Guterres calls for urgent reform of the Security Council
24/10/2025: UN Secretary-General António Guterres has warned that the “fragile” legitimacy of the Security Council could endanger global peace if it remains gridlocked. The body’s structure is viewed by many countries as unrepresentative and its veto system has often stalled action and sparked criticism.
Source: UN News
Russia and China accused of damaging UN human rights funding
22/10/2025: A new report describes a systematic campaign spearheaded by China and Russia to chip away at the UN’s human rights machinery — particularly targeting investigations into abuses in countries like Venezuela and North Korea — by cutting off UN funding.
Source: PassBlue
Why our world needs new ways to manage the risk of war
22/10/2025: While there’s a lot of concern about individual wars, such as Ukraine or Gaza, there are terrible wars – such as Myanmar or Sudan – that get far less attention. And the rise of war itself seems to be flying completely under the radar. Essentially, the system put in place by the victors of World War II is crumbling. There are a number of emerging alternatives to that system that has kept the world reasonably peaceful for 80 years.
Source: The New Humanitarian
A crisis in malaria treatment is coming — we must act faster to contain it
22/10/2025: For malaria treatment, drug resistance is an evolutionary certainty, most recently leading to a spike in deaths, nearly 2 million annually in the early 2000s. Now in parts of Africa, we’re seeing the warning signs of future drug failure — and the global response is not fast enough
Source: Devex
Nepal’s Gen Z protests are a call for democratic renewal
22/10/2025: The collapse of the regime in Nepal is a reminder that governments must listen to their citizens. State brutality against peaceful protestors is indefensible and self-defeating. Nothing is more corrosive to a democratic regime than suppressing citizens’ right to peacefully protest.
Source: East Asia Forum
G20 recommits to debt relief — but critics say it’s far from enough
21/20/2025: The G20 has released a ministerial declaration on debt reaffirming support for the Common Framework, its mechanism for coordinating debt relief among low-income countries. Launched in 2020, the Framework was designed to streamline debt restructuring but only a handful of countries — Chad, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Zambia — have gone through the process.
Source: Devex
From aid to investment: Reshaping Africa’s path to growth
21/10/2025: Africa’s long reliance on foreign aid has come at the expense of its own industrial and human capital development. A shift from aid to investment will require stronger institutions, better-prepared projects, and renewed focus on local capacity.
Source: Devex
Corporate agribusiness imperils peasant rights and food sovereignty
21/10/2025: A handful of powerful corporations control vast portions of global agricultural production, a concentration of power that undermines the autonomy of small-scale farmers, exacerbates inequality and endangers the ecological foundations of food systems, a group of UN human rights experts has warned.
Source: Third World Network
How much power does the UN secretary-general have to reform the body?
20/10/2025: The UN Charter grants the secretary-general powers to administer the work of the Secretariat but many of the UN's agencies answer to their own executive boards, donors, and beneficiaries. Decisions to merge or close UN agencies ultimately lie with the member states that fund them.
Source: Devex
Nearly 80% of the world’s poor live in regions most exposed to climate hazards
17/10/2025: Nearly 8 in 10 people living in multidimensional poverty are directly exposed to climate hazards such as extreme heat, flooding, drought, or air pollution, according to a new report by the UN Development Programme and the University of Oxford. The findings reveal that poverty is not just a socio-economic issue but one that is deeply interlinked with planetary pressures. South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are identified as global hotspots for these compounded hardships.
Source: UN Development Programme