By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Dec 17 2025 – Machines with no conscience are making split-second decisions about who lives and who dies. This isn’t dystopian fiction; it’s today’s reality. In Gaza, algorithms have generated kill lists of up to 37,000 targets.

Autonomous weapons are also being deployed in Ukraine and were on show at a recent military parade in China. States are racing to integrate them in their arsenals, convinced they’ll maintain control. If they’re wrong, the consequences could be catastrophic.

Unlike remotely piloted drones where a human operator pulls the trigger, autonomous weapons make lethal decisions. Once activated, they process sensor data – facial recognition, heat signatures, movement patterns — to identify pre-programmed target profiles and fire automatically when they find a match. They act with no hesitation, no moral reflection and no understanding of the value of human life.

Speed and lack of hesitation give autonomous systems the potential to escalate conflicts rapidly. And because they work on the basis of pattern recognition and statistical probabilities, they bring enormous potential for lethal mistakes.

Israel’s assault on Gaza has offered the first glimpse of AI-assisted genocide. The Israeli military has deployed multiple algorithmic targeting systems: it uses Lavender and The Gospel to identify suspected Hamas militants and generate lists of human targets and infrastructure to bomb, and Where’s Daddy to track targets to kill them when they’re home with their families. Israeli intelligence officials have acknowledged an error rate of around 10 per cent, but simply priced it in, deeming 15 to 20 civilian deaths acceptable for every junior militant the algorithm identifies and over 100 for commanders.

The depersonalisation of violence also creates an accountability void. When an algorithm kills the wrong person, who’s responsible? The programmer? The commanding officer? The politician who authorised deployment? Legal uncertainty is a built-in feature that shields perpetrators from consequences. As decisions about life and death are made by machines, the very idea of responsibility dissolves.

These concerns emerge within a broader context of alarm about AI’s impacts on civic space and human rights. As the technology becomes cheaper, it’s proliferating across domains, from battlefields to border control to policing operations. AI-powered facial recognition technologies are amplifying surveillance capabilities and undermining privacy rights. Biases embedded in algorithms perpetuate exclusion based on gender, race and other characteristics.

As the technology has developed, the international community has spent over a decade discussing autonomous weapons without producing a binding regulation. Since 2013, when states that have adopted the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons agreed to begin discussions, progress has been glacial. The Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems has met regularly since 2017, yet talks have been systematically stalled by major military powers — India, Israel, Russia and the USA — taking advantage of the requirement to reach consensus to systematically block regulation proposals. In September, 42 states delivered a joint statement affirming their readiness to move forward. It was a breakthrough after years of deadlock, but major holdouts maintain their opposition.

To circumvent this obstruction, the UN General Assembly has taken matters into its hands. In December 2023, it adopted Resolution 78/241, its first on autonomous weapons, with 152 states voting in favour. In December 2024, Resolution 79/62 mandated consultations among member states, held in New York in May 2025. These discussions explored ethical dilemmas, human rights implications, security threats and technological risks. The UN Secretary-General, the International Committee of the Red Cross and numerous civil society organisations have called for negotiations to conclude by 2026, given the rapid development of military AI.

The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, a coalition of over 270 civil society groups from over 70 countries, has led the charge since 2012. Through sustained advocacy and research, the campaign has shaped the debate, advocating for a two-tier approach currently supported by over 120 states. This combines prohibitions on the most dangerous systems — those targeting humans directly, operating without meaningful human control, or whose effects can’t be adequately predicted — with strict regulations on all others. Those systems not banned would be permitted only under stringent restrictions requiring human oversight, predictability and clear accountability, including limits on types of targets, time and location restrictions, mandatory testing and requirements for human supervision with the ability to intervene.

If it’s to meet the deadline, the international community has just a year to conclude a treaty that a decade of talks has been unable to produce. With each passing month, autonomous weapons systems become more sophisticated, more widely deployed and more deeply embedded in military doctrine.

Once autonomous weapons are widespread and the idea that machines decide who lives and who dies becomes normalised, it will be much hard to impose regulations. States must urgently negotiate a treaty that prohibits autonomous weapons systems directly targeting humans or operating without meaningful human control and establishes clear accountability mechanisms for violations. The technology can’t be uninvented, but it can still be controlled.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Head of Research and Analysis, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report. She is also a Professor of Comparative Politics at Universidad ORT Uruguay.

For interviews or more information, please contact [email protected]

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By the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)
BANGKOK, Thailand, Dec 17 2025 – Cyclones Ditwah and Senyar are indications of a shifting disaster riskscape, not anomalies. Both storms broke historical patterns: Ditwah tracked unusually south along Sri Lanka’s coast before looping into the Bay of Bengal, dumping over 375 mm of rain in 24 hours and triggering landslides.

Senyar, only the second cyclone ever recorded in the Strait of Malacca, intensified near the equator and stalled over Sumatra, worsening floods in Aceh and North Sumatra.

The rising human and economic toll

According to the ESCAP Asia-Pacific Disaster Report 2025: Rising Heat, Rising Risk, the Asia-Pacific region is entering an era of cascading risks driven by intensifying heat and extreme weather with marine heatwaves and warmer sea surface temperatures fueling this new normal.

Historical low-risk zones like Sri Lanka’s central hills and Thailand’s southern strip are now climate-risk hotspots.

The report projects that in South and South-West Asia alone, average annual flood losses could increase from US$47 billion historically to 57 billion.

Across Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Viet Nam, the storms of late November 2025 caused more than 1,600 fatalities, left hundreds of people unaccounted for, and affected well over ten million people.

Widespread flooding and landslides displaced 1.2 million people, disrupted essential services and isolated numerous communities, underscoring the scale of the response required and the substantial economic fallout expected

The value of preparedness

While improved early warnings have reduced loss of life compared to past decades, these storms show that disasters are becoming more destructive. Yes, early warnings saved lives—impact-based forecasts triggered mass evacuations and community drills helped families reach safety. But thousands were still stranded.

Alerts arrived, yet on-the-ground implementation was unclear, and some evacuation routes were already flooded. In many cases, social media became the lifeline when official systems fell short.

The trend is clear: technology alone cannot save lives without trust and rehearsed responses. Warnings work only when people know what to do and feel confident acting.

The ESCAP multi-donor Trust Fund for Tsunami, Disaster and Climate Preparedness shows that investing in preparedness pays off many times over. Its 2025–26 call for proposals offers countries a chance to strengthen coastal resilience, integrate science and technology and embed community-led action — before the next storm season tests our readiness.

The lessons we must learn

• Trusted local networks and well-equipped community-led preparedness efforts make alerts meaningful

Early warnings have their limits. In many areas, alerts were issued and hotlines opened, yet fast-rising floods left families stranded, relying on rescue teams and volunteers. These events show that mobility constraints and uneven household preparedness can limit action even when information is available.

Community-led initiatives, such as those championed following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, demonstrate how local knowledge and regular drills improve decision-making. Twenty years later, social cohesion has become a marker of resilience.

For example, the Bangladesh Cyclone Preparedness Programme (with 76,000 volunteers) has sharply reduced cyclone deaths by delivering house-to-house warnings and guiding evacuations.

• Urban growth without risk-informed planning magnifies disaster impacts

Ditwah and Senyar exposed how rapid urban growth without risk-informed planning magnifies disaster impacts. Colombo’s wetlands have shrunk by 40 per cent, while Hat Yai’s drainage was overwhelmed.

Many hard-hit towns in Sumatra were located in known landslide-risk zones, resulting in severe disruptions to hospitals, transport networks and local businesses.

When natural buffers disappear, rainfall that once drained slowly now floods cities within hours. Urban resilience depends on integrating risk into development planning by preserving wetlands, enforcing zoning and investing in drainage and flood defences.

Infrastructure alone is not enough; it must be designed for extremes. Cities that embed resilience into planning and protect natural systems are better positioned to withstand future storms and safeguard economic activity.

• Regional solidarity and shared solutions can save lives.

The Asia-Pacific region is faced with converging risks, with storms amplifying monsoonal hazards, cascading into mudslides and exacerbated by infrastructure weaknesses. Regional cooperation is no longer optional – it is the foundation for resilience in the most disaster-impacted region of the world.

November 2025 saw 8 countries (including Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand) activate the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters, enabling rapid satellite imagery for emergency planning, proving the value of shared systems (see figure).

As floodwaters surged across the region, participants at the ESCAP Committee on Disaster Risk Reduction reaffirmed their commitment to regional early warning systems and anticipatory action – because hazards do not respect borders.

The Asia-Pacific region’s resilience depends on investing in people and preparedness cultures, regional solidarity, urban planning for extremes, protecting natural buffers and ensuring that last-mile guidance reaches every household.

Building generations and societies equipped to manage rising risks is the smartest investment for a safer future.

Source: ESCAP

IPS UN Bureau

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By Job Muriithi and Winny Nyawira
Dec 17 2025 – Efforts to combat climate change too often sideline the very communities hit hardest by the crisis and who have contributed the least to it. This injustice was the core idea of the Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA) program. Now that VCA has concluded after five years, Job Muriithi and Winny Nyanwira from Hivos reflect on its achievements and share recommendations for governments and donors to ensure fair and equitable climate action.

In the coastal villages of eastern Indonesia, where turquoise waters lap against volcanic shores, we set out on a trip, reminding us of why this work matters. Traveling from Jakarta to Nusa Tenggara Timur, we saw firsthand that real progress begins with listening to communities, amplifying their voices and supporting locally led initiatives.

Climate finance reaching local communities

One thing that immediately stands out is the Next Level Grant Facility (NLGF), a climate finance mechanism under VCA. It shows what happens when local groups are entrusted to take the lead in climate funding. In Indonesia alone, 62 projects supported diverse initiatives in 11 provinces, reaching thousands across the archipelago in both coastal and highland communities. Over half of the grantees (57%) were first-time recipients of formal funding, working at the intersection of environmental justice, disability inclusion, and gender-responsive community action.

But statistics only scratch the surface. We saw firsthand how marginalized voices stepped into the spotlight. The NLGF fund manager, Samdhana Institute, Humanis and local partners, supported members of the NLGF grantees on climate literacy, financial literacy, reporting, and adaptive planning. Women fishers, long overlooked in policy discussions, are now consulting with government officials. Indigenous communities blended ancestral wisdom with modern adaptations to protect ecosystems. These groups emerged as first responders in crises, innovators in sustainability, and stewards of resources vital for survival.

A legacy in policies, people, and places

In Kupang, our local partner PIKUL supported fisherfolks. These communities have spent lifetimes interpreting the rhythm of the sea, preserving their catch using traditional methods, and nurturing coastal habitats. They did not need expertise; they brought it. VCA provided a platform, networks, credibility, and access to decision-makers.

Once invisible at decision-making tables, coastal communities are now key advisors to governments, advocating for environmental protection, climate-resilient infrastructure like breakwaters, and fair finance. Their transformation illustrates VCA’s core approach: recognizing that for coastal and island communities, oceans are not resources to be exploited but are fundamental to their food security, livelihoods, cultural identity, and survival. VCA brought this community-centered ocean perspective into Indonesia’s climate discussions, which had long focused primarily on land-based agriculture, often overlooking the realities of maritime populations.

In Indonesia, a nation of over 17,000 islands, communities in East Nusa Tenggara needed their government to understand that the sea connects rather than divides their lives and livelihoods. VCA provided the platform and capacity-strengthening support that enabled these communities to articulate their needs and traditional knowledge effectively. Through facilitated dialogues and inclusive forums that intentionally included women, youth, Indigenous peoples, and persons with disabilities, community members gained the skills and confidence to engage directly with policymakers. This process enabled them to influence critical policies and to establish enduring relationships with government agencies. This exemplifies something more profound: the fundamental redistribution of decision-making power to those whose lives depend on the decisions.

Navigating shrinking spaces and resources

Yet challenges persist in the form of tightening civic spaces, scarce funding, skills shortages, and deep-rooted exclusion. As VCA wraps up, these issues are not fading – they are growing sharper amid global setbacks in climate commitments.

During our visit, one hard truth stood out: the landscape that shaped VCA in 2021 had become much tougher by 2025. Indonesia exemplifies this shift – civic freedoms have narrowed, traditional advocacy paths have grown thornier, and grassroots climate funds have dried up. A 2025 study from Hivos, examining climate vulnerability in Brazil and Zambia, reveals that women-headed households spend between 10-30% of their annual income recovering from climate shocks – costs that remain largely invisible in national budgets and climate finance mechanisms.

The study’s call to recognize care work as climate action echoes what VCA demonstrated in practice –when coastal communities in East Nusa Tenggara received direct funding and decision-making power, they did not just survive climate impacts; they innovated sustainable responses rooted in local knowledge. VCA’s success in channeling resources to first-time grantees and elevating marginalized voices offers a proven model for the kind of equitable, community-centered climate finance that research shows is desperately needed but rarely delivered.

Our Indonesian partners found a strategic workaround. Rather than pushing back through confrontation in a restricted advocacy space, they pivoted to building tangible community assets: fish-processing hubs, local food-processing facilities, mangrove cooperatives, and coral-restoration sites. These visible wins – better livelihoods that communities can see and feel – in turn open doors to advocacy and attract support from other funders. In other words, community investments serve as a bridge to advocacy when direct advocacy routes are blocked.

The results prove the strategy. Partners secured subnational policy wins and leveraged almost 400,000 USD in additional funding from both government and non-governmental sources, showing that strategic local investments can multiply impact even in unfavorable environments.

Credit: Hivos

Lessons from VCA Indonesia

Managing 62 partners across 45 districts and 18 provinces strained coordination – vast distances meant virtual check-ins often fell short, and not all received support on time. From our visit we drew concrete lessons from real hurdles, like adapting the reporting for Indigenous groups with limited technological skills.

Other concrete lessons from VCA Indonesia:

• Launch grants, monitoring, and governance early to maximize time
• Scale ambitiously but coordinate resources accordingly
• Build in flexibility for challenges like civic restrictions, coastal needs, and blue economies
• Prioritize trust through ongoing, transparent partnerships
• Design accountability that fits capacities without sacrificing standards

A call to keep listening and acting

On our final evening in Waingapu, sharing stories with fishers as the sun set, one woman said, “We had answers but no audience. VCA gave us both. We have shown it works – now others must commit.” She’s right. Locally led action produces resilient, equitable results. Communities are not victims; they are experts.

But they need more: fair climate finance, protected spaces, and partners who value their expertise. That’s why we ask donors to scale up VCA’s proven models – including trust-based grants for grassroots initiatives. We ask governments to partner with these voices to meet climate goals; this means safeguarding civic spaces above all. Climate justice demands partnership with ecosystem guardians. Indonesia’s coastal communities prove local solutions can scale globally. VCA offers a roadmap – let’s follow it closely now. The planet’s future hinges on it. Ayo – let’s advance together.

This piece reflects on Hivos’ November 2025 monitoring visit to Indonesia, conducted in partnership with the Humanis Foundation and local coalition partners, including SIPIL, ADAPTASI, KOPI, and Pangan Baik. As VCA concludes, it’s a tribute to their achievements and a plea to extend them.

Author Bios

Job Muriithi is a development practitioner with over 10 years of experience in monitoring, evaluation, accountability, research, and learning across Africa, Latin America, and Asia. He serves as Global Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Officer at Hivos for the Voices for Just Climate Action Program.

Winny Nyawira is a Certified Public Accountant and Global Finance Manager at Hivos for the Voices for Just Climate Action Program. She specializes in grants management and financial administration for international development programs.