longer stuck in the labs and was now in the hands of farmers.

and Eluid Rugut, a youth agri-champion at the Ban Ki-Moon Centre. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

Eluid Rugut, a youth agri-champion at the Ban Ki-Moon Centre. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

He encouraged farmers (and the journalists at the conference) to take a look at the Google Play store, where there are KALRO apps.

“So, if you go to Google Play Store, you will find many KALRO apps which you can download onto your phone. So, if you’re a coffee farmer, for example, you can download a guide on your phone.”

This digitisation is key to scaling research and making it accessible.

Elouafi, too, said investment in agribusiness was crucial to transforming the sector There was a need for public-private partnerships so farmers were no longer only involved in production but down the value chain too.

“So strategic investment in agricultural research isn’t just necessary; it is economically smart. We have seen a USD 10 return on every dollar spent on research and development in the agriculture sector.”

She provided several examples. Participating in the value chain could transform USD 300 of wheat into USD 3000 through pasta production. Likewise with quinoa, millet and sorghum, which cost USD 4 in the market, with production, can fetch USD 50 to USD 100 per kilogram in the market.

This opportunity is where policies and subsidies come in, to put this potential into the hands of the farmers. “This is a gap we need to bridge,” Elouafi said.

Elouafi reported significant progress this week, particularly in addressing food insecurity. The achievements included the launch of the CGIAR research portfolio, the International Potato Centre (CIP) and KALRO biotech agreement, the IWMI water security strategy for East Africa, and the publication of CGIAR’s flagship report, Insight to Impact: A decision-maker’s guide to navigating food system science.

“Science week  has demonstrated the strength of partnerships. How together we can generate powerful tools, innovation, technologies, knowledge, institutions, policies – all of it – to deliver real-world impact for the communities that we serve.

“In the era of fake news and misinformation, our work, our impact, our partnership, and our commitment to the communities we serve are real, and our impact is real, and we need to have a much louder voice. We cannot let it up because the gap will be filled by misinformation.”

IPS UN Bureau Report,

 

Migrant Smuggling: Europe Must Make a U-Turn

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Civil Society, Europe, Global, Global Governance, Headlines, Human Rights, Humanitarian Emergencies, International Justice, IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse, Migration & Refugees, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

Picture Alliance / Pacific Press | Geovien So

BRUSSELS, Belgium, Apr 11 2025 (IPS) – Europe must understand that the only reasonable and humane way to tackle migrant smuggling is to open regular routes for people to reach Europe in safety and dignity.

Europe’s approach to migrant ‘smuggling’ is harmful and absurd.

Instead of tackling the lack of regular pathways, thereby forcing people to embark in dangerous migration journeys, European countries are targeting migrants, human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers and ordinary citizens — all while injecting billions into the border surveillance industry.

People rely on smuggling because there are no better ways to get to Europe. But cracking down on alleged ‘smugglers’ – often migrants themselves – does not create better options. On the contrary, it pushes more people onto ever more dangerous routes, while threatening those who help them — and the EU’s new Facilitation Directive is likely to make things worse.

Criminalising solidarity

Proposed by the European Commission at the end of 2023, this Directive is meant to update previous rules to counter migrant smuggling (the 2002 Facilitators Package). However, in reality, it follows the same old broken pattern.

The current text, largely validated by the EU Council last December, expands the definition of what can be considered ‘migrant smuggling’ and ups prison sentences across the board.

The European Parliament is set to start debating its own position on the Directive this month, with a final vote expected in the summer, before entering final negotiations with the Commission and Council towards the end of the year.

What’s more, the text fails to clearly protect solidarity with people in an irregular situation from criminalisation. There is no ‘humanitarian clause’ included among the legally binding provisions; member states are simply invited not to criminalise acts of solidarity.

This generates significant legal uncertainty, as recognised by a recent study requested by the European Commission itself. With far-right and other anti-immigration forces in power in several member states and leading in polls in others, it’s easy to see how such a failure leaves the door wide open to the criminalisation and harassment of family members, NGOs, human rights defenders and ordinary citizens who are helping people in need.

This is not a fantasy scenario. At PICUM we have been documenting a steady increase in the criminalisation of solidarity with migrants in recent years. Between January 2021 and March 2022, at least 89 people were criminalised, in 2022 at least 102 and in 2023 at least 117.

Migrants themselves are also increasingly being prosecuted for simply helping fellow travellers through routes made irregular and dangerous by repressive policies.

These figures are most likely an undercount. Statistical and official data on those accused, charged or convicted of smuggling and related offences are often lacking. Many cases go unreported by the media or because people, especially migrants themselves, fear retaliation.

Behind these numbers are people who have saved lives at sea, given a lift or provided shelter, food, water or clothes. In Latvia, two citizens were charged with facilitating irregular entry simply for giving food and water to migrants stranded at the border with Belarus.

In Poland, five people are facing up to five years in prison for providing humanitarian aid to people stranded at the border with Belarus.

Just a few weeks ago, Italian judges in Crotone acquitted Maysoon Majidi, a Kurdish-Iranian activist and filmmaker, who was arrested in 2023 on human trafficking charges following a landing of migrants in Calabria. Majidi faced a sentence of two years and four months in prison.

The prosecutor in Crotone had accused her of being ‘the captain’s assistant’ because, based on the unverified testimonies of two people on board, she distributed water and food on the vessel. The ‘witnesses’ later retracted their statements, but Majidi still spent 300 days in pre-trial detention.

In Greece, an Egyptian fisherman and his 15-year-old child were charged with smuggling, simply because the father reluctantly agreed to pilot their boat in order to afford the journey. The father was placed in pre-trial detention and sentenced to 280 years in prison. Not only has the child been separated from his father, but he is now facing the same charges in a juvenile court.

Who benefits?

Counter-smuggling policies clearly fail to make migration safer. As migration expert Hein De Haas has written: ‘It is the border controls that have forced migrants to take more dangerous routes and that have made them more and more dependent on smugglers to cross borders.

Smuggling is a reaction to border controls rather than a cause of migration in itself.’ So, who actually benefits from these policies — besides politicians chasing short-term electoral gains?

Between 2021 and 2027, the EU’s budget dedicated to the management of borders, visa and customs controls increased by 135 per cent compared to the previous programming period, from €2.8 billion to €6.5 billion.

Europe must understand that the only reasonable and humane way to tackle migrant smuggling is to open regular routes for people to reach Europe in safety and dignity.

Much of this budget increase is driven by private corporations, including major defence companies such as Airbus, Thales, Leonardo and Indra, which have a vested economic interest in border surveillance.

According to research by the foundation porCausa, the Spanish government awarded over €660 million for the control of Spain’s southern border between 2014 and 2019. Most of this money went to 10 large corporations, mainly for border surveillance (€551 million), detention and deportation (€97.8 millions).

In the negotiation phase of the Facilitation Directive, the Council has already adopted a position that would leave the door open to the criminalisation of migrants and the provision of humanitarian aid.

The European Parliament still has the opportunity to adopt an ambitious mandate. MEPs should understand what is at stake if a binding clause to protect migrants and solidarity from criminalisation is not introduced.

Beyond this Directive, Europe must understand that the only reasonable and humane way to tackle migrant smuggling is to open regular routes for people to reach Europe in safety and dignity.

Michele LeVoy is Director, Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM), a network of organizations working to ensure social justice and human rights for undocumented migrants.

Source: International Politics and Society (IPS), Brussels.

IPS UN Bureau

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