No country is safe from the devastating impacts of extreme weather — and saving lives means making early-warning systems accessible to all, UN chief António Guterres said on Wednesday.
“Early-warning systems work,” he told the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva. “They give farmers the power to protect their crops and livestock. Enable families to evacuate safely. And protect entire communities from devastation.”
“We know that disaster-related mortality is at least six times lower in countries with good early-warning systems in place,” the UN chief said.
He added that just 24 hours’ notice before a hazardous event can reduce damage by up to 30 per cent.
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In 2022, Mr. Guterres launched the Early Warnings for All initiative aiming to ensure that “everyone, everywhere” is protected by an alert system by 2027.
Progress has been made, with more than half of all countries now reportedly equipped with multi-hazard early-warning systems. The world’s least developed countries have nearly doubled their capacity since official reporting began “but we have a long way to go,” the UN chief acknowledged.
At a special meeting of the World Meteorological Congress earlier this week, countries endorsed an urgent Call to Action aiming to close the remaining gaps in surveillance.
Extreme weather worsens
WMO head Celeste Saulo, who has been urging a scale-up in early-warning system adoption, warned that the impacts of climate change are accelerating, as “more extreme weather is destroying lives and livelihoods and eroding hard-won development gains”.
She spoke of a “profound opportunity to harness climate intelligence and technological advances to build a more resilient future for all.”
Weather, water, and climate-related hazards have killed more than two million people in the past five decades, with developing countries accounting for 90 per cent of deaths, according to WMO.
Mr. Guterres emphasized the fact that for countries to “act at the speed and scale required” a ramp-up in funding will be key.
Surge in financing
“Reaching every community requires a surge in financing,” he said. “But too many developing countries are blocked by limited fiscal space, slowing growth, crushing debt burdens and growing systemic risks.”
He also urged action at the source of the climate crisis, to try to limit fast-advancing global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial era temperatures – even though we know that this target will be overshot over the course of the next few years, he said.
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“One thing is already clear: we will not be able to contain global warming below 1.5 degrees in the next few years,” Mr. Guterres warned. “The overshooting is now inevitable. Which will mean that we’re going to have a period, bigger or smaller, with higher or lower intensity, above 1.5 degrees in the years to come.”
Still, “we are not condemned to live with 1.5 degrees” if there is a global paradigm shift and countries take appropriate action.
At the UN’s next climate change conference, where states are expected to commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade, “we need to be much more ambitious,” he said. COP30 will take place on 10-21 November, in Belén, Brazil.
“In Brazil, leaders need to agree on a credible plan in order to mobilize $1.3 trillion per year by 2035 for developing countries, to finance climate action,” Mr. Guterres insisted.
Developed countries should honour their commitment to double climate adaptation funding to $40 billion this year and the Loss and Damage Fund needs to attract “substantial contributions,” he said.
Mr. Guterres stressed the need to “fight disinformation, online harassment and greenwashing,” referring to the UN-backed Global Initiative on Climate Change Information Integrity.
“Scientists and researchers should never fear telling the truth,” he said.
He expressed his solidarity with the scientific community and said that the “ideas, expertise and influence” of the WMO, which marks its 75th anniversary this week, are needed now “more than ever”.
Read the original article on UN News.
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London — The Mo Ibrahim Foundation has released a new research brief, Africa’s natural resources and conflicts: a vicious cycle, examining how growing competition over natural resources is fuelling conflicts across the continent – and how these conflicts are, in turn, undermining Africa’s ability to leverage its own wealth for development.

The Foundation warns of a vicious cycle in which resources fuel conflict, while insecurity erodes governments’ capacity to manage those resources effectively, deters investment, and reinforces perceptions of Africa as a high-risk destination.

The new research brief highlights that the security situation in Africa has worsened sharply, with security incidents increasing by 87% between 2019 and 2024. Drawing on data from the 2024 Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG), it notes that Security & Safety is the most deteriorated of all 16 governance sub-categories, declining by -5.0 points between 2014 and 2023 at the continental average level.

While this surge is seen as reflective of wider international rise in conflict, the brief highlights the enormous economic cost of insecurity in Africa. Between 1996 and 2022, intense conflict was associated with an average 20% reduction in annual economic growth. National-level impacts are also stark: in Sudan, GDP is projected to shrink by up to 42% under current conflict conditions.
The research identifies an emerging trend across the continent, where struggles over resource control are intensifying insecurity and weakening governance. The brief includes three case studies:
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Sudan: The war has deepened an already complex illicit financial flows (IFFs) landscape, with an estimated 57% of gold production smuggled in 2023. Both the SAF and RSF are funding operations through the gold sector, as international actors compete for influence.
The Sahel: Conflicts are increasingly driven by local grievances over land, climate stress, and control of resources such as gold, uranium, and oil. Armed groups, criminal networks, and foreign actors exploit these resources to finance violence, further eroding state authority in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad.
DR Congo: Foreign powers and armed groups continue to fight over the country’s mineral wealth, especially cobalt, of which the DRC produces 75% of global supply. Corruption and underreporting remain rampant, with mining companies failing to declare an estimated $16.8 billion in revenue between 2018 and 2023.
The research underscores the urgent need to address the links between security and resource management to ensure that Africa can leverage its own resources and take ownership of its development agenda.
AllAfrica publishes around 600 reports a day from more than 110 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct.
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Youth uprisings in Madagascar seem to have been hijacked, while those in Morocco have been deflated.
The Gen Z protests that swept across Morocco over the past few weeks – as they have gripped other countries like Madagascar and Nepal – seem to have subsided. Whether that is the end, though, is not clear.
Gen Z 212, the specific manifestation in Morocco, along with Morocco Youth Voice, launched its street demonstrations on 27 September in the capital Rabat and other cities. Demands included better health and education, and an end to government corruption and spending on ostentatious sports events like the 2030 FIFA World Cup and 2025 Africa Cup of Nations rather than on public services.
Over the next few weeks, the protests grew and spread, with police arresting hundreds and killing some demonstrators. The marches grew more violent and destructive, showing signs of gaining their own momentum and slipping beyond the organisers’ control. Gen Z 212 is an anonymous and rather amorphous entity, so control was always going to be a problem.
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The uprisings started in the context of high youth unemployment, officially calculated at 35.8%, and inequality. But it also appears that there was a copycat effect as Gen Z participants in different countries fed off each other, and coordinated actions through social media.
The spark seemed to have been the death of eight women during childbirth in a public hospital in the southern coastal city of Agadir. This inspired particularly the protests about poor health services. According to the World Health Organization, Morocco has only 7.7 doctors per 10 000 people, with some regions such as Agadir registering 4.4 per 10 000, well below the recommended 25.
The demonstrations continued to proliferate over the next two weeks, with the killing of several protesters seemingly provoking the demonstrators to greater violence. Banks, police stations and other government buildings were torched and otherwise damaged, though criminals using the cover of protests might have been responsible for some or even most of those.
A turning point was reached in the second week of October after King Mohammed VI’s speech at the opening of Parliament. Without mentioning Gen Z 212 or the uprisings, he urged the government to improve healthcare and education. The monarchy is widely respected in Morocco, and the king’s remarks were read as an implicit recognition of the legitimacy of the protesters’ social demands.
After his speech, the Gen Z 212 organisers posted calls for another mass demonstration across the country on 18 October. ‘But no one really [showed up],’ Francois Conradie, a Morocco-based economist at Oxford Economics, told ISS Today.
Meanwhile, the government did respond to the king’s appeal. The finance minister’s 2026 budget presentation to Parliament this week included a 16% increase in spending on health and education. This seemed to take the wind out of the sails of the protests, Conradie said.
Now, even though the campaign has not officially ended, ‘a lot of energy seems to have gone out of it,’ he says. He sees this as the result of a combination of harsh policing and the government’s tactical response to the demonstrators, which involves conceding to their most obvious demands.
Whether Gen Z 212 can regain its momentum is now the question. Conradie points out that there is still a lot of pent-up energy in the movement that could drive further demonstrations. He notes that much of the uprising’s force came from teenagers just out of school who had fewer job prospects and less likelihood of benefitting from educational reforms the government might propose.
And even if the government has to some degree responded to the Gen Z 212 demands for better health and education, it has not addressed the demand that Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch be fired and corrupt officials be prosecuted.
And so Riccardo Fabiani, North African Director at the International Crisis Group, told ISS Today that ‘it’s clear that it’s hard to sustain a mobilisation for weeks without a proper socio-political infrastructure behind (political parties, trade unions, civil society, etc.).’
‘At the moment, the demonstrators are taking a pause to reorganise, but keeping up the momentum will not be easy given that the authorities are trying to address their concerns without legitimising them or entering a formal dialogue. Moreover, the political dimension of their requests (dismissing the government, dissolving corrupt parties) has been completely ignored.
‘So I feel that the challenge for the protesters will be how to avoid losing momentum while the system refuses to acknowledge the movement and, at the same time, it tries to address the issues at stake indirectly. This is not that different from the 2011 playbook, when the monarchy introduced some limited changes and gradually undermined the protest movement.’
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In this analysis, Fabiani appears to have identified structural issues that may be common to all Gen Z movements. In Madagascar, Gen Z also protested about poor government service delivery, with a focus on water and electricity. The uprisings culminated in former president Andry Rajoelina fleeing the country last week.
The military then stepped in, and last Friday Colonel Michael Randrianirina was sworn in as president. This week he appointed unpopular businessman Herintsalama Rajaonarivelo as prime minister, to the chagrin of the Gen Z organisers, who said this ‘runs contrary to the spirit of change and renewal.’ They complained that they had not been consulted and vowed to keep mobilising.
‘Our revolution will not be hijacked,’ they said. But that seems to be what has happened. While in Morocco, the revolution appears to have been deflated.
Peter Fabricius, Consultant, ISS Pretoria
Read the original article on ISS.
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