The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
YAOUNDE, Cameroon, Apr 2 2026 (IPS) - The WTO’s 14th Ministerial Conference (MC14), which took place from 26 to 30 March 2026 in Cameroon, was reported as a collapse resulting from the stand-off between Brazil and the United States on the extension of the e-commerce moratorium. This is one screen shot of a bigger unfolding story where the US is attempting to enforce its will on the organization, while some are resisting.
The Trump administration did not pull the US out of the WTO so that it can complete a project of remaking the organization into one that fits the US’s vision of a new international order serving its ‘national security interests’. Since the Trump administration came into office, they made clear that their approach to foreign relations will be based on brutal power and politics of coercion. The WTO 14th ministerial conference is one international forum where these politics manifested.
The US vision for remaking the organization, as reflected in its submissions under the ‘WTO reform’ negotiations, along with the statement of US Trade Representative in Yaoundé, embody an attack on the raison d’etre of the organization, which is multilateralism.
Multiple US administrations had maintained a fairly consistent approach to the WTO, undermining some of its key functions, such as through paralyzing the dispute settlement function, and pushing for a self-judging non-reviewable national security exception.
The latter could effectively become an opt-out mechanism for the US from its obligations under the WTO rules including the most-favoured-nation (MFN) principle, and secure an immunity from questioning for any US unilateral trade measures packaged as a security issue.
The Trump administration’s talk at the WTO did not hide behind diplomatic or legal jargon. The US submissions made it clear that they are out to dismantle the fundamental pillar that holds the multilateral trading system together – that of non-discrimination and the MFN principle.
They want to strip away the system from an effective ‘special and differential treatment’, a core part of the original bargain that made the WTO establishment possible and that reflected in trade law an acknowledgment that one-size-fits-all rules do not work given the varying levels of development among Members.
The US vision is to turn the WTO from a multilateral organization where each Member, big or small, have an equal voice, to a platform of deals among the big players where it can effectively control the setting of the agenda and focus the organization on US corporate interests.
This is effectively what the US attempted at MC14, where they focused attention on their proposal for a permanent moratorium on customs duties on electronic commerce transmissions.
In Yaoundé, the US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer suggested there “would be consequences,” if the US did not get this delivered. This was the US administration carrying forward the agenda of its tech corporate giants. Since 1998, the US had secured this moratorium against the growing concerns of developing countries that this practice costs them billions of dollars in forgone tariff revenue that is key for their development, industrialization and building of digital capacities.
Ironically, the Trump administration brought the multilateral trading system to its knees by its aggressive unjustified tariff policies and illegal bilateral tariff deals over the past year. In Yaoundé, the same administration denied the developing countries the legitimate use of tariff policy to advance developmental objectives and preserve digital sovereignty and policy space essential for developing their digital economy.
It is clear that the US’s fight at the WTO is not only against China. It seeks to erase any trajectory towards industrialization and competitive edge that any other developing country could potentially build under multilateralism.
With no decision on this issue nor on WTO reform, the LDC package, and the Moratorium on TRIPS non-violation complaints achieved in Yaoundé, the work will be brought back to Geneva. A question often posed in Geneva is how to keep the US engaged in the negotiations, which will become more prominent in light of what unfolded in Yaoundé.
When negotiations are overwhelmed by this question, the attention moves away from efforts to make the organization relevant for all its members, and a forum where negotiations could potentially lead to compromises and outcomes for members at different levels of development. Even decision makers in the WTO administrative body get geared towards ensuring the US stays on board. This adds to the distortions.
In this context, developing countries face the larger threats of fragmentation and distraction from their key concerns and interests. Yet, the costs of such fragmentation cannot be higher in the face of the unfolding project to remake the WTO.
Multiple US administrations showed WTO members how they can keep key negotiation agendas, like the dispute settlement reform, in limbo and block the functioning of the WTO appellate body against the will of the rest of the membership.
In this case, the US’s blocking is void of any justified principled position, but rather a brutal imposition of their will and narrow interests on the rest of the WTO membership.
In the face of the remake project of the WTO advanced by the US, and largely supported by the European Union, what Jane Kelsey calls “a coup underway at the WTO”, developing countries need to stand together despite the differences they might have on some negotiation portfolios where their national interests might dictate disparities in the negotiation positions.
In such an era, managing differences while leveraging the power of dialogue, cooperation and coalition building is crucial to maintain a voice and role in determining how the WTO will be functioning in the future.
A WTO focused on plurilaterals as a norm rather than exception will be a place where the voice of developing countries is eroded. Trade wars will potentially be imported into the WTO through simultaneous plurilateral counterinitiatives leading to further fragmentation of this trading regime. This will be a world where MFN is discarded, consensus decision-making undermined, and leverage points to advance issues of development and special and differential treatment eroded.
Developing countries should collectively assess the cost such a future hold for them and the WTO, its survival as a multilateral organization and its potential to deliver for Members at different levels of development.
IPS UN Bureau
KAKAMEGA, Kenya, Apr 1 2026 (IPS) - They call this land Bushiangala. Gold has been mined here for nearly a century. In 1931, colonial prospectors arrived after traces were found in the nearby Yala River, setting off a rush that changed this quiet corner of western Kenya.
Colonial authorities quickly took control of the boom, introducing mining laws that restricted access, while companies like Rosterman Gold Mines dominated production, employing local labour even as profits flowed out of the region. When industrial operations collapsed in the 1950s, they left behind something more enduring: an informal mining economy that never disappeared.
For more than 70 years, artisanal miners, known locally as ‘wachimba migodi’, have worked these deposits by hand, digging, crushing and washing ore using techniques passed down through generations. Mercury came much later.
Josephine Liabule Mkhobi grew up around the pits. She remembers watching older miners process gold with water and pans.
“Our parents never used mercury,” Mkhobi says. “This method started around 2008.”
Introduced as a faster alternative, mercury quickly took hold, speeding up gold extraction – but leaving behind contamination that has not disappeared.
Over time, water sources across the Lake Victoria region became increasingly unsafe, with mercury in some wells reaching up to ten times the World Health Organization’s guidelines.
The contamination now stretches across a gold-rich belt that includes Kakamega — home to Bushiangala — as well as Vihiga, Siaya, Busia, and Kisumu, reaching toward Migori near the Tanzanian border.
A 2026 study published in Environmental Health found that the water and slurry used in these mining pits contain concentrations of arsenic, chromium, and mercury up to 100 times higher than local surface waters. The researchers warned that miners – and children living nearby – are in direct, frequent contact with these toxic mixtures, which eventually drain into the broader Lake Victoria ecosystem.
Mercury’s Slow Poison
Gladys Akitsa, an artisanal gold miner, mixes mercury with gold-bearing concentrate at the Bushiangala mining site in Ikolomani, Kakamega County, Kenya. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS
For the miners on the ground, these toxins are no longer a matter of abstract data.
Timothy Mukoshi, a miner, remembers a colleague who slowly began to lose his memory. The man would withdraw money from the bank and later forget where he had put it.
Like many miners here, he often burnt mercury-gold amalgam to separate the metal – a process that releases toxic vapours. After he died, Mukoshi says the cause was clear: a post-mortem found traces of mercury in his brain.
“Mercury is what you call a slow poison,” Mukoshi says.
For years, the risks associated with using mercury in mining went largely unrecognised. Now, Bushiangala is trying something different.
In the same processing sites where women crush ore and wash gold by hand, miners are forming cooperatives and introducing methods that can recover gold without the toxic metal.
Miners say the shift gathered momentum after training initiatives reached the area through the planetGOLD programme — a global initiative backed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), with country-level implementation in Kenya by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to reduce mercury use in artisanal and small-scale gold mining.
“The planetGOLD programme stands as our leading initiative to tackle mercury use in artisanal and small-scale gold mining. By helping countries identify, test, and scale up mining and processing techniques, we not only support improved gold recovery but also empower miners to transition away from mercury use,” says Anil Bruce Sookdeo, Chemicals and Waste Coordinator and Senior Environmental Specialist at the GEF.
“Our approach is comprehensive – we facilitate sector formalisation, broaden access to financing for technology upgrades, and connect miners to formal and more reliable gold supply chains. When cleaner technologies are economically viable, financing is accessible, and there’s a dependable market for their gold, miners are much more likely to adopt mercury-free methods,” Sookdeo added.
Bringing Artisanal Miners Out of the Shadows
Women miners gather at a gold processing site in Bushiangala, Ikolomani, Kakamega County, Kenya. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS
The planetGOLD Kenya project, locally known as IMKA, is partnering with the Ministry of Mining and the Ministry of Environment to tackle the root cause of the mercury crisis: informality. By bringing miners out of the shadows and into legal cooperatives, the project aims to replace toxic shortcuts with formal, mercury-free systems.
“At first, many miners were afraid of joining cooperatives,” says Mkhobi, the chairlady of the Bushiangala Women’s Mining Cooperative. “They thought it meant losing their money or being forced into something they didn’t understand. But after they understood the benefits, more people started joining.”
Kakamega currently has 24 registered mining cooperatives spread across several gold-producing sub-counties. Small welfare groups were brought together into registered cooperatives, creating a structure through which miners could access training, equipment, and formal recognition under the Mining Act of 2016.
A Capful of Mercury Replaced by Mechanical Processing
Miners stand at the entrance of a shaft at the Bushiangala mining site in Ikolomani, Kakamega County, Kenya. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS
An artisanal miner uses a sluice box to separate gold from crushed ore at the Bushiangala mining site in Ikolomani, Kakamega County, Kenya. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS
Women process crushed gold ore at the Bushiangala mining site in Ikolomani, Kakamega county, Kenya. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS
Mechanical processing systems are replacing mercury inside the cooperatives. Miners who once relied on a capful of mercury are now learning to master gravity concentrators and shaking tables – mechanical systems that use physical force, rather than toxic chemicals, to pull gold from the dust.
At Bushiangala, a mercury-free demonstration plant now serves as a training ground for miners to practise using the new system under supervision. Technical manuals that once existed only as engineering documents are being translated into practical steps that can be applied directly in the pits.
Training sessions are conducted by technical staff from the planetGOLD programme alongside regional mining officers and cooperative leaders, combining engineering guidance with the practical knowledge miners already bring from the pits.
Oversight of the site is handled through a Joint Implementation Committee that brings together national regulators, county governments and representatives from mining communities.
By providing land and routine supervision, county governments are gradually assuming greater responsibility for the sector — an arrangement designed to ensure the effort continues even after international partners step back.
Convine Omondi, the project’s chief technical adviser, said in a 2025 planetGOLD report that involving local authorities directly helps turn what began as a donor-supported initiative into something managed and sustained at the local level.
The training materials and tools being tested here are part of a wider effort under the planetGOLD programme to share lessons between countries. Experiences from Kenya are being documented and adapted for use in other artisanal mining regions, rather than copied wholesale.
As of early 2026, Kenya had identified six demonstration sites across Kakamega, Vihiga, Migori and Narok. Fencing and sheds have already been completed, and the sites are now entering the commissioning phase. Delivery of heavy equipment and full operation are expected later this year.
Even so, progress is gradual. A site is only considered fully operational once the machinery is installed, utilities such as water and electricity are reliable, and certified cooperatives are actively using the facilities.
“First we were sensitised about how hazardous mercury is,” says Mukoshi, who has worked the Kakamega gold fields since the late 1990s and now chairs the Kakamega Miners Cooperative Union. “People realised it is dangerous. Now many sites keep registers, and miners are also learning that when you mine, you must rehabilitate the land.”
Healing the Land, Working Together
This focus on healing the land has spread beyond Kakamega. In neighbouring Vihiga County, the shift toward environmental restoration is being led by women who see the forest’s health as inseparable from their own.
“The training also introduced environmental rehabilitation, encouraging miners to restore excavated land once extraction ends,” says Shebby Kendi, chair of the Elwunza Women Cooperative Society.
But for Mkhobi, the change is not only about soil or chemicals. It is also about bargaining power. By moving from scattered pits to organised cooperatives, miners are beginning to act collectively in a trade where individuals have little influence.
“Now through the training we are learning how to organise ourselves, keep records and work as cooperatives,” Mkhobi says. “When we come together, we have more strength in the market.”
In a region where gold prices are often dictated by middlemen, that collective strength is beginning to shift how miners negotiate.
Giving Women Voice
A woman at the Bushiangala artisanal gold mine in western Kenya, where mercury is commonly used in gold processing, raises health concerns among workers. March 23, 2026. Photograph: Chemtai Kirui/IPS
“When you are one woman with a gram of gold, you have no voice,” she says. “When there are a hundred of you with a kilo, the buyers have to listen.”
For Anthony Munanga, Kakamega’s county director for environment, natural resources and climate change, that “kilo” also represents something else: control. At a recent media engagement, he said that without organised cooperatives, the gold economy remains largely invisible to regulators.
“Without organisation, there is no way to ensure compliance,” Munanga says. His department is now mapping mining areas across the county, an effort aimed at moving miners out of scattered pits and into designated zones where licensing and environmental oversight become possible.
“This process allows miners to operate safely and legally,” he says.
Changing Face of Financial Support
But legal recognition requires more than a map. It requires financing — and the local banking system is still reluctant to lend to a sector long defined by risk.
Changing how gold is produced also means rethinking how the trade is financed. In Bushiangala, this is where the constraints begin to show.
The planetGOLD programme in Kenya was launched with relatively modest public funding, despite ambitions that stretch far beyond its initial budget. At its core is a USD 4.24 million grant from the Global Environment Facility, much of which has already been allocated.
The grant has largely supported technical assistance — including miner training, policy development and institutional systems designed to formalise the sector — rather than directly financing mining equipment.
Project documents estimate the programme could mobilise up to USD 26 million in additional financing from commercial lenders and private investors to support new processing plants and upgraded mining infrastructure.
In practice, that funding has been slow to materialise.
Although the project was backed by USD 16.6 million in co-financing from government and local partners, a 2023 mid-term review found that much of this support existed on paper as in-kind contributions rather than cash available for day-to-day operations. It also pointed to delays within government financial systems and the lack of a risk-sharing mechanism to draw in private lenders, factors that have slowed implementation on the ground.
A final evaluation due in 2026 is expected to assess how far the programme has managed to address these gaps and whether it can sustain its operations over the long term.
Several structural constraints help explain the shortfall.
A government moratorium on new mining licences between 2019 and 2023 froze formalisation during a critical phase of the project. Without licences, miners could not meet standard lending requirements, and commercial banks have been reluctant to lend to what remains a largely informal sector.
Even where discussions with lenders progress, approval processes within banks can take more than a year, often outlasting key phases of the programme.
The absence of a dedicated risk-sharing mechanism has also limited participation. Without a first-loss guarantee to absorb potential defaults, lenders had little incentive to finance investments in artisanal mining.
The COVID-19 pandemic slowed procurement and field operations, but programme assessments suggest that the deeper barriers were structural — particularly the shortage of licensed miners eligible for credit and the lack of financial instruments tailored to the sector.
As a result, the programme has made measurable progress in training miners and organising them into cooperatives, but access to capital remains constrained.
Harry Kimtai, principal secretary at Kenya’s Ministry of Mining, describes the sequencing as deliberate, arguing that formalisation must come first before significant private investment can enter the sector.
Lag Between Training and Implementation
Sharon Ambale, an artisanal gold miner, holds a gold-mercury amalgam at the Bushiangala mining site in Ikolomani, Kakamega county, Kenya. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS
For those on the front lines, that “deliberate sequencing” feels like a race against their own health. Merab Khamonya, a 28-year-old mother who joined the Bushiangala cooperative in 2024, is one of those caught in the lag between training and implementation.
Though she has attended planetGOLD sessions and understands the neurotoxicity of the metal she handles, her reality remains unchanged. To support her family, she still submerges her bare hands in basins of ore and mercury—a necessity for survival.
“I feel things moving inside my eyes,” she says, describing a persistent, painful irritation. “I know it harms me. I even see traces of it on my clothes when I go home to cook for my children.”
For Khamonya, the promise of a mercury-free mechanical system is a lifeline that has yet to arrive. “We are ready for the shift,” she says, “but for now, we have no other way to clean the gold. We are just waiting for the machines.”
Benefits of Mercury-Free Mechanical Systems
The economics behind the shift are straightforward. Kenya’s 2022 National Action Plan on artisanal and small-scale gold mining estimates that traditional manual methods recover only about 20 per cent of the gold in the ore. By comparison, data from planetGOLD Kenya shows that mercury-free mechanical systems can recover up to 90 per cent—potentially increasing the amount of gold recovered from each load of ore.
Miners involved in the programme say they are cautiously optimistic. They understand the problems and the solutions needed and feel best placed to judge what works on the ground.
“We have seen the difference and learned about mercury-free alternatives,” Mukoshi says. “We are ready to make the shift.”
But the obstacles, he adds, are basic.
“For these sites to work, you need water and electricity. Many of them don’t have either.”
For Mukoshi, Mkhobi, Kendi, Khamonya and their colleagues, the work has shifted to practicalities – securing water and electricity, preparing sites, and waiting on machines. The early experiments are over; what remains is making the system function.
On most days, that means clearing land, assembling equipment and negotiating with miners who are still uncertain about abandoning the mercury methods they have relied on for years.
The change taking shape in Bushiangala is small for now — one processing site, one cooperative, a handful of machines. But the model is already drawing attention beyond Kakamega.
planetGOLD’s Global Reach
In various places in Africa, governments and development agencies are searching for ways to formalise artisanal gold mining without destroying the environments where it takes place. In the Congo Basin’s Cuvette Centrale, UNEP and the planetGOLD programme are supporting a USD 10.5 million initiative aimed at protecting one of the world’s largest tropical peatland systems from mining damage.
The region spans about 167,600 square kilometres of peatlands and stores an estimated 29 billion tonnes of carbon — roughly three years of global emissions. GEF project data suggests the effort is designed to keep gold production from driving damage in a peat swamp that is crucial to climate stability.
In Zimbabwe, a parallel programme has begun introducing mercury-free processing technologies across dozens of mining sites. The effort here is more centralised, tied to the state-run Fidelity Gold Refinery and legislative reforms under the Mines and Minerals Bill.
Kenya’s system, by contrast, relies on cooperative structures at mine sites with county-level oversight through Joint Implementation Committees (JICs) and national regulation under the Mining Act — a model the African Development Bank is using as a reference point, particularly its JIC structure, for scaling mercury-free artisanal mining across the continent.
Kenya’s Experience Now a Guideline For Africa, World Expansion
According to Ludovic Bernaudat, head of the chemicals and green chemistry unit at UNEP, Kenya’s experience is now being used to guide the next phase of the programme as it expands across Africa.
He describes the country as one of the original eight members now completing its first implementation cycle – a milestone for the global initiative.
“New countries in Africa have recently joined the programme, and through the global project, UNEP will make sure that connection is made with Kenya,” Bernaudat said.
He added that the Kenyan model will be featured at the 2026 planetGOLD Global Forum in Panama, where nations share technical expertise and compare approaches to ending mercury use.
Since its launch, planetGOLD has expanded from nine to 27 countries across Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
“This growth demonstrates both the scale of the challenge and the value of a programme that integrates environmental action with support for livelihoods, inclusion, and market transformation,” says Anil Bruce Sookdeo, from the GEF.
But the final proof will depend less on policy design than on whether miners themselves decide it works.
Chasing Thin Seams of Gold Safely
Back in Bushiangala, that test is only beginning.
Miners still arrive at the pits each morning as they always have, chasing thin seams of gold buried in the red earth. What is changing — slowly — is what happens after the ore reaches the surface.
If the new system holds, the mercury that once flowed through these streams may eventually disappear. And the miners here, in this corner of western Kenya, will find a way to keep working the land without the risks that have defined it for years.
Note: This feature is published with the support of the GEF. IPS is solely responsible for the editorial content, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of the GEF.
Inter Press Service (IPS) UN Bureau Report
TANGIER, Morocco, Apr 1 2026 (IPS) - Africa must move swiftly to harness data and frontier technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) to drive its economic growth and make the continent globally competitive in the digital economy, a senior official at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) has told policymakers.
Opening the Committee of Experts segment of the Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development meeting in Tangier, ECA Deputy Executive Secretary for Programme Support Mama Keita emphasised that technological innovation is the key to unlocking Africa’s development potential. Africa has been slow to harness technological innovation to drive industrialisation and economic growth.
“Frontier technologies and innovation are not only useful to unlock Africa’s growth potential and enhance the competitiveness of African economies through productivity growth and diversification,” Keita said. She emphasised that technological innovations can be used to accelerate structural transformation, allowing the much-needed reallocation of resources from low- to high-productivity sectors.
Frontier technologies, including AI, the Internet of Things, and biotechnology, are boosting productivity, enhancing competitiveness, and enabling global economic diversification, but Africa is taking its time to join the party.
Keita, in remarks on behalf of ECA Executive Secretary Claver Gatete, questioned why Africa was not harnessing frontier technologies to utilise its natural resources and tap its youthful population and sizeable markets to boost productivity.
The conference, themed ‘Growth through innovation: harnessing data and frontier technologies for the economic transformation of Africa’, is being held at a critical moment for Africa, which is fast gaining global attention as the next frontier for investment, human capital, and mineral resource development. Despite trade uncertainty, Africa’s economic growth is on the rise.
Keita noted that the conference was an opportunity for policymakers to examine how technology-driven solutions can accelerate structural transformation and deliver more sustainable economic growth in Africa.
Despite averaging 3.5 percent GDP growth between 2000 and 2023, Africa has struggled to convert this expansion into productivity gains. Keita observed that growth has largely been driven by capital and labour accumulation, with little contribution from productivity improvements—an imbalance that innovation and advanced technologies could help correct.
Effective Regulation, Financing and Data Systems Needed
Frontier technologies and data can enable Africa to shift resources from low-productivity sectors to higher-value activities while also improving living standards with effective regulation and financing robust data systems in place.
Africa suffers from poor data, which constrains effective planning and decision-making for development projects. The ECA’s flagship Economic Report on Africa 2026, to be launched during the conference, argues that harnessing data and technologies like AI, machine learning and robotics is now an imperative for Africa.
Technology Delivers
“There is no doubt that digital platforms, underpinned by frontier technologies such as AI, the Internet of Things, and blockchain, hold significant potential to reduce poverty, generate employment opportunities, promote economic integration, and drive economic growth,” Keita said.
Across the continent, signs are there of how technology innovation is driving development. Digital payment systems and mobile-money platforms are transforming Africa’s economies by lowering transaction costs, boosting efficiency, enhancing access to finance and markets, and advancing financial inclusion.
Nearly 30 per cent of the world’s critical minerals that are essential for clean-energy technologies are in Africa, which gives the continent a comparative advantage over other continents.
Strategic industries such as digital technologies and telecommunications also depend on the critical minerals, making Africa an indispensable actor in this vital and fast-growing space, she said.
Frontier technologies have boosted crop productivity, enhanced water and land-use efficiency, and promoted climate resilience and adaptation in agriculture.
But Not all is Rosy
Keita said Africa risks falling behind global peers in harnessing the benefits of frontier technologies. AI, for example, is projected to contribute about 5.6 percent to GDP across Africa, Oceania and parts of developing Asia by 2030—lagging behind contributions expected in more advanced economies.
“The adoption of frontier technologies is not all roses, as this is associated with several risks that cannot be ignored,” Keita warned. “The storage of most of Africa’s data in data centres outside the continent is a big problem, particularly for sensitive data such as medical, financial, and security data, given the sensitivity of such data. It is also costly and results in delays in data transmission.”
Africa currently accounts for less than one percent of global data centre capacity, limiting the deployment of data-intensive technologies like AI, according to the ECA.
“The disruptive effects of new technologies on the African labour market cannot be ignored,” Keita stated, adding that technology tends to cause job losses quickly, while job creation often occurs slowly.
But Africa’s demographic profile of having more young people presents a competitive advantage if it is aligned with the demands of a digital economy.
Globally, AI and automation are expected to create 170 million jobs while displacing 92 million jobs by 2030, resulting in a net gain of 78 million jobs. Africa can only benefit from these new jobs if it prioritises providing enhanced digital skills training to its population.
&IPS UN Bureau Report
Apr 1 2026 (IPS) -
CIVICUS discusses the presidential election in the Republic of the Congo with Ivan Kibangou Ngoy, executive director of Global Participe, a civil society action-research organisation focused on democratic governance based in Pointe-Noire.
Ivan Kibangou Ngoy
How can the 94.8 per cent result be explained?
The outcome of this election was predictable from the outset, and for one fundamental reason: the legal framework gives free rein to electoral fraud. The electoral law lacks the necessary safeguards to prevent manipulation. The ruling party has systematically rigged the electoral process, excluding its opponents and independent civil society from any meaningful participation.
Accreditation for observers was refused to independent civil society organisations (CSOs), evidence of a total lack of transparency. Without independent observers, there’s no external oversight of the conduct of the vote or the counting of votes.
The result was not the outcome of electoral competition; it was the logical result of a system designed to guarantee precisely this outcome. When the legal framework allows for fraud, the opposition cannot campaign, observers are excluded and the government controls all administrative mechanisms, including the electoral administration, the result becomes inevitable. This is not an anomaly but the product of a system designed to produce it and to give it the appearance of democratic legitimacy. So the result was already decided even before polling stations opened.
How was competition restricted?
Opposition parties and independent CSOs were not allowed to organise public meetings or campaign openly among voters. They were denied access to public media, preventing them communicating with people.
The country still operates under a prior authorisation regime: the government must approve all public political activity. This system creates a fundamental imbalance: the ruling party can organise its rallies freely, while the opposition is blocked at every turn. There is an urgent need to move to a simple notification system, in which CSOs and parties would inform the authorities of their activities without needing their consent. Without this change, the opposition has no legal mechanism to participate fairly in an election.
The imprisonment and exile of major opposition figures send a clear message: challenging Sassou Nguesso’s regime is criminalised. Two of the country’s best-known opposition figures have been in prison for nearly a decade. When opponents cannot stand for election, campaign or move about freely, the result is predetermined both by fraud and the physical elimination of alternatives. The election is merely an administrative charade designed to legitimise the retention of power. It’s not a genuine choice but a demonstration of state power over a population reduced to silence.
Why is the internet cut off during elections?
Since the advent of social media, every election has been accompanied by an internet blackout, a deliberate measure the authorities take to control the information circulating during the vote. Internet shutdowns directly reinforce the system of electoral fraud by preventing the spread of information on fraud, irregularities or violations of voters’ rights. Without the internet, people cannot share photos or videos from polling stations, observers cannot report anomalies in real time and citizen movements cannot coordinate monitoring efforts.
The internet blackout effectively transforms the country into an information-controlled zone where only government messages can circulate. This reveals that the regime understands the power of social media as a tool for accountability and mobilisation. It’s an implicit acknowledgement that, without control over information, the regime could not maintain its official narrative. This systematic practice ultimately reveals the fragility of the regime’s legitimacy.
How has civil society mobilised despite restrictions?
Despite systematic restrictions, civil society organised itself by holding press conferences and workshops in private spaces, where the authorities could not intervene directly. These meetings enabled civil society to coordinate strategies and strengthen cohesion between organisations, even with a limited number of participants. Press conferences enabled direct engagement with the media despite restrictions on access to public media. Civil society also used social media to document rights violations, mobilise people and maintain a public conversation on electoral issues.
However, these strategies reveal the limits of resistance in a heavily controlled environment. Meetings in private spaces reach only a limited audience and social media can be shut down at any moment, as happened on election day. We must continue mapping independent CSOs to identify and connect all those working outside the regime’s control. We must also train CSO leaders in techniques for raising awareness and mobilising people.
People must understand the nature of the regime governing Congo-Brazzaville. The current regime is embodied by the Congolese Labour Party, a former Soviet-style party-state ousted from power at the ballot box in 1992, in the only truly free and transparent election the country has ever held. The party returned to power by force of arms after overthrowing the democratically elected government. Understanding this history is crucial: it proves that democratic change is possible. When people understand the mechanisms of power seizure and refuse to accept them, the regime loses its legitimacy even if it retains formal control of the state.
What’s the future for democracy in Congo after 42 years of rule?
Four decades under the same regime amount to the systematic denial of democratic change, of citizens’ fundamental right to choose a different government through the ballot box. Sassou Nguesso’s fifth term consolidates an institutional framework designed to ensure no one else ever comes to power through democratic means.
This framework operates through the systematic contradiction between constitutional promises and practice. The constitution proclaims a multi-party system, but a law recognises only those parties that pledge allegiance to the ruling power. The constitution creates the post of leader of the opposition, but this leader is the head of a party affiliated with the ruling power. The constitution establishes an advisory council of associations, but this institution is attached to the office of the head of state to muzzle civil society. The country is run like a barracks.
We must expose and discredit this regime internationally, by publicly denouncing its supporters, notably the French government and oil multinationals. Independent civil society must step up awareness-raising campaigns, both in person and online. The international community must exert sustained pressure, including diplomatic pressure, sanctions and support for organisations in exile. Without this combination of internal action and international pressure, democratic change will remain impossible. But it is possible. It happened in 1992, and it can happen again.
CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.
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AMMAN / NEW YORK , Apr 1 2026 (IPS) - New estimates by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) suggest the military escalation in the Middle East, now into its fifth week, may cost economies in the region from 3.7 to 6.0 percent of their collective Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
This represents a staggering loss of US$120-194 billion and exceeds the cumulative regional GDP growth achieved in 2025. Coupled with an estimated rise in unemployment of up to 4 percentage points or 3.6 million jobs lost—more than the total jobs created in the region in 2025, these reversals will push up to 4 million people into poverty.
The assessment — “Military Escalation in the Middle East: Economic and Social Implications for the Arab States region” — exposes the concerning reality of structural vulnerabilities characteristic to the region, which enable a short lived military escalation to generate profound and widespread socio economic impacts that may persist over a long-term.
“This crisis rings alarm bells for countries of the region to fundamentally reevaluate their strategic choices of fiscal, sectoral, and social policies, representing an important turning point in the development trajectory of the region,” said Abdallah AlDardari, UN Assistant Secretary General and Director of the Regional Bureau for Arab State in UNDP.
“Our findings underline the pressing need to strengthen regional collaboration to diversify economies—beyond reliance on growth driven by hydrocarbons, and to expand production bases, secure trade and logistics systems, and broaden economic partnerships, to reduce exposure to shocks and conflicts.”
The assessment employs Computable General Equilibrium modelling to capture the magnitude of disruptions caused by a four-week conflict, and models its effects through key transmission channels, including increased trade costs, temporary productivity losses, and localized capital destruction.
It conducted five simulation scenarios, representing escalating levels of conflict scenarios, ranging from a “moderate disruption,” where trade costs increase by tenfold, to an “extreme disruption and energy shock,” where trade costs increase a hundred-fold, intensified by a stop of hydrocarbon production.
The findings highlight that impacts are not uniform, varying significantly across the region due to structural characteristics of its main subregions. Estimates suggest that the largest macroeconomic losses are concentrated in Gulf Cooperation Council and the Levant subregions, where strong exposure to trade disruptions and energy market volatility drives significant declines in output, investment, and trade.
Both subregions stand to lose 5.2-8.5 percent and 5.2-8.7 percent of their GDP, respectively. Increases in poverty rates are concentrated in the Levant and Least Developed Arab Countries, where baseline vulnerability is highest and shocks translate more strongly into welfare losses. In North Africa, impacts remain moderate but still significant in absolute terms.
In the Levant, the crisis is expected to increase poverty by 5 percent, pushing an additional 2.85-3.30 million people into poverty—accounting for over 75 percent of the rise in poverty across the region. Across the region, human development as measured by the Human Development Index (HDI) is expected to decline by approximately 0.2 to 0.4 percent, corresponding to a setback of roughly half a year to nearly one year of human development progress.
Footnote
• The Assessment will be available online—through the following link.• This Assessment if part is part of a series of rapid assessments that UNDP is producing on the impacts of the Middle East military escalation on Iran, the Arab States in the region, Africa, the Asia Pacific region and on the global development outlook.
• Results presented in this brief should be interpreted as illustrative estimates of potential outcomes under different shock intensities, rather than realized impacts.
• Impact estimates are presented for four Arab States subregional groupings, including:
• Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, including Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates
• The Levant, including Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, the State of Palestine and Syria
• North Africa, including Algeria, Egypt, Libya Morocco and Tunisia
• Least Developed Arab countries (LDCs), including Sudan and Yemen—insufficient data did not allow for simulating impacts on Djibouti and Somalia.
IPS UN Bureau
SRINAGAR, India, Mar 31 2026 (IPS) - For the past few weeks, residents living in and around Dal Lake in Indian Kashmir have witnessed “a different phenomenon” as a green sludge has accumulated on the once pristine water. Photos circulating widely on social media triggered a public outcry.
Some citizens and environmentalists warned that the transformation reflects heavy sewage pollution in this Himalayan Lake in the heart of Srinagar, Kashmir’s summer capital. The Dal Lake is a complex wetland ecosystem covering roughly 18 square kilometres that supports fisheries, aquatic vegetation, and thousands of livelihoods tied to tourism and lake agriculture.
Officials managing the lake, however, urged calm and said that the sudden discolouration was most likely caused by a lack of rainfall and unusual temperatures for the season in Kashmir, though they didn’t deny the pollution problem and nutrient richness in the lake.
Muzamil Ahmad Rafiqui, Superintending Engineer for Kashmir’s Lake Conservation and Management Authority (LCMA), said that the lake is receiving nutrients, pesticides and other pollutants from the peripheries at many sources because of agricultural and other activities.
But Rafiqui added that the discolouration was more so due to over 50 percent reduction in precipitation and constant above-normal temperatures for weeks in this part of the season in Kashmir.
“Also, when the inflow from all the channels supplying water to the lake is extremely low and the outflow gates of the lake are also closed for retaining water in the lake, it is quite natural there will be changes in the water colour in a stagnant water body,” Rafiqui said.
Experts, scientific studies and official watchdogs have highlighted decades of pollution, sewage inflow and unregulated urban growth that have steadily degraded this iconic lake in the Kashmir Himalayas. A report submitted by Kashmir’s Pollution Control Committee (PCC) to the National Green Tribunal in response to the latter’s directions and other reports in recent years confirmed the “unabated flow of untreated sewage” into the Dal Lake in “violation of environmental norms”.
From Exclusion to Participation
Earlier this year, the Jammu and Kashmir government, in a dramatic policy shift, shelved a 416-crore rupees (USD 4.5 million) Dal Lake restoration project that had started implementation nearly two decades ago but had made little progress. The project aimed to move nearly 9,000 families living near Dal Lake to the city outskirts but was able to relocate only 1,808 families in 17 years.
The project, approved in 2009, centred on relocating thousands of families living inside the lake to newly built colonies on the outskirts of Srinagar, as the authorities believed human settlements within the lake were a major source of pollution and encroachment.
Now the government has abandoned the relocation-driven strategy altogether. In its place, officials are now promoting an in-situ conservation model that recognises lake dwellers as part of the ecosystem rather than obstacles to restoration.
The new approach proposes developing “eco-hamlets” within the lake’s settlements, installing sewage systems, treating inflowing drains and improving water circulation through dredging and channel restoration.
“It is a striking shift in philosophy. The very communities who were once blamed for the lake’s decline are now being seen as potential guardians,” said Raja Muzaffar Bhat, a prominent environmental and social activist based in Srinagar who often files petitions in India’s National Green Tribunal against the local administration for “failing to implement environmental safety rules and regulations” available under a broader regulatory framework in India for environmental protection.
Whether the new conservation strategy succeeds, said Bhat, may depend on “whether it combines community participation with stronger environmental governance.”
Iftikhar Drabu, a senior engineer who specialises in water engineering, warned that without stronger sewage infrastructure, strict regulation of tourism and effective monitoring of inflowing drains, community participation alone will not restore the lake. “Nothing will work in isolation. A multi-pronged approach is needed for conserving the lake,” he said.
‘We Know How to Protect the Lake’
For many families who have so far been relocated, the policy reversal has reopened painful questions. At Rakh-e-Arath, a rehabilitation colony on Srinagar’s outskirts built for displaced lake residents. “They told us our presence was destroying the lake. We believed the government and moved here,” said a resident, Mohammd Ashraf, whose family was relocated 10 years back, adding that life away from the water, all these years, has been difficult.
“Our time was wasted and our livelihoods were ruined,” he said. “We only know the lake as we were born there and have spent our childhood and youth by the lake. Fishing, growing vegetables on floating gardens, and rowing tourists in small boats are what we are adapted to,” Ashraf told Inter Press Service (IPS).
If the government now says people are needed to protect the lake, he said, “I welcome it, and I hope we will be taken back to the lake.” Other relocated families, who IPS spoke with, expressed similar feelings.
Communities living on the lake have historically maintained its channels, harvested weeds and monitored changes in water conditions. Integrating them into restoration efforts, they say, could help control the pollution and conserve the lake. “We have always been urging the government to give us the responsibility of conserving the lake. We are the ones who know the lake, not the people who sit in government offices,” said Akram Guru, a Shikara Walla at Dal Lake.
“We have been dubbed as the lake’s destroyers for decades. Now they say the lake needs its people,” he said smilingly. “I hope the change in the government’s approach finally facilitates our contribution to protecting the lake.”
NEW YORK, Mar 31 2026 (IPS) - Trump’s Iran war has left the Gulf shattered: US bases turned into targets, economies battered, and the “oasis” myth destroyed. Gulf rulers now confront a harsh reckoning over their reliance on Washington and the uncertain search for a new, fragile security order.
As Trump assembled major US naval and air assets in the eastern Mediterranean and the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and others quietly urged Washington to avoid a full-scale assault on Iran, fearing a direct blowback on their territory and energy infrastructure.
Nevertheless, the US–Israeli air campaign began on February 28, 2026, without a clearly defined and publicly articulated political endgame beyond “crippling” Iran’s capabilities. This disconnect between military escalation and strategic purpose now lies at the core of Gulf leaders’ anger and sense of betrayal toward Washington.
Trump’s Strategic Miscalculation
Trump’s decision to launch joint US–Israeli strikes on Iran has produced far higher strategic costs than his administration appears to have anticipated, from energy shock and disrupted shipping to heightened regional fragmentation and anti-American sentiment.
Even if Iranian capabilities are significantly degraded, the war has exposed vulnerabilities in US power projection, unsettled allies, and invited greater Russian and Chinese diplomatic activism in the Gulf. The long-term “price” for Washington will be measured less in battlefield metrics than in diminished trust and leverage among its traditional Arab partners.
US Bases Turned to Liabilities
From a Gulf perspective, US bases in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE were meant to deter Iran and guarantee regime security; instead, they became priority targets once the war began. Iran explicitly framed its strikes on these facilities as retaliation against Washington, but their location in densely populated and economically vital areas meant that nearby civilian infrastructure also suffered severe damage.
This experience is reinforcing a view in Gulf capitals that foreign basing arrangements draw fire without delivering the reliable protection they assumed for decades.
A Nightmare Realized
Gulf leaders long warned that a war with Iran would shatter their security and economies, a nightmare that has now materialized as Iranian missiles and drones hit oil facilities, ports, power plants, and cities across the region. They blame Washington for launching the campaign and Israel for pressing to “neutralize” Iran regardless of collateral damage in neighboring Arab states.
The sense in Gulf capitals is that their caution was dismissed, while they have paid a disproportionate price in physical destruction, economic setback, disrupted exports, and heightened domestic anxiety.
Shattered Oasis Narrative
The image of Gulf hubs like Dubai, Doha, and Riyadh as insulated “oases” open to business, tourism, and investment has been badly damaged by missile alerts, strikes on ports and airports, and the closure of key sea lanes.
Restoring confidence will require visible reconstruction, enhanced civil defense, improved air and missile defenses, and credible diplomacy that lowers the perceived risk of another sudden war. Investors and tourists will demand proof that the region can manage Iran-related tensions, not just high-end events and mega-projects.
Trump’s Misreading of Iranian Escalation
Trump publicly argued that overwhelming force would quickly coerce Iran and usher in regime change while keeping fighting “over there,” yet he appears not to have anticipated the breadth of Iranian retaliation against neighboring Gulf states or a prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
The IRGC’s effective shutdown of the strait, including attacks and threats against commercial shipping, has produced global energy shocks and exposed the fragility of US planning assumptions. For Gulf leaders, this underscores how inadequate Washington’s war planning was in accounting for second- and third-order consequences.
Calculated Decision Not to Retaliate
Despite heavy damage, Gulf rulers have so far avoided direct retaliation against Iran, calculating that further escalation would expose their cities and infrastructure to even more punishing strikes. Publicly, they stress restraint and international law, but privately, officials acknowledge their enduring geographic reality: they must coexist with a powerful and proximate Iran long after this US-led campaign ends.
By holding their fire, they hope to preserve space for postwar de-escalation and avoid being locked into a permanent state of open conflict.
Recasting Security Arrangements with Washington
Given their limited strategic alternatives, Gulf monarchies are unlikely to sever ties with Washington but will seek more conditional, transactional security arrangements. They are pressing for clearer US commitments on defense of their territory, better integration of regional missile defenses, and greater say over decisions that could trigger Iranian retaliation.
At the same time, they will hedge by deepening ties with China, Russia, Europe, and Asian energy importers, thereby reducing exclusive reliance on the US while keeping the American security umbrella in place.
Gulf Options to Prevent Future Conflagration
To prevent a repeat, Gulf states are also exploring limited de-escalation channels with Tehran, tighter regional crisis hotlines, and revived maritime security arrangements that include non-Western actors such as China and India. They may push for new rules of engagement around energy infrastructure and shipping lanes, seeking informal understandings that keep these off-limits even in crises.
Internally, they are reassessing missile defense, hardening critical facilities, and considering more diversified export routes that reduce dependence on Hormuz. None of these options are fully reassuring, but together they offer partial risk reduction.
Prospects for Normalization with Iran
Speculation about full normalization, including a non-belligerency pact between Iran and Gulf states, builds on prewar trends of cautious dialogue and economic engagement. Whether this is truly “in the cards” depends on war outcomes, Iran’s internal politics, and Gulf threat perceptions: if Tehran’s regime survives but remains hostile, Gulf states will likely revert to hedging—combining deterrence, limited engagement, and outreach to outside powers.
A more pragmatic Iranian leadership could make structured security arrangements and phased confidence-building measures more plausible over time.
No Return to Status Quo Ante
The Gulf States will not return to the prewar status quo; instead, they are likely to pursue a more diversified security architecture, combining a thinner US shield with expanded ties to China, Russia, and Asian importers. This shift will gradually dilute Washington’s centrality in Gulf security, complicating US force posture and Israel’s assumption of automatic Arab backing against Iran.
For Israel, a more cautious, risk-averse Gulf may limit overt strategic alignment, while for the US, enduring mistrust will make coalition-building for future crises far more difficult.
Trump’s Iran adventure is not an isolated blunder but the latest, and perhaps most explosive, expression of his assault on an already fragile global order. By discarding restraint, sidelining allies, and weaponizing American power for short-term political gain, he has accelerated the erosion of US credibility, fractured Western alliances, and opened new strategic space for Russia and China. The Gulf States are simply the newest casualties of this disorder: their cities struck, economies shaken, and security assumptions shattered.
Whatever emerges from this war, it will not be a restored status quo, but a more fragmented, volatile Middle East in which Israel and the United States confront a diminished margin for error and a far narrower circle of willing, trusting partners.
Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations, most recently at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU). He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.
alon@alonben-meir.com
IPS UN Bureau