Weeks after an international conference on inclusive and people-centric digital transformation organized by the Global Development Network (GDN) here, a new narrative is unfolding about the need for digital innovations to serve people first and narrow inequalities rather than widening them. Earlier this week, amidst a landmark G20 Summit on African soil, world leaders converged […]

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 26 2025 – Recently, global conflicts have grown increasingly brutal, with deaths and injuries caused by explosive weapons now surpassing those from previous leading causes such as malnutrition, disease, and a lack of healthcare services. As these conflicts intensify, children continue to bear the brunt of the casualties while impunity for perpetrators persists and funding gaps exacerbate the lack of critical protection services.

On November 20, Save The Children issued a report titled Children and Blast Injuries: The Devastating Impact of Explosive Weapons on Children, 2020–2025, detailing the intensifying threat of explosive weapons to children across 11 contemporary world conflicts. Drawing on clinical studies and field research, the report examines the impact of pediatric blast injuries in healthcare settings and calls on the international community to prioritize investment in prevention and recovery efforts.

“Children are paying the highest price in today’s wars – not only at the hands of armed groups, but through the actions of governments that should be protecting them,” said Narmina Strishenets, the leading author of the report and the Senior Conflict and Humanitarian Advocacy Advisor at Save the Children UK. “Missiles are falling where children sleep, play, and learn – turning the very places that should be the safest, like their homes and schools, into death traps. Actions once condemned by the international community and met with global outrage are now brushed aside as the ‘cost of war.’ That moral surrender is one of the most dangerous shifts of our time.”

The report highlights the precarious conditions in which children in war zones live. Children are uniquely vulnerable to injuries from explosive weapons, as their bodies are far less developed and resilient than adults. Additionally, healthcare, rehabilitation, and psychosocial support services are underfunded and more commonly designed with adults in consideration, leaving children disproportionately left without access to tailor-made and adequate care.

Figures from Save The Children show that children are far more likely to succumb to blast injuries than adults, particularly from head, torso, and burn injuries. Compared to adults, children under seven are roughly two times as likely to suffer from “life-limiting brain trauma.” Furthermore, approximately 65 to 70 percent of injured children received severe burns to multiple parts of their body.

“Children are far more vulnerable to explosive weapons than adults. Their anatomy, physiology, behavior, and psychosocial needs make them disproportionately affected,” said Dr. Paul Reavley, a consultant pediatric emergency physician and the co-founder of the Pediatric Blast Injury Partnership, a collaborative effort between medical personnel and Save The Children UK.

Reavley added, “Many do not survive to reach hospital, and those who do face a higher risk of death than adult civilians in any health system. They often suffer multiple severe injuries that require complex treatment and lifelong care. Yet most health responses to conflict are designed for adults, overlooking children’s distinct needs. Survivors face chronic pain, disability, psychological trauma, and stigma that can last a lifetime.”

According to the report, explosive weapons are causing unprecedented levels of harm to children as wars increasingly move toward densely populated urban areas, with these weapons accounting for a record 70 percent of nearly 12,000 children killed or injured in conflict zones last year. More than 70 percent of child deaths and injuries in war zones in 2024 resulted from explosive weapons, marking a significant increase from the 59 percent recorded between 2020-2024.

These increases highlight a shift in how children are being targeted in modern conflicts. Save the Children identified five key factors driving this change: the rise of new technologies that amplify destruction, the normalization of civilian harm in military operations, the widespread lack of accountability, the unprecedented severity of child casualties, and the long-term social costs of explosive violence.

The deadliest conflicts for children in 2024, based on deaths and life-threatening injuries, occurred in the occupied Palestinian territory, where 2,917 children were affected, followed by Sudan with 1,739 children, Myanmar with 1,261 children, Ukraine with 671 children, and Syria with 670 children. The majority of these casualties were caused by explosive weapons. Additionally, children account for roughly 43 percent of all casualties from mines and other forms of unexploded ordnance, which have plagued farmland, schools, and homes across the world for decades.

In the last two years, Save The Children has recorded a “dangerous erosion of protection norms” for children in conflict zones, with funding shortfalls and the scaling back of civilian harm mitigation and response mechanisms endangering the lives of millions of children around the world. Of the USD 1 billion pledged to mine action in 2023, only half was directed toward clearance efforts while only 6 percent supported healthcare services of victims and only 1 percent went toward mine risk education.

Save the Children is urging world leaders to stop using explosive weapons in populated areas, strengthen policies to protect children in conflict, and invest in support, research, and recovery for children affected by blast injuries.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and its partners are working on the frontlines to provide essential, basic services that focus on promoting and protecting children’s health, survival and development, such as access to food, shelter, healthcare, and social support. UNICEF is also rehabilitating water and sanitation systems while distributing cash transfers to displaced families and mental health support and educational services for children in conflict zones.

UNICEF also supports survivors of explosive weapons-related violence by providing medical treatment, prosthetics, and psychosocial support services. Furthermore, the agency is collaborating with governments and civil society groups to strengthen protection services, particularly for children living with disabilities.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);  

By Ana Carolina Avzaradel Szklo
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, Nov 26 2025 – The UN climate talks at COP30 once again brought the critical issue of climate finance to the forefront of global discussions.

However, while much of the debate revolved around traditional forms of aid directed at developing countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, a faster, more transformative approach lies in expanding access to carbon markets.

When emerging and developing economies (EMDEs) are equipped with the tools and knowledge needed to engage in these markets on their own terms, carbon finance can be generated and harnessed in ways that reflect their unique natural assets, governance, social contexts, and national priorities.

Achieving global climate and sustainable development goals depends on ensuring that those worst affected by climate change can fully participate in and benefit from this growing flow of finance.

EMDEs are on the frontlines of climate change — from rising sea levels threatening Pacific island nations to intensifying droughts and fires in the Amazon and Horn of Africa, and increasingly intense and frequent hurricanes in the Caribbean. These crises often hit hardest in regions that have contributed least to global emissions and in the most difficult position to react to them.

Yet, these same nations face a climate finance shortfall of $1.3 trillion per year. Carbon markets present an opportunity for these countries to bridge this gap by turning their natural advantages into climate finance assets.

Despite successful initiatives aimed at bolstering both high-integrity supply and demand for carbon credits, significant barriers to access persist, particularly for EMDEs. From fragmented policy landscapes to weak governance structures, limited institutional capacity, and low investor confidence, various obstacles prevent the vast potential of EMDEs to engage fully.

The Access Strategies Program — led by the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative — is a direct response to these challenges. It helps governments design and implement their own pathways into high-integrity carbon markets, enabling them to build the policies, institutional capacity, and investor confidence needed to meet their climate finance needs and transform their potential into progress.

Each country’s natural capital — from Brazil’s vast rainforest and agricultural landscapes, to the Caribbean’s blue carbon ecosystems, or Kenya’s grasslands and renewable energy potential — represents a unique competitive advantage, ready to be realised.

Simultaneously, no two countries share the same development goals or governance contexts. In some, carbon markets can drive forest conservation and biodiversity protection; while in others, they deliver the most impact by strengthening rural livelihoods or financing clean energy transitions.

The Access Strategies model recognises this uniqueness, tailoring its support to help countries use carbon finance in ways that align with their own specific economic and environmental strategies and goals.

For example, the Partnership for Agricultural Carbon (PAC) — developed with the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) — is building capacity across Latin American and Caribbean agriculture ministries to participate in high-integrity carbon markets. It provides training, policy guidance, and decision-making tools that help governments and farmers identify viable carbon projects aligning with national agricultural and sustainability goals.

The collaboration has given small and medium producers a clearer route to investment, while positioning agriculture as a central player in regional climate strategies. Another example of the Access Strategies work is the recently launched Amazon Best Practices Guide, which will help Amazon state governments design and implement carbon market frameworks made specifically for their unique ecological and governance realities.

Moreover, in countries such as Kenya, Peru, and Benin, the Program has provided tailored support to develop policy and regulatory frameworks, strengthen institutional capacity, and attract responsible investment for high-priority climate mitigation projects — all in line with country-led goals.

These examples show what’s possible when governments have the tools and expertise to engage in high-integrity carbon markets on their own terms. More countries should seize this opportunity to tap into the growing flow of finance from carbon markets.

While carbon markets are not a silver bullet, they are one of the few scalable and self-sustaining tools available when grounded in integrity and tailored to each country’s needs.

Programs like Access Strategies do more than transfer technical knowledge — they build the enabling conditions for locally led action, drawing on countries’ unique ecological, social, and institutional insights to shape solutions that work in practice.

The focus of global climate action should not only be on new funding pledges, but on ensuring funding that is already available is effectively redirected for EMDEs countries to harness their own natural capital and promote social inclusion, while meeting their climate goals and reshaping their development pathway.

Building this kind of capacity is how we turn global ambition into lasting, locally owned progress, and moreover how carbon finance can become a true instrument of sustainable development.

Ana Carolina Avzaradel Szklo, Technical Director, Markets and Standards, Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI)

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);  

By Danny Bradlow
PRETORIA, South Africa, Nov 26 2025 – US president Donald Trump’s efforts to derail a successful wrap-up of the G20 summit in Johannesburg failed. Trump boycotted the meeting and the US told other countries through diplomatic channels not to sign a communiqué. Nevertheless, the 19 remaining countries and regional organisations signed a 30-page declaration.

This called for, among other things, increased funding for renewable energy projects, more equitable critical mineral supply chains and debt relief for poorer countries. Senior research fellow Danny Bradlow explains what was, and wasn’t, achieved.

In what ways was South Africa’s G20 presidency a success?

The G20 has been a great diplomatic success for South Africa in at least three ways.

First, it succeeded in leading all the other G20 countries and organisations to adopt by consensus a leaders’ declaration despite a boycott and bullying tactics by Washington.

The 120 paragraph Leaders’ Declaration covered all the issues embodied in the “Solidarity, Equality and Sustainability” theme that South Africa chose for the G20. They included:

• • debt and access to affordable, sustainable finance

• • financing for a just energy transition

• • critical minerals

• • inequality

• • a second phase for the

Compact with Africa

• The first phase was launched in

2017 during Germany’s G20 presidency

• and provided a framework for Africa’s engagement with its development partners.

• • illicit financial flows

• inclusive growth.

Second, South Africa succeeded in launching a number of initiatives over the course of the year.

Firstly, the G20 acknowledged South Africa’s five years of support for the establishment of an African Engagement Framework within the G20’s finance track. It is intended to support enhanced cooperation between Africa and the G20.

Secondly, leaders expressed support, in various ways, for the G20 working group initiatives on illicit financial flows, infrastructure, air quality, artificial intelligence, sustainable development and public health. The ministerial declaration on debt was also supported. This includes reforms around initiatives supporting low and middle income countries facing debt challenges.

Thirdly, the Ubuntu Legacy Initiative was launched. This is designed to fund cross-border infrastructure in Africa. It was also agreed that an Ubuntu Commission will be set up to encourage research and dialogue on dealing cooperatively with global challenges. Ubuntu can be explained with reference to the isiZulu saying ‘umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu’ which means ‘a person is a person through other people.’ It entails an ethics of care, compassion and cooperation.

Lastly, South Africa succeeded in delivering an effective, efficient and constructive G20 year. This is no small feat. It required the country to organise more than 130 meetings of G20 working groups, task forces and ministerial meetings, in addition to the leaders’ summit.

Is this only a good news story?

It is inevitable that any complex, multifaceted and voluntary process involving participants with strong and contrasting views will not be an unqualified success.

This, without doubt, is the case with South Africa’s G20 year. The environment was complicated by a number of factors:

• • the wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan

• • the actions of the US and some of its allies to undermine the international community’s efforts to address the intertwined challenges of climate, biodiversity, energy, poverty, inequality, food insecurity, debt, technology and development, and

• trade wars initiated by Trump imposing tariffs on trading partners.

These factors meant that getting the diverse membership of the G20 to reach agreement on a broad range of complex issues would be extremely difficult. In fact, it would only be possible to do so at a high level of abstraction.

Unfortunately, this proved to be the case. The result is that the G20 Leaders’ Declaration largely boils down to a set of general statements that are almost totally devoid of commitments for which states can be held accountable. Such general statements are not uncommon in the diplomatic statements issued at the end of high-level multilateral meetings. However, this is an extreme example.

The leaders expressed their support for a number of voluntary principles on issues such as disaster relief, artificial intelligence, critical minerals and debt. They also expressed support for the work of organisations like the multilateral development banks and the International Monetary Fund, and for some specific South African led initiatives like the review of the G20 itself.

However, there are no time frames or deliverables attached to these expressions of support.

What needs to be done to make the declaration effective?

The G20 is a voluntary association with no binding authority. The declaration’s efficacy therefore ultimately depends on all the G20’s stakeholders both taking – and advocating – for action on the issues raised in it.

These stakeholders include states and non-state actors like international organisations, businesses and civil society organisations.

The value of the declaration is how both the state and non-state actors use it to advocate for action. That can be in future G20 meetings as well as other regional and international forums.

How can the declaration be used to lead to action?

One of the biggest challenges facing African countries is debt. Over 20 are either in debt distress or at high risk of debt distress. Many African countries are being forced to choose between servicing their debts and investing in the development and climate resilience of their own populations.

The challenge that this creates for African states is exacerbated by their limited access to affordable, predictable and sustainable sources of development finance.

This means that African countries are unlikely to gain a sustainable path to reaching their development and climate goals without substantial action on debt and development finance. The Leaders’ Declaration, in paragraphs 14-22, clearly recognises the challenge. Key elements include:

• • the endorsement of

the statement

• their finance minister and central bank governors made on debt sustainability

• • a reiteration of the support for the

Common Framework

• for dealing with low-income countries in debt distress. The framework establishes a process for dealing with the official and commercial debt. But the process has proven to be too slow and cumbersome.

• • a commitment to working with the

Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable

to explore better ways to meet the needs of debtor countries in distress and their creditors. This roundtable establishes an informal mechanism that brings together creditors and debtors and other stakeholders in sovereign debt to discuss ways to improve restructuring processes.

But these will be just empty words unless the endorsements are turned into action.

There are three actions that stakeholders can take.

First, African leaders can form a regional borrowers’ forum to discuss the debt issue and share information on their experiences dealing with creditors and on developing common African positions on development finance and debt. This would build on the work done by:

• • the African Expert Panel appointed by South African president Cyril Ramaphosa, and

• the African finance ministers under the auspices of the African Union and the UN Economic Commission on Africa.

They can also use this forum to engage in open discussions with African non-state actors.

Second, African non-state actors can develop strategies for holding the leaders accountable if they fail to follow up on the declaration. And they can hold creditors accountable for their actions in their negotiations with African debtors in distress.

Third, African non-state actors should initiate a review of how the IMF needs to reform its operational policies and practices. Africa has eloquently advocated for greater African voice and vote in IMF governance. The next step should be to explore how the substantial changes that have taken place in the scope of IMF operations can be translated into operational practices. These include the macroeconomic impacts of climate, gender and inequality.

Daniel D. Bradlow is Professor/Senior Research Fellow, Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship, University of Pretoria

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);  

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Kuhaneetha Bai Kalaicelvan
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Nov 26 2025 – Although inequality among countries still accounts for a far greater share of income inequality worldwide than national-level inequalities, discussions of inequality continue to focus on the latter.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

South African initiative
The G20 Extraordinary Committee of Independent Experts on Global Inequality, chaired by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, was commissioned by South Africa’s 2025 presidency of the G20, the group of the world’s twenty largest national economies.

South Africa (SA) and Brazil, the previous G20 host, have long had the world’s highest national-level inequalities. However, their current governments have led progressive initiatives for the Global South.

Although due to take over the G20 presidency next year, US President Trump refused to participate in this year’s summit, inter alia, because of alleged SA oppression of its White minority.

Inequality growing faster
The G20 report utilises various measures to show the widening gap between the rich and the poor.

National-level inequality is widespread: 83% of countries, with 90% of the world’s population, have high Gini coefficients of income inequality above 40%.

While income inequality worldwide is very high, with a Gini coefficient of 61%, it has declined slightly since 2000, primarily due to China’s economic growth.

K Kuhaneetha Bai

Meanwhile, wealth concentration has continued. Wealth inequality is even greater than income inequality, with the richest 10% owning 74% of the world’s assets.

The average wealth of the richest 1% grew by $1.3 million from 2000, accounting for 41% of new wealth by 2024! Private wealth has risen sharply since 2000, while public assets have declined.

Besides income and wealth, the report reviews other inequalities, including health, education, employment, housing, environmental vulnerability, and even political voice.

Such inequalities, involving class, gender, ethnicity, and geography, often ‘intersect’. The promise of equal opportunity is rarely meaningful, as most enjoy limited social mobility options.

The report thus serves as the most comprehensive and accessible review of various dimensions of economic inequality available.

Harmful effects
The G20 report condemns ‘extreme inequality’ for its adverse economic, political, and social consequences.

Inadequate income typically means hunger, poor nutrition and healthcare. Economies underperform, unable to realise their actual potential.

Inequality, including power imbalances, influences resource allocation. Such disparities enhance the incomes of the rich, often at the expense of working people.

Natural resources typically enrich owners while undermining environmental sustainability and social well-being.

The report argues that economic inequality inevitably involves political disparities, as the rich are better able to buy influence.

New rules and policies favour the rich and powerful, increasing inequalities and undermining national and worldwide economic performance.

High inequality, due to rules favouring the wealthy, also undermines public trust in institutions. The declining influence of the middle class threatens both economic and political stability, especially in the West.

Drivers of inequality
The report argues that public policy can address inequalities by influencing how market incomes are initially distributed and how taxes and transfers redistribute them.

Market income distribution is determined by asset distribution (mediated by finance, skills, and social networks) and among labour, capital, and rents. Returns to shareholders are prioritised over other claims.

Increased inequality in recent decades is attributed to weakened equalising policies, or ‘equilibrating forces’, and stronger ‘disequilibrating forces’, including wealth inheritance.

New economic policies over recent decades have favoured the wealthy by weakening labour via market deregulation and restricting trade unions.

Tax systems have become less progressive with the shift from direct to indirect taxes, lowering taxes paid by large corporations and the wealthy. Fiscal austerity has exacerbated the situation, especially for the vulnerable.

Financial deregulation has also generated more instability, triggering crises, with ‘resolution’ usually favouring the influential.

Privatisation of public services has also favoured the well-connected, at the expense of the public, consumers, and labour.

International governance
International economic and legal institutions have also shaped inequality.

More international trade and capital mobility have lowered wages, increased income disparities and job insecurity, and weakened workers’ bargaining power.

Liberalising financial flows has favoured wealthy creditors over debtors, worsening financial volatility and sovereign debt crises.

International inequalities have adverse cross-border effects, especially for the environment and public health. Overconsumption and higher greenhouse gas emissions by the rich significantly worsen planetary heating.

International health inequalities have been worsened by stronger transnational intellectual property rights and increased profits at the expense of poorer countries.

International tax agreements have enabled the wealthy, including transnational corporations, to pay less than those less fortunate. Meanwhile, Oxfam reported that the top one per cent in the Global North drained the South at a rate of $30 million per hour.

Inaction despite consensus?
The report claims a new analytical consensus that inequality is detrimental to economic progress, and reducing inequality is better for the economy.

Inequality is attributed to policy choices reflecting moral choices and economic trade-offs. It argues that combating inequality is both desirable and feasible.

Recent research from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has criticised growing national inequalities.

However, there is no evidence of serious efforts by the G20, IMF, and OECD to reduce inequalities, especially inter-country, particularly between North and South.

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);