The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 11 2026 (IPS) - Since the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in October of last year, humanitarian conditions in Gaza have notably improved — but aid agencies warn that progress is extremely fragile. Acute shortages of lifesaving medical care and psychosocial support persist, hunger remains widespread, with conditional cash assistance as the primary barrier preventing full-scale food insecurity, while Israeli attacks continue to undermine stability and humanitarian efforts.
Addressing the 2026 Opening Session of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres warned of the urgency of the current situation in Gaza.
“We enter 2026 with the clock ticking louder than ever. Will the year ahead bend towards peace–or slip into the abyss of despair?” Guterres said.
Guterres urged all parties to fully implement the ceasefire agreement, exercise maximum restraint, and comply with international law and UN resolutions, while calling for the rapid and unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid, particularly through the Rafah crossing, where aid personnel face the most severe restrictions. He also condemned the suspension of international NGOs, explaining that it “defies humanitarian principles, undermines fragile progress, and worsens the suffering of civilians,” adding that shelter, food, education materials, and other basic necessities must reach those in need.
In recent months, food security conditions in Gaza have shown notable, though uneven, improvement. Since the ceasefire went into effect, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have brought over 10,000 trucks of aid into Gaza, representing roughly 80 percent of all humanitarian cargo. With this, the enclave was able to narrowly avoid the onset of famine.
WFP’s deputy executive director Carl Skau noted that most families he met were “eating at least once a day”, with some even managing two meals. Commercial goods such as vegetables, fruit, chicken, and eggs have gradually returned to local markets, while the distribution of recreational kits has helped children cope with the psychological toll of over two years of conflict.
However, progress remains fragile. The latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) assessment estimates that approximately 77 percent of Gaza’s population continues to face crisis-level food insecurity (IPC Phase 3), with around 100,000 people facing catastrophic conditions (IPC Phase 5). Moreover, most nutritious foods available in markets remain financially out of reach for civilians, leaving the vast majority of households heavily dependent on humanitarian food assistance.
For Gaza’s most vulnerable families, conditional cash assistance remains essential to accessing food. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), more than 3,200 agricultural households are currently supported through FAO cash programs, which also enable over 1,200 farmers to continue crop production and help more than 2,000 herders protect their livestock.
As markets gradually stabilize, humanitarian actors are seeking to shift their approach in favor of one that prioritizes building self-sufficiency. WFP has indicated its goal to transition to cash assistance as market conditions improve, shifting emergency relief efforts to restoring local food production and economic systems to allow for vulnerable families to be able to afford food. However, these efforts would require a significant upscale in funding, coordinated efforts between the international community, and the free flow of aid.
Meanwhile, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reports that Palestinians continue to face widespread insecurity, driven by routine attacks on civilians and critical infrastructures. On February 5, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) released a humanitarian situation report documenting a sharp increase in airstrikes, shelling, gunfire, and fatalities between January 30 and February 5 compared to previous weeks. According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, at least 82 Palestinians were killed and 162 injured during that period, including children and a health worker, alongside extensive damage to civilian infrastructure.
Further underscoring the risks faced by aid workers, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies reported on February 4 that a paramedic was killed while providing assistance in the Mawasi area. That same day, OCHA reiterated that civilians and humanitarian personnel “must never be targeted or used to shield military activities,” stressing that children and aid workers are afforded special protections under international humanitarian law.
The UN has also stressed that living conditions remain especially dire for displaced communities across Gaza. On February 3, heavy insecurity in the Al Mahatta and Sanafour areas of Gaza City forced approximately 40 families to flee their homes, with only 10 families able to return by the following morning. UN figures indicate that “capacity and funding constraints” have limited humanitarian support to only roughly 40 percent of the remaining functional 970 displacement sites across Gaza.
Healthcare needs are similarly overwhelming, as a steady influx of injuries and disease is compounded by the near-total collapse of Gaza’s health system. According to Jonathan Fowler, Senior Communications Manager of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the agency previously operated 22 clinics operating across the Gaza strip before the war, which has now fallen to just six.
“That makes it incredibly difficult to do our work and so many of our locations have been heavily damaged or indeed completely destroyed,” Fowler said. “On top of that, we remain banned by the Israeli authorities from bringing in any of our own supplies.” Despite numerous access and security constraints, UNRWA aims to assist approximately 15,000 patients each day, underscoring the scale of unmet medical needs across the most vulnerable areas.
Furthermore, OHCHR has documented a sharp rise in cases of mistreatment and abuse against displaced Palestinians by Israeli military forces, particularly along the newly reopened Rafah border crossing. As of February 5, Palestinians returning through the crossing for three consecutive days have reported consistent patterns of “ill-treatment, abuse, and humiliation”.
According to testimonies collected by the agency, returnees were escorted from the crossing to military checkpoints, where some were handcuffed, blindfolded, threatened, and intimidated. Others reported being subjected to invasive body searches, having personal belongings and money confiscated, and facing physical violence and degrading interrogations. Several individuals were also denied access to medical care and bathroom facilities, with some forced to urinate in public.
OHCHR also documented allegations that returnees were offered money to return to Egypt permanently or pressured to act as informants for the Israeli military.
“The international community has a responsibility to ensure that all measures affecting Gaza strictly comply with international law and fully respect Palestinians’ human rights,” said Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. “After two years of utter devastation, being able to return to their families and what remains of their homes in safety and dignity is the bare minimum.”
IPS UN Bureau Report
BANGKOK, Thailand, Feb 11 2026 (IPS) - The COVID-19 pandemic reminded everyone how important care work is to daily life. When schools closed and hospitals filled up, often it was women and girls who stepped up at home. Their contributions made a big difference, yet these responsibilities often go unseen and unrewarded.
“For me, care work is the heart of humanity,” says Leah Payud, a resilience portfolio manager at Oxfam Pilipinas. “It anchors societies, families… and keeps them running. Without someone investing time, effort and resources in essential care tasks like cooking, cleaning, childcare, nursing the elderly and sick at home, nothing else would be possible.”
Strong social norms persist in the region where care tasks are automatically handed over to women and girls. On average, women and girls across the Asia-Pacific region spend two to five times more time doing unpaid care and domestic work (UCDW) than men.
In Viet Nam, women spend close to 19 hours a week on unpaid care, while men spend about 8 hours. In Malaysia and the Philippines, the gap is also clear. Women’s UCDW labour was valued at 1.6 times that of men. Despite working similar hours in paid jobs, women still take on most of the care responsibilities at home.
These care demands limit women and girls’ time, energy and ability to receive a full education or join the workforce. In 2023, fewer than half of working-age women in the Asia-Pacific region were employed, compared to nearly three-quarters of men. Many cited caregiving as the reason.
Meanwhile, paid care services remain underinvested in and undervalued. Those from marginalized or disadvantaged communities particularly bear the brunt due to low wages and relatively poor working conditions.
Experts further agree that supporting care work is good for families and the economy. A study by the International Labour Organization found that investing in care services like childcare and elder care could create up to 280 million jobs around the world by 2030. Most of these jobs would go to women. In Asia and the Pacific, recognizing unpaid care work could potentially add $3.8 trillion to the economy.
For those women in formal jobs and women entrepreneurs, the lack of care services can contribute to women dropping out of the workforce and being unable to grow and scale their businesses respectively. They face additional challenges, including the ‘motherhood employment penalty,’ ‘motherhood wage penalty,’ and ‘motherhood leadership challenge.’
Post-pandemic, ASEAN leaders have been paying more attention to this issue. In 2021, ASEAN introduced the ASEAN Comprehensive Framework on the Care Economy. It encouraged countries to invest in better care services and recognize the value of both paid and unpaid care work.
This Framework called for concrete steps to expand care services and support care workers, reflecting ASEAN’s broader goal of building inclusive communities.
The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and ASEAN also have been working together to strengthen care systems across the region. Through joint research, policy dialogue and technical support, the partnership helps turn data into action.
Together, ESCAP and ASEAN bring expert analysis to highlight the value of care work and support Member States to translate these insights into national policies. In 2023, ESCAP co-hosted a regional forum on care work with ASEAN.
The event brought together policymakers, community leaders and experts from across the region to share ideas on what support caregivers need most, while also delving into gender-responsive and care-sensitive policies and programs.
The topic gained further momentum when Lao PDR hosted the Third ASEAN Women Leader’s Summit in 2024, backed by capacity building and knowledge support from ESCAP and various development partners.
The Summit led to a new Declaration on Strengthening the Care Economy adopted by ASEAN leaders later that year, which recognizes the disproportionate presence of women in both the formal and informal care sectors, and identifies a range of gender-responsive priority actions.
“To create lasting change, we must prioritize transformative policies that recognize and redistribute the care burden equitably, without reinforcing traditional gender roles and norms. By promoting shared responsibility for caregiving among all members of society, we can pave the way for more meaningful opportunities for women to realize their full potential and empower women and girls to dream big and reach far,” says Cai Cai, Chief of the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Section at ESCAP.
Many ASEAN countries are already taking action. Indonesia has launched a Care Economy Roadmap and National Action Plan (2025-2045). Cambodia is close to finalizing its own national action plan. Malaysia is developing a strategy to grow its care industry.
In the Philippines, care services are being strengthened through provincial and national care ordinances. Lao PDR is integrating care into both the Laos Women’s Development Plan 2026-2030 and the 10th Five-Year National Socio-Economic Development Plan. Timor-Leste is working on a new Domestic Workers Law and has set up a national Working Group on Care.
Together, these efforts reflect a shared regional commitment to making care more visible, accessible and valued.
Looking ahead, ASEAN’s next community vision presents an opportunity to make care and gender equality a stronger part of the region’s development story. Mainstreaming them across all three ASEAN community pillars will ensure ASEAN can harness all of its vast resources to accelerate progress towards achieving the global Sustainable Development Goals, in particular SDG 5 on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, with Target 5.4 aiming to recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work.
Care touches every part of life. Supporting care is not just about new policies. It is about recognizing the needs of real people from every background and building systems that respond to them. When we recognize and invest in care, we create more chances for women to work, for families to thrive and for communities to grow stronger.
The article was prepared with substantive input contributed by Channe Lindstrom Oguzhan, Social Development Division.
IPS UN Bureau
NAIROBI, Feb 11 2026 (IPS) - The global aid system is crumbling amidst chronic underinvestment in rural areas, posing a systemic threat to food systems everywhere.
With 1.3 billion young people in the world today – the largest generation in history, and nearly half of them living in rural areas – investing in their entrepreneurial potential is key.
Speaking during a press briefing on February 10, 2026, at the International Fund for Agricultural Development‘s (IFAD) 49th Governing Council, the president, Alvaro Lario, said investing in young entrepreneurs and women farmers unlocks new pathways for employment and ensures that rural areas become thriving engines of stability, prosperity and sustainable growth.
The overarching theme of the ongoing session of the Governing Council is “From Farm to Market: Investing with Young Entrepreneurs” and is being held at a pivotal moment when the global aid system is in urgent need of reinvention.
“We are at a very complex time of geopolitical fragmentation and constrained budgets for many countries. Food systems are going through various regular shocks that include climate shocks. So, rural transformation means economic growth, creating jobs and building stability,” Lario stated.
Lario advocated for public-private partnerships that connect farmers with private companies, which invest directly in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) through blended finance, guarantees, and various forms of debt or equity, ultimately increasing access to rural finance. Public finance alone cannot deliver the transformation of food systems, raise rural incomes, or create decent jobs.
IFAD’s president, Alvaro Lario, with Tony Elumelu, chairman of UBA, and Heirs Holdings and founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation. Credit: IFAD/Hannah Kathryn Valles
SME-driven value chains are critical to rural development. IFAD’s assessments show that SME-focused value chain projects are more likely to deliver transformational impacts – in other words, where incomes increase by more than 50 per cent because of the project. The Project for Rural Income through Exports in Rwanda (PRICE) increased returns to farmers through the development of export-driven value chains for coffee, tea, silk farming and horticulture.
In brief, he said the private sector accounts for more than 90 per cent of global food systems’ activity and that it complements public sector financing in a critical way by providing technology, market access, and logistics. Emphasising that these are the elements that allow small farms, pastoralists, fishers, rural entrepreneurs and other agri-food enterprises to grow and prosper.
Overall, at the Governing Council, Lario underscored the immense strategic and business value of investing in rural economies, presented new impact data and priorities for 2028-2030 and outlined the most effective models for scaling up productive investments. He was joined by Tony Elumelu, Chair of United Bank for Africa and Heirs Holdings, and founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, in outlining a new deal for rural economies.
They spoke at length about how to accelerate the shift to channel more private investments to rural economies. On young African entrepreneurs and facilitating their access to financing, he said as currently constituted, a bank cannot lend without collateral and consideration of social repayment.
“Since the regulatory environment does not permit banks to lend without taking these issues into consideration, countries create development financing institutions that can take some of the risks. And, also, having development financing institutions and global financing that help to de-risk transactions so that banks can come in and provide the capital,” Elumelu said.
“One of the reasons my wife and I established the Tony Elumelu Foundation is to support young African entrepreneurs. Access to capital is critical for entrepreneurship development. But oftentimes, people lack what it takes to access it. The Foundation has provided USD100 million. And every year, we identify young African entrepreneurs who have business ideas and train them on how to actualise these ideas.”
Further emphasising that access to capital, “while important, is not the only condition that will make you succeed. Business education is important. So we train them, appoint mentors for them, create a networking platform for them, and then provide them with the knowledge they need to receive capital. To date, in Africa, we have funded over 24,000 young African entrepreneurs. And the good news is that about half of these people are females.”
Elumelu said youth-centred interventions significantly boost agro-entrepreneurship as a key driver for economic growth, job creation, and stability while addressing the youth opportunity deficit.
“Nearly 21 percent of those who are funded in Africa are in agriculture and agribusinesses. And out of these 21 percent, which is about 5,600 beneficiaries, 55 percent of them are females. So in a way, we are trying to help bridge that capital gap, finance gap. But that is not enough. It’s just a tiny drop of water in the ocean. So we need even more partnerships.”
Elumelu further drew on his Africapitalism philosophy, which is a call to action for businesses to move beyond short-term profit-seeking and instead make investments that generate socio-economic benefits for the communities in which they operate. And his foundation’s decade-long experience building Africa’s largest entrepreneurship ecosystem speaks to how entrepreneurship, private capital, and market-driven solutions can transform rural economies, expand food systems, and close the youth opportunity gap.
IFAD is an international financial institution and a United Nations-specific agency that invests in rural communities, empowering them to reduce poverty, increase food security, improve nutrition, and strengthen resilience. It has thus far provided more than USD 25 billion in grants and low-interest loans to fund projects in developing countries.
The Governing Council is IFAD’s highest decision-making body that, among other things, provides a forum for Governors to share their insights on priority areas for strategic action to lift the livelihoods of rural people.
This session also takes place at the beginning of the International Year of the Woman Farmer, declared in recognition of the key role that women farmers around the world play in agrifood systems and their contributions to food security, nutrition and poverty eradication.
Empowering youth and women entrepreneurs to initiate and expand agribusinesses serves as a vital catalyst for economic development and creates lasting positive impacts. Women make up more than half of IFAD’s project participants, while over 60 per cent of the active project portfolio is youth-sensitive, reaching more than 12 million young people globally.
IPS UN Bureau Report
MANDERA, Kenya, , Feb 10 2026 (IPS) - Every morning before sunrise, 10-year-old Amina Adan walks away from school and toward a shrinking water pan on the outskirts of Rhamu, Mandera County. By the time her classmates would be opening exercise books, Amina was already balancing a yellow jerrycan almost half her size.
Her mother, Fatuma Adan, says the choice is no longer between education and chores — it is between water and survival.
“When there is no water, there is no food, and there is no school,” Fatuma explains. “The children must help; we don’t make it through the day.”
Amina’s story reflects a widening crisis across Kenya’s Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs), where prolonged drought is reversing hard-won gains on poverty reduction, food security, health, and education — core pillars of the sustainable development goals (SDGs).
A Drought Stretches Systems Beyond Their Limits
According to Kenya’s National Drought Management Authority (NDMA), Mandera remains in the alarm phase, following repeated rainfall failures that saw the October–December 2025 short rains deliver just 30–60 per cent of the long-term average. Water pans have dried up, pasture has collapsed, and households dependent on pastoralism are rapidly losing their main source of food and income.
National food and nutrition security assessments show that more than 2.15 million people in Kenya’s ASAL counties are currently in need of urgent humanitarian assistance, while over 800,000 children aged 6–59 months require treatment for acute malnutrition. County health officials in Mandera report rising admissions to Outpatient Therapeutic Programmes (OTPs) as families exhaust food reserves and milk production from livestock dwindles.
The crisis is not confined to Kenya. Across the Horn of Africa, the United Nations estimates that nearly 24 million people in Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia are facing acute water insecurity, following years of recurrent drought and climate shocks. UNICEF warns that 2.7 million children across the region are already out of school due to drought-related displacement, with another 4 million at risk if conditions persist.
“These climate shocks are no longer one-off emergencies,” says a county education officer in Mandera. “They are structural, and they are shaping how — or whether — children grow, learn, and thrive.”
Education Disrupted, Futures Delayed
In Mandera North, schools sit at the front line of the crisis. Teachers describe classrooms thinning out as families migrate in search of pasture and water, taking children with them. Others remain behind but struggle to concentrate amid hunger and exhaustion.
Abdikadir Adan Alio, a county education official in Mandera, says attendance in some drought-affected schools has dropped sharply, with girls disproportionately affected as water collection and household responsibilities fall on them first.
For development experts, the implications go beyond short-term learning loss. Interrupted education weakens human capital, undermines long-term economic productivity, and reduces communities’ ability to adapt to future climate shocks — a direct setback to SDG 4 (Quality Education) and SDG 1 (No Poverty).
“If children miss school year after year, the damage becomes generational,” warns Dr Ali Abdi, a humanitarian education specialist working in northern Kenya.
Health and Nutrition Under Strain
Health workers say drought is accelerating a dangerous cycle of hunger, disease, and vulnerability among children. With water scarce, hygiene suffers, increasing the risk of diarrhoeal diseases that further weaken malnourished children.
At mobile clinics operating in remote parts of Mandera, health teams screen children for malnutrition, provide therapeutic foods, and refer severe cases to stabilisation centres. Many of these services are delivered through partnerships between county governments and humanitarian agencies.
“Early detection is saving lives,” says a nutrition officer involved in outreach programmes. “But the caseload keeps rising, and the distances families travel are growing.”
These pressures directly threaten SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being) and SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) — goals that had shown gradual progress before climate extremes intensified.
Protection Risks Rise as Coping Mechanisms Fail
As drought erodes livelihoods, families are forced into negative coping strategies. Humanitarian agencies report increased risks of child labour, early marriage, and gender-based violence, particularly in remote settlements where social safety nets are weakest.
Girls are especially vulnerable. When resources run low, education is often the first to be cut.
“Drought doesn’t just take food and water,” says a community leader in Mandera. “It takes safety and dignity from children.”
What Is Working: Integrated, Child-Centred Solutions
Despite the scale of the crisis, evidence from Mandera and other ASAL counties shows that integrated responses can cushion children from the worst impacts and protect progress on the SDGs.
Mobile health and nutrition clinics, supported by county governments and organisations such as UNICEF and Save the Children, are reaching nomadic and displaced families who would otherwise fall outside the health system. These clinics combine nutrition screening, immunisation, and maternal health services, reducing the need for long journeys to fixed facilities.
Cash transfer programmes, implemented by government agencies with support from partners including World Vision, are enabling households to prioritise food, water, and healthcare according to their most urgent needs. Studies show that cash support can significantly reduce negative coping strategies and help keep children in school during shocks.
Meanwhile, investments in water trucking, borehole rehabilitation, and climate-resilient water infrastructure are stabilising access in drought hotspots. Although costly, experts argue these interventions are essential to safeguarding SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation) and preventing repeated humanitarian emergencies.
Community-based approaches are also proving effective. Trained volunteers conduct nutrition screening at the household level, identifying at-risk children early and linking families to services before conditions deteriorate.
“These interventions work best when they are combined,” says a humanitarian programme manager. “Health alone is not enough. Water, food, income, and protection must move together.”
The Challenge of Scale and Sustainability
While these programmes are saving lives, gaps remain. Funding cycles are often short, and responses remain largely reactive rather than preventive. Local officials say scaling up climate-resilient livelihoods — such as drought-tolerant agriculture, livestock insurance, and alternative income sources — is critical to breaking the cycle.
Development analysts warn that without sustained investment, drought will continue to erode gains across multiple SDGs, forcing repeated emergency responses that are more costly in the long run.
“The question is not whether drought will return,” says Eunice Koech, a climate expert at IGAD. “It is whether systems will be strong enough to protect children when it does.”
Childhood at a Crossroads
Back in Rhamu, Fatuma Adan hopes her daughter will return to school full-time when conditions improve. For now, survival comes first.
“I want Amina to learn,” she says. “But first, we must live.”
As climate shocks intensify across the Horn of Africa, the stakes could not be higher. Without coordinated, long-term action, drought will continue to steal not just water and food — but childhood itself, undermining global commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals.
IPS UN Bureau Report
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 10 2026 (IPS) - New findings from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reveal that millions of children are having their images manipulated into sexualized content through the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI), fueling a fast-growing and deeply harmful form of online abuse. The agency warns that without strong regulatory frameworks and meaningful cooperation between governments and tech platforms, this escalating threat could have devastating consequences for the next generation.
A 2025 report from The Childlight Global Child Safety Institute—an independent organization that tracks child sexual exploitation and abuse—shows a staggering rise in technology-facilitated child abuse in recent years, growing from 4,700 cases in the United States in 2023 to over 67,000 in 2024. A significant share of these incidents involved deepfakes: AI-generated images, videos, and audio engineered to appear realistic and often used to create sexualized content. This includes widespread “nudification”, where AI tools strip or alter clothing in photos to produce fabricated nude images.
A joint study from UNICEF, Interpol, and End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism (ECPAT) International examined the rates of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) circulated online across 11 countries found that at least 1.2 million children had their images manipulated into sexually explicit deepfakes in the past year alone. This means roughly one in every 25 children—or one child in every classroom—has already been victimized by this emerging form of digital abuse.
“When a child’s image or identity is used, that child is directly victimised,” a UNICEF representative said. “Even without an identifiable victim, AI-generated child sexual abuse material normalises the sexual exploitation of children, fuels demand for abusive content and presents significant challenges for law enforcement in identifying and protecting children that need help. Deepfake abuse is abuse, and there is nothing fake about the harm it causes.”
A 2025 survey from National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) studied the public’s attitudes toward deepfake abuse, finding that deepfake abuse had surged by 1,780 percent between 2019 and 2024. In a UK-wide representative survey conducted by Crest Advisory, nearly three in five respondents reported feeling worried about becoming victims of deepfake abuse.
Additionally, 34 percent admitted to creating a sexual or intimate deepfake of someone they knew, while 14 percent had created deepfakes of someone they did not know. The research also found that women and girls are disproportionately targeted, with social media identified as the most common place where these deepfakes are spread.
The study also presented respondents with a scenario in which a person creates an intimate deepfake of their partner, discloses it to them, and later distributes it to others following an argument. Alarmingly, 13 percent of respondents said this behavior should be both morally and legally acceptable, while an additional 9 percent expressed neutrality. NPCC also reported that those who considered this behavior to be acceptable were more likely to be younger men who actively consume pornography and agree with beliefs that would “commonly be regarded as misogynistic”.
“We live in very worrying times, the futures of our daughters (and sons) are at stake if we don’t start to take decisive action in the digital space soon,” award-winning activist and internet personality Cally-Jane Beech told NPCC. “We are looking at a whole generation of kids who grew up with no safeguards, laws or rules in place about this, and now seeing the dark ripple effect of that freedom.”
Deepfake abuse can have severe and lasting psychological and social consequences for children, often triggering intense shame, anxiety, depression, and fear. In a new report, UNICEF notes that a child’s “body, identity, and reputation can be violated remotely, invisibly, and permanently” through deepfake abuse, alongside risks of threats, blackmailing, and extortion from perpetrators. Feelings of violation – paired with the permanence and viral spread of digital content – can leave victims with long-term trauma, mistrust, and disrupted social development.
“Many experience acute distress and fear upon discovering that their image has been manipulated into sexualised content,” Afrooz Kaviani Johnson, Child Protection Specialist at UNICEF Headquarters told IPS. “Children report feelings of shame and stigma, compounded by the loss of control over their own identity. These harms are real and lasting: being depicted in sexualised deepfakes can severely impact a child’s wellbeing, erode their trust in digital spaces, and leave them feeling unsafe even in their everyday ‘offline’ lives.”
Cosmas Zavazava, Director of the Telecommunication Development Bureau at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), added that online abuse can also translate to physical harm.
In a joint statement on Artificial Intelligence and the Rights of the Child, key UN entities, including UNICEF, ITU, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the UN Commission of the Rights of the Child (CRC) warned that among children, parents, caregivers and teachers, there was a widespread lack of AI literacy. This refers to the basic ability to understand how AI systems work and how to engage with them critically and effectively. This knowledge gap leaves young people especially vulnerable, making it harder for victims and their support systems to recognize when a child is being targeted, to report abuse, or to access adequate protections and support services.
The UN also emphasized that a substantial share of responsibility lies with tech platforms, noting that most generative AI tools lack meaningful safeguards to prevent digital child exploitation.
“From UNICEF’s perspective, deepfake abuse thrives in part because legal and regulatory frameworks have not kept pace with technology. In many countries, laws do not explicitly recognise AI‑generated sexualised images of children as child sexual abuse material (CSAM),” said Johnson.
UNICEF is urging governments to ensure that definitions of CSAM are updated to include AI-generated content and “explicitly criminalise both its creation and distribution”. According to Johnson, technology companies should be required to adopt what he called “safety-by-design measures” and “child-rights impact assessments”.
He stressed however that while essential, laws and regulations alone would not be enough. “Social norms that tolerate or minimise sexual abuse and exploitation must also change. Protecting children effectively will require not only better laws, but real shifts in attitudes, enforcement, and support for those who are harmed.”
Commercial incentives further compound the problem, with platforms benefitting from increased user engagement, subscriptions, and publicity generated by AI image tools, creating little motivation to adopt stricter protection measures.
As a result, tech companies often introduce guardrails only after major public controversies — long after children have already been affected. One such example is Grok, the AI chatbot for X (formerly Twitter), which was found generating large volumes of nonconsensual, sexualized deepfake images in response to user prompts. Facing widespread, international backlash, X announced in January that Grok’s image generator tool would only be limited to X’s paid subscribers.
Investigations into Grok are ongoing, however. The United Kingdom and the European Union have opened investigations since January, and on February 3, prosecutors in France raided X’s offices as part of its investigation into the platform’s alleged role in circulating CSAM and deepfakes. X’s owner Elon Musk was summoned for questioning.
UN officials have stressed the need for regulatory frameworks that protect children online while still allowing AI systems to grow and generate revenue. “Initially, we got the feeling that they were concerned about stifling innovation, but our message is very clear: with responsible deployment of AI, you can still make a profit, you can still do business, you can still get market share,” said a senior UN official. “The private sector is a partner, but we have to raise a red flag when we see something that is going to lead to unwanted outcomes.”
IPS UN Bureau
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Feb 10 2026 (IPS) - It is a pleasure for me to join His Excellency, Minister Al Hussaini in welcoming you to this important dialogue here in the United Arab Emirates—a fast-growing global AI hub. A recent Microsoft study reports that 64 percent of the UAE’s working age population uses AI, which is the highest rate globally.
This illustrates the dynamism we see in the region—and the major investments and partnerships that some of the world’s biggest tech companies are making here.
Why such a huge commitment to this region? Because the UAE and the members of the GCC all understand just how transformative AI can be. They have made systemically significant investments in human capital over the last decades. IMF estimates show that, with the right measures in place, AI could fuel a boost to global productivity of up to 0.8 percentage points per year. This could raise global growth to levels exceeding those of the pre-pandemic period.
Here in the Gulf region, AI could boost non-oil GDP in Gulf countries by up to 2.8 percent. For economies that have long been dependent on hydrocarbon exports, this presents an enormous opportunity to diversify and build new sources of growth.
Now, major technology changes often bring disruption. And sure enough, we can expect disruption from AI. Especially to labor markets. On average, 40 percent of jobs globally will be impacted by AI—either upgraded or eliminated or transformed. For advanced economies, 60 percent of jobs will be affected. This is like a tsunami hitting the labor market.
We are already seeing the evidence: about one in 10 job postings in advanced economies now require at least one new skill. Workers with in-demand skills will likely see productivity and wage gains. This will create more demand for services, and increase employment and wages among low-skilled workers. But middle-skilled jobs will be squeezed.
That means that young people and the middle class will be hit hardest.
We can expect to see a similar divergence between countries. Those with an economic structure conducive to AI adoption—that is, strong digital infrastructure, more skilled labor forces, and robust regulatory frameworks—are likely to experience the largest and fastest benefits. Countries that don’t may get left behind. This is why we gathered here today. AI looks unstoppable.
But whether or not countries can successfully capitalize on AI’s enormous promise is yet to be determined. And this will largely depend on the policy regimes they put in place. So then, what must be done to ensure AI translates into broad-based prosperity for this region?
First, macro policies. Investment and innovation in AI will boost growth. Fiscal policies can support this by strengthening tax systems and by funding research, reskilling, or sector-based training programs. However, tax systems should not encourage automation at the expense of people. Likewise, effective financial regulation will be essential to ensure financial market efficiency and improved risk management.
Second, guardrails. AI needs to be regulated to ensure it’s safe, fair, and trustworthy—but without stifling innovation. Different countries are taking different approaches, ranging from risk-based frameworks to high-level principles. Whatever approach they take, it’s critical that countries coordinate.
That brings me to my third point: cooperation and partnerships. Scale is a big advantage in AI. But you can’t get scale without cooperation among governments, AI researchers and developers, including when it comes to data sharing and knowledge transfer.
Let me conclude. AI will transform our economies. It will present immense opportunities and pose significant risks. And it falls to you, the world’s policymakers, to ensure that the opportunities are maximized for your countries and the risks controlled.
IPS UN Bureau
ZAMBOANGA, Philippines, Feb 10 2026 (IPS) - Despite lacking both evidence and theory, many economists claim trade liberalisation accelerates development. But only a few economies have gained many jobs from external market access.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Multilateral trade liberalisation
In conventional trade theory, gains from trade liberalisation are mainly one-time increases in output and exports due to static comparative advantage.
Post-World War Two (WWII) US foreign policy transformed multilateral relations and transnational institutions, including international economic governance.
With the growing power of transnational corporations, many multilateral institutions, including the United Nations system, have been reconfigured or marginalised.
The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was a ‘second-best’ compromise after the US Congress vetoed the creation of the International Trade Organisation, despite widespread international enthusiasm for the 1948 Havana Charter.
Almost half a century later, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) was established in 1995, following the 1994 Marrakesh Declaration concluding the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations.
Trade mahaguru Jagdish Bhagwati argued that multilateral trade has been undermined by plurilateral and bilateral arrangements favouring dominant partners.
With the era of trade liberalisation essentially over since the 2008-09 global financial crisis (GFC), free trade advocacy has received a new lease of life from mythmaking about the ‘pre-Trump’ era.
Uneven, mixed effects
Mainstream trade theory does not entertain the possibility of ‘unequal exchange’, however defined.
Nor does it even incorporate Bhagwati’s notion of ‘immiserising growth’ when productivity gains reduce prices for consumers, rather than increase producers’ earnings.
The three decades of trade liberalisation from the 1980s saw slower, but more volatile growth than the post-WWII quarter-century termed the ‘Golden Age’. More recently, stagnationist tendencies have dominated since the GFC.
With trade liberalisation, many developing countries have experienced greater food insecurity and deindustrialisation, as the manufacturing shares of their national income shrank.
Much import-substituting industrialisation after WWII or independence has since collapsed. Besides resource processing, very few new industries have emerged in Africa.
‘Aid for Trade’ for poorer developing countries implicitly acknowledges trade liberalisation’s adverse effects by mitigating some of them. Why then should they abandon protectionism if they need to be compensated for doing so?
Wealthy nations have also insisted that developing countries end manufacturing tariffs. But as Dani Rodrik has quipped, why rich nations “need to be bribed by poor countries to do what is good for them is an enduring mystery”.
African nations and Caribbean and Pacific small island developing states enjoyed preferential access to European markets, which full multilateral trade liberalisation would eliminate.
Such preferences for Sub-Saharan Africa have pitted African against Asian least developed countries, undermining the collective negotiating strengths of both.
Many countries had expected the current Doha Round to eliminate rich nations’ producer subsidies, tariffs, and non-tariff barriers, but that has not happened.
Cutting farm support in the North could make food agriculture in developing countries more viable, but would also raise food import prices in the interim.
World Bank ‘structural adjustment’ programmes and IMF fiscal discipline requirements have undermined rural infrastructure and productivity, setting back smallholder agriculture in most developing countries.
Setbacks, not gains
Trade liberalisation also reduces tariff revenue. Such losses have hurt developing nations, especially the poorest, for whom tariffs often accounted for up to half of all tax revenue.
Such revenue cuts severely undermined the fiscal means of developing nations, crucial for government spending and investment, including for development and welfare.
Most governments are unable to replace lost tariff revenue with new or higher taxes. Meanwhile, more borrowing to offset lost tariff revenue has worsened indebtedness.
Trade liberalisation advocates are typically vague about how it is supposed to raise exports, incomes, and tax revenue, besides compensating for lost tariff revenue.
Instead, tax burdens typically become more regressive as overall tax revenue declines. Real consumption is supposed to rise as import prices fall with lower tariffs, but could also decline due to increasing consumption taxes.
Less policy space
Trade liberalisation has also reduced available development policy tools, especially those relating to trade, investment, and industrialisation.
The constraints imposed by trade liberalisation and investment agreements have generally limited the scope for and potential of development policy initiatives.
The actual role and impact of trade policy for growth and employment remain moot. But there are no analytical reasons or robust empirical evidence that trade liberalisation per se ensures sustainable development.
World Bank and most other studies acknowledged modest, if not negative, net gains for most developing countries from any realistically achievable outcome.
It is often ignored that realistic expectations of gains from trade liberalisation rely crucially on a strong positive export supply response.
However, such a response is unlikely when internationally competitive, productive and export capacities do not already exist, as in most developing countries, especially the poorest.
Hence, most of the Global South has not been able to overcome the worst consequences of trade liberalisation to achieve sustainable development.
In any case, the WTO Doha Round talks were ended by rich nations in 2015.
With the increasingly blatant self-interested contravention of WTO rules by the US, European and other wealthy nations, developing countries may best enhance their development prospects by reverting to GATT rules.
This would allow them to opt in, as appropriate, rather than resign themselves to the uniform ‘one size fits all’ WTO rules and regulations, regardless of context, circumstances, capacities and capabilities.
IPS UN Bureau