The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
TORONTO, Canada, May 1 2026 (IPS) - Press freedom is on the retreat across much of the world.
As documented by recent global surveys authored by the UN and media institutes, the erosion of an independent, fearless and diversified press is a trend that has worsened for well over a decade.
Farhana Haque Rahman
Delivering the 2026 Reuters Memorial Lecture on March 9, Carlos Dada, Salvadoran editor of El Faro, now operating in exile, did not mince his words:
“A far-right, populist, autocratic wave is taking the world by storm and breaking all the rules, and journalists, as in every authoritarian regime or dictatorship, no matter its ideological foundations, are labelled as enemies. Journalism is being criminalized, and our colleagues are being imprisoned or killed.”
Just days earlier, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele was described by the Autonomous University of Barcelona as imposing one of the most restrictive environments for press freedom in Latin America through a “model of techno-populist authoritarianism”.
World Press Freedom Day, on May 3, has adopted as its declared theme: “Shaping a Future at Peace: Promoting Press Freedom for Human Rights, Development, and Security” – a challenging title given the wars, turmoil and economic crises currently besetting the world.
UNESCO, co-hosting the 2026 conference with the Zambian government in Lusaka on May 4-5, has itself charted a sharp decline in freedom of expression globally. Its 2022/2025 World Trends Report, Journalism: Shaping a World at Peace cites an increase in physical attacks, digital threats, and a surge in self-censorship among journalists.
This crisis is summed up by UNESCO as a “historically significant and unprecedented shift”, noting that for the first time in 20 years non-democratic regimes outnumber democracies. Some 72 percent of the world’s population lives under “non-democratic rule”, the highest proportion since 1978.
This decline in press freedom, plurality and diversity “mirrors broader patterns: weakened parliaments and judicial institutions, falling levels of public trust, and deepening polarization. It has also coincided with setbacks in equality, alongside rising hostility toward environmental journalists, scientists, and researchers”, UNESCO’s report says.
It also warns how “the growing dominance of major technology companies – and the consequences of their shifting policies and practices – have created fertile ground for hate speech and disinformation to spread online.”
In its World Press Freedom Index for 2025, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says physical attacks against journalists are the most visible violations of press freedom but “economic pressure is also a major, more insidious problem”.
“Much of this is due to ownership concentration, pressure from advertisers and financial backers, and public aid that is restricted, absent or allocated in an opaque manner,” RSF states. “Today’s news media are caught between preserving their editorial independence and ensuring their economic survival.”
“For the first time in the history of the Index, the conditions for practising journalism are ‘difficult’ or ‘very serious’ in over half of the world’s countries and satisfactory in fewer than one in four.”
World Press Freedom Day goes back to a 1993 decision by the UN General Assembly to commemorate the Declaration of Windhoek, a statement of free press principles produced by African journalists in 1991.
But as RSF notes, press freedom in Sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing a worrying decline. The economic score of the index deteriorated in 80 percent of countries in the region.
Overall Eritrea (180th) remained the worst-ranking country. The Democratic Republic of the Congo fell 10 places to 133rd as its economic indicator plummeted. Conflict zones saw sharp declines in press freedom in Burkina Faso, Sudan and Mali with newsrooms forced to self-censor, shut down or go into exile.
“The hyper-concentration of media ownership in the hands of political figures or business elites without safeguards for editorial independence remains a recurring problem,” RSF says, citing issues in Cameroon, Nigeria and Rwanda.
Nonetheless higher-ranking countries, such as South Africa, Namibia, Cape Verde and Gabon “provide rays of hope”, RSF adds.
A clear casualty of the toxic combo of autocratic populists, media-owning cronies and dwindling budgets is coverage of climate change. Even normally heavy-hitting media groups are cutting back their reporting of the global climate crisis in another blow to the key SDG Target of promoting public access to information.
China remains the “world’s largest jail for journalists”, ranking 178th on RSF’s global press freedom index, one place above North Korea.
Bangladesh ranked 149th in the World Press Freedom Index. Following the parliamentary elections in February this year, RSF has urged the new Bangladeshi government to put an end to arbitrary detentions, the instrumentalization of the justice system and impunity for crimes against journalists. Such abuses have caused lasting damage to the country’s press.
Summing up the state of the press following Perugia’s annual International Journalism Festival in April, Carole Cadwalladr, investigative journalist for The Nerve — a “fearless, female-founded, truly independent [UK] media title” – commented: “There’s “not much light in these dark times” while referencing the killing by Israeli forces of over 200 Palestinian journalists and media workers since the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023.
But she did feel an “energy” at the festival held in the Italian hill-top city.
“All across the world, there are journalists doing the hard yards of trying to hold power to account,” she wrote. “And increasingly, this is being done by small, insurgent new outlets that are sprouting up because there is a gap that needs to be filled.”
Or as Dada, editor of El Salvador’s exiled El Faro, declared in his lecture:
“We are journalists in resistance. In resistance to the violation of our rights, the shuttering of public information… resistance to limitless power. We practised journalism in democracy for a quarter century. That era is gone. Today, we are a newsroom in resistance.”
Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service and Executive Director IPS Noram; she served as the elected Director General of IPS from 2015-2019. A journalist and communications expert, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
IPS UN Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, May 1 2026 (IPS) - A longstanding rule bars international civil servants from publicly taking a political stand against member states (or even participating in political demonstrations outside the UN).
And more importantly, the rules also forbid UN staffers from campaigning for– or against– candidates for secretary general, including the current race for a new UNSG.
Perhaps that’s a price one has to pay—forfeiting the right to political expression– when you are an international civil servant. But is it worth the sacrifice?
A new circular to UN staffers, released April 29, reiterates these restrictions cautioning against any participation in the run-up to the election of a new Secretary-General later this year.
“As recent and ongoing wars and conflicts continue, the UN remains indispensable as a platform for dialogue, human rights, and collective action and all staff play a vital role in this effort.
While it is understandable that many staff members feel compelled to share views about events that are unfolding, including in personal fora such as social media, we must be mindful at all times of our rights and duties as international civil servants, which require us to act independently and impartially,” says the circular.
Four candidates in the running for the next UN Secretary-General; Michelle Bachelet (Chile), Rafael Grossi (Argentina), Rebeca Grynspan (Costa Rica), and Macky Sall (Senegal). Credit: United Nations
This applies to all public communications (including those shared through personal social media accounts) related to ongoing crises, political matters, and other elections and electoral processes, which should be framed in a manner that is consistent with the Organization’s positions and the statements of the Secretary-General.
Recent instances have also highlighted the need for particular caution with regard to public expressions of support for candidates in the selection process for the Secretary-General.
“Any such expressions—whether explicit or implicit—may be perceived as inconsistent with the independence and impartiality required of international civil servants and risk undermining the integrity of the process”, the circular cautions.
‘Disclaimers indicating that views are expressed in a personal capacity do not absolve us of our obligations under the Staff Regulations and Rules. The standards of conduct apply irrespective of the platform used or the capacity in which views are expressed,” the circular warns.
Dr Palitha Kohona, a former Chief of the UN Treaty Section, told Inter Press Service (IPS):
“It is undoubted that international civil servants must remain above national and sectarian differences. It is this quality that makes them and the Organization credible. Sometimes it may become difficult to remain silent in the face of gross abuses, and these circumstances present a dilemma”.
In this context, he pointed out, it is most important to bear in mind Article 101 of the Charter.
During the time of SG Kofi Annan (1997-2006), a more relaxed atmosphere prevailed and staff were permitted to express their views within their own areas of responsibility.
“Then again, one is constrained to ask whether staff should remain mute when the very fundamentals of the Charter are being violated. Whether they be human rights, or the prohibition or the threat of the use of force, or the commitment to live in peace and harmony,” he argued.
The leadership of the Organization must provide the guidelines within which the staff could express themselves. But not the wishy-washy stuff that we are increasingly getting used to.
But will the leadership ever call a spade a spade, declared Dr Kohona, a former Sri Lankan Permanent Representative to the UN, and until recently, Ambassador to China.
Samir Sanbar, a former Assistant Secretary-General and head of the Department of Public Information (DPI) told IPS: “I recall taking an “Oath of Office”‘ to “exercise in all loyalty, discretion and conscience the functions entrusted to me as an international civil servant of the United Nations, to discharge these functions and regulate my conduct with the interests of the united Nations only in view. and not to seek or accept instructions in regard to the performance of my duties from any government or other authority external to the Organization”.
I am not clear, he said, whether that oath is currently required particularly after several former government officials joined the Secretariat.
Supporting a particular candidate proposed by a government –as officially required– for the post of Secretary General would be contrary to that oath of international civil service, he pointed out.
Recounting his strong personal relationship with a former Secretary-General, Sanbar said: “Kofi Annan was my closest United Nations colleague as we started our work at the same time and progressed together when he headed Peace keeping and I headed Public Information.”
He visited me at home on a Sunday evening, said Sanbar, to inform me of his candidacy for Secretary-General yet graciously agreed that my contacts with the media would not indicate public support until he was elected when we walked to the photo unit on the eighth floor for an official portrait.
Meanwhile, the UN circular also says : “We, as staff members must adhere to the policies set out in the Status, basic rights and duties of United Nations staff members; outside activities. The guidelines for the personal use of social media also include a number of useful tips including on privacy settings, liking or sharing posts, and reminders on information that has not been made public.’
In particular, staff regulation 1.2 (f) provides: “While staff members’ personal views and convictions, including their political and religious convictions, remain inviolable, staff members shall ensure that those views and convictions do not adversely affect their official duties or the interests of the United Nations.
They shall conduct themselves at all times in a manner befitting their status as international civil servants and shall not engage in any activity that is incompatible with the proper discharge of their duties with the United Nations.
They shall avoid any action and, in particular, any kind of public pronouncement that may adversely reflect on their status, or on the integrity, independence and impartiality that are required by that status.”
The “2026 Guidance on Political Activities” issued on iSeek by the UN Ethics Office provides more guidance.
“We, as staff members, are obliged to comply with these provisions. Failure to do so can result in the initiation of a disciplinary process, which may result in disciplinary sanctions being imposed.”
Given the above, please also be aware, in accordance with staff rule 10.1 “Failure by staff members to comply with their obligations under the Charter of the United Nations, the Staff Regulations and Rules or other relevant administrative issuances or to observe the standards of conduct expected of an international civil servant may amount to misconduct and may lead to the institution of a disciplinary process and the imposition of disciplinary measures for misconduct.”
In addition, affiliate (non-staff) personnel must also comply with the principles set out under the terms and conditions of their engagement as well as the administrative instructions that govern their modality of engagement such as ST/AI/2020/10 on United Nations Internship Programme, ST/AI/2013/4 on Consultants and Individual Contractors, ST/AI/231/Rev.1 on Non-Reimbursable Loan Experts, ST/AI/1999/6 on Gratis Personnel, and the MOU and Conditions of Service guidelines for UN Volunteers.
“This reminder is issued in the interest of protecting both individual staff members and the Organization, and to ensure that the United Nations continues to be perceived as an impartial and trusted institution by Member States and the public”.
IPS UN Bureau Report
SRINAGAR, India, Apr 30 2026 (IPS) - A newly released United Nations report has raised urgent concerns that the world’s push toward clean energy and digital technologies is driving a hidden crisis in some of the planet’s most vulnerable regions, where mining for critical minerals is depleting water supplies, damaging health, and deepening inequality.
The report, Critical Minerals, Water Insecurity and Injustice, released by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), warns that the race for minerals essential to electric vehicles, renewable energy, and artificial intelligence could replicate the injustices of the fossil fuel era.
Demand for these minerals is expected to surge dramatically in the coming decades. According to the report, global demand could quadruple by 2050, with lithium, cobalt, and graphite seeing increases of up to 500 percent. These materials are indispensable for batteries, solar panels, and digital infrastructure.
Prof. Kaveh Madani, UNU-INWEH Director who led the investigation team, says the world lacks an enforceable governance model for critical minerals. Credit: UNU-INWEH
Prof. Kaveh Madani, UNU-INWEH Director who led the investigation team, told IPS News in an exclusive interview that the world is lacking an enforceable governance model for critical minerals.
He said that without binding international agreements, laws, and policies, environmental and health costs—especially water depletion and pollution—are pushed onto mining regions, leaving affected communities without effective accountability or recourse.
“The climate, energy, sustainability, and the so-called “green” policies are narrowly carbon-centric. Demand projections are driven by decarbonisation targets, but water security, health and WASH impacts are not hard constraints in transition planning. As a result, mineral extraction expands even in highly water-stressed regions,” Madani said.
He added that the trade and industrial policies reinforce structural asymmetries and that high-income economies retain control over refining, manufacturing, finance, and intellectual property, while mineral-rich countries are locked into raw extraction with weak benefit-sharing. “Together, these failures reproduce inequality rather than delivering a just transition,” Madani told IPS.
Communities in mining zones are increasingly described as “sacrifice zones”, areas where environmental degradation and human suffering are accepted as the cost of global progress. Credit: UNU-INWEH
The report has further highlighted water as the most immediate and severe casualty of this global transition. Mining operations require vast quantities of water and often contaminate local sources.
Producing just one tonne of lithium requires nearly 1.9 million litres of water. In 2024 alone, global lithium production consumed an estimated 456 billion litres, an amount equivalent to the annual domestic water needs of about 62 million people in sub-Saharan Africa.
In Chile’s Salar de Atacama, one of the world’s richest lithium reserves, mining accounts for up to 65 percent of regional water use, intensifying shortages for local communities and farmers.
Across the so-called Lithium Triangle, spanning Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, groundwater levels are falling. The report cites evidence of declining water tables and disrupted ecosystems as brine extraction alters underground water systems.
“Everyone needs money. But everyone also needs the basics, like water,” a resident in Bolivia’s Uyuni region is quoted as saying in the report.
Cases of Birth Defects, Miscarriages, and Chronic Illnesses
Toxic chemicals and heavy metals released during extraction often seep into rivers, soil, and groundwater.
The report documents widespread pollution in mining regions such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where cobalt extraction is concentrated. In some areas, rivers have turned highly acidic, with pH levels below 4.5, rendering water unsafe for drinking and agriculture.
Health impacts are severe. In communities near mining sites, 72 percent of respondents reported skin diseases, while more than half of women reported gynaecological problems. Prolonged exposure to contaminated water has also been linked to cases of birth defects, miscarriages, and chronic illnesses.
Children are particularly vulnerable. Studies cited in the report show higher rates of congenital abnormalities in areas close to mining activity, along with increased risks of developmental disorders.
“These are not isolated cases. They reflect systemic health disparities driven by environmental exposure,” reads the report.
Who Benefits and Who Pays?
Beyond health, water scarcity and pollution are undermining traditional livelihoods. Farming, fishing, and livestock rearing are becoming increasingly difficult in mining regions.
In Bolivia, lithium extraction has reduced water availability for quinoa farming, a staple crop. In parts of Africa, declining fish populations have resulted from river contamination, which has cut off a key source of food and income.
In some cases, mining operations displace entire communities. Indigenous populations, whose lands often contain mineral reserves, are among the hardest hit.
The report estimates that more than half of critical mineral projects are located on or near Indigenous territories .
A main finding of the report is the imbalance between who benefits and who pays the price.
While extraction largely occurs in the Global South, the economic and technological gains are concentrated in wealthier nations. Countries rich in minerals often lack the infrastructure and capacity to process them, limiting their role to low-value extraction.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which produces over 60 percent of the world’s cobalt, more than 70 percent of the population lives on less than $2.15 a day.
Meanwhile, the profits flow to multinational corporations and industrial economies that dominate refining and manufacturing.
The report describes this dynamic as a “structural sustainability paradox,” where the environmental benefits enjoyed in developed countries are effectively subsidised by ecological and social harm in poorer regions.
Experts warn that the current trajectory could repeat patterns seen in the fossil fuel industry.
“The clean energy transition is not automatic. Without deliberate policy intervention, it can reproduce extractive colonialism under a new label,” the report states.
Communities in mining zones are increasingly being described as “sacrifice zones”, areas where environmental degradation and human suffering are accepted as the cost of global progress.
The report has recommended stronger international regulations, mandatory environmental standards, and greater transparency in supply chains. It also urges investment in recycling and circular economy models to reduce reliance on new mining, as well as the adoption of technologies that use less water.
Crucially, it emphasises the need to include local communities in decision-making and ensure they benefit from resource extraction. “Achieving climate goals must not come at the expense of those least equipped to bear the costs,” the report reads.
Dr Abraham Nunbogu, UNU-INWEH scientist and the report’s lead author, says legally allocating a share of mineral revenues to water infrastructure, health systems, skills training, and downstream industrial capacity is crucial. Credit: UNU-INWEH
Strategic Policy Needed
Dr Abraham Nunbogu, a UNU-INWEH scientist and the report’s lead author, told Inter Press Service that a practical step to move up the value chain and keep more economic benefits is a strategic industrial policy: using export conditions, licensing, or joint-venture requirements to promote local refining, processing, and manufacturing.
“Second, benefit-sharing and reinvestment mandates: legally allocating a share of mineral revenues to water infrastructure, health systems, skills training, and downstream industrial capacity. Third, regional value-chain cooperation: pooling resources across neighbouring countries to achieve economies of scale in processing and manufacturing that individual countries cannot reach alone,” Nunbogu said.
He added that the final step would be to address power imbalances by linking mineral access to ethical sourcing standards and technology transfer obligations in trade agreements.
IPS UN Bureau Report
Apr 30 2026 (IPS) -
CIVICUS discusses Bulgaria’s Gen Z-led protests with Aleksandar Tanev, founder of Students Against the Mafia, an informal student organisation that took part in mass protests against corruption and state capture.
Aleksandar Tanev
What brought you to activism and these protests?
I am a Russian-Bulgarian citizen, because my father is Bulgarian and my mother is Russian. I lived in Bulgaria until I was about five years old and then moved to Russia, where I lived until a few years ago. From around the age of 12 I became interested in politics and started asking questions. I took part in my first protest in Russia at age 17 and participated in campaigns for independent parliamentary candidates. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, my life changed drastically. On the first day I took part in a protest that turned out to be my last. I immediately started receiving threats, and on the same day I received a draft notice from the military registration office. I decided to leave.
Bulgaria was one of the first countries to suspend flights from Russia. But my brother, who was doing an internship at the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told me a humanitarian flight was being organised to evacuate Bulgarian citizens. I managed to sign up and flew to Sofia. I started a new life in Bulgaria, remembering the language and meeting new people.
When I arrived, I found so many people had been exposed to Russian propaganda. I had to explain over and over what the real situation in Russia was. For two and a half years I worked at the Bulgarian Red Cross helping Ukrainian refugees. I enrolled at Sofia University and gradually reintegrated into my home country.
When the protests broke out, I was in Germany and saw the photos and videos of young people taking to the streets. I thought the time had finally come to do something. What triggered the protests was a government budget that included tax increases but no institutional reforms. People may struggle to understand complex political issues, but when the government takes money from them, they understand. Very quickly, the protest went beyond the trigger issue and turned into a protest not just against the government, but against a whole system of corrupt governance and state capture.
At that moment, I realised students were the driving force, and started an informal group called Students Against the Mafia. We told major media about it and began preparing our first action. We attached a three-by-four metre banner reading ‘Students Against the Mafia’ to the balcony of Sofia University’s rector’s office while an international conference was being held inside. We held a student march and joined the big protest.
What’s the current level of trust in institutions?
Bulgarians, including young people, are very disappointed by the actions of those in power. Bulgaria is a parliamentary democracy and people had a lot of expectations when it joined the European Union (EU) but have since become increasingly disappointed. Trust in state institutions is overall very low, and so is trust in civil society organisations and other parts of society. This is dangerous, because it may mean a loss of trust in democracy.
People don’t really understand the difference between government and civil society. They think NGOs are organisations created by the government to control society or financed by foreign states to lobby for their own interests. There is very little critical thinking. People don’t fact-check information and instead absorb propaganda and dangerous narratives.
My personal goal is to try to bring back trust in civil society, showing that civil society groups are instruments of people power. That’s why we show our faces, our goals and our actions.
Who took part in the protests?
Very different parts of Bulgarian society protested, and with very different ideas. There were pro-European people, Eurosceptics and people who had never been interested in politics before. What united them was that they were tired of the injustice of a system in which you can’t change anything for the better because power is captured by a small elite.
Politics is a revolving door: Boyko Borissov, the prime minister at the time, was prime minister three times, and his party was in power for over a decade. Delyan Peevski, leader of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, was sanctioned under the US Magnitsky Act for corruption in a controversial scandal, representing a merger between political power, media influence, institutional dependence and impunity. The same group of politicians captured the government, parliament and the most important institution, the courts. This meant that change wasn’t going to come from institutions.
While protesters had many different complaints and demands, they all shared the hope for normal governance and the feeling that this couldn’t go on.
How were protests organised, and what role did social media play?
The first big protest was half organised, half spontaneous: the call came from a political party, but it echoed well beyond party supporters, so the turnout was much bigger than anybody expected. It was a broad national protest.
The organiser was the pro-European, anti-corruption coalition We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria. After the party made the announcement, people started sharing it on social media and in personal conversations, and soon there was this protest energy in the air. Everyone was talking about it.
In between protests, people waited for the signal from this political party to come back out. We didn’t think to organise our own protests. Instead, we prepared actions and performances to stage at the next protests the party organised. And each time, more and more people came, because those who had previously protested shared the call within their own small networks.
Social media helped us enormously, because traditional media in Bulgaria is captured too. Corrupt politicians have a strong influence over traditional television channels but they don’t control social media. So Facebook, Instagram and other platforms filled the space of independent media. On social media, we can share and talk freely. To Gen Z protesters, the protests became an extension of this space: they came to the protests to speak their minds.
One problem was that during the protests, the internet was very slow. We thought the authorities caused this deliberately, but it’s also possible mobile operators simply couldn’t handle so many people in one place. Either way, social media was key to the success of the protests.
Do you agree with the label that these were Gen Z protests?
I do. In fact, to one of the protests we brought a five-metre banner that read ‘Gen Z is coming’. It was shown by the Daily Mail, Reuters and other international media.
While I think the label is correct, we shouldn’t interpret it literally. Many different age groups took part in the protests. What made them Gen Z protests was the participation of so many young people who gave them a face of hope. But it was only because all Bulgarian society joined in that we succeeded in bringing down the government.
What risks did protesters face?
Honestly, compared to Russia, the risk wasn’t very high. But that doesn’t mean everything was okay. For instance, some students faced pressure from their universities not to go to protests. Students who helped me spread the word about Students Against the Mafia at their university got warnings from the administration not to do it again. That’s not acceptable. Students have the right to express their opinions freely, including through protest.
Provocateurs showed up towards the end of each protest. They covered their faces and brought some kind of explosives, and police started beating protesters. Because of this, most regular people left after a couple of hours. We think these provocateurs may have been sent by the parties in power to discredit protests.
Some people were unnecessarily scared. I protested very actively and nothing happened to me, though I should be honest that when you become visible, that gives you a degree of protection, and this may not be true of everyone.
What did the protests achieve, and what comes next?
The government fell. That’s a big achievement. And Bulgarian society woke up. A lot of people who previously thought politics was something dirty, something separate from their personal lives, understood they had a responsibility.
But there’s still a long way to go. All this protest energy needs to be transformed into electoral energy. Power is built not only in the streets but also within institutions. If we don’t turn this energy into votes, all the effort will have been useless. Voter turnout in the last election prior to the protests was under 40 per cent. This is not representative democracy; it is a disaster. We cannot expect change to happen when only 40 per cent of voters actually turn out.
Diaspora voting rights are also under threat. The opposition Revival party proposed limiting polling stations outside the EU to just 20 locations, far too few for the large Bulgarian communities in the UK, the USA and elsewhere. The proposal was backed by most governing parties; only Peevski opposed it. Revival’s stated aim was to limit votes from Turkey, which tend to go to Peevski’s party. But the measure would hit all diaspora communities: over 60,000 voter applications were submitted for the 19 April election, over twice the figure from the previous election. Unlike voters in Turkey, who can travel to Bulgaria to vote in person, those in the UK and USA cannot. This was a deliberate attempt to suppress the votes of people who have left and who tend to vote for change.
Following the main protests, we also started organising actions against the chief prosecutor, Borislav Sarafov, the one who ultimately decides whether a corruption case will be investigated. According to Bulgarian law, a temporary chief prosecutor can only hold the post for up to six months. But now they say that this law doesn’t apply to him because he was already in the role when the law was passed. So this temporary prosecutor can now potentially stay in this position for life. We have held four or five protests against him, but so far we have not succeeded.
What keeps me going is the desire to live in a fair society where the state is at the service of the people, and not the other way around. But in a democracy, you have to change things yourself. You can’t wait for someone to do it for you. Living in Russia, I understood that if you don’t fight for justice and truth, there is always a danger that power will take over everything. There’s this phrase I keep coming back to: if you are not interested in politics, politics will start to take an interest in you. That’s my motivation.
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.
GET IN TOUCH
Facebook
Instagram
SEE ALSO
Gen Z protests: new resistance rises CIVICUS | State of Civil Society Report 2026
‘People reacted to a system of governance shaped by informal powers and personal interests’ CIVICUS | Interview with Zahari Iankov 18.Dec.2025
Bulgaria: stuck in a loop? CIVICUS Lens 24.Oct.2022
LLANCHID ISLAND, Hualaihué, Chile, Apr 30 2026 (IPS) - Coming from an island in southern Chile, where the sea is not an industry—but it is daily life, work, food and memory. Growing up in a family that is part of an artisanal fishers’ cooperative. Learning from a young age how to cultivate oysters, work with mussels, and understand the rhythms of the sea.
Yohana Coñuecar Llancapani
It is this same knowledge that we brought from Chile to Barcelona, to the Global Seafood Marketplace. As a Chilean delegation made up of Indigenous leaders and small-scale fishers, we were not just attending a trade fair—we were opening a conversation that has too often been left out of these spaces.
The Seafood Expo Global has established itself as one of the main platforms where the future of the global fishing industry is shaped. It is a space where standards, innovation, efficiency and markets are discussed. Yet one dimension continues to remain secondary: the role of Indigenous peoples who sustain marine ecosystems and inhabit the very spaces where the industry operates.
From Chile, our participation seeks to contribute to this debate from a strategic perspective. It is not about confronting the industry, but about demonstrating that its long-term sustainability depends on integrating other forms of knowledge and governance.
The industry has made progress in sustainability criteria, but often from a technical standpoint. What is still missing is the recognition that the spaces where it operates are not merely production zones, but inhabited territories. The knowledge developed by coastal communities is not just tradition—it is a living system of management.
In Chile, the Indigenous Coastal Marine Spaces (ECMPOs) have shown that it is possible to articulate conservation, productive use and territorial governance. However, the amendments currently under discussion to the Lafkenche Law send a worrying signal: instead of strengthening an instrument that has contributed to sustainability and territorial governance, there is a risk of weakening it in response to short-term production pressures.
This is not just a regulatory debate. It has direct implications for the stability of the industry. That is why we seek to bring this conversation to a global stage. And the space we are bringing to the Global Seafood Marketplace in Barcelona is not a traditional stand—it is an invitation to pause, to sit down and to engage in dialogue.
We want decision-makers in the industry to listen to these experiences. To understand that behind every product there are territories, people and ways of life. That their decisions have real impacts.
But we also want to show that there is an opportunity here.
Integrating Indigenous traditional knowledge is not only a matter of justice—it is a strategy for the sector’s real sustainability. It helps ensure continuity, traceability and quality over time. It is also a smart economic decision.
The ocean is not infinite. And we need new ways of relating to it.
From our territories, this is already happening. The question is: is the global industry willing to listen?
Yohana Coñuecar Llancapani is Mapuche Williche leader from Llanchid Island, Hualaihué, Chile
IPS UN Bureau
LONDON, Apr 29 2026 (IPS) - As the United States and Israel’s 2026 attack on Iran remains on pause, most eyes have fixed on oil. Tankers reroute around the Strait of Hormuz, oil benchmarks climb, and insurance costs spike. But while the headlines focus on energy, warning signs are already flashing from the food commodities markets.
Middle East tensions continue to escalate, but global wheat and maize supplies remain relatively well stocked and production has not been significantly disrupted. Yet UK wheat futures have risen to almost £183 per tonne — their highest level since mid-November — after rising more than £2.60 in a single week. At the same time, fertiliser prices — a key input for future harvests — have doubled since the start of the year, even though the main impacts on crop production have yet to materialise.
These are early warning signs — not of a harvest failure, but of how today’s food system responds to crisis. Food prices are beginning to rise, with the FAO Food Price Index steadily increasing in February and March 2026, even though crops have not yet failed, harvests have not collapsed, and global production remains broadly stable. The crisis is unfolding in real time, before any physical shortage has fully materialised.
Of course, real factors matter — but they operate very differently. When oil prices rise, they feed into food production through higher fertiliser costs, more expensive transport, and increased energy use on farms.
But these are gradual pressures: they work their way through the system over months, as farmers purchase inputs, plant crops, and bring harvests to market. Prices linked to these costs would normally rise slowly, in step with actual changes in production.
Instead, prices are moving immediately, driven less by current shortages than by expectations of what might happen. Markets anticipate future disruptions and push prices up faster than underlying conditions would justify. In this system, financial markets are no longer simply reflecting reality — they are actively reshaping it.
Over recent decades, agricultural commodities have been transformed from goods into financial assets. Wheat, maize, and rice are now traded not only by farmers and merchants, but by hedge funds, investment banks, and institutional investors seeking returns.
In wealthier countries, higher food prices squeeze household budgets. In much of the Global South, where food accounts for a larger share of income, the same increases can push families into hunger. Import-dependent countries must pay prices set on global markets even when local supply conditions remain stable
Financial instruments such as commodity index funds channel large volumes of capital into these markets, often detached from real supply and demand. Large trading firms straddle both physical and financial markets, allowing them to profit from volatility, rather than mitigate it.
When geopolitical shocks occur, this capital moves quickly. Investors position themselves ahead of expected disruptions, driving up futures prices that then feed through to importers, retailers, and consumers. The Iran crisis is therefore not just raising costs, it is activating a financial system primed to amplify them.
The consequences are global but uneven. In wealthier countries, higher food prices squeeze household budgets. In much of the Global South, where food accounts for a larger share of income, the same increases can push families into hunger. Import-dependent countries must pay prices set on global markets even when local supply conditions remain stable.
These pressures do not remain purely economic. Food price spikes can have destabilising political effects. Rising costs of staple foods have long been linked to social unrest, including in the lead-up to the Arab Spring, when increases in bread prices contributed to protests across North Africa and the Middle East. This reflects a broader pattern in which rising food costs – amplified by market speculation – increase the likelihood of unrest by intensifying existing social and economic grievances.
This helps explain a persistent paradox: hunger continues to rise in a world that produces more than enough food. The problem is not simply production, but access – and increasingly, how prices are formed.
That system was built over decades: on one hand through the deregulation of commodity markets in the Global North, which opened the door to large-scale speculative investment, and on the other, deregulation exported globally through IMF and World Bank programmes that promoted market liberalisation, privatisation, and the dismantling of public price stabilisation mechanisms, leaving many countries exposed to volatility.
The emerging food price pressures linked to the Iran conflict should therefore be understood as more than a temporary shock. They are a warning signal. If prices can spike before shortages occur, then food insecurity is no longer just a matter of supply. It is a function of how markets are organised.
Until that system is addressed, each new geopolitical crisis — whether in Iran or elsewhere — will continue to reverberate through food markets in ways that deepen inequality and intensify hunger. The next food crisis is not just growing in the fields. It is already being priced in.
Mihaela Siritanu is a political economist for the Bretton Woods Project
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 29 2026 (IPS) - The escalating global climate crisis has led to an increase in the frequency of climate-induced natural disasters, affecting millions worldwide. As governments struggle to keep up due to persistent funding shortfalls and inadequate preparedness and response mechanisms, education systems in Eastern and Southern Africa continue to deteriorate, pushing millions of children into displacement and poverty, further deepening long-term inequalities.
These are detailed out in a April 20 policy brief from UNICEF and global consulting firm Dalberg, titled Protecting Children’s Learning Futures: Quantifying Climate-Related Loss and Damage in Eastern and Southern Africa. The report analyses data from Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Mozambique, and Zambia, examining how increasingly destructive climate shocks are destroying educational infrastructure and limiting growth opportunities for the most vulnerable populations, including girls, children with disabilities, and other marginalised communities.
Through this report, UNICEF and Dalberg stress the urgency of building climate-resilient educational systems that promote human development, economic growth, and long-term self-sufficiency. Without immediate humanitarian intervention, it is projected that hundreds of millions of children are at risk of falling behind in their education by 2050, resulting in billions of dollars lost in development and poorer life outcomes.
“Children are paying the highest price for a crisis they did not create. For the first time, this report shows the scale of climate-related loss and damage to education, yet the impact on children remains largely invisible in financing decisions,” said Etleva Kadilli, UNICEF Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa.
“Without stronger prioritization in climate finance, education will continue to bear the brunt of climate impacts, driving repeated disruption,” Kadilli continued. “We must design education systems that anticipate shocks, protect early and foundational learning, and keep schools open. Otherwise, the true cost of climate loss and damage will be measured in lost human potential.”
Eastern and Southern Africa are among the most climate-sensitive regions in the world, home to roughly one-third of the world’s most vulnerable countries. According to UNICEF, since 2005 the region has experienced over 700 extreme weather events, roughly 75 percent of which are attributed to climate change, affecting over 330 million people and causing over 40,000 deaths.
As of 2024, climate-induced natural disasters have caused approximately USD 1.3 billion in damages, largely driven by widespread damage to school infrastructure and expenses related to establishing temporary learning facilities. Since 2005, extreme weather patterns have disrupted the education of over 130 million children, resulting in a total estimated loss of USD 120–140 billion in future earnings.
Without urgent intervention, UNICEF projects that these losses could rise to between USD 3.3 and 3.8 billion by 2050, nearly tripling in the most vulnerable contexts. This is equivalent to approximately 440 to 520 million students being stripped of their education, with projected losses in future earnings reaching between USD 260 to 380 billion.
Additionally, persistent climate shocks in Eastern and Southern Africa have been linked to declining school performance, compromised safety, and reduced well-being among school-aged children. According to the report, widespread heatwaves are associated with reduced cognitive performance, lower test scores, and diminished teaching performances among educators.
UNICEF has also reported rising rates of absenteeism and increasing psychosocial challenges, driven by the destruction of schools and the loss of supportive social networks. Schools themselves have become increasingly dangerous for both students and teachers, as damaged infrastructure and heat stress further limit access to safe, equitable, and quality education.
“Many people in the climate movement assume that people who are impacted by climate change are more worried about it, but that is not the case, including in frontline communities,” said Jennifer Carman, Director of Survey Strategy at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC) at the Yale School of Environment. “Instead, people in frontline communities are more worried about hazards that directly affect their day-to-day lives, like extreme heat and power outages — and these hazards are made worse by climate change.”
Such daily struggles faced by children as a result of climate-driven disruptions to schooling manifest in heightened protection risks. A significant portion of school-aged children in these regions have been forced to relocate multiple times, essentially eliminating their access to structures of supervision, stability, and peer support. Additionally, the climate crisis continues to erode livelihoods, intensifying economic instability across many communities, and elevating children’s vulnerability to exploitation, including rising rates of child marriage, child labour, gender-based violence, and recruitment by armed coalitions.
These risks disproportionately affect girls, children with disabilities, and displaced communities. Despite this, as of 2023 estimates, less than 2.4 percent of funding from critical multilateral funds was allocated toward “child-responsive interventions”, while support for education-specific programs has remained minimal. This is relatively low when compared to national spending for other sectors, such as healthcare. UNICEF estimates that if education programs received adequate support, it could close the USD 97 billion funding gap that is needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 targets in low- and middle-income countries.
“Without systematically integrating education into climate finance and policy frameworks – including efforts to avert, minimize and address loss and damage – countries risk remaining trapped in repeated cycles of disaster recovery spending rather than sustained resilience building, allowing climate shocks to compound disruptions to learning and generate significant non-economic losses for children and their future opportunities,” the report states.
Figures from UNICEF show that investing in education can yield substantial returns, with every USD 1 invested generating $2 to $13 in avoided losses. With the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) Board meeting in Livingstone, Zambia, from April 22 to 24, humanitarian organizations and world leaders are aiming to broaden global conversations that are essential in shaping recovery and resilience efforts that could build a brighter future for children in these regions.
Through such dialogues, UNICEF urges governments, stakeholders, and donors to strengthen the integration of education within national climate frameworks, which can be done by explicitly referencing education in National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to unlock access to “climate and loss-and-damage financing”.
UNICEF also advocates applying a climate-risk lens to domestic education financing, which could help ensure that budget allocations to education sectors are climate-informed and adequately support children’s foundational education and the continuation of their education in the long term.
Furthermore, UNICEF stresses the importance of scaling and better targeting international climate finance for education by encouraging major funding mechanisms to allocate resources for education. FRLD is one such example, financially supporting “unavoidable losses” when education systems are not adequately structured to withstand climate shocks.
“These frameworks should therefore clearly articulate how countries will protect education systems from climate-related loss and damage and strengthen learning continuity, enabling governments to align financing from multiple sources – including climate funds and private sector investment – toward sustained and risk-informed education investments that strengthen education systems and reduce future climate-related impacts,” the report states. “Such investments today can help break this cycle by safeguarding learning, reducing future fiscal pressures and protecting children’s development on which long-term human development depends.”
IPS UN Bureau Report