DDRN

The Revolution Is Not Over: Tunisia’s Youth and the Return to the Streets

Eva Karakaxa — Wed, 04 Nov 2026 10:28:55 +0000

Fifteen years after the uprising that toppled Ben Ali, Tunisia’s streets are once again exposing the unresolved tensions of the revolution: a generation still confronting economic precarity, political exclusion and the widening gap between the promise of change and the reality.

In October 2026, Tunisia’s streets have once again become a place where frustration is made visible. On 17 October, thousands gathered in Tunis for one of the largest demonstrations against President Kais Saied in years. Organised with the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), opposition groups, and civil society organisations, the march brought together people protesting political repression and restrictions on democratic freedoms. A few days later, demonstrations and clashes with police broke out in several locations, including Ettadhamen, a suburb of Tunis, and towns in the Sfax region. The promises of a better life remained unfulfilled.

For young Tunisians, these protests are not simply a return to a familiar revolutionary moment. They take place in a country that has already experienced the overthrow of a president, a democratic transition and, more recently, the concentration of power under a new leader.

What are Tunisians protesting about?

Fifteen years after the 2011 Revolution, unemployment and rising living costs remain major sources of frustration. Shortages of essential goods, water, and electricity, along with declining public services, have further affected everyday life. In October 2026, unemployed university graduates organised a march from Menzel Bouzaiane towards Tunis, demanding employment opportunities and the implementation of public-sector recruitment promises.

Anti-Black discrimination has also become increasingly connected to state migration policies. In 2026, Amnesty International documented continued arrests and collective expulsions of Black African migrants by Tunisian security forces, including the expulsion of a Guinean asylum seeker’s husband to Libya following his arrest in January. Meanwhile, prominent Black Tunisian anti-racism activist Saadia Mosbah was sentenced to eight years in prison in March 2026. These cases illustrate how the treatment of Black communities extends beyond individual acts of racism to include state security practices and restrictions on organisations defending their rights.

Since July 2021, when Saied suspended parliament and assumed extraordinary powers, Tunisia has experienced significant political changes. The 2022 Constitution strengthened presidential authority, while opposition politicians, journalists and activists have faced increasing restrictions and arrests. In October 2026, thousands protested in Tunis, demanding political freedoms and the release of detained opponents, reviving the 2011 revolutionary slogan: “The people want the fall of the regime.”

All these create a ‘pool of potential’ that creates unrest that can lead people to the streets. And then one trigger finds people prepared to protest.

The October protests were triggered by several deaths that raised concerns about police accountability and failing public services. In Jebiniana, 24-year-old Aoun Salhi died following a police pursuit, prompting residents to demand an investigation. In Ettadhamen, protests followed the death of a young man in police custody, although the circumstances remain disputed. Meanwhile, students in Sfax protested after a fellow student died following a cardiac emergency, raising concerns about delayed ambulance services and inadequate medical facilities. Local reporting by Nawaat and statements by Tunisian activists linked the unrest to wider frustrations over state accountability.

The unfinished promises of 2011

Tunisia’s revolution began in December 2010, fuelled by unemployment, corruption, regional inequality and political repression. The self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, a young street vendor in Sidi Bouzid, triggered nationwide protests. On 14 January 2011, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled after 23 years in power. The uprising became the starting point of the Arab Spring.

Young people were central to the protests, demanding employment, freedom and dignity. Yet the economic promises of the revolution remained largely unfulfilled. The World Bank’s 2014 report, The Unfinished Revolution, identified persistent unemployment, regional disparities and limited economic opportunities as major obstacles to Tunisia’s development. What does it mean for the generation that took to the streets in 2011 to witness Tunisia’s return to increasingly authoritarian practices? Perhaps the real achievement of that generation was not simply the political change it secured, but the belief it passed on to those who followed: that protest matters, that change is possible, even if its results are not always visible within one’s own generation. It created a society more willing to question authority, demand accountability and hold elected leaders responsible for their promises. The revolution may not have delivered everything people hoped for, but it changed what citizens felt entitled to demand from their state and from those who govern them.

Resistance beyond the plaza

In Beyond the Plaza, Kateryna Malaia and Nathan Mark Hutson offer a useful way of thinking about the relationship between everyday life and visible protest. Their introduction begins with a paradox: public demonstrations may be most visible in prominent squares and on major streets, but the conditions that sustain them often develop elsewhere. Resistance emerges through ordinary spaces, neighbourhood relationships and everyday experiences of injustice long before it becomes a public spectacle. The plaza, in this account, is not the beginning of political discontent. It is where something that has been developing becomes visible.

A graduate unable to find work, a family struggling to make ends meet or a community facing water shortages during a heatwave may experience different problems, but these grievances can contribute to a wider dissatisfaction with the state. A particular incident, such as a death involving police or a failure of public services, can bring these frustrations into collective view.

This is particularly relevant to young people. Alcinda Honwana’s concept of waithood describes the prolonged uncertainty experienced by young people who cannot access the economic independence and social conditions traditionally associated with adulthood. In Tunisia, this helps explain the frustration of a generation that has pursued education but continues to face limited employment opportunities and uncertain futures.

Protest, however, is only one response to these conditions. Some young people organise, others engage in everyday forms of resistance, while others withdraw or consider migration. As Honwana argues, young people are not simply waiting for their circumstances to change; they actively negotiate and challenge the conditions shaping their lives.

Tunisia and the global wave of youth uprisings

Across the world, a new generation is taking to the streets, demanding political accountability, economic opportunities and a future in which their voices matter. From Africa to South Asia and Europe, young people are challenging governments and institutions they see as failing to deliver on their promises. Their struggles differ, but Tunisia offers an important lesson: a revolution should not be measured only by what it achieves in the moment, but also by what it leaves behind for the generations that follow.

Tunisia’s 2011 Revolution brought down a long-standing president and opened the way for democratic freedoms. Yet many of the demands that brought people into the streets remain unresolved. Looking back, this does not mean that the revolution failed. It means that political change is not a finished event. Removing a leader does not automatically guarantee economic justice or lasting democracy. These require continued public pressure and accountability.

Perhaps the most important legacy of that generation was the belief it passed on: that people can challenge those in power and that collective action can make a difference. If one presidency can fall, then so can another. Every generation should recognise and defend the gains made before it but also understand that these gains are never guaranteed. Perhaps this is what Tunisia’s experience can teach a new generation of protesters: the victory is not only in what one demonstration achieves, but in leaving behind a society that understands the power of the ‘streets’ and the ability to say ‘dégage!’ (get out), a slogan that was central during the Tunisian revolution.

A revolution is not a moment in history, but an ongoing struggle to make political change meaningful in people’s everyday lives.

Evangelia Karakaxa is a MSc student at Centre of African Studies, Faculty of Theology, the University of Copenhagen, and a DDRN Intern.

Apply for a Research Communication Internship with DDRN.dk

Arne Wangel — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 06:58:59 +0000

DDRN is seeking Research Communication Intern(s) for 3 to 4 months during the Spring semester 2027.

Do you want to sharpen your skills as a science journalist working with Global South and the UN Sustainable Development Goals?

We are looking for someone studying communication, sustainable development, international development cooperation, or any other scientific field contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Even better, surprise us with something completely different in your background that you still strongly believe qualifies you for the position as an intern with the DDRN.

DDRN.dk is an independent on-line media communicating research on sustainable development by South researchers and by Danish universities. Its membership includes researchers, students, aid practitioners, consultants, private and public entities.

DDRN’s main communication language is English, and you must have very strong skills in written English. Proficiency in the Danish language is not a necessity.

You can work within one or more of these areas:

Write on research addressing South-North divides, global challenges, and the UN SDG, e.g., by interviewing faculty at Danish universities or visiting Global South researchers,
Communicate research of your own as you prepare for thesis writing
Join the editorial process during the weekly review of incoming scripts from the DDRN network of South-based science journalists.

The internship offers the opportunity to:

Develop and sharpen your skills in research communication and science journalism,
Challenge your creative skills on social media to attract readers to new articles on DDRN.dk,
Network with fellow students, academics, and science journalists in Denmark and in Global South countries,
Work with DDRN projects with South NGOs to build project support skills.

The internship is unpaid, but if you are eligible for SU and will have your internship credited as ECTS points at your institution of study, you will continue receiving SU during the internship.

If you are studying at a university in an EU country other than Denmark, you have the opportunity through your university, to apply for an Erasmus+ Traineeship grant: https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/opportunities/opportunities-for-individuals/students/traineeships-for-students-abroad to facilitate your transfer and stay in Denmark

Workplace: Foreningshuset, Sundholm 8, 2300 Copenhagen S. (Amager), Denmark

Several other NGOs are based in the same building as the DDRN office. Thus, there is an opportunity to network and meet practitioners, who are engaged in international development.

Send your application to Editor-in-chief Arne Wangel, e-mail: info@ddrn.dk before 30 November 2026. We look forward to receiving your application!

Kulturnat 2026 på Sundholm

Arne Wangel — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 20:27:49 +0000

En spiseseddel (14 dages turnus) på Sundholm ca. 1920 kunne se sådan ud:

Hver dag fik de indlagte udleveret én dunk hvidtøl til at tage med på arbejdspladsen.

Et fragment: Til gaffelen er vedlagt en seddel hvorpå der står: “Herr inspektør Denne gaffel fandt jeg ved, at rense op i kanalen, for mange aar siden. Og da jeg ikke er glad ved, og beholde den saa Sender jeg den Tilbage Ærbødist V. Hansen” Nedenunder er tilføjet: “Kan vel efter 15 års forløb sælges til fordel for julebøssen 15/12 56, S.” og: “Fg. overopsynsmand Klog vurderer dens værdi til 2 øre.”

Sigfred Pedersen – 1967 – Den gamle skærslibers forårssang

Hvor er I nu, alle I jeg kendte,
hver buttet pige, hver kammesjuk?
Hver anden af jer på Sundholm endte.
Hver anden kvaltes i flaskens kluk.
Men jeg er stadig iblandt de vakse!
Mit hår er hvidt, men min tud er rød!
Jeg sliber knive, jeg sliber sakse,
jeg sliber solskin og dagligt brød.

Den 6.marts 1899 tiltrådte Borgerrepræsentationen magistratens forslag om at slutte en overenskomst med staten om afståelse af et areal på ca. 31 tønder på Amager Fælled mod at Københavns Kommune frafaldt græsningsretten over den øvrige del af Fælleden. I august 1901 gik man i gang med opførelsen af Sundholm. Da arealet var meget lavt liggende, blev det besluttet at tage nødvendige fyld til hævning af byggepladsen fra en bred grav, der skulle omgive hele terrænet. Deraf navnet Sundholm.

Denne grav, en egentlig voldgrav, var 12 fod bred i bunden, (3 fod = ca. 1 meter), 56 fod i overfladen og 19 fod dyb. Der blev kun 2 adgange til området nemlig gennem 2 ”bevogtede” porte, Brigadeporten og Fælledporten. Disse porte eksisterer stadig. Hele arealet var desuden indhegnet af et 1413 meter langt og 2 m højt ståltrådsgitter, som på indersiden var tilplantet med vilde roser. Terrænet fik form af som en lidt uregelmæssig femkant.

Hele anstalten, som både rummede arbejds- og tvangsarbejdsanstalt, kostede 2,5 millioner kroner i 1908-priser og beregnet til at kunne rumme ca. 1020 personer. Arbejdsanstalten fik plads til 600 mænd og 120 kvinder og i Tvangsarbejdsanstalten 220 mænd og 80 kvinder. Arbejdsanstalten var beregnet for voksne personer, som var i besiddelse af arbejdsevner, men som af forskellige grunde var ude af stand til at ernære sig selv., eller som på grund af ”drukkenskab eller forsømmelse af forsørgerpligter” trængte til en ”opdragende behandling” og/eller regelmæssigt, pligtbundet arbejde.

Tvangsarbejdsanstalten var indrettet til modtagelse af personer af begge køn, som enten af domstolene var idømt tvangsarbejde for forskellige lovovertrædelser, f.eks. utugt, eller som efter arbejdsanstaltens reglement var blevet idømt tvangsarbejde for disciplinære forseelser. I 1908 var der ansat 1 inspektør, 1 forvalter samt kontorpersonale, 1 inspektionsassistent, 2 kvartermestre, 1 værkfører, 1 væver, 1 dugmager, 1 skomager, 1 gartner, 1 snedker og 25 opsynsmænd samt 5 kvindelige opsyn. Køkkenet blev forestået af en økonoma, en husjomfru og 2 piger. Vaskeriet havde en bestyrerinde, en assistent og nogle piger. Linnedmagasinet sorterede under Oldfruen. 5 vægtere førte tilsyn om natten. Til kørsel med fire heste havde man tre kuske.

De første år

I anledning af Sundholms 80 års fødselsdag fik Sundholm nedenstående beretning fra fru Guldborg Nobel, hvis fader arbejdede på Ladegården og siden fulgte med til Sundholm. Familien flyttede i 1908 ind i en af de indrettede tjenesteboliger. (Hun fortalte) ”Den gamle ”Ladegaard” der ind til 1908 lå der, hvor Radiohuset nu er, var en arbejdsanstalt, hvor de mennesker boede, der fik fattighjælp, skyldte børnepenge eller var drankere. De måtte alle arbejde på værkstederne, som var på ”Ladegården eller ved fejning af kommunens torve og gader; de blev kaldet for ”Lemmer”. Min far var ansat som mester 1904 på væveriet, vi boede ikke på ”Ladegården”, men kom der hver dag med mad til ham. Jeg husker tydeligt de gule længer i 2 etager og loftet, hvor vi børn fik lov til at tumle os med alt det gamle skrammel, der var kasseret. Jeg husker også gården med de toppede sten med græs imellem og den gamle pumpe med et stort stentrug, som min bror tog bad i og blev skældt ud af vagten!

Det var en stor dag for os. Da ’Ladegaarden’ i 1908 flyttede ud på Sundholm, der lå frit på Amager: Vi flyttede med og kom fra en gammel ejendom ud til en skøn lejlighed med centralvarme, WC og have.- Vi så ikke meget til ”Lemmerne” på ”Ladegården”, de var ret lyssky over for os børn. På ”Sundholm” var det meget, meget bedre. – De fattige, der blev forsørget af det offentlige, uden at det skulle betragtes som fattighjælp, blev dog ikke Ladegårds lemmer, men husedes på Almindeligt Hospital, forløberen for ”De Gamles By”. Hver torsdag havde beboerne her udgangstilladelse, dette var de forretningsdrivende forberedt på, de havde et passende antal 5 ører liggende. som udgjorde et højst tiltrængt supplement til småfornødenheder som skrå o.lign. De ”gode, gamle tider” var ikke altid så lyse endda! Lemmernes arbejde var ikke blot at rykke ud som gadefejere. På den gamle ”Ladegård” blev der drevet større industrial virksomhed: Skrædderi, væveri, børstenbinderi o.s.v. og lønnen var inddelt i forskellige arbejdsklasser: 4, 8 eller 12 øre. Oprykning fandt sted ved flid, opførsel og dygtighed, og ugens arbejdsfortjeneste blev kun udbetalt med 12, 24 eller 30 øre., resten udbetales ved demission.

Øllebrød og vælling, de fyldte i os på tælling! På ”Sundholm” får vi bedre kår end På den gamle gaard! Her er det noget, som vi selv bestemmer. De ku ej falde på mer at kalde os gemene Ladegaardslemmer! På Sundholms hjem bliver man PENSIONÆR!

SUNDHOLM

BLEV INDVIET AF Frederik VIII, og i 1908 blev den ”Gl. Ladegaard” overflyttet hertil, men kun med arbejdspligt inden for murene, ikke mere gadefejning. ”Sundholm” blev nu også fængsel for kvinder, det var løsagtige piger, der før blev indsat i kvindefængslet på Christianshavn. – Vi boede i den afdeling, hvor kvinderne var og vi havde vinduet til den gård, og hvor de to gange daglig gik tur. 2 opsynsdamer gik vagt, men vi fik alligevel kastet sukker og bolcher ud til, når vagterne vendte ryggen til. Pigerne var meget glade for os, og vi kom virkelig til at holde af dem – de var næsten alle gengangere!

”Sundholm” var en by i byen – dengang et lukket område med dybe kanaler rundt om og kranset af pigtrådshegn, 2 porte strengt bevogtet af vagter, som undersøgte alt, når de ’indlagte’ kom hjem fra den ugentlige fridag, hvor de havde omsat de få ører i brændevin: 14 ører for en pægl. De prøvede ofte at smugle lidt brændevin med ind; når det blev opdaget, gik de ofte amok og kom ind i en celle, der var i porten. Nogle af dem blev snu, så de nåede at smadre falsen og søbe brændevinen op med sokkerne til en extra snaps, når de kom ind på stuen!

”Sundholm” var et stort bebygget område med høje bygninger og mange værksteder. Der var store fælles sovesale og opholdsrum. 2 bygninger var fængsler for de kriminelle, tvangsindlagte mænd og kvinder. Der var eget kraftværk, centralkøkkenet kunne også fattige udefra komme og hente mad fra og lange rugbrød.

– Der var også værksteder for alt, vaskeri, væveri, skomager, skrædderi, snedkeri og gartneri, hvor alle de ”indlagte” arbejdede. – ”Sundholm” forsynede alle kommunale institutioner med alt. Vi var gode venner med alle de ”indlagte”, de var jo på Sundholm i årevis. – Der var mange dygtige mennesker blandt dem, vi børn fik mange ting, som de lavede, såsom trætøj, dukkehus, legevogn, slæde og stylter. Min far fik et pibebræt udskåret i træ af en dygtig pibeskærer. I midten af hovedbygningen lå Kirken. Her var gudstjenester hver søndag og alle kom. Tvangsfangerne sad i båse, så de ikke kunne se hinanden. Der var også et stort hospital, dengang kun for ”indlagte”.

Nu er alt forandret. Urbanplanen tog alle de dyrkede marker og gartneriet. – Kanalerne hvor vi svømmede om sommeren og løb på skøjter om vinteren, er væk, men minderne om den ”Gl. Ladegaard” og ”Sundholm” lever endnu”. Således sluttede beretningen fra fru Guldborg Nobel

Arbejdstid og løn

I 1919 var den daglige arbejdstid på Arbejdsanstalten 48 timer, fastlagt fra mandag til fredag fra kl. 7.15 til 11.30 og 12.30 til 17.00 og om lørdagen fra kl. 7.15 til 11.30. På Tvangsanstalten var reglerne noget skrappere. Her begyndte man at arbejde kl. 6.00 og uafbrudt til kl. 12.00 og igen fra kl. 13.00 til kl. 19.30.

Tvangsanstalten rummede personer, der var idømt tvangsarbejde for betleri, løsgængeri, alfonseri, vold m.m. Fangerne, der arbejdede i fællessalen, beskæftigedes med poseklistring, syning af flaskehylstre, knytning af sejlgarn og værkpilning (optrævling af tovværk) samt for nogles enkeltes vedkommende, om sommeren i fri luft, ved brændeskæring og markarbejde. ”Lemmernes” soverum var, efter datidens forhold, store velindrettede lokaler med indtil 24 senge i hvert rum. Ved hver seng stod en kasse til opbevaring af private ejendele. Spise- og opholdsstuerne var ligeledes store rum med småborde og stole, hvor de indlagte, foruden at indtage måltiderne, kunne tilbringe fritiden med læsning, samtaler m.m. Bøgerne kunne udlånes fra anstaltens righoldige bibliotek. Ved ankomsten kom de indlagte i bad og blev iført anstaltens tøj. Det private tøj blev desinficeret og opbevaret i garderoben, indtil de forlod anstalten. Næste morgen blev de pågældende fremstillet for læge og inspektør, der fik oplysninger om deres hidtidige livsførelse, hvorefter de anbragtes ved det arbejde, hvor de ansås at være egnede til. Faglærte folk fik så vidt muligt arbejde ved deres fag. Under arbejdets gang forsøgte man at vække deres energi og gøre dem duelige til at klare sig uden for Sundholm.

Uddrag af Reglement for tvangsfanger i Arbejdsanstalten Sundholm 48-50

Par. 3 Fangerne har uvægerlig at udføre det af dem pålagte arbejde, og de kan ikke gøre fordring på betaling herfor. For så vidt deres opførsel er tilfredsstillende, kan de dog forvente, at deres ydes dem en godtgørelse for udført overarbejde efter nærmere på Anstaltens kontor foretagen opgørelse. Denne godtgørelse kan for fanger, der er forsørgelsesberettigede i København, først udbetales ved deres afgang fra Anstalten med et beløb af indtil 5 kr. og således, at resten forventes udbetalt ved personlig henvendelse på Anstaltens kontor en søgnedag mellem kl. 10-12 med andre 5 kr. hver 7de dag, indtil hele beløbet er udbetalt, samt for fangere der ikke er forsørgelsesberettigede i København, med et beløb af 5 kr. ved afgangen fra Tvangsarbejdsanstalten, medens resten afgives enten til Politiet til udbetaling til vedkommende eller påføres Afregningsbogen for at udbetales, når vedkommende efter en indlæggelse i Arbejdsanstalten hjemsendes eller dimitteres…….

Par. 4 Fangerne skal i tiden fra 1ste April til 30te September stå op om morgenen kl. 5. Enhver skal straks iføre sig sine klæder og efter at have vasket sig og redt sit hår samt ordne sin seng begive sig til arbejdslokalet, hvor pågældende da, efter at have nydt sig sin Morgenkost, skal påbegynde arbejdet kl. 6. Arbejdet vedvarer derefter med undtagelse af den i par.8 ommeldte tid uafbrudt til kl. 12… Derpå fortsættes arbejdet til Kl. 7 1/2. Kl. 8 ½ aften skal fangerne være i seng

Par. 8 For så vidt vejrliget og Årstiden måtte tillade det, skal enhver fange, hvis helbredstilstand efter lægens skøn ikke er til hinder derfor, daglig 2 gange i ½ time opholde sig i gården for at bevæge sig og trække frisk luft.

Uddrag af Straffereglement for Arbejdsanstalten Sundholm

Par. 1 Ingen på Anstalten indlagt må forlade denne uden Inspektørens tilladelse.

Par. 2 Bortgang uden tilladelse fra Anstalten – af hvilken som helst art – bliver, for så vidt denne forseelse af Inspektøren findes egnet til højere straf end de nedenfor, bestemte, at henvise til Fattiglovens par. 41.

Par. 3 For for sildig hjemkomst efter meddelt udgangstilladelse dikteres vedkommende:….Møder Pågældende efter kl. 12 middag den følgende dag, eller er han ikke med Tilgangsvognen, betragtes han som udebleven.

Par. 12 Indbragte, som bliver berusede under arbejde, anses med 2 grader højere Straf end den, de ifølge Par.10 vilde være ifalden uanset om de ere straffede for denne forseelse udenfor Anstalten.

Par. 17 Har en indlagt ikke være straffet for Beruselse i 1 ½ år, anses han som ikke tidligere straffet for denne forseelse.

Par. 18 Kortspil, Tærningespil og lignende straffes med indeholdelse i 14 dage og spillenes konfiskation. Ligeledes straffes al handel mellem de Indlagte med 14 dages indeholdelse.

Par. 19 Udvist dovenskab eller Uefterrettelighed under Arbejdet medfører Fortabelse af Ugens fortjeneste, for så vidt den pågældende er i 1. eller 2. klasse. For personer i 3.klasse medfører den tillige indeholdelse i 14 Dage.

Hver dag fik de indlagte udleveret én dunk hvidtøl til at tage med på arbejdspladsen

Af alle retter er Rumfordsuppen nok den mest berømte – det er en udpræget ”spareret”: Den fremstilles ved langsom kogning af vand, gryn og ærter, lidt kartofler. Flæsk skåret i små stykker eller i mangel heraf sild. I suppen indgik desuden gammelt og tørt brød. ”Det har ikke just været nogen herreret”.

Rumfordssuppen var internationalt kendt. Den fik sit navn efter Benjamin Thompson, greve af Rumford – en meget alsidig mand – der levede fra 1753 til 1814. Han var født i Amerika, men deltog i afhængighedskrigen på engelsk side og havnede derfor i Europa – først som officer og politiker i England, hvor han blev adlet, siden i Bayern som minister for både militære og sociale opgaver. Sine sidste ca. 15 år tilbragte han mest i Paris, hvor han opnåede betydelige forskningsresultater inden for fysikken. Han fik det eftermæle, at hans arbejde altid havde et almennyttigt formål.

Ovenstående tekst er sammensat af bidrag udvalgt fra en række skriftlige kilder af Mikkel Bundgaard Pedersen og Arne Wangel.

Visual Research in Global South contexts – Ethical Challenges and the Importance of Positionality

Luis Frank — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 14:16:58 +0000

Most people take photos and videos everyday of their friends, pets or simply casual moments – but how can we use this everyday tool as a method for research and science communication? Especially in the context of Global South research there are relevant ethical implications.

In visual research (VR), even more than other methods, it is crucial to understand the different positionalities of research subject, researcher and audience, and how they relate to one another. First, the researcher must understand their own perspective and how they can engage with the research subject, in regard to which results they can produce. In a second step, the audience and their perspective to interpret the materials must be considered. The goal of VR is to achieve genuine representation of research subjects, and to communicate valuable knowledge. Oftentimes the audience is not a closed and homogenous group, but more fluid, which must be considered.

Even though VR can be embedded within a broader methodology and supplement other methods, there is huge potential to use it as a stand-alone method. It conveys unique information visually in an accessible and relatable way, compared to conventional scientific papers. This gives VR great relevance for science communication to broader, non-academic audiences. There are a variety of presentation formats, including but not limited to prints, exhibitions, portfolios, multimodal websites or incorporated in videos. Essentially, the researcher can decide the format based on what communicates the most accurately, achieving high degrees of research subject representation and audience engagement.

Background

I collected my VR experiences as a white, European researcher during a four-week field study in Maputo, Mozambique. The results were produced for a European academic and non-academic audience in the form of a multimodal website. While audiovisual research encompasses photography, videography and sound, my experience focuses on photography.

My work entails two illustrative examples of using VR. One is a study using a mixed methodology of participant interviews and photography to illustrate mentioned aspects, by including the images in the final scientific article. A second study uses VR independently of another method, as an ethnographic research tool. The results are researcher-led insights on a community and context, interpreted through a specific lens and positionality.

The camera as an objective research tool?

Objectivity and generalizability are high quality standards upheld in most research contexts, since they increase credibility. VR challenges the often held assumption that objectivity makes research more relevant. At first glance, VR and using a camera seems purely objective – a moment is captured as it happens and can be experienced by outsiders at any later point. Can it though? Taking a closer look, perhaps the value of VR lies precisely within its subjectivity: The researcher, their research subject and their audience are interrelated and interdependent. Reality is subjective, and research results are both created and interpreted through an individual perspective by both the researcher and the audience.

The way in which research subjects are portrayed depends on the positionality of the researcher. This entails if they are part of the ingroup or have an outsider perspective, and as a result if there are underlying power dynamics that inform interactions. Additionally, it depends on the audience and how they conceptualize and perceive the subject. A fundamental condition for successful, ethical VR is that the researcher understands how they and their audience relate to the researched subject.

Does the researcher represent observations, or project their own notions?

In my research case, I was operating as a white person with a European passport and mobility rights, being from a financially wealthy and developed background. This impacts how I perceive the local people as my research subject and if I can sufficiently interact with and relate to the community in Maputo, to genuinely represent them in my research. Accessing a community depends on both how the people are interacting with the researcher and how the researcher encounters the people. It requires a constant reflection on how the subjects are conceptualized, and whether the researcher is open to dive into the community and be guided by new insights and experiences. The perspective of the researcher is not objective, but an idea that they have about the subject. The goal for the researcher is to achieve an internal process driven by honesty, open-mindedness, reflexiveness and flexibility about this idea. This is important since the researcher tells a specific narrative with their research, with direct impact on how the audience interprets the subject.

This image is an example from my own research on informal stormwater infrastructure. At first I would simply see a poorly maintained ditch. Even though this poor condition is an urgent problem, there is more to reveal about this situation. Through engaging with the community, I understood this also as an example of community effort to improve the condition of the stormwater infrastructure in the neighborhood. This nuanced understanding was only possible due to open-minded engagement and self-reflection on how I perceive my observations.

Are researchers biased towards seeing what they expect?

Every human has beliefs and certain images about other people. This is especially relevant in VR, as this human trait has the potential to reinforce and reproduce stereotypes. An important strategy is to counter them actively. When the researcher is collecting material in the field, they are easily drawn to see what they expect or already associate with the research subject. This is a subconscious influence and requires constant self-reflection to be avoided. The researcher must ask themselves: Why am I recording this? What is the relevance within the community and the research project?

Both images represent the streets of Maputo. While the first image was taken along a route we have taken for an excursion with the university, the second image is the street where we lived in a student residence. Hence, the second image represents our stay and experience more holistically. The first image simply shows one aspect from our time and one spot from many diverse places in Maputo, but it immediately triggers a dominant image that my European audience might have in mind about a street in Mozambique.

Beyond the moment of data collection in the field, the researcher must keep in mind their specific audience. Similarly to the researcher, or even more, they have beliefs and certain biases towards other people. The researcher must reflect: Can the audience understand the image sufficiently? What might be their interpretation? Will this image reinforce stereotypes? This means that even a scene relevant for the research might have to be excluded, if the meaning is not accessible for the audience. This is important to avoid triggering biases, and to maintain responsible representation of research subjects.

Does an image speak for itself, or is additional context needed?

Based on the above discussed aspects and examples of representation and biases, it becomes evident that VR materials never speak for themselves, but are recorded in a specific context and discussed from a specific perspective. It can be difficult to find a balance between leaving room for interpretation, and allowing the audience to understand the materials through contextualization. Different interpretations are important to generate new knowledge, however it is essential to avoid misinterpretation or reinforce stereotypes by providing relevant context.

For instance, social interactions are hard to interpret for outstanders if there is no societal or cultural background knowledge. A misinterpretation by the audience can easily mean a failure to communicate a new perspective and the main point of the research. Even worse, stereotypes and pre-assumptions about the research subject can be reinforced. A concrete example can be found in my own research. The omnipresence of the Mozambican flag, featuring a weapon, can be interpreted as violent. However, with relevant context, it becomes clear that the societal understanding of this flag is to remember the bloody armed struggle for the country’s independence. The complex meaning of the flag remains hidden if not explicitly contextualized.

There are almost no limits to who can consume VR, and researchers can have a meaningful impact in communicating unique notions and perspectives. Even more, representative and unbiased visual results have the potential to counter common assumptions and stereotypes through an honest and reflexive approach in an increasingly visual world.

Luis Frank is BSc Global Studies, Maastricht University, the Netherlands, and a DDRN intern.

The violence we call exceptional: Sexual Violence, Morality and the Global North

Eva Karakaxa — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 11:04:41 +0000

Why does sexual violence become evidence of societal backwardness when it happens in the Global South, but institutional failure when it happens in the Global North? Why does one rape become a diagnosis of a society, while another becomes a problem within a society? Who gets represented as having a “culture of rape”, and who gets represented as having a “rape scandal”?

Sexual violence is a transnational problem, but the moral narratives surrounding it are not geographically neutral. These are some of the questions I keep coming back to when thinking about the recent case at Cornell University.

A 20-year-old Cornell undergraduate has reported that she was sexually assaulted by seven men at a Chi Phi fraternity house in 2024 after becoming intoxicated and unable to consent. The case has returned to public attention through a civil lawsuit, new evidence presented in that lawsuit, and the reopening of the criminal investigation. Cornell has said that its own Title IX process resulted in suspensions and expulsions, while the lawsuit has challenged the adequacy of the university’s response.

What does it mean when something like this happens in one of the world’s most prestigious universities?

These are institutions that speak constantly about diversity, equality, global citizenship, human rights and social responsibility. So, what happens when the people inside these institutions do not necessarily live up to those values?

These are young men who had access to many of the things our society considers progressive: prestigious education, universities, international environments, opportunities to travel, exposure to different cultures, and the language of equality, diversity and global citizenship.

We often assume that education, privilege and exposure to the world make people more progressive. But having access to progressive ideas is not the same as living by them.

And I don’t think this is only about the individuals involved in the Cornell case. In fact, that is exactly what makes the case interesting to me. Because if we reduce everything to seven “bad men”, we don’t really ask the bigger question.

When does rape become a cultural problem?

When sexual violence happens in the Global South, it can quickly become a story about culture. We talk about patriarchy, religion, education, tradition, poverty and women’s rights. A rape becomes evidence of “their culture”.

But when similar violence happens inside a prestigious institution in the Global North, we are more likely to talk about individual perpetrators, institutional failure or safeguarding. So why does one rape become a diagnosis of a society while another becomes a problem within a society?

This is not an argument for ignoring violence in the Global South. It is a question about the standards we use to interpret it. Who gets represented as having a “culture of rape”? And who gets represented as having a “rape scandal”?

The problem is not that we talk about violence against women in the Global South. The problem begins when that violence is used to construct a moral hierarchy between societies. The Global South becomes the place where women need to be protected, where cultures need to change and where education is needed.

The Global North becomes the place where the same violence is treated as an exception. But what happens when we turn that question back towards ourselves?

The people who were there

The Cornell case also raises questions about the people around the assault. The discussion has not only been about the seven men accused in the lawsuit. Messages from a fraternity group chat have also become part of the case, bringing attention to a wider group of men around the incident.

This is where I started thinking about the research on bystanders.

In their 1968 study, Bystander Intervention in Emergencies: Diffusion of Responsibility, John M. Darley and Bibb Latané examined why people do not react in emergency situations. One finding is that the idea of the man as the natural “protector” doesn’t seem to apply as we might expect. Male subjects reported the emergency no faster than females. Female participants also reacted equally fast whether the other bystander was another woman, a man, or even someone with medical training.

There was also another finding that I find even more interesting. The subjects who failed to report the emergency showed few signs of the apathy or indifference thought to characterise “unresponsive bystanders”. Instead, they were concerned about making fools of themselves by overreacting. And this brings me back to the idea of ‘overreacting’. If, in a group of men, protecting a person’s right to their own body and speaking out against rape is seen as something that would make you look like you were overreacting, does this not tell us something about the group’s moral culture?

How often have women been told they are overreacting? And how often are men allowed not to react at all? Research on sexual harassment among medical students in Canada found that students often did not report harassment, even when they knew how and where they could report it. They feared that reporting would not lead to effective action, but also that it could bring personal consequences, damage their relationships with classmates, or make them appear weak. Some students even began to question whether what they had experienced really was sexual harassment. This is important because silence does not always begin with someone explicitly saying, “You are overreacting.” Sometimes it begins with the expectation that you might be.
You might misunderstand what happened. You might make the group uncomfortable. And this is where I think the question of bystanders becomes more complicated.

If women are repeatedly placed in a position where they have to question whether their discomfort is serious enough to speak about, while people around them learn that intervening might make them look dramatic, difficult, or overly sensitive, then silence can become part of the culture of a group. Isn’t that a cultural thing again? Is it only individual cases?

Reduced intervention or accountability?

Darley and Latané showed that the presence of other people can reduce an individual’s feeling of personal responsibility. Their research suggests that inaction can be connected not simply to apathy, but to the way people respond to the presence and behaviour of other people around them.

This matters when we think about a group of men. If speaking up against rape makes someone feel that they are going against the group, while remaining silent keeps them accepted by the group, what becomes more important? Being liked by other men? Or protecting another human being’s right to their own body? At what point does that stop being only an individual moral decision and become a cultural one?

Culture is also created through what people tolerate. Through what they laugh at. Through what they ignore. Through what they don’t want to get involved in. Through what they see and decide is somebody else’s problem. Seven men. Other 50 men in a group chat, aware of what was happening. A wider group. A wider culture.

This is why I find it difficult to look at the Cornell case only as a story about seven individuals. Seven men come from seven different families and backgrounds. They come from schools. They come from universities. They come from a social environment. They are not created in isolation. And this is where the number becomes uncomfortable. If seven men are accused in the case, and dozens of other men were part of the wider group chat and social environment surrounding it, can we really keep calling everything an individual incident?

If we use the term “rape culture” when talking about societies in the Global South, why are we so reluctant to use the same term when we are talking about elite institutions in the Global North?

The most privileged kind of men

This is perhaps the part I find most difficult to understand. What does it mean when the men involved are the kind of men that our society considers privileged? Men who have had access to some of the best universities. Men who have been educated in institutions that promote global equality, diversity, leadership and human rights. Men who have had opportunities to travel, encounter different cultures and broaden their horizons. Men who are being prepared to take important roles in society, in business, leadership, development and other areas of influence.

What are we saying when we call these environments progressive? And what happens when people who have had access to all this still participate in violence, enable violence or fail to challenge it? Does education automatically produce morality? Does international exposure automatically create empathy? I don’t think we can assume that it does. And this is where I also think about the Epstein files. The Epstein case has made something very visible: the networks surrounding wealth, power, influence and elite social circles. What interests me here is the same question.

How can we continue to imagine that education, wealth, prestige and access to the “right” institutions automatically place people on the progressive side of history?

What do we expect from the people we educate?

Perhaps whe institutions that teach students to think critically, to understand different societies, to question inequality and to become future leaders. We associate education with awareness. We associate international exposure with openness. We associate privilege with opportunity. But none of these things automatically produce a different kind of person. Maybe that is something we need to be more honest about.

A person can travel the world and still carry deeply narrow ideas about women. A person can study at an elite university and still participate in a group where another person’s boundaries are treated as less important than belonging to the group. A person can know the language of equality without necessarily practising it. And perhaps this is where the conversation about sexual violence needs to go next. Not only towards asking how we punish individuals after violence has happened, but towards asking what kind of environments we are creating before it happens. What do young men learn from the people around them? What behaviour is challenged, and what behaviour is laughed off? What happens when someone speaks up? What happens when nobody does?

These questions do not belong only to universities in the Global North. They belong everywhere. But perhaps the Global North also needs to become more comfortable being the subject of these questions, rather than always being the one asking them. Because if we genuinely believe that culture shapes violence, then we cannot only look for culture somewhere else. We have to be willing to look at our own institutions, our own groups and our own definition of what it means to be progressive.

And maybe that is where the conversation should begin.

Eva Karakaxa is a master’s student in African studies, University of Copenhagen, and a DDRN intern

The Unsure Train to the Future

Eleni Gjikondi — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 12:39:37 +0000

In the text below we will refer to a specific incident that happened in Greece (the Tempi train crush) and how it invokes a very important conversation on human rights and the youth’s protection. That conversation will help showcase the insecurity in people’s futures in the Global South.

The train crash in Greece on February 28 2023, killed 57 people, mostly students. The trial of 36 defendants is ongoing amid public outrage and courtroom tensions. The collision wasn’t caused by human error but outdated infrastructure, and systemic failures, including malfunctioning signals and mismanaged track switches.

This crisis shows how young people are forced to inherit the dangers of decisions made by older generations. The younger generation, so often called “lazy”, “weak” and uninvolved in their future have been trained to believe their involvement changes nothing. Across the Global South, the same pattern repeats: rail, power, water and health systems starved of resources while the state looks elsewhere. The youth pays the price with underfunded education, lack of opportunities and unsafe living conditions. When governments underinvest in the systems young people depend on jobs, education, healthcare and safety, they don’t just create economic hardship, they create a chain of social fragility and psychological burden that can turn fatal, as the train crash tragically showed.

The Tempi train crash did not happen because of an unlucky moment but due to years of financial investments in anything other than the immediate safety of people. The worst part? Rail safety in Greece had been flagged repeatedly for years. The rail network, was outdated and much of the line relied on manual procedures rather than modern automatic protection. Trade unions and rail workers had raised concerns about understaffing, aging infrastructure, and the lack of investment. A system that prioritized cutting costs risking the actual life of people

Across the Global South this plays out daily: underfunded rail systems, roads, schools and hospitals. That’s not a bad moment that’s the result of years of treating youth protection as an expense rather than an investment in their future. When young people look into their future, they face unstable work, inadequate education, unaffordable healthcare and infrastructure that was never designed to protect them. In specific if we look at youth unemployment in South Africa it exceeds 60% among those aged 15-24, amongst the highest rates in the world. In Nigeria millions of graduates cannot find formal work and are pushed into the informal economy or forced to emigrate. In India, despite rapid economic growth, youth unemployment remains high, with millions competing for a tiny number of secure jobs. Across North Africa, high youth unemployment is a central driver for migration to Europe. The pattern is consistent: young people are entering economies that have no place for them. Even those who have attained a job are not secure, from low-wage jobs, work without contracts, protections or stability. Across Sub-Saharan Africa the region has the world’s highest rates of children and teens out of school, school fees that families cannot afford, teacher shortages, and underfunded classrooms keep young people out. In much of the Global south a single illness or injury can push a young person or their family into debt or poverty.

Young people rely on public transport, public schools, and public health systems because they cannot afford alternatives. When those systems are underfunded, it is the young who absorb the cost. The Tempi train crash in Greece is a stark example. Across the Global South, the same pattern repeats: India’s 2023 Odisha crash killed over 290 people on a chronically underfunded network, Egypt’s 2021 Sohag collision killed over 30 after years of warnings.

Additionally, we can clearly identify inequality in the access of safety. Those who rely on public transport are young people, students, workers and, in general, ordinary people. Most victims were students in their 20s. Those who usually use the train are not wealthy with private cars or business class options, but young people commuting with the most affordable option available. Structurally society seems to be designed in a way that marginalized groups exist and are always the victims.

Despite the anger, outrage and sadness the Tempi train crash caused, it did not translate into substantial political change. In the parliamentary elections that followed in May 2023, three months after the accident, the same party got reelected. This makes us wonder how counterproductive the anger was. It possibly contributed more to people’s disengagement from public affairs, to the belief that ‘it doesn’t make sense,’ ‘nothing will change,’ rather than motivating mass participation to prevent the same outcomes from happening again. The Tempi tragedy initially acted as a collective shock. There was intense emotional mobilization, public mourning, protests and demand for accountability. However, anger, when prolonged without visible results or without trust that institutions can change anything, often turns into cynicism. In the end, we wonder not just whether the anger ‘mobilized’ or ‘pushed away,’ but also to what extent the social and political conditions exist for this anger to turn into steady collective action instead of exhaustion or disappointment.

In the Global South high age requirements and restrictive laws prevent young people from running or office, stereotypes portraying youth as inexperienced reduce voter and institutional confidence and limited civic education and weak youth-focused policies further restrict engagement. Young people have historically been at the forefront of change, defending civil rights, showing up to vote, and actively shaping the world they want to live in. Yet in recent years, youth engagement in formal politics has been experiencing a steady decline, with young people voting less and rejecting political party membership. Young people are increasingly indifferent to engaging with formal politics at a time when their participation, though always necessary, is needed more than ever. For example, across Africa, young people are more disengaged than their older peers in almost every political activity, besides protesting.

The Tempi train crash highlighted the importance of social protection and state responsibility towards citizens. When this does not happen, trust in institutions is shaken, and feelings of insecurity and injustice in society are reinforced. The mobilizations that followed showed how multiple generations of people completely lost their trust and were hurt by the very system that was supposed to protect them.

In a landmark study on the children of Holocaust survivors, psychiatrist Rachel Yehuda and her colleagues showed that the effects of severe trauma can be passed from one generation to the next not only through memory and family stories, but through biological changes in how stress is regulated. The study found that Holocaust survivors and their children both showed epigenetic modifications to a gene central to the body’s stress-response system meaning the children, who had never experienced the camps themselves, carried a stress-response profile shaped by their parents’ trauma. Later research extended this line of inquiry to the third generation, examining grandchildren of survivors and finding both psychological and epigenetic symptoms of the original trauma (Yehuda et al.,, 2016).

While the evidence for biological transmission is strongest in prolonged extreme adversity, research on mass disasters shows that adolescents exposed to such events are at elevated risk for PTSD, anxiety, and depression that can persist for years and disrupt the developing sense of safety, trust in institutions and belief in the future itself. Specifically referred by clinicians as a ‘sense of a foreshortened future,’ a documented symptom of post-traumatic stress.

Studies of the Tempi crash itself found that young Greeks distrust of government and political institutions intensified sharply after the disaster, resulting in feelings of sadness, grief and anger. The psychological impact and generational trauma that this crash caused is real and how it might appear in this generation’s future is alarming. However, this tragedy is not an isolated event, across the Global South, young people are navigating overlapping pressures poverty, conflict, displacement, climate shocks, food insecurity, and limited access to mental-health care, that leave them disproportionately vulnerable to psychological distress. In India alone, the National Crime Records Bureau recorded 13,892 student suicides in 2023, the highest in a decade, with more than 10,000 children and adolescents lost every year. In Brazil, adolescent and young-adult suicide mortality reached 6.13 per 100,000, with a steady upward trend. Across sub-Saharan Africa, a nine-country study of over 8,000 adolescents found 4% reported suicidality within the past year and in parts of Nigeria, that figure rose to over 12%. Globally, suicide remains the third leading cause of death among 15–29-year-olds.

The train crash is just a small example of how a specific incident can be multifactorial and, in a way, contribute to the explosion of systemic problems in society. On this short article we saw just that, how a specific example, if teared apart, can reveal so much. How from a train crash and the effects on this generation, we can analyze and discover similar types of problems on a larger scale and in this case in the Global South.

Eleni Gjikondi is a junior undergraduate student in the Department of Social Work at the University of West Attica in Athens, Greece, and a DDRN intern.

Revisiting the Law of War under Climate Stress: The Case of Yemen

Sofia Kiryttopoulou — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 13:30:07 +0000

The Law of War, formally known as International Humanitarian Law (IHL), was developed to regulate violence during armed conflict by limiting unnecessary suffering and protecting civilian populations. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), IHL governs both the conduct of hostilities and the protection of persons who are not or are no longer participating in conflict. Its legal framework is built around principles such as distinction, proportionality, and military necessity, all intended to strike a balance between humanitarian protection and military objectives.

Yet the Law of War emerged in a period when environmental degradation, climate stress, and ecological collapse were not understood as defining conditions of insecurity. The major instruments of modern IHL, including the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, were designed around assumptions that the humanitarian effects of military operations could largely be assessed through direct, immediate, and geographically bounded harm. Civilian suffering was conceived primarily in relation to casualties, physical destruction, and the immediate reverberations of military attacks rather than through long-term interactions with pre-existing environmental vulnerability.

Today, however, armed conflicts increasingly unfold in climate-stressed settings characterized by water scarcity, environmental degradation, food insecurity, and weakened infrastructure. In these contexts, military operations that may appear legally proportionate in isolation can generate cascading humanitarian effects far beyond what traditional legal analysis anticipates. Damage to a power grid, fuel depot, water pump, or port may not simply produce temporary disruption; it may accelerate systemic collapse where ecological resilience is already dangerously low.

This article argues that while IHL remains formally equipped to protect civilians during armed conflict, it contains a structural blind spot when applied to climate-vulnerable environments. Using Yemen as a primary case study, the article examines how acute water scarcity and environmental fragility interact with wartime destruction to magnify civilian harm. Yemen serves as a compelling proof of concept because it combines one of the world’s most severe pre-existing water crises with prolonged conflict and repeated attacks on essential infrastructure, making visible the limitations of a legal framework that tends to evaluate harm discretely rather than cumulatively.

The Legal Framework & Its Environmental Blind Spot

International Humanitarian Law is not entirely silent on environmental protection during armed conflict. It contains provisions aimed at limiting damage to both the natural environment and infrastructure indispensable to civilian survival. Under Article 54 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, parties to a conflict are prohibited from attacking objects essential for civilian survival, including drinking water installations, irrigation systems, and agricultural areas. Additional protections appear in Articles 35 and 55 of Additional Protocol I, which prohibit methods of warfare expected to cause widespread, long-term, and severe damage to the natural environment.

At first glance, these provisions suggest that IHL already possesses tools capable of addressing environmentally mediated harm. Water infrastructure, food systems, and ecological resources are formally recognized as legally relevant objects of protection. Yet these rules were largely drafted with exceptional environmental destruction in mind—such as scorched-earth tactics, toxic contamination, or large-scale ecological devastation—rather than chronic environmental fragility.

This creates an important legal gap in climate-vulnerable conflict settings. Existing protections tend to focus on the legality of specific attacks and visible environmental destruction, but they struggle to account for the interaction between military operations and pre-existing ecological stress. In countries already facing water depletion, drought, or infrastructural weakness, damage that appears limited in military terms may trigger disproportionate humanitarian consequences through cascading system failures.

Moreover, IHL provides little guidance on how environmental vulnerability should influence proportionality assessments. While the destruction of a water pump, port, or fuel depot may not independently constitute unlawful environmental damage, its consequences may become catastrophic where civilian survival depends on already fragile systems. The law therefore recognizes environmental harm, but it remains comparatively underdeveloped in addressing environmental fragility as a condition that magnifies civilian suffering.

The Case of Yemen: Anatomy of a Climate-Stressed Conflict

The armed conflict in Yemen, particularly following the 2015 intervention by the Saudi-led coalition against the Houthi movement, illustrates how climate vulnerability can transform the effects of otherwise legally assessable military actions into systemic humanitarian collapse. The significance of the Yemeni case lies not only in the scale of destruction, but in the fact that many of the actions contributing to humanitarian harm are not clearly prohibited under existing international humanitarian law when assessed in isolation.

Under the existing law of armed conflict, certain categories of infrastructure may lawfully be targeted if they qualify as military objectives. Dual-use infrastructure, such as ports, roads, fuel depots, and electricity networks, can be attacked when they contribute effectively to military operations and when their destruction satisfies the requirements of proportionality and military necessity. Even where civilian harm occurs, such attacks are not automatically unlawful if the expected incidental damage is not considered “excessive” in relation to the anticipated military advantage.

This doctrinal structure is central to understanding Yemen. For example, the port of Hudaydah has been repeatedly affected by military operations and restrictions during the conflict. Under IHL analysis, the port may be treated as a legitimate military objective due to its role in logistics and supply chains. Similarly, disruptions to fuel import routes or transport infrastructure may be assessed as lawful if they are tied to military necessity. The law does not prohibit such actions per se; rather, it regulates them through proportionality calculations conducted at the level of individual attacks.

However, Yemen demonstrates how this legal structure produces a critical blind spot when applied in a climate-stressed environment. Even when strikes or blockades are arguably lawful under distinction and proportionality, their downstream effects are magnified by environmental fragility. Yemen’s water system, for instance, is heavily dependent on diesel-powered pumps due to the absence of resilient public infrastructure. As a result, disruptions to fuel imports, whether through damage to infrastructure or restrictions on supply, can indirectly disable access to clean water across entire regions.

According to UNICEF Yemen WASH reports, millions of people have faced severely reduced access to safe drinking water during the conflict, largely due to the breakdown of interconnected systems rather than the destruction of water sources alone. Yet under traditional IHL analysis, these outcomes are difficult to fully integrate into proportionality assessments because the legal test focuses on the expected harm of a specific attack, rather than the cumulative impact on an already fragile environmental system.

The same dynamic is visible in the collapse of sanitation infrastructure and the spread of waterborne disease. According to the World Health Organization Yemen crisis reports, deterioration in water and sanitation systems contributed significantly to large-scale cholera outbreaks. However, these humanitarian consequences emerge not from a single unlawful act, but from the aggregation of multiple disruptions that, taken individually, may fall within the scope of lawful military conduct.

Yemen therefore exposes a structural limitation in how international humanitarian law operates in practice. The law does not necessarily fail to regulate individual acts of warfare; rather, it struggles to account for how environmentally fragile systems convert legally assessable military actions into cascading humanitarian crises.

The “Cumulative Harm” Problem

A key limitation in International Humanitarian Law becomes visible when looking at how harm is assessed in practice. The principle of proportionality is applied on a strike-by-strike basis, asking whether expected civilian harm from a specific attack is excessive compared to the military advantage. This means each incident is judged in isolation.

The problem is that humanitarian harm does not accumulate in isolated units. In conflicts like Yemen, repeated disruption of ports, fuel supplies, and electricity networks gradually breaks down interdependent systems such as water access, sanitation, and food distribution. Individually, each action may be considered proportionate or not clearly unlawful under IHL. Taken together, however, they can produce widespread humanitarian collapse.

This gap becomes sharper in climate-stressed environments. Where water scarcity and weak infrastructure already exist, even limited or repeated disruptions can have outsized effects. Yet proportionality does not formally require decision-makers to assess how environmental fragility will amplify harm over time.

As a result, IHL can legally evaluate each step correctly while still missing the overall pattern of cumulative destruction. The law captures isolated harm well, but struggles to account for system-wide collapse produced through repeated lawful actions in fragile environments.

Comparative Perspectives and Conclusion

The dynamics observed in Yemen are not unique. Similar interactions between conflict and environmental fragility can be seen in other climate-stressed regions where civilian survival depends on vulnerable infrastructure systems.

In the Lake Chad Basin, armed conflict involving non-state armed groups has unfolded alongside severe environmental degradation and shrinking water resources. As in Yemen, civilian livelihoods depend heavily on fragile ecological systems, particularly access to water and arable land. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, environmental stress in the region has significantly intensified humanitarian vulnerability in the context of armed conflict.

A similar pattern is visible in Somalia, where prolonged conflict intersects with recurring droughts and weak infrastructure. In such contexts, disruption to transport routes, water access, or fuel supply can quickly escalate into widespread food insecurity and displacement, even when individual acts of violence are not necessarily unlawful under international humanitarian law.

These comparative examples reinforce the central insight of this article: the legal framework of international humanitarian law is not absent or ineffective, but it is often analytically under-equipped to account for how environmental fragility reshapes the consequences of armed conflict.

This does not require abandoning the structure of IHL. Instead, it suggests the need for a more dynamic interpretive approach to existing principles—particularly proportionality—that better reflects cumulative harm and environmental vulnerability as part of the assessment of civilian impact.

Yemen therefore does not stand as an exception to the law of war, but as a stress test of its assumptions. It shows that in climate-vulnerable conflict zones, the legality of individual acts may no longer fully capture the humanitarian reality they collectively produce.

Sofia Kiryttopoulou is a BA student of Balkan, Slavic, and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia, and a DDRN Intern.

Lost in Translation: How Language Shapes Opportunity in Morocco

Manar Sadkou — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 13:29:02 +0000

All over the world, success in science is often seen as the result of talent and hard work. But for many Moroccan students, the challenge begins long before they encounter complex equations or laboratory experiments. It begins with language.

Located at the crossroads of Africa, Europe, and the Arab world, Morocco is marked by deep linguistic and cultural diversity. Most Moroccans grow up speaking Darija, the Moroccan dialect, or Amazigh, the Indigenous language of North Africa. Yet the language of schooling is Standard Arabic, a formal variety rarely used in everyday life, before students are expected to switch again to French for science subjects such as physics, biology, and mathematics.

For many students, this constant linguistic shift is more than an inconvenience; it is a barrier to learning. Understanding scientific concepts becomes not just a matter of grasping the material, but also of navigating the language in which it’s taught.

This challenge is also not experienced equally. Students from affluent families are more likely to attend private or French schools where the language is taught intensively from an early age, giving them a clear advantage when scientific subjects transition into French. Meanwhile, students in the public system, who make up the majority, are often left to navigate this shift with far less preparation. For some, the difficulty is enough to push them away from scientific fields altogether.

As a result, success in science can depend as much on socioeconomic background as on ability. This raises an important question: who benefits from this system, and why does it persist?

To answer that, it helps to look at how Morocco’s linguistic landscape was shaped in the first place.

How Colonialism Reshaped Moroccan Education

The prominence of French today can be traced back to the colonial period, when Morocco became a French protectorate in 1912, and the French language was institutionalized across key sectors. In a recent study published in Languages, researchers Brahim Chakrani (Michigan State University), Adam Ziad (Florida Atlantic University), and Abdenbi Lachkar (University of Montpellier Paul Valery) argue that the education system introduced during this period was designed to divide Moroccan society along socioeconomic and ethnolinguistic lines, reinforcing French cultural influence in the country.

Before French colonization, Morocco had a traditional education system centered around Quranic schools, which focused on religious texts and where Standard Arabic was the main language of instruction. Students who excelled would go on to pursue advanced studies, either at the University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, often considered the oldest university in the world, or abroad.

With the arrival of the French protectorate, the education system was reorganized along segregated lines, with separate schools for Europeans, Muslim Moroccans, Jewish Moroccans, and Amazigh communities. French-language schools were largely reserved for European settlers and a small Moroccan elite, while access to advanced education for the broader population remained limited.

This segregated system helped establish French as the language of modernity, and it increasingly came to be viewed as superior to Arabic. This outcome was no accident. Language was a central tool through which the colonial administration structured access to education and opportunity. Through its school system, it cultivated a French-educated elite loyal to the French language and culture, while the majority of the population remained excluded from advanced learning. At the same time, the system restricted social mobility, keeping positions of power within a small, privileged group.

The Moroccan nationalist movement strongly opposed French influence and responded by establishing Al Madaris Al Hurra (the “Free Schools”), where Arabic was the sole language of instruction. However, these schools reached only a small segment of the population and, therefore, had a limited impact on the broader education system.

The Unfulfilled Promise of Arabization

After independence in 1956, Morocco attempted to reclaim its education system, but the legacy of French colonialism proved difficult to undo. Although the policy of Arabization aimed to replace French with Standard Arabic as the language of instruction, French remained firmly embedded in higher education, private schooling, and the job market.

Arabization faced major obstacles. Many teachers had themselves been trained in French and struggled to teach scientific subjects in Standard Arabic, while educational materials and scientific research in Arabic remained limited. At the same time, French-speaking elites continued to promote French as the language of higher education and economic opportunity.

Some critics, however, argue that these problems were not caused by the language itself. Instead, they attribute the policy’s shortcomings to limited political commitment, insufficient funding, and outdated teaching methods.

Regardless of the explanation, the result was a system in which French consolidated its position as the language of science, while Arabic was largely confined to the humanities.

Several decades later, Morocco began to reverse its Arabization policy, reintroducing French as the language of instruction in science subjects at the secondary level. This move further marginalized Arabic and created a lasting disconnect within the education system. Students who had been taught primarily in Arabic were suddenly expected to master complex scientific concepts in French, often without adequate preparation.

That disconnect continues to shape Moroccan classrooms today. Students from privileged backgrounds, who are more likely to have strong French proficiency, are better equipped to succeed in science. Others, particularly those in the public system, face an additional linguistic barrier that can limit their academic performance and narrow their future opportunities.

I saw this dynamic firsthand. I was educated in a private school and benefited from early exposure to French. My parents were not wealthy, but they were acutely aware of how language shapes opportunity in Morocco. They made significant sacrifices to ensure that my sister and I would master not just one, but multiple languages, through school and additional language courses, because they understood it as our most reliable path to success.

I was able to enroll in the Baccalauréat International Option Français (International Baccalaureate French Option), introduced in 2017. Despite its name, it was not really an “option” in my school; it was the default track, and no Arabic alternative was offered. The preparation that made this possible, however, is something many students in the public system simply do not have access to.

Recent figures from Morocco’s Higher Council of Education highlight the scale of the divide. By the end of middle school, only 9% of public school students were found to have a satisfactory level in French, compared to 62% in private schools. The same report found major gaps across all core subjects, including mathematics, physics, and life sciences.

Researchers Brahim Chakrani, Adam Ziad, and Abdenbi Lachkar view this divide as part of a broader form of French neocolonial influence that continues to sustain the dominance of the French language long after independence.

France’s Lasting Influence

France’s influence over its former colonies has long outlasted formal independence. Across much of Africa, political sovereignty did not fully sever economic and institutional ties. Many countries continue to rely on France for investment, infrastructure, and trade, relationships that echo colonial-era ties. The CFA franc system, used by several former French colonies in West and Central Africa, is often cited as one example of this enduring dependency, even though Morocco is not part of it.

According to Brahim Chakrani, Adam Ziad, and Abdenbi Lachkar, language has remained one of France’s most effective tools of influence. Through the ideology of La Francophonie Plurielle, France presents itself as a defender of linguistic diversity while French continues to dominate key domains such as education, administration, and economic life in former colonies.

This influence is also sustained through education. French-language schools and institutions help produce elites who remain closely connected to French systems and interests. For instance, in Morocco, former education ministers Said Amzazi and Chakib Benmoussa, both francophone technocrats, played major roles in reversing Arabization and restoring French as the language of instruction for scientific subjects.

Financial partnerships further reinforce this dynamic. A recent example is a €130 million loan aimed at strengthening French-language instruction in Moroccan secondary schools.

There is also a strategic reason behind these efforts. By 2050, nearly 90% of the world’s French speakers are expected to live in Africa, making the continent central to France’s global influence.

Language, Class, and Opportunity

Building on this, Chakrani, Ziad, and Lachkar argue that the promotion of French in key sectors is not only about maintaining external influence; it also shapes internal power dynamics within Morocco. It has become a way for the affluent class to maintain and reinforce its position while limiting social mobility. Scholars often describe this as elite closure: a process through which access to key resources is controlled in order to preserve advantage. In this case, the resource is language.

The researchers found that several conditions for this dynamic are clearly present. French holds greater social and economic value than Arabic in many contexts and dominates key domains such as science, business, and diplomacy. “Those who do not have command of French are considered illiterate,” Hamid El Otmani, talent and training lead at the Confederation of Moroccan Employers, told Reuters.

At the same time, advanced proficiency in French is far more accessible to students from privileged backgrounds, particularly those who can afford private or French-language schooling.

As a result, access to quality education and high-paying jobs remains closely tied to French fluency, reinforcing existing inequalities. A 2025 survey by the Sunergia research group found that 43% of higher-income earners reported being fluent in French, compared to just 6% of lower-income Moroccans.

Meanwhile, efforts to shift toward other global languages, such as English, can face resistance from those who benefit from the current system, as such changes risk disrupting established pathways to power.

A Generation Lost in Translation

The effects of this system extend beyond education and employment. They are also visible in everyday communication, particularly among younger generations.

Among many young Moroccans, conversations move fluidly between Darija, French, and English, sometimes within the same sentence. On one level, this multilingualism can seem adaptive, even cosmopolitan. But it also reflects a deeper uncertainty around language itself.

I often find myself unable to fully express an idea in Darija without switching to French or English to fill the gaps. Speaking to someone who does not understand those languages can suddenly make communication feel difficult in what is supposed to be my own mother tongue. In many ways, Morocco’s multilingual education system can leave students caught between languages, without ever fully mastering any of them.

This raises broader questions about the future of education in Morocco and the role language should play within it. A more equitable system would not require students to overcome multiple linguistic barriers simply to access knowledge or pursue scientific fields. Instead, it would build learning around the languages most familiar to students, particularly Arabic and Amazigh, while still treating multilingualism as an important skill rather than a prerequisite for opportunity.

Foreign languages undeniably remain valuable in an interconnected world. But in Morocco, proficiency in French often functions less as an academic asset than as a gatekeeper to education, employment, and social mobility. The challenge is not whether Moroccans should learn foreign languages, but whether mastery of a colonial language should continue to determine who gets to succeed in their own country.

As Morocco increasingly opens itself to English in business, technology, and higher education, the debate over language policy is also beginning to shift. For many young Moroccans, the question is no longer simply whether French should dominate public life, but whether the country’s education system should continue to revolve around it at all.

References:

Chakrani, B., Ziad, A., & Lachkar, A. (2025). Paradoxes of language policy in Morocco: Deconstructing the ideology of language alternation and the resurgence of French in STEM instruction. Languages, 10(6), 135. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10060135

Manar Sadkou is a Bachelor student in Globalization, Governance, and Law at Karlshochschule International University, and a DDRN Intern.

Education as a Driver of Gender Equality and Sustainable Development

Daniela Padilla — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 13:27:36 +0000

“In a poor rural area of Pakistan, girls are three times as likely as poor boys to have never attended school. In India, the median number of years of education girls from the poorest families receive is zero, compared to 9.1 years for girls from the richest families.” (Oxfam, 2019)

According to the World Bank, nearly 700 million people worldwide live in poverty, yet its impacts are not evenly distributed. Data from UN Women shows that almost 10% of women and girls live in extreme poverty, representing around 22 million more women than men globally. These disparities illustrate how economic inequality often intersects with other forms of exclusion –including gender, age, ethnicity, and disability– exacerbating vulnerabilities, particularly during crises.

Yearly gender-related Official Development Assistance (ODA) to countries in the Global South has doubled over the past decade, reaching nearly $52 billion in 2022. Despite this progress, global gender equality remains more than 250 years away at the current rate of change. Halfway to the 2030 deadline, only two of the 14 indicators under Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5) are currently on track.

These figures reflect structural barriers that girls and women continue to face worldwide. In education, gender discrimination, restrictive social norms, early marriage, domestic responsibilities, and lack of adequate sanitation facilities all contribute to pushing girls out of school and limiting their opportunities.

Education plays a critical role in addressing these inequalities. Evidence shows that supporting women through education, financial empowerment, and community-based initiatives has transformative effects not only for individuals, but also for families and entire communities. Education helps tackle disparities in wages, poverty, reproductive autonomy, and political participation, while also significantly improving health outcomes for women and children.

Educating girls transforms not only their own lives, but also those of their communities and future generations. Girls who stay in school are less likely to marry young, more likely to be healthy and economically productive, and better able to participate in decision-making processes. Women with secondary education earn, on average, twice as much as those with no formal education.

The more educated women are, the greater control they tend to have over their lives, particularly regarding marriage and family planning. For instance, if all girls in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia completed secondary education, child marriage rates would drop by 64%. UNESCO estimates that universal primary education for women would reduce maternal deaths by 66% and child deaths by 15%.

Perhaps most importantly, education can challenge harmful social norms and reinforce the idea that girls and boys are equal. It acts both as a liberating force for individuals and a powerful social equaliser across societies.

Ultimately, gender equality is not only about fairness; it is also about building stronger, more resilient societies and supporting sustainable peace. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), for example, lasting peace will only be possible when women are recognised as agents of stability, accountability, and recovery. Without their participation, peace processes remain incomplete and fragile.

Inequality is not inevitable. It is the result of political choices and can be reduced through deliberate, sustained action. Ensuring education and gender equality is therefore a shared global responsibility that requires long-term commitment.

This is where organizations like Street Child operate: at the intersection between rights and reality, turning commitments into tangible change for children and their families.

How Does Street Child Integrate a Gender Approach?

Street Child works in over 20 of the world’s most fragile contexts, affected by conflict, displacement, crisis, and extreme poverty across Africa, Afghanistan, Nepal and Ukraine.

In these settings, women and girls face entrenched inequality. In Afghanistan, for example, girls are unable to attend school beyond grade six. In South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, shortages of female teachers and safe learning environments continue to limit access to education.

Street Child supports girls to enrol and remain in school, promotes safe learning environments, trains female teachers, advocates for the value of education, and supports caregivers —most of whom are women— to strengthen their incomes so they can afford to send their children, especially girls, to school.

At the heart of this work are two key programmes: the award-winning Family Business for Education (FBE) model and the She Leads programme. Both reflect a shared commitment to addressing gender inequality at its roots.

While FBE focuses on strengthening families through the economic empowerment of caregivers to ensure children remain in school, She Leads works directly with adolescent girls, equipping them with the skills, confidence, and support systems needed to become leaders in their own lives and communities.

Together, these approaches reflect a shared vision: dignity is built not only by addressing immediate needs, but by transforming the deeper structures, especially gender norms, that limit opportunities. One works from the household outward; the other from the individual girl upward.

Family Business for Education (FBE): Empowering Caregivers, Protecting Education

The Family Business for Education model is grounded in a simple but powerful idea: children stay in school when their families are economically and socially stable.

The model works with entire families, focusing particularly on caregivers, around 80% of whom are women. This is a deliberate strategy to address gender inequality at the household level, where it most directly affects children’s education.

Through FBE, caregivers receive financial support to start small businesses and training in business planning, savings and financial management. Beyond income generation, the process also strengthens confidence, dignity and agency.

As women gain economic independence, they are better able to make decisions within the household, invest in their children’s futures and prioritise education, especially for girls.

FBE also includes positive parenting sessions that encourage reflection on family dynamics, gender roles, and the value of education, helping to shift deeply rooted social norms within households.

The impact of this approach is clear. Thousands of families have achieved greater stability, children have remained in education, and women have strengthened their roles as economic actors and decision-makers. What begins as economic support often evolves into broader changes in relationships, expectations and opportunities.

To date, Street Child has supported more than 54,000 families, with 90% of supported businesses surviving for at least one year and 86% of children remaining in school for two years after support ends.

While FBE strengthens the environment around the child, it is equally important to invest directly in girls themselves, ensuring they not only stay in school, but also develop the confidence and skills needed to shape their own futures.

She Leads: Building Leadership, Confidence and Agency

The She Leads programme works directly with girls themselves, building agency, leadership, and opportunity from the individual upward. In rural Nepal, for example, Dalit girls often face both caste-based discrimination and gender-based barriers that severely limit their access to education, leadership opportunities, and economic participation.

The programme adopts a holistic approach to empowerment, combining life skills, financial education, leadership training, and mentorship. It equips girls with both practical tools and the confidence to use them effectively. Skills such as communication, negotiation, and decision-making are central to enabling girls to challenge the limitations placed upon them.

At the same time, She Leads recognises that empowering girls in isolation is not enough. Social norms must also shift. For this reason, the programme actively engages families and community leaders, creating dialogue around girls’ education, leadership, and rights, and helping to build environments where girls’ ambitions are supported rather than constrained.

Mentorship plays a key role, connecting girls with female role models from their own communities who provide guidance, inspiration, and tangible examples of what is possible. In addition, small grants allow participants to start income-generating activities, reinforcing financial independence and translating skills into real opportunities.

Through this integrated approach, She Leads does more than build skills; it nurtures agency, voice, and leadership, enabling girls not only to imagine different futures, but to actively create them.

Together, FBE and She Leads demonstrate that advancing human dignity requires action at multiple levels: within families, within individuals, and within communities. By combining economic empowerment with a strong gender lens, these approaches help break cycles of inequality and create the conditions for lasting, meaningful change.

They also show that education is not only an outcome of development, but one of its most powerful drivers, shaping opportunities far beyond the classroom and across generations.

However, these efforts cannot stand alone. Sustaining and scaling this progress requires renewed and sustained commitment from the international community – including support for organisations like Street Child, and investment in advocacy, research and knowledge actors such as think tanks like DDRN, which help keep education and gender equality at the centre of the global development agenda.

At a time when global inequality is deepening and progress towards gender equality remains far too slow, international cooperation is more important than ever. Development assistance, when strategically directed towards education and gender equality, remains one of the most powerful tools to turn commitments into concrete change.

Ultimately, education must remain at the heart of the global response to inequality. It is not only a moral imperative, but a practical pathway towards more equal, stable, and resilient societies.

Daniela Padilla has a M.Sc. International and Securiy Politics, Catholic University of Lille/ESPOL, France, and is a DDRN Intern

Youth at the Table: How Young Advocates Engage with Climate Diplomacy

Sofia Kiryttopoulou — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 13:25:01 +0000

Climate change is often discussed through science, emissions targets, and environmental disasters. Yet behind global climate action lies another, less visible process: climate diplomacy. Broadly, climate diplomacy refers to the negotiations and cooperation between countries aimed at addressing climate change through international agreements, policy commitments, and collective action.

As climate decisions shape the future of younger generations, youth participation in these discussions has become increasingly important. While many associate youth climate engagement with protests and activism, young people are also participating in policy consultations, advocacy networks, educational initiatives, and climate diplomacy forums.

To better understand what youth engagement in climate diplomacy looks like in practice, I spoke with the hosts of Young, Loud and Green, Natalia Vradi, and Ioanna Giakoumopoulou, two young women from Greece who are actively involved in climate advocacy. Through conversations with climate experts, researchers, and youth leaders, the podcast explores climate diplomacy, sustainability, and civic participation, while making these discussions more accessible to younger audiences.

How Two Young Researchers Found Their Path into Climate Diplomacy

Both interviewees described their entry into climate-related work as closely linked to their academic experiences, but also to the people and environments that shaped their interest in the subject.

Natalia Vradi studied Political Science and Public Administration before completing a master’s degree in Southeastern European Studies. She explained that her interest in climate diplomacy was first sparked during her undergraduate studies, when she attended a course taught by a relatively young professor specializing in the topic. She emphasized that the professor’s age and teaching style made a significant difference in how engaging and accessible the subject felt, particularly because climate diplomacy is often perceived as distant or overly technical. This early exposure helped her recognize climate change not only as an environmental issue, but as a political and diplomatic process shaped through negotiation and international cooperation.

Ioanna studied International Relations with History and also holds a master’s degree in Southeastern European Studies. Her engagement with climate-related work developed more gradually through her broader interest in youth participation, civic engagement, and what it means for young people to be actively involved in political and social processes. Interestingly, she also noted that her deeper involvement in climate diplomacy was influenced through her collaboration and connection with Natalia, highlighting how peer networks and shared academic environments can play a key role in shaping professional pathways.

Taken together, their experiences underline the importance of accessible education and relatable mentorship in climate-related fields. Having educators and peers who are close in age or who actively engage with the subject in an approachable way can significantly lower the barrier to entry for complex topics such as climate diplomacy, making them feel more tangible and relevant to younger students.

What youth participation in climate diplomacy looks like

When asked what youth engagement in climate diplomacy looks like in practice, the hosts said that, unfortunately, it is still largely associated with protests and street activism. They noted that while movements such as Fridays for Future have played a crucial role in raising global awareness of the climate crisis, protest remains the most visible and accessible form of engagement for many young people.

At the same time, they explained that youth participation is not limited to activism in the streets. Other forms do exist, including policy consultations, youth delegations at international conferences, participation in climate forums, research contributions, and engagement through youth-led networks and educational initiatives. However, they emphasized that these forms of participation are often less visible and do not necessarily translate into real influence within formal decision-making processes.

When asked about this gap between participation and influence, they pointed to what is often described as “youth washing.” They said that institutions frequently highlight the presence of young people in conferences, consultations, or advisory spaces as proof of inclusivity. However, in many cases, this presence does not necessarily lead to meaningful involvement in shaping decisions.

As they explained, the core issue lies in the difference between being included in a space and having actual decision-making power within it. While youth participation is increasingly acknowledged in principle, it does not always result in concrete policy impact.

Barriers to meaningful participation

Several structural barriers were identified as limiting young people’s ability to engage effectively in climate diplomacy.

Funding was highlighted as one of the most significant obstacles. Much youth participation depends on unpaid or voluntary work, which excludes those without financial support or flexibility. Age was also discussed as a persistent barrier, with younger participants often not being taken as seriously in formal institutional settings.

More broadly, the interviewees pointed to a lack of clear mechanisms through which youth contributions are translated into policy outcomes. Even when young people are consulted, their recommendations are not always reflected in final decisions.

Youth Networks Beyond Borders

When asked whether they could point to examples of youth-led initiatives that have had a tangible impact in climate spaces, the hosts referred to a discussion they had in one of their episodes from their podcast. In the episode, they spoke with Michael Kakande, a United Nations Climate Change COP Impact Maker and the Founder and Chairperson of Resilient40 (R40), a Pan-African and diaspora youth-led network focused on climate resilience, adaptation, and climate justice across Africa.

They described Resilient40 as a network that brings together young professionals from across the African continent and diaspora to amplify youth voices that are often underrepresented in global climate discussions. According to the interviewees, its work is particularly focused on ensuring that African perspectives are meaningfully included in international climate negotiations, especially in key policy areas such as climate finance, adaptation strategies, and loss and damage.

In their view, initiatives like Resilient40 illustrate that youth engagement in climate diplomacy is not confined to local activism or awareness campaigns. Instead, it increasingly takes the form of structured, cross-border collaboration that connects young people across regions and institutional contexts.

They added that this reflects a broader trend in climate advocacy: youth participation is becoming more global and interconnected, shaped by networks that operate across both the Global North and Global South. Rather than acting in isolation, young climate advocates are increasingly engaging in transnational spaces where knowledge, strategies, and political demands are exchanged and amplified across borders.

Misconceptions About Youth in Climate Governance

The interviewees addressed a recurring misconception about youth participation in climate governance: the assumption that young people lack the expertise, experience, or technical knowledge necessary to contribute meaningfully to policy discussions. They firmly challenged this notion, arguing that many youth-led initiatives comprise highly informed participants who actively engage with complex areas like climate diplomacy, negotiation processes, and international frameworks. In their experience, young leaders are often deeply embedded in research, advocacy, and policy-oriented debates, making them well-versed in both the scientific and political dimensions of climate change.

To combat this skepticism, they use their podcast to directly showcase the sophisticated capability of the youth movement. The podcast highlights the sophisticated professionalism of the youth movement, featuring, as Ioanna noted, “fantastic guests, who are so involved in this and so passionate and well educated.” By centering these conversations, the podcast proves that young climate actors are highly informed, serious leaders who deserve a seat at the table.

This effort to shift the narrative extends to the Youth Climate Diplomacy Forum itself. Ioanna highlighted that the Forum delivers “top-tier conferences and content” entirely produced by individuals “under the age of 35,” showcasing the undeniable professionalism and active engagement within the youth climate movement.

Ultimately,the interviewees stressed that the issue is not a lack of competence among young people, but rather a structural tendency to undervalue their contributions. Even when youth are present in formal settings, their input is not always treated with the same seriousness as that of older or more established actors, creating a gap between participation and recognition.

A Source of Hope: The Next Generation of Climate Engagement

When asked whether the future of youth climate advocacy and diplomacy offers genuine hope or if the movement is destined to stagnate, the interviewees pointed directly to the surging momentum of grassroots engagement.

For them, hope is not an abstract concept, but something visible in the sheer volume and sincerity of the young people getting involved. They noted that the next generation of advocates is not merely “showing up for the pictures,” but is driven by a deep, authentic interest in systemic change. There is an undeniable strength in numbers, evidenced by the rapid growth of youth organizations and the massive turnout at local initiatives.

This momentum is particularly vibrant on a local scale. In Athens alone, a booming ecosystem of youth-led solidarity initiatives has emerged. From youth-run magazines and massive tree-planting events to beach cleanups and climate-conscious fashion swaps, the sheer variety of active projects offers a daily dose of optimism. Social media has played a vital role in this expansion, making it easier than ever for young people to discover a clothing swap one day and a coastal cleanup the next.

Ultimately, they agreed that climate engagement has grown exponentially over the past few years, largely because the crisis itself has become impossible to ignore. As they poignantly noted, it is both a blessing and a curse: while the severity of the crisis forces people to action, the reality of climate change is now as simple and undeniable as opening a window and looking outside. Yet, in the face of that reality, the rapid proliferation of new, youth-led initiatives remains their greatest source of hope.

From Presence to Power

Youth engagement in climate governance has evolved far beyond the boundaries of traditional street protest, turning into a highly strategic and professionalized movement. Through the experiences and insights shared in this interview, it is clear that despite facing steep structural barriers like funding limitations and the persistent threat of “youth washing,” young advocates are operating with a sophisticated level of technical expertise and cross-border solidarity. The sheer momentum of these grassroots initiatives shows that the next generation is no longer just asking for a seat at the table; they are actively reshaping the dialogue. In the face of an escalating crisis, their deeply informed engagement provides a vital reminder that meaningful climate action is impossible without recognizing youth not just as observers, but as essential partners in driving real policy change.

*Special thanks to Natalia Vradi and Ioanna Giakoumopoulou for sharing their time, experiences, and vital insights into the future of youth climate diplomacy.

Sofia Kiryttopoulou is studying for a Bachelor’s Degree in Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies. Specialization: Politics and Law, at University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece.