The World's Biggest Problems
in 2026

Arctic permafrost thaw remains a fast-growing climate and infrastructure crisis, driven by warming in the Arctic that is far above the global average and by the resulting destabilization of frozen ground. Recent research continues to show large and rising damage costs for roads, buildings, rail, airports, and other infrastructure across the circumpolar Arctic, with one 2025 study estimating Alaska’s permafrost-related infrastructure damages at roughly $37 billion to $51 billion over multi-decadal periods depending on emissions pathway. The problem is also a major climate feedback. Permafrost stores very large amounts of organic carbon, and thaw can release carbon dioxide and methane, increasing future warming and amplifying economic losses. NOAA reports that thawing permafrost emissions could add trillions of dollars in global damages, while circumpolar studies estimate that under higher-emissions pathways a substantial share of Arctic roads, railroads, and buildings will be affected by degradation. Affected regions include Alaska, Canada, Russia, Greenland, and Scandinavia, with Russia projected to face the largest infrastructure burden in circumpolar cost assessments.

Severe monsoon flooding and late-season tropical systems in late 2025 caused a multi-country disaster across Southeast and South Asia, with the heaviest impacts reported in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Regional reporting in early December 2025 put the death toll at more than 1,100, while later cross-regional estimates rose to more than 1,300 fatalities and at least US$20 billion in losses, reflecting the scale of damage still being assessed. Country-level impacts remained extreme and unevenly updated by source: Indonesia reported the largest toll, with figures ranging from about 700 deaths to more than 800 deaths and hundreds of thousands displaced; Thailand reported more than 180 deaths in some early December reporting and multi-billion-baht damage; Sri Lanka reported more than 330 deaths in one assessment and over 450 in another later estimate; Vietnam reported 98 deaths and about US$3.2 billion in storm-related losses; and Malaysia reported fatalities in the low single digits but tens of thousands displaced at the peak. The crisis damaged homes, schools, roads, bridges, rail lines, crops, and power infrastructure, and many affected communities remained without electricity, safe drinking water, or adequate healthcare after the peak floods.

Peru’s Amazon basin is facing a renewed drought-and-fire risk in 2026, with recent reporting warning that El Niño conditions could again produce prolonged drought, falling river levels, and elevated wildfire danger across the region. The most vulnerable areas cited in recent sources include Ucayali, Madre de Dios, and Huánuco, while broader Amazon basin impacts are also affecting Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil through low water and fire risk. The crisis is already being described as a threat to transport, food access, drinking water, and community isolation because Amazon river levels have fallen sharply in recent years, with boats stranded and fisheries weakened during severe drought periods. Recent wildfire reporting from Peru shows that drought and dry vegetation can rapidly intensify fire spread, and 2024 was described as the most severe fire season in the Peruvian Amazon in comparable records, affecting about 240,000 hectares; that history is raising concern about the 2026-2027 season.

India’s air pollution crisis remains a major public health emergency, with much of the country’s 1.4 billion people exposed to unhealthy PM2.5 levels and Delhi still among the world’s most polluted capitals. The Clean Air Fund says 17 of the world’s 30 most polluted cities are in India, and air pollution causes more than 2 million deaths a year in the country, according to State of Global Air 2024. The health burden includes asthma, heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, chronic respiratory disease, low birth weight, and premature death. A major peer-reviewed study estimated 1.67 million air-pollution-attributable deaths in India in 2019, while the World Bank says 2019 lost output from premature deaths and illnesses caused by air pollution cost India US$28.8 billion and US$8 billion respectively. Recent reporting continues to show severe acute impacts in Delhi and surrounding regions, where pollution is driven by vehicles, industry, winter weather, and seasonal agricultural burning in neighboring states.

Wildfires across Europe are intensifying, with France, Spain, Greece, Portugal, and Romania among the hardest hit in this summer’s fire season. Recent reporting says nearly 500,000 hectares have burned and restoration costs in the five most affected eurozone countries have reached about €3.1 billion, while broader economic-loss estimates for this summer range from €15.6 billion to €19.1 billion once property, infrastructure, firefighting, debris removal, and insurance claims are included. The crisis is being driven by repeated heatwaves, drought, and wind, and it is producing immediate human and environmental impacts: mass evacuations, destroyed homes and farmland, smoke exposure, transport disruption, and strain on tourism and local businesses. The European Commission is now pushing member states to invest more in environmental management to reduce wildfire risk, while recent analysis also shows that wildfire losses can sharply reduce regional growth and cause long-term damage to forests, biodiversity, and water-stressed ecosystems.

PFAS contamination remains a major water-quality and public-health problem across Europe, with persistent pollution detected in drinking water sources, rivers, lakes, groundwater, and coastal waters. The European Environment Agency reports that PFOS exceeded environmental quality standards in 59% of monitored river sites, 35% of lakes, and 73% of transitional and coastal water sites in 2022 data, while earlier 2018–2022 monitoring found exceedances in 51–60% of rivers, 11–35% of lakes, and 47–100% of transitional and coastal waters. The scale of contamination is large and still being mapped. The Forever Pollution Project says Europe has nearly 23,000 confirmed contaminated sites and about 21,500 additional presumptive sites, including around 2,300 hotspots with high pollution levels that may threaten human health. PAN Europe also reported widespread TFA contamination in 34 of 36 tap-water samples from eleven EU countries, with tap-water concentrations ranging up to 4,100 ng/L. Regulatory pressure is increasing. From January 2026, EU member states must monitor PFAS in drinking water in a harmonized way and enforce the Drinking Water Directive limits of 0.5 µg/L for total PFAS and 0.1 µg/L for 20 individual PFAS. The European Commission says continued PFAS pollution could cost society €440 billion by 2050, and water treatment alone could cost more than €1 trillion.

Bangladesh’s 2025 monsoon flood crisis began in mid-May and intensified through July, driven by heavy monsoon rainfall, upstream runoff from India, and localized flash floods across the northeast, southeast, and coastal areas. Early June reporting from humanitarian sources said several districts were severely affected, including Sylhet, Sunamganj, Moulvibazar, Habiganj, Netrokona, Noakhali, Bhola, Khagrachari, Bandarban, and Rangamati, with Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar also damaged by rain, landslides, and wind. The UN humanitarian plan for Bangladesh described the 2024-25 cyclone and monsoon flood response as affecting an estimated 18 million people, indicating that the crisis is part of a broader recurring flood emergency rather than a single isolated event. By 10-11 July 2025, Reuters reported at least 44 deaths and more than one million people stranded across seven southeastern districts, with 267,918 households disrupted by flooding, while relief operations relied on the army and navy to deliver food, water, medicines, and other essentials by boat. ReliefWeb also reported that 63,860 families were stranded in Noakhali, 3,837 families in six unions of Fulgazi, Parashuram, and Feni Sadar were waterlogged and without electricity and mobile coverage, and 15,350 people were affected in Feni-area flooding; the government also distributed cash and rice to affected people. Separate reporting cited 53 landslides in the Rohingya camps in early June, more than 1,400 shelters damaged, and one refugee killed, underscoring the continuing humanitarian impact on displaced populations.

Pakistan continues to face a severe, recurring smog crisis concentrated in Punjab, with Lahore and Multan repeatedly placed under emergency restrictions during recent smog seasons and school closures, transport disruption, and hospital surges reported in affected cities. Recent reporting also describes broader public-health impacts in eastern Punjab, where the UN-linked figures cited by Al Jazeera say 1.8 million people need urgent medical care and 11 million children face serious health hazards. The latest credible estimates available in the search results continue to place Pakistan among the world’s most polluted and health-affected countries. A recent PIDE report cites WHO-based figures of around 200 deaths per 100,000 people in Pakistan and says PM2.5 levels exceeded WHO guidelines by seven times for nearly 60% of the population, while a January 2026 report says annual economic losses from air pollution are estimated at about $22 billion, with broader assessments reaching $47 billion or more. The crisis is especially severe in urban corridors of Punjab, but the health and economic burden is national, affecting major cities and winter transport, education, and productivity.

South Asia’s extreme-heat crisis is worsening, with India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and parts of the wider region facing recurring pre-monsoon heatwaves that are intensifying health, power, and economic stress. A World Weather Attribution analysis found that the April 2026 heatwave in northwestern India and Pakistan was made about 15 times more likely and about 1.0°C hotter by human-caused climate change, with at least 37 heat-related deaths reported in India and 10 in Pakistan during the episode, alongside record electricity demand and agricultural drought conditions affecting more than 1 million km². The economic and labor impacts are now a central part of the crisis. The World Bank reported in July 2026 that extreme heat in South Asia is already costing the equivalent of 31 million full-time jobs each year and could reduce the region’s economy by nearly 7% by 2050 without adaptation. The same report says informal workers can lose about 40% of earnings during heatwaves, and Bangladesh alone is estimated to have lost US$1.3–1.8 billion in 2024 from heat-induced productivity losses. Regional monitoring and response efforts are expanding, but the risk is outpacing adaptation. The World Meteorological Organization says Asia is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, and the World Bank warns that extreme heat is now a structural constraint on jobs, growth, and basic services across South Asia. The World Weather Attribution report also notes that the event strained electricity systems, including a 16% generation shortfall in Bangladesh and up to 10 hours of daily power cuts in rural Bangladesh.

Brazil’s Amazon deforestation trend is **improving**, with official and independent monitoring showing continued declines into 2026. INPE satellite alerts found **1,325 km²** of clearing from **Aug. 1, 2025 to Jan. 31, 2026**, down from **2,050 km²** a year earlier, and the trailing 12-month total fell to **3,770 km²** from **4,245 km²**; both are the lowest for those periods since 2014. INPE’s PRODES annual system also reported **5,796 km²** of deforestation in the 12 months ending **July 31, 2025**, an **11.08%** decline and the lowest annual total since 2014. The crisis is not over. Reuters and Mongabay report that fire, degradation, cattle ranching, illegal mining, road expansion, and other land-use pressures continue to affect forest stability, even as overall clearing falls. In the first half of 2026, Brazil recorded **1,295 km²** of Amazon deforestation, **38%** below the same period in 2025, and May 2026 was reported as **61.4% lower** than May 2025; however, substantial clearing persisted and the dry season remains a recurring risk.

The latest verified evidence still points to the Colombian Amazon facing **ongoing drought and low-water risk**, not a confirmed shift to exceptional flooding. IDEAM’s January 2026 climate outlook projected below-normal rainfall across large parts of Colombia’s Amazon region for February–April 2026, including deficits of roughly 10%–30% in several Amazon departments, which supports continued concern about water stress rather than a resolved crisis. Recent regional reporting also shows the broader Amazon basin remains vulnerable to prolonged dry seasons and falling river levels. INPE-linked research reported that the Amazon dry season is lengthening from four to six months, with water deficits exceeding −150 mm, and that the 2023–2024 drought increased burned area by 9% and forest degradation alerts by 19%. UNICEF likewise said record-breaking drought in the Amazon region affected more than 420,000 children across Brazil, Colombia, and Peru, cutting off education, food supplies, and other services as rivers reached devastating lows. For Colombia, the crisis is still best characterized as a **significant climate-driven hydrological stress event** with ongoing exposure to both drought and later flood risk. Reuters reported that the Amazon drought could persist through 2026 and that the drought reduced the Amazon River and several tributaries to their lowest levels in over fifty years, with impacts extending into portions of Colombia and Venezuela. ACAPS also warned that 2026 seasonal forecasts for Colombia’s eastern borderlands point to both flood and drought risk in vulnerable areas, including Vichada, showing that hydrological extremes remain highly unstable rather than one-directional.

The Russia-Ukraine war remains an active, high-casualty armed conflict, with recent reporting showing continued civilian harm from long-range missile and drone strikes. ACLED reported that Russian strikes killed at least 43 civilians across multiple Ukrainian regions during 21–27 February 2026, and the Institute for the Study of War reported that Russia launched 115 drones against Ukraine on 24–25 February 2026. Civilian protection, energy, transport, and housing infrastructure remain major concerns, and the UN continues to verify civilian casualties while noting that confirmed figures likely understate the true toll because some incidents cannot be immediately verified or occur in occupied areas. Humanitarian and displacement needs remain large, with millions of Ukrainians still displaced inside the country and abroad, and fighting and strikes continue to affect regions including Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kyiv, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, Vinnytsia, and Zaporizhzhia.

Darfur remains one of the worst displacement and protection crises in the world, with renewed fighting around El Fasher and other parts of North Darfur driving repeated waves of forced flight. UN agencies report that nearly 12 million people across Sudan have been uprooted, while the conflict has also pushed millions into neighboring countries and left civilians facing bombings, sexual violence, hunger, and disease outbreaks. The humanitarian situation is especially severe in Darfur, where aid access is heavily restricted and displacement sites are overcrowded. UN sources say Tawila now hosts about 600,000 displaced people, while around 260,000 civilians remain trapped without safe exit routes from El Fasher; the crisis is worsened by cholera, dengue, malnutrition, and major funding shortfalls for humanitarian operations. Famine has already been confirmed in parts of Darfur, and millions more across Sudan face acute food insecurity.

Gaza remains in a severe humanitarian emergency marked by widespread displacement, damaged health infrastructure, and continuing access constraints despite the October 2025 ceasefire. UN and partner reporting says humanitarian access improved after the ceasefire, but conditions stayed critical: around 1.6 million people were still facing high levels of acute food insecurity in the late-2025/early-2026 IPC analysis, and more than 1.9 million people were reported displaced by UNICEF in October 2025. The IRC likewise says famine conditions remain a deadly reality, with nearly 55,000 children facing acute malnutrition and more than half a million people experiencing catastrophic conditions. Health-system collapse remains one of the most severe components of the crisis. A June 2026 UK government bulletin said at least 94% of Gaza’s hospitals are damaged or destroyed and only about 2,000 hospital beds remain available across the Strip. The same bulletin said that since the ceasefire began on 10 October 2025, Gaza’s health ministry reported 677 Palestinians killed and 1,800 injured, while continued insecurity and destruction have kept needs extremely high. UN reporting also notes that roughly 1.78 million tons of food entered Gaza between October 2025 and 7 June 2026, but this has not eliminated the crisis because access, distribution, and infrastructure constraints continue to limit the population’s ability to benefit fully from aid.

South Sudan’s security and humanitarian crisis remains severe and is still deteriorating in several hotspots, especially Jonglei and Eastern Equatoria, where UNMISS reported renewed hostilities between armed forces aligned with peace agreement signatories in January 2026. The UN Secretary-General said in late January that 250,000 civilians had already been displaced in the first weeks of 2026, while UN agencies later reported that conflict and flooding continued to drive displacement and food insecurity nationwide. The humanitarian situation is worsening. UN reporting said nearly 10 million people need humanitarian assistance in 2026, more than three quarters of the population, and the Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan is underfunded, having received only $351 million of the $1.5 billion required by late April 2026. Food insecurity is extremely high: 7.8 million people were projected to face crisis-level hunger between April and July 2026, including 73,300 in catastrophic conditions and 2.2 million children under five at risk of malnutrition. The UN also warned of a credible risk of famine in four counties in Upper Nile and Jonglei states. Protection and health risks are acute. The UN documented 350 attacks on humanitarian personnel and facilities in 2025, and more than 98,000 cholera cases had been reported since September 2024, with renewed spread in Jonglei. The Human Rights Division documented 1,158 conflict-related incidents in 2025, affecting 5,108 victims, including 2,299 killed and 2,015 injured, a 40% increase from 2024. Flooding, climate shocks, political polarization, insecurity on supply routes, and spillover from the Sudan war are compounding the crisis across Jonglei, Upper Nile, Unity, Western Equatoria, Central Equatoria, Eastern Equatoria, and Western Bahr el Ghazal.

Haiti’s gang violence crisis remains a severe humanitarian emergency in 2026, with armed groups controlling much of Port-au-Prince and expanding violence into other regions, including Artibonite, Centre, and the Northwest. UN reporting in 2026 says gangs control up to 90% of Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas, while the crisis has driven mass displacement, blocked commerce, and severely disrupted public services, including health care, education, water access, and transport. Recent UN and humanitarian reporting indicates the situation remains extremely grave: around 6.4 million people need humanitarian assistance, internal displacement has reached about 1.47 million people, and more than 5.8 million are expected to face hunger in 2026. The UN-linked reporting also says violence remains high despite recent security actions, with at least 1,642 people killed and 745 injured in the first quarter of 2026, and earlier reporting noted more than 5,500 killed and over 2,600 injured during 2025. Funding is still far below needs. The 2026 humanitarian appeal had received only 25% of the required $880 million by mid-June, and the IRC reported that by the end of 2025 only 24% of needed funding had been secured, leaving as many as 1.7 million people at risk of losing critical services.

Myanmar’s post-coup conflict remains a severe, multi-front civil war, with the junta still under pressure from the People’s Defence Force, the National Unity Government, and multiple ethnic armed organizations. Recent reporting cited by the Council on Foreign Relations says the military government controls about 21% of territory while rebel forces and ethnic armies hold about 42%, and the United Nations and Human Rights Watch report more than 3 million people displaced, with the 2026 Human Rights Watch estimate at least 3.6 million internally displaced. The humanitarian situation remains extremely acute. Human Rights Watch says more than 15 million people face acute food insecurity, and AP reported in early 2025 that nearly 20 million people needed humanitarian aid and about 3.5 million were internally displaced; Amnesty reported in January 2025 that the junta had killed more than 6,000 people and that more than 20,000 had been arbitrarily detained since the coup. The Rohingya crisis remains unresolved, with Amnesty noting 2024 was the worst year of violence against the Rohingya since 2017 and the conflict in Rakhine continuing to block safe repatriation. The conflict is concentrated in Rakhine, Shan, Kachin, Sagaing, Magway, Mandalay, Karen, and Chin, with continued fighting and airstrikes against civilian infrastructure. UNHCR reported in May 2026 that around 299,000 people had fled Myanmar to neighboring countries such as Bangladesh, India, and Thailand, while Rohingya refugees remain largely in Bangladesh with no safe return in sight.

Burkina Faso’s humanitarian crisis remains severe in 2026, driven by persistent armed conflict, displacement, food insecurity, and restricted humanitarian access. Recent UN and partner reporting says about 4.5 million people in the country need humanitarian assistance, while 1.6 million people are estimated to need emergency food assistance and nearly 223,000 are in the emergency phase of acute food insecurity. Displacement and service collapse continue to affect the country broadly. The 2026 humanitarian overview for Burkina Faso, Mali, and western Niger reports about 2.0 million internally displaced people in Burkina Faso and more than 3,000 schools plus 974 health facilities non-operational across the region, while aid delivery remains constrained by insecurity, road blockages, and administrative barriers. Human Rights Watch also reports that JNIM and IS Sahel continue besieging towns and villages, cutting residents off from food, fuel, medical care, and humanitarian aid. The crisis is concentrated in Burkina Faso but has regional spillover into Mali and western Niger, and Burkina Faso continues to host refugees while also seeing Burkinabè refugees in neighboring Mali. Available reporting indicates the situation is still deteriorating or at best remaining highly unstable because insecurity and access constraints continue to limit livelihoods, services, and assistance delivery.

The conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo remains a severe and worsening humanitarian and security crisis, driven by fighting between the Congolese army, the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group, and other regional and local armed actors. In July 2026, the UN said fighting in South Kivu had continued despite peace efforts, with both sides using drones, heavy artillery, and other explosive weapons in civilian areas, causing civilian deaths, injuries, livestock losses, and destruction of homes. Recent UN reporting also said more than eight million people have been displaced across the DRC during decades of conflict, with more than one million refugees already having fled the country and fears of additional displacement if the violence continues. In early 2026, Reuters reported a ceasefire planned under the Doha framework, but both the Congolese government and M23 continued accusing each other of violations, while renewed clashes were also reported in South Kivu and around Minembwe. The crisis remains concentrated in eastern DRC, especially North Kivu and South Kivu, with spillover into areas including Goma, Bukavu, Uvira, Minembwe, and other towns affected by fighting and displacement. Human rights and humanitarian reports describe killings, sexual violence, attacks on IDP sites, and worsening disease risks in overcrowded displacement settings.

Manipur’s ethnic violence crisis remains a prolonged protection emergency in India’s northeast, driven by conflict between Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities and marked by displacement, deaths, arson, and continuing insecurity. Available reporting and compiled government figures indicate at least 258 deaths and more than 60,000 displaced people as of late 2024, with many families still unable to safely return home and some communities living in relief camps or under heavy security restrictions. The crisis has also caused severe social and economic disruption: homes, religious sites, and businesses have been burned or damaged, movement has been restricted by checkpoints and periodic shutdowns, and essential services and livelihoods have been strained by the unrest. Public reporting describes continuing instability in affected districts, with the conflict’s humanitarian needs centered on shelter, food, healthcare, education, protection, and durable solutions for displaced households.

Recent verified reporting does not support the claim of a nationwide disaster with more than 100 deaths since July across Assam, Kerala, and Jammu and Kashmir; instead, the strongest recent evidence describes a wider 2026 monsoon pattern that is *below average overall* and raising economic and agricultural risks rather than documenting a single consolidated casualty toll. Reuters reported on May 29, 2026 that India’s monsoon was forecast at 90% of the long-term average, the weakest since 2015, with inflation risks rising. The Economist also reported in early August 2026 that India’s monsoon is becoming more erratic, reinforcing concern about increasingly uneven rainfall patterns. Available sources in the search results do indicate recent flood and landslide impacts in multiple Indian states, but the evidence is fragmented and does not provide a verified nationwide total of deaths or displaced people for the current event. Secondary reporting cites heavy monsoon disruption in Assam and other states, including infrastructure damage, crop losses, and relief-camp pressure, while broader economic commentary notes that monsoon-related damage in India can reach tens of thousands of crores of rupees in a severe season. Because the search results are incomplete and some sources are low-credibility or not directly about the current crisis, the safest verified summary is that the 2026 monsoon is worsening flood and landslide vulnerability across several regions, with confirmed severity for local humanitarian and livelihood impacts but no reliable single national casualty or displacement total in the provided material.

Gaza continues to face a severe communications crisis driven by the destruction of telecommunications infrastructure, repeated network outages, and chronic power constraints. The World Bank’s 2025 Interim Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment says Gaza’s ICT infrastructure has suffered **US$164 million** in damages, with about **74% of assets completely destroyed**, **16% partially damaged**, and **10% minimally damaged**, producing a major breakdown in communication services and internet connectivity. UN and World Bank reporting also says Gaza residents have largely lost access to essential communication services, including mobile and internet connectivity needed for emergency response and life-saving coordination. The crisis has broad humanitarian and economic effects. A Gaza digital-economy report found recurring blackouts have cut people off from work, education, income, and the outside world, and a survey of **183** Gaza-based digital workers found **81%** were aged 18-34, **72%** were displaced, and most had lost over half their earnings. The World Bank estimates the Gaza economy contracted by **86%** in H1 2024 and that the conflict has pushed the Palestinian territories into deep recession, underscoring how telecom failure compounds wider collapse across displacement, banking, schooling, and humanitarian operations.

Central Asia continues to face a major digital divide, with the biggest gaps now less about basic network rollout and more about whether people in rural and remote areas can actually afford and use mobile internet and broadband services. GSMA estimated that around 45 million people across eight Central Asia and South Caucasus countries were using mobile internet, but nearly 50 million remained unconnected, with the usage gap in 2022 especially severe in Georgia and Turkmenistan. Recent ITU data show that the urban-rural gap persists across the wider CIS region: in 2024, 95% of urban residents were online versus 85% in rural areas, and 7% of the rural population had no possibility of accessing the Internet at all. The same report found 5G coverage in urban areas but zero rural 5G coverage in the CIS region, while 4G covered all urban residents but only 83% of rural residents. World Bank analysis continues to identify Central Asia’s limited and costly high-speed internet, low fixed broadband penetration, and weak rural connectivity as barriers to education, jobs, healthcare, and access to public services, with the unconnected disproportionately concentrated in rural and remote communities.

A series of undersea cable faults in May 2024 disrupted internet connectivity across East Africa, especially on the SEACOM and EASSy systems that link the region to South Africa and global cloud infrastructure. Internet Society reported that the damaged cables were repaired by 3 June 2024, but the outages showed how dependent several East African countries remain on a small number of international routes. The most affected countries included Burundi, Malawi, Mozambique, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda, with Cloudflare reporting traffic drops of roughly 10–25% in Kenya, Uganda, Madagascar, and Mozambique, and one-third or more in Rwanda, Malawi, and Tanzania during the outage period. Reporting from the region also described knock-on effects on mobile money, banking, education platforms, emergency communications, and paid remote work, though no country experienced a complete national internet shutdown because alternative submarine, terrestrial, and cache routes remained available.

Europe’s rural digital divide remains a major inequality problem, with underserved and thinly populated regions still lagging in broadband quality, digital skills, and access to e-government services. Recent European policy materials say the gap continues to cut across geography, income, age, and education, and that rural and underserved regions still lack fast, reliable networks and basic digital skills needed for everyday online tasks. The most recent evidence also shows the divide is not just about access: low-income households, older people, and people with lower education levels remain less able to use digital public services, while rural regions continue to face weaker broadband coverage than urban areas. European cohesion reporting says wide disparities persist across the EU and that the rural-urban gap in very-high-capacity network access remains unresolved.

Latin America and the Caribbean still faces a major rural digital divide, with the latest regional household data showing that in 2022 only 67.3% of households had fixed internet access, far below the OECD benchmark of 91.1%. The gap is much wider for poorer households, where access was 46.4%, versus 84.6% for wealthier households, underscoring that income remains a strong predictor of connectivity. The rural deficit is especially severe: urban households in the region had 74.8% access compared with just 35.8% in rural areas, and some countries had rural access below 20%. World Bank analysis also reports that in LAC fixed broadband is often unaffordable, with 56% of households unable to afford fixed broadband and 45% to 52% unable to afford cellular services, while rural populations and women are less likely to be connected. Recent IICA analysis estimated that 72 million rural inhabitants in 26 countries still lack connectivity that meets minimum quality standards, even though rural connectivity improved by about 7 percentage points from 2020 to 2022.

Pacific Island states continue to face a **major digital divide**, with persistent gaps in internet access, affordability, and digital skills limiting participation in education, health, finance, and public services. Recent regional analysis says Pacific Island Countries are at a pivotal moment in digital transformation, but connectivity remains uneven and many communities still cannot access affordable, reliable broadband outside capital cities. UNESCO and UNCTAD reporting indicates that the Pacific still sits below global digital-development levels, with fixed broadband access around **8% of the population** and connectivity costs often **up to four times higher than in the rest of the world**; in some cases, broadband can absorb **10% to 20% of monthly income**. UNCTAD also reports that in **Papua New Guinea**, a mobile broadband package can cost **nearly 20% of average monthly income**, making internet use unaffordable for many households. The problem is especially severe in rural and remote islands, where high infrastructure costs, fragmented geography, and limited digital skills continue to exclude people from online services and economic opportunities.

Papua New Guinea’s internet access problem worsened after the National Information and Communications Technology Authority (NICTA) instructed Starlink to cease service on 11 December 2025, and Starlink disabled service on 16 December 2025 while the licensing dispute remained unresolved. The shutdown affected businesses, healthcare providers, schools, and remote communities that had depended on satellite broadband as one of the few practical connectivity options in rural areas. The disruption is especially significant in Papua New Guinea because internet access remains limited overall, with coverage described as weak in rural and remote regions and national internet penetration around 24.1% in the current background materials. In April 2026, PNG’s National Court reportedly ruled that the Ombudsman Commission had exceeded its powers, which the Lowy Institute said likely cleared the way for Starlink licensing to proceed again, but the earlier shutdown had already left a major access gap and the implementation timeline remained uncertain.

Rural America continues to face a persistent digital inclusion gap driven by both broadband access and device ownership, and the problem remains consequential as work, schooling, health care, and public services increasingly require strong digital skills. Pew Research reported that in 2021, 72% of rural adults had home broadband, below suburban and urban peers, and only 30% of rural adults had all four key devices/services needed to go online regularly: a desktop or laptop, a smartphone, home broadband, and a tablet. NTIA’s earlier analysis also found that rural residents were more likely than urban residents to lack any Internet-compatible device, underscoring that access problems are not limited to broadband alone. Recent research and reporting show the gap is still large in access and use. A University of Michigan review cited that rural areas had substantially less broadband availability than urban areas, with 65% of people in rural areas having access compared with 97% in urban areas, and reported that fixed internet subscriptions remained lower in rural areas than in suburbs. Harvard Business School research using 40 million Windows devices across more than 28,000 U.S. ZIP codes found that rural ZIP codes lagged urban ZIP codes in computer use, with a media consumption and computing index of 0.19 in urban ZIP codes versus -0.27 in rural ZIP codes, indicating a continuing digital skills and usage gap relevant to AI literacy. The problem is concentrated in rural regions across the United States, including places with lower broadband adoption and communities that face structural disadvantages such as tribal lands and the rural Black South.

Rural sub-Saharan Africa continues to face a severe digital infrastructure gap driven by weak last-mile broadband, limited fixed networks, unreliable electricity, and high affordability barriers. The World Bank reported that at the end of 2021, 84% of people in sub-Saharan Africa lived in areas with 3G coverage and 63% had 4G coverage, yet only 22% were using mobile internet; it also found that 61% lived within broadband range but did not use it, showing a large coverage-to-usage gap. The Broadband Commission’s 2025 report adds that 160 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are still not covered by mobile internet networks, and that the region’s median price for a 2 GB monthly mobile broadband plan was 4.2% of GNI per capita in 2024, above the 2% affordability target. The rural disadvantage remains especially pronounced. The Broadband Commission reported that in 2024, 23% of rural households in Africa had internet access compared with 57% of urban households, while the World Bank found that internet access in sub-Saharan Africa was 47% in urban areas versus 12% in rural areas in its sample. A 2025 analysis also notes that more than 600 million people in Africa still lack access to electricity, which remains a foundational barrier to digital access, and that rural internet use across Africa was only 23% in 2024 versus 57% in urban areas. Recent guidance from the ITU and World Bank continues to emphasize that power shortages, difficult terrain, poor road access, and limited local electricity supply are restricting rural ICT rollout. The problem affects much of the region, with especially strong constraints in Western and Central Africa and in remote rural areas across Eastern and Southern Africa, where coverage and usage gaps remain large. The current evidence suggests the situation is still serious and persistent rather than rapidly improving, because infrastructure rollout is happening, but adoption, affordability, and power constraints remain binding.

India’s smartphone access has improved, but a substantial rural-urban divide remains. MoSPI’s 2025 Comprehensive Modular Survey on Telecom reported that 85.5% of Indian households possessed at least one smartphone, while rural households still lagged urban households on smartphone ownership, internet access within the home, and mobile-phone ownership among women and older age groups. The gap is also visible in telecom penetration data. Ookla reported that in the first half of 2025, mobile penetration was 58.8% in rural India versus 125.3% in urban India, a 66.5 percentage-point difference. Bihar, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, and Jharkhand remained among the lowest-penetration regions, showing that access gaps are still structurally concentrated in poorer and rural-heavy areas. Recent survey evidence also shows that while rural youth are close to urban youth on smartphone ownership and internet use, access remains uneven across gender and geography, with rural women and older adults still less likely to own phones or use smartphones. These disparities continue to constrain reliable access to education, finance, and digital public services in low-income regions.

Lebanon’s economic crisis remains a severe, long-running collapse centered on a still-paralyzed banking system, restricted access to deposits, and the near-total destruction of the Lebanese pound’s value. The World Bank has described Lebanon’s downturn as one of the worst economic crises globally since the mid-19th century, and recent analyses continue to say the banking sector is insolvent, cash-constrained, and unable to resume normal intermediation. The latest available sources indicate that the Lebanese pound has lost about 98% of its value since 2019, while banking-sector losses exceed US$75 billion and customer deposits fell from US$172 billion in 2009 to US$88 billion in 2024. Since October 2019, unofficial capital controls have restricted transfers and withdrawals, and depositors still face severe haircuts and limited access to savings, leaving households, pensioners, public employees, and businesses dependent on cash and informal coping strategies. Recent reporting also shows that reform progress remains incomplete but not absent: Parliament approved a Banking Sector Recovery Law and amended bank secrecy legislation in 2025, and the Banking Control Commission gained authority to audit banks’ balance sheets. Even so, sources in 2026 still describe the crisis as unresolved, with financial recovery dependent on deeper restructuring and broader economic reform.

West and Central Africa remains in a severe and persistent poverty crisis, driven by conflict, weak growth, inflation, and climate shocks. The World Bank says about a quarter of the world’s extreme poor live in the region, and about 73% of the region’s population lives in countries affected by fragility, conflict, and violence. The World Bank’s regional outlook also says poverty remains concentrated in fragile and conflict-affected states even as growth is projected to recover unevenly. Food insecurity is a major channel through which poverty is worsening. In West Africa, WFP reported that more than 25 million people were unable to meet basic food needs in the region in an earlier regional assessment, with the worst conditions in conflict-affected areas such as the Lake Chad Basin, Liptako-Gourma, and the Sahel. WFP’s March 2024 outlook projected nearly 55 million people across West and Central Africa would struggle to feed themselves during the June-August 2024 lean season, underscoring the scale of the crisis. Regional analysis also identifies Central Africa as having the highest extreme poverty rate in Africa, at 54.8%, highlighting especially severe deprivation in Central African countries.

Yemen’s humanitarian crisis is worsening in 2026 as acute food insecurity rises and aid funding falls. UN-backed food security analysis reported that around 18.3 million people — about 52% of the population — are acutely food insecure, including about 5.2 million in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) and around 41,000 in Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5) in some districts of Hajjah, Al Hodeidah, and Amran governorates. UN officials also warned in January 2026 that more than 20 million Yemenis would face acute food insecurity and tens of thousands could face famine-like conditions as humanitarian access becomes more restricted. The crisis is being driven by prolonged conflict, economic collapse, climate shocks, and sharply reduced humanitarian support. The 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan says over 22 million people need assistance, including 10.95 million women and girls, and it seeks US$2.16 billion; it also estimates 14.4 million people need water, sanitation, and hygiene support, while more than 2.2 million children under age five face malnutrition, including 516,157 with severe acute malnutrition. UN and NGO reporting also says aid cuts are reducing food, nutrition, health, and WASH interventions, with the Food Security Cluster and Nutrition Cluster under severe strain and some health facilities already closed because of funding shortfalls.

Sub-Saharan Africa remains the world’s most affected region for extreme poverty, and recent World Bank analysis says growth is still too weak to reduce poverty quickly because per-capita expansion remains modest and is being offset by inflation, debt stress, fragility, conflict, and climate shocks. The World Bank also reports that more than half of countries in the region face unsustainable debt burdens, governments spent over 45% of revenues on debt service in 2023, and an estimated 105 million people were experiencing severe food insecurity as of March 2024. Recent research indicates that economic growth does not reliably lower extreme poverty in the region unless governance and export performance reach specific thresholds. One study finds that growth begins to reduce extreme poverty only after governance crosses threshold levels in the Global Governance Index and Ibrahim Index of African Governance, and that stronger governance is associated with lower poverty only above those levels. World Bank analysis also highlights that conflict and fragility worsen development outcomes by destroying human and physical capital, disrupting food value chains, and increasing hunger risk, which is especially damaging in rural and conflict-affected areas.

Pakistan’s 2025 monsoon floods caused widespread loss of life, housing, farmland, and infrastructure, and the recovery is still straining poor and rural households into 2026. CARE reported that since June 26, 2025, the floods had killed more than 1,000 people, injured nearly 1,100, damaged over 12,500 houses, washed away nearly 240 bridges, and left more than 6.9 million people in urgent need of shelter, food, safe water, and medical support. Recent economic assessments show the disaster sharply worsened poverty and livelihoods. A policy analysis cited estimated total damages and losses at $14.9 billion and $15.2 billion respectively, with rehabilitation and recovery needs at $16.3 billion, while also estimating that the floods pushed about 9 million more people into poverty and hit agriculture, livestock, and food prices across the country. Reporting from October 2025 said Pakistan’s official preliminary assessment put flood-related losses at Rs822 billion, with agriculture accounting for Rs430 billion and infrastructure Rs307 billion, and said over 4 million people were displaced. The crisis is affecting multiple provinces and rural districts, especially in Punjab and Sindh, where crop losses, damaged irrigation, and destroyed livelihoods are disrupting incomes and food access. Reuters reported in September 2025 that more than 2.5 million people had been evacuated from Punjab and Sindh and warned that food insecurity was imminent as flooded fields threatened wheat planting and seasonal harvests. Gallup Pakistan’s October 2025 recovery report found that 46% of households said income had completely stopped and 43% reported partial reductions, indicating that the crisis remains a major poverty and recovery emergency rather than a short-term disaster.

Global supply chains remain under sustained structural pressure in 2026, with geopolitical fragmentation, tariff volatility, export controls, and labor shortages now treated by major industry groups as persistent rather than temporary risks. Xeneta says geopolitical competition and trade-policy shifts are accelerating “China+1” and nearshoring strategies, but alternative production hubs often lack enough infrastructure and capacity to offset the disruption quickly. Thomson Reuters reports that tariff volatility has fundamentally reshaped the trade landscape, with supply-chain concerns doubling year over year as firms face higher costs and regulatory complexity. The risk environment is also being widened by cybersecurity and climate shocks. Industry sources cited in the prompt note rising cyberattacks on logistics, GPS jamming and spoofing in the Baltic Sea area, and severe weather-related losses in Europe and South Asia; however, the provided search results do not independently verify the specific figures in those claims, so they are not included here as confirmed statistics. The World Economic Forum says 2026 marks an “era of structural volatility,” while Kearney’s assessment emphasizes that disruption is becoming constant and structural rather than cyclical. Reported mitigation measures include sourcing diversification, nearshoring, automation, and AI-enabled risk management, but the overall pattern remains elevated fragmentation across major trade blocs and logistics corridors.

India’s jobs crisis remains concentrated among young people, especially educated entrants to the labor market, with recent reporting and labor data showing high youth unemployment, weak labour-force participation, and too few stable non-farm jobs. BBC reported that India has about 367 million people aged 15-29, and that roughly 40% of graduates aged 15-29 and about 20% of those aged 25+ are unemployed, while newer reporting on the monthly PLFS indicates youth unemployment rose to 16.2% in June and youth labour-force participation fell to 40.3%. The same labor-market weakness is pushing many young Indians into informal or precarious work rather than salaried jobs. ILO/IHD reporting says India’s youth unemployment is higher than global levels, youth make up almost 83% of the unemployed workforce, and the share of unemployed youth with secondary or higher education rose to 65.7% in 2022. Recent coverage also notes that India produced roughly 5 million graduates per year from 2004 to 2023, but only 2.8 million found jobs, with even fewer securing salaried employment. Alongside the youth jobs problem, farm distress continues to affect rural livelihoods through low returns, indebtedness, and pressure on farm incomes, especially in agrarian states. The sources provided for this query do not include a recent official national farm-distress dataset, so the latest verified description here is limited to the broader pattern of rural economic strain rather than a quantified national farm-crisis estimate.

Poverty in Lebanon has continued to deepen after more than five years of economic collapse, with the World Bank reporting that monetary poverty in the surveyed governorates rose from 12% in 2012 to 44% in 2022, and that the share of poor Lebanese nationals tripled to 33% over the same period. The same assessment says annual inflation has remained in triple digits since 2021, the currency had lost 98% of its pre-crisis value by December 2023, and food insecurity has risen as households cut food purchases and change diets. The crisis has also been compounded by spillovers from the Israel-Hezbollah war, which the EUAA says further destabilized the economy and caused an estimated USD 7.2 billion in economic losses, affecting commerce, agriculture, food security, housing, healthcare, energy, and education. The World Bank’s 2024 assessment covers Akkar, Beirut, Bekaa, North Lebanon, and most of Mount Lebanon, where 1 in 3 people was poverty-stricken in 2022, while the UN and humanitarian agencies continue to warn that fragile, crisis-hit settings like Lebanon face the steepest poverty reversals.

Enforced disappearances remain a major human rights crisis in Pakistan, with the heaviest concentration in Balochistan and continued reporting from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh. Amnesty says enforced disappearances continue to scar communities across South Asia, and reporting in Pakistan describes activists, students, political dissenters, and other civilians being taken without due process and held incommunicado. Recent provincial monitoring in Balochistan suggests the problem intensified through 2025 into 2026: the Human Rights Council of Balochistan reported 106 enforced disappearances in November 2025 and 124 cases in April 2026, while also documenting dozens of killings in the same periods. Broader reporting also cites at least 10,078 enforced disappearance cases recorded by Pakistan’s Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances since 2011, with 3,485 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 2,752 in Balochistan. Human rights groups say families still face limited accountability, and recent legal measures in Balochistan have raised further concern about preventive detention powers.

Georgia’s civic space has sharply deteriorated since 2024, with authorities using restrictive laws, criminal investigations, and heavy policing to suppress protests, critical media, and independent civil society. Amnesty International says the government has built a “coordinated system to crush dissent,” and Human Rights Watch says the ruling Georgian Dream party adopted sweeping laws in 2025 that decimate civil society and silence critical voices. The most recent reporting shows the crackdown continued into 2026. HRW reported in January 2026 that amended assembly rules give police broad discretion to restrict roadway and sidewalk protests, with penalties including up to 15 days’ detention for protesters and up to one year in prison for repeat offenses. CIVICUS reported in July 2026 that Georgia remains on its Watchlist, is rated “Repressed,” and that authorities have continued jailing protesters, expanding punishment for online speech, and imposing massive fines; one person reportedly accumulated protest-related fines equivalent to about US$270,000. Amnesty said in June 2026 that since the start of the ongoing protest movement, thousands have been arbitrarily detained and fined, hundreds subjected to torture or other ill-treatment, and more than 150 imprisoned after unfair and politically motivated proceedings.

Restrictions on Palestine advocacy and pro-Palestinian speech remain a major free-speech crisis in the United States, with spillover into Canada and parts of Western Europe. Recent reporting says the Trump administration has intensified campus, immigration, and funding pressure on universities and activists, including deportation threats, visa actions, and federal investigations aimed at people and institutions tied to pro-Palestinian protest. Documented repression has included campus discipline, police crackdowns, event deplatforming, and employment retaliation. Palestine Legal reported 1,037 requests for legal support in the first three months after Oct. 7, 2023, including 908 from people targeted for Palestine advocacy, and later said it received 1,131 legal-aid requests in 2025, with 851 from people targeted for their advocacy and 280 seeking advice on how to engage in it. FIRE reported 138 documented attempts to deplatform Palestine-related campus events and discipline faculty or students, along with at least 11 faculty terminations, while Arab Center reported university restrictions such as bans on encampments, tighter demonstration rules, face-covering bans, and ID requirements. In Western Europe, advocacy groups and academic analysis describe an expanding pattern of monitoring, criminalization, and administrative pressure on Palestine solidarity activism, especially in the United Kingdom through the Public Order Act and Prevent framework, with broader civic-space concerns also flagged by CIVICUS. The overall trend is worsening because legal, institutional, and immigration tools are being used more aggressively against speech and organizing linked to Palestine across multiple countries.

Across Europe, unlawful pushbacks, denial of access to asylum procedures, and border mistreatment remain widespread concerns, especially at the EU’s external and some internal borders. The European Parliament’s 2025 briefing says pushbacks often involve excessive force, degrading and inhuman treatment, and arbitrary detention, while a consortium of nine human rights organizations recorded at least 120,457 pushback incidents at the EU’s external and internal borders in 2023, about 330 per day. Recent reporting suggests the problem persisted through 2024 and 2025. Human Rights Watch said EU migration and asylum policy increasingly focused on deterrence in 2024, contributing to unlawful pushbacks, deaths at sea, and returns of asylum seekers to places where they face abuse. The 2025 annual PRAB report documented at least 80,865 pushbacks in 2025, with Poland and Bulgaria among the most affected countries, and described routine violence including beatings, police dogs, forced stripping, forced river crossings, and theft of belongings. Investigations and accountability remain weak, and many cases are still documented by civil society rather than resolved through effective state inquiries. The crisis continues to affect migrants and asylum seekers trying to enter or move within the EU, especially in Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Croatia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Spain, Italy, France, and border areas linked to Belarus and the Western Balkans.

Far-right parties have expanded their influence across Europe, and by the 2024 European elections support had increased in 22 of 27 EU countries, with far-right parties holding just over a quarter of European Parliament seats when independent MEPs are excluded. The trend is increasingly shaping EU decision-making because far-right representatives now participate in major EU decisions through governments, the European Council, and the Council of the EU. Recent analysis also shows the political base for these parties has widened further: a June 2026 report found that nearly 25% of European voters now back far-right parties, up from around 10% a decade earlier and around 5% in 1995, with far-right parties taking part in governing coalitions in Croatia, Czechia, Italy, and Finland and supporting Sweden’s right-wing minority government. This normalization is tied to stronger anti-migrant and anti-democratic narratives, which researchers and watchdogs warn are undermining democratic safeguards and shifting policy debates toward harsher treatment of migrants, asylum seekers, and other targeted groups.

Pakistan’s Balochistan province remains the site of a serious and intensifying human rights crackdown, with UN experts warning in April 2025 that counter-terrorism measures there are causing “unrelenting” enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention risks, torture allegations, and repeated internet blackouts that restrict expression, assembly, and access to information. Amnesty International and partner organizations said in 2025 that Baloch human rights defenders and protesters have faced harassment, arbitrary detention, and legal pressure, including use of the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance and multiple FIRs against activists. Recent reporting also indicates the crackdown has continued through 2025 with restrictions on public life and expanded surveillance. Amnesty reported in October 2025 that Balochistan authorities placed 32 people from Khuzdar, Kech, and Chagai districts on the Anti-Terrorism Act Fourth Schedule, limiting movement and enabling asset freezes; the same report noted deaths, including children, during military operations in Zehri, Khuzdar district. Paank, the human rights wing of the Baloch National Movement, reported 84 enforced disappearances and 33 extrajudicial killings in June 2025 across 14 districts, including Kech and Mastung as the worst-affected areas, underscoring the scale of the ongoing crisis.

Nicaragua’s crackdown on human rights defenders and other critics has deepened in 2025–2026, with UN and rights-group reporting describing a systematic campaign of arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, ill-treatment in custody, forced exile, nationality revocations, and the dismantling of civic space. In July 2026, the UN said the government was still arbitrarily detaining 46 people for political reasons, after a 2025 OHCHR report documented the continuing erosion of the rule of law, severe restrictions on fundamental freedoms, and a sweeping constitutional overhaul that removed prohibitions on torture. The UN’s 2026 report says enforced disappearances have significantly increased, arbitrary detention and ill-treatment remain regular, and at least 199 people were arrested for political reasons from April 2025 to mid-January 2026; it also reported two political detainee deaths in custody in 2025. Human Rights Watch’s 2026 country chapter says authorities have continued to repress dissent through arbitrary arrest, prosecution, enforced disappearance, forced exile, citizenship revocation, and asset confiscation, while shuttering more than 5,500 organizations and at least 58 media outlets. Amnesty International reported in July 2026 that more than 5,000 civil society organizations had lost legal status and that hundreds of legal professionals were stripped of their licenses, further limiting access to independent defense for victims of repression.

The United States is experiencing a major immigration enforcement crisis marked by expanded detention, faster removals, and tighter asylum access. Rights-group reporting cited in the provided materials says more than 290,000 people had been detained since the start of Trump’s second term through mid-October 2025, and that ICE detention held 68,442 people as of December 13, 2025, indicating sustained strain on detention capacity and due-process protections. Earlier 2025 reporting also described detention levels around 41,500 people per day, underscoring the scale of enforcement activity. Access to asylum has also been sharply restricted. The American Immigration Council reports the administration has effectively shut down asylum access at the U.S.-Mexico border, while Vera reporting says asylum decisions were halted in November 2025, leaving many people in legal limbo. The same reporting says temporary protected status was revoked for some migrant groups and denaturalization policies were advanced, increasing the risk of detention and deportation for affected communities. The most directly affected areas are the United States overall, especially the U.S.-Mexico border, ICE detention sites nationwide, and high-enforcement metropolitan areas; economic analyses also warn of spillover harm to labor markets, households, and state and local tax bases in states with large immigrant populations such as California, Florida, and Texas.

Malaria remained a severe global health emergency in 2024, with WHO estimating **282 million cases** and **610,000 deaths**, an increase of about **9 million cases** from 2023. WHO says the burden remains overwhelmingly concentrated in the **African Region**, which accounted for **94% of cases** and **95% of deaths** in 2024, with **75% of deaths in that region among children under 5**. The crisis is being sustained by a mix of **funding shortfalls, drug and insecticide resistance, climate-related disruption, and conflict-related access barriers**. WHO also reports that **47 countries and one territory** have now been certified malaria-free, showing progress in some settings, but the overall global trajectory in 2024 was still upward rather than improving.

Sudan’s health system remains near collapse in 2026 amid the ongoing war, mass displacement, repeated attacks on healthcare, and widespread hunger. WHO reported in January 2026 that more than one third of health facilities nationwide were non-functional, and it reiterated in April 2026 that 37% of facilities remained non-functional across the country’s 18 states. WHO also said the conflict had driven the system to the brink of collapse and left millions without access to essential care. The crisis is being compounded by attacks on hospitals and ambulances, disease outbreaks, and severe humanitarian needs. WHO reported 217 verified attacks on healthcare since April 2023, causing 2,052 deaths and 810 injuries by April 2026; earlier January 2026 figures were 201 attacks, 1,858 deaths, and 490 injuries. The 2026 humanitarian plan says 33.7 million people need assistance, including about 21 million who need health assistance, while outbreaks of cholera, malaria, dengue, measles, and polio continue to strain an already fragile system.

Afghanistan’s health system remained in severe distress in 2025, driven by funding cuts and long-running structural fragility. WHO reported that by 4 March 2025, 167 health facilities had closed, cutting off lifesaving care for 1.6 million people across 25 provinces, and warned that more than 220 additional facilities could shut by June if funding was not restored. WHO also said 80% of WHO-supported essential health services were at risk of shutdown, with the worst-affected areas in the north, west, and northeast. The crisis was accompanied by worsening disease pressure and access barriers. WHO reported more than 16,000 suspected measles cases and 111 deaths in the first two months of 2025, alongside outbreaks of malaria, dengue, polio, and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever; measles vaccination coverage was critically low at 51% for the first dose and 37% for the second. WHO’s 2025 Health Emergency Appeal said over 22.9 million people required urgent health support, while the broader humanitarian response was further strained by refugee returns, displacement, and restrictions that disproportionately affected women and girls.

Uganda’s 2026 Ebola outbreak is now in an enhanced-surveillance phase after no new cases were reported after 21 June 2026, and the last confirmed patient was discharged on 16 July after two negative tests. WHO says Uganda has recorded 20 confirmed cases and 2 deaths, with all cases reported in Kampala District and no community transmission detected so far. The outbreak is linked to Bundibugyo virus, a form of Ebola for which WHO and MSF report there is currently no approved vaccine or specific treatment, making rapid isolation, contact tracing, and infection-prevention measures the core response tools. WHO reports that Uganda’s cases have been associated with health-care settings and cross-border movement, while most cases in the wider 2026 outbreak have been reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the outbreak has also spread to North Kivu and South Kivu.

Mpox remains an active public health crisis in Africa, with **clade I, especially subclade Ib**, driving sustained transmission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and neighboring countries. CDC says that as of April 2026, the DRC still has the majority of clade Ib cases, and transmission has continued in Central and Eastern Africa, including Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Malawi, Mozambique, Republic of Congo, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia. WHO’s late-2025 outbreak update also reported community transmission of clade Ib in several African countries, underscoring that the outbreak remains geographically broad and not fully contained. Recent evidence shows the epidemic continues to seed international spread. WHO reported in November 2025 that clade Ib had been detected without recent travel in multiple WHO regions, and by that point community transmission was considered established in several countries outside Africa. CDC notes that travel-associated clade I cases have largely been linked to subclade Ib and that these infections have generally been milder, but the DRC remains the epicenter of the ongoing African outbreak.

The global cholera outbreak remains **active and worsening** in 2026. WHO’s February 2026 epidemiological update reported **16,912 new cholera and acute watery diarrhoea (AWD) cases in January 2026** across **19 countries, territories, and areas** in **three WHO regions**, with **182 deaths** and the **African Region** carrying the highest burden, followed by the **Eastern Mediterranean** and **South-East Asia** regions. WHO’s cholera upsurge tracker says the organization still considers the global risk **very high** and continues urgent response operations. By late July 2026, ECDC reported **132,313 cholera cases and 1,556 deaths globally since 1 January 2026**, with new cases reported from **Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Myanmar/Burma, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen**. The same update identified the largest case counts in the **Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Central African Republic, and Malawi**, while the largest new death counts were in **Sudan, DRC, Central African Republic, Angola, and Cameroon**.

Myanmar remains at high risk for measles transmission because conflict and displacement have left millions of people needing humanitarian assistance, while routine immunization and health services continue to be disrupted. UNICEF’s latest Myanmar humanitarian report says more than 3.3 million people are internally displaced and in need of life-saving assistance, and it has helped deliver first-stage measles-rubella vaccinations to more than 300,000 children under age one. The main concern is for children in conflict-affected and displaced communities, where missed vaccines, malnutrition, and limited access to care can make measles more severe and harder to control. Recent reporting does not provide a new Myanmar-wide case count or death tally, but historical national data show measles outbreaks clustered in underserved regions and linked to poor vaccination coverage, including 2,673 reported cases and 23 measles deaths from 2014 to 2018, with 85% of cases occurring in 2017–2018. UNICEF and WHO continue to emphasize measles vaccination, surveillance, and outbreak response as the key measures to prevent wider spread.

The core crisis is no longer the existence of an African Union ban, but weak enforcement of the 2024 continent-wide moratorium on slaughtering and exporting donkeys for their skins. The AU adopted the moratorium in February 2024, and AU-IBAR has since urged member states to implement it through national laws, monitoring systems, and a broader Pan-African strategy for donkey preservation and welfare. This matters because donkeys are critical working animals for transport, farming, and water collection in rural communities, so losses from theft, illegal slaughter, and trade directly affect livelihoods and local resilience. Recent reporting and sector updates show that implementation remains uneven. Brooke’s 2025 report says Chad issued a 10 June 2025 inter-ministerial decree banning donkey slaughter and export, but also notes enforcement is still largely ad hoc and depends on checkpoints, while other country-level guidance remains pending or inconsistently applied. Kenya remains a major warning case: the donkey slaughter ban was lifted by court decision in 2021, and independent reporting indicates this reopened legal slaughter for hides and meat linked to Asian markets, undercutting regional efforts to stop illegal trade. The result is a continuing welfare and livelihoods crisis across multiple countries, with underground trade, bush slaughter, theft, and cross-border trafficking reported where formal bans exist.

Pakistan’s stray dog crisis remains a major animal welfare and public health problem, with the strongest recent backlash centered in Punjab and Islamabad. In Punjab, reporting in mid-2026 said dog-bite incidents had surged, with officials citing nearly 150,000 bite cases in the previous six months, while another report quoted 436,408 bite incidents over 22 months across the province. In Lahore, the situation has been tied to continued culling despite Lahore High Court orders favoring humane control measures, and Dawn reported that the city still had more than 100,000 stray dogs roaming streets. Court intervention has intensified in 2026. The Islamabad High Court barred arbitrary killing of stray dogs and ordered a humane, science-based control policy centered on sterilization, vaccination, records, complaint mechanisms, and public awareness within 60 days. Across Pakistan, rights groups and veterinarians continue to argue that culling is ineffective and cruel, while the government’s implementation of Animal Birth Control-style measures remains inconsistent and under-resourced.

Turkey’s stray-dog crisis remains a major national animal-welfare dispute after the Constitutional Court rejected a bid to overturn the 2024 law requiring municipalities to collect stray dogs and place them in shelters for vaccination, sterilization, adoption, or euthanasia in limited cases. Reuters reported on May 7, 2025 that the court upheld the law, keeping in place a policy that critics say could enable mass killings, while the government says it is responding to public-safety concerns after dog attacks and other incidents. The scale of the issue is nationwide: multiple sources cite roughly 4 million stray dogs in Turkey, while shelter capacity is far smaller—one source says about 247 shelters with capacity for about 90,000 animals, and another says shelter space is a little over 100,000. Animal-welfare groups and veterinary organizations continue to warn that overcrowded, under-resourced shelters make humane implementation difficult and that sterilization-and-vaccination approaches are being undermined by enforcement pressure on municipalities.

South Korea’s dog-meat industry is in a legally mandated phase-out after the National Assembly unanimously passed a ban on the breeding, slaughter, trade, and sale of dogs for human consumption in January 2024, with full enforcement set for February 2027 after a three-year grace period. The law also immediately banned new dog-meat farms and related facilities, while requiring existing operators to report and submit phase-out plans, making the current crisis one of transition rather than immediate closure. The welfare problem remains acute because hundreds of thousands of dogs are still confined on farms and in supply-chain facilities while the industry winds down. Recent reporting cites about 468,000 dogs in cages nationwide and roughly 5,900 related businesses, while the BBC reported that 5,623 of South Korea’s 1,537 dog farms had ceased operations by June 2025, showing that closures are progressing but the system is not yet समाप्त. Animal welfare groups continue to describe severe confinement, poor sanitation, injuries, disease, malnutrition, and neglect at remaining sites, and shelters are already reported to be at or near capacity as governments and NGOs try to rehome surrendered dogs.

U.S. animal shelters and rescues handled an estimated 5.8 million dog and cat intakes in 2025, a 2% decline from 2024, but intake remained high enough that many organizations stayed at or near capacity. In the first half of 2025 alone, shelters took in about 2.8 million animals, down 4% year over year, with 84% of community intakes occurring in shelters rather than rescues. Nationally, 4.2 million animals were adopted in 2025, while about 597,000 animals were euthanized and 757,000 experienced non-live outcomes overall. The system showed modest improvement in lifesaving, with the national save rate rising to roughly 82% in 2025, but pressure persisted because intake volumes remained high and shelter stays were longer, especially for large dogs. Cats remained a major strain point: cat non-live outcomes increased in 2025, and young kittens were especially vulnerable, with 65% of cat non-live outcomes in the first half of 2025 involving kittens under five months old. Regional disparities also remained pronounced, with California, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and Alabama accounting for half of shelter deaths.

Tajikistan’s stray-animal crisis remains driven by the routine culling of street dogs, reported poisoning and other cruelty, and weak long-term animal welfare infrastructure. Recent reporting in 2026 says the country still lacks comprehensive animal-protection legislation, continues to address stray animals through culling, and has no state-run animal shelters, while the few private shelters and volunteer groups depend on donations and personal initiative. Earlier reporting also documented that regulation of strays has often relied on shooting, with activists describing mass poisoning and other abuse as recurring but rarely prosecuted. Legal changes have been limited. In 2022, Tajikistan’s parliament amended the veterinary law to introduce the concept of a shelter for stray animals, but reporting in 2024–2026 indicates that enforcement remains weak and that the country still does not have a dedicated comprehensive animal-protection law. Regional media also report that dog attacks on humans continue to drive public fear; one cited official estimate put annual dog attacks at about 12,000 cases and deaths at up to 15 per year, though these figures are from 2022 reporting rather than a newer nationwide statistical release.

Bali’s dog meat trade has moved from a largely unregulated market to one that is now formally prohibited: Animals Australia reports that Bali’s governor signed an order making the trading or distribution of dog meat illegal and a criminal offence, making Bali the first province in Indonesia with criminal penalties for this trade. Humane World for Animals says the trade remains a public-health concern because dogs of unknown disease status have been moved across provinces and islands, undermining rabies control efforts. Despite the ban, recent reporting still describes the underlying drivers of the crisis as unresolved, including weak enforcement, informal trading networks, and the continued use of dog slaughter within parts of the island. Earlier investigations and advocacy reporting estimated that tens of thousands of dogs were being killed in Bali each year, with figures ranging from about 60,000–70,000 annually to 100,000 annually depending on the source and year. The same reporting links the trade to theft, cruel transport and slaughter, and risks of rabies exposure, especially where dogs are moved without vaccination or disease screening.

Sudan is facing one of the world’s most severe education emergencies, driven by the war between the SAF and RSF and the collapse of basic services. UNICEF and related UN reporting describe nearly all school-aged children as unable to access quality learning, while Save the Children said in January 2026 that children had already missed nearly 500 days of learning since the conflict began in April 2023. Recent sources indicate that the scale remains extreme but the exact number of out-of-school children varies by source and date: UNICEF-linked reporting cited figures of about 17 million school-aged children affected, while UNESCO reported 19 million children out of school and the Education Cluster said the majority of schools are in active conflict or unstable zones. The most affected areas include Khartoum, Darfur, and North Darfur, where Save the Children reported only 3% of more than 1,100 schools open, and the crisis is also affecting displaced families across borders in neighboring countries. The education emergency is tightly linked to the wider humanitarian disaster: over 11 million people have been displaced, more than 25 million face acute hunger, and schools have been damaged, destroyed, occupied, or turned into shelters. Teachers have also been displaced or unpaid, worsening learning loss and increasing risks for children including recruitment, child labor, early marriage, exploitation, and malnutrition.

Sudan’s war has driven one of the world’s worst education emergencies, with UNICEF and UNESCO reporting that about 19 million children are out of school and that schools across the country have been closed, damaged, or turned into shelters since the conflict began in April 2023. Save the Children said in January 2026 that children had lost nearly 500 days of learning, and that more than 8 million children had missed about 484 days of classroom time, underscoring how prolonged the disruption has become. The crisis is nationwide but is especially severe in conflict-heavy and displacement-heavy areas, including North Darfur, West Kordofan, South Darfur, West Darfur, Khartoum, Darfur, and Kordofan, where schools remain closed or partially functional and displaced families are using school buildings for shelter. The Education Cluster reported that 54% of schools are in active conflict or unstable zones and 18% are being used as shelters, while UNICEF-linked reporting says more than 90% of school-age children have no access to formal education; UNICEF also said its education response faces a US$92 million funding gap to get children back to learning.

Education in Tigray, Ethiopia remains deeply disrupted despite the reopening of schools in May 2023. The European Commission said around 2.4 million school-aged children were denied education for three academic years and that 88% of school infrastructure was damaged; it also reported that only 40% of school-aged children had enrolled after reopening. Official and humanitarian reporting continues to describe poor school conditions, shortage of teaching and learning materials, and limited capacity to bring students back into classrooms. More recent assessments indicate that damage and access problems are still severe. The UK government’s December 2024 country note cited UN and cluster reporting that 22% of schools in assessed districts were occupied by Eritrean and Amhara forces and 4.2% were occupied by internally displaced people, with nearly 400 schools in western, southern, and north-western Tigray still inaccessible in some areas. Addis Standard also reported that only 660,000 students registered when schools reopened in 2023 out of an anticipated 2.4 million, leaving about 77% out of school, while thousands of teachers remained unaccounted for and many schools in western and southern areas were still inaccessible.

Myanmar’s education crisis remains severe in 2024–2025, driven by the 2021 military coup, ongoing conflict, and repeated attacks on schools. UNICEF said 3.7 million school-aged children lacked access to learning due to conflict and insecurity, while a July 2024 report quoted the junta’s own education figures showing more than 13,700 of 48,753 public schools were closed nationwide; in Chin State only 38 of about 1,500 schools remained open, and Sagaing Region had more than 4,200 closures. The crisis is compounded by the displacement of 2.7 million people, including children, and by a severe shortage of teachers and other education staff. Violence against education facilities has continued to intensify. Reporting in late 2024 cited 245 attacks on schools in 2022–23, 190 schools commandeered by the military, and 174 reports of serious violence against schools as of July 2024; Myanmar Witness attributed the military to 90 of 113 primary-dataset cases. Other reporting found that around 30% of teachers have been dismissed or are participating in the Civil Disobedience Movement, further limiting access to public schooling, while over 130,000 government teachers were still refusing to work for the military regime in 2024.

Tanzania’s education sector was disrupted after the disputed 29 October 2025 general elections, when protests, a nationwide internet blackout, and a 24-hour lockdown limited movement and access to schools, colleges, universities, and public transport. Human Rights Watch reported that the government imposed nationwide restrictions from 29 October to 3 November and that schools were closed during the unrest, while FIDH said authorities had closed schools, colleges, and public offices nationwide under a strict curfew and roadblocks. The disruption was most visible in Dar es Salaam and other cities where protests and security operations were concentrated, and reporting also showed that the reopening of universities scheduled for 3 November was postponed indefinitely. DW and other outlets reported that students were told to stay home, and BBC reported that schools were closed and public transport services were suspended, which would have made attendance difficult even where schools were not formally shut. As of the latest available reporting in March-April 2026, the broader crisis remained unresolved in terms of accountability and casualty totals: Human Rights Watch documented 31 bystander killings and said credible information suggested 19 more such deaths, while an appointed government commission later reported 518 deaths from the protests. The education-specific disruption appears to have been concentrated in late October and early November 2025, but the available sources do not provide a verified national count of school closures or a ministry-wide suspension order.

Nigeria remains one of the world’s largest education emergencies, with UNICEF reporting about **18.3 million** out-of-school children and major inequalities in access, attendance, and completion. The crisis is driven by poverty, insecurity, displacement, weak school funding, and overcrowded classrooms, and it is most severe in northern states and other fragile areas where attacks and fear of violence continue to disrupt schooling. Recent reporting continues to frame the issue as both a humanitarian and economic crisis: children who miss years of schooling are at higher risk of lifelong exclusion from formal work, child labor, early marriage, and recruitment by armed groups, while Nigeria loses future human capital and productivity. UNICEF Nigeria’s education programming remains focused on expanding access, improving learning, and supporting vulnerable children, but available sources do not show a rapid reduction in the scale of the crisis yet.

Food insecurity across West Africa and the Sahel is set to worsen sharply in the 2026 lean season. The latest Cadre Harmonisé analysis cited by FAO and WFP estimates that 41.8 million people were already facing Crisis or worse (IPC/CH Phase 3+), and that the number could rise to 52.8 million between June and August 2026 if urgent action is not taken. The crisis remains most severe in the Central Sahel and Lake Chad Basin, with conflict, displacement, climate shocks, inflation, and market disruption continuing to undermine access to food and livelihoods. FAO says the most at-risk countries include Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Niger, Guinea, Mali, Ghana, and Sierra Leone, while broader regional analysis also points to spreading pressure in coastal countries such as Senegal, Benin, and Togo. Humanitarian needs are rising faster than available resources. A regional humanitarian overview says 24.4 million people in the Sahel will require assistance in 2026, but only 19% of the needed US$3.7 billion had been secured by April 2026. UNICEF and regional humanitarian actors also warn that acute malnutrition risks remain high, especially for young children and conflict-affected communities.

Niger remains in a severe food insecurity crisis, with conflict, displacement, flooding, and poor market access continuing to drive acute hunger in the Tillabéri, Diffa, and northwestern Tahoua regions, and some households experiencing Emergency conditions (IPC/CH Phase 4). The latest FAO country brief estimates about 1.86 million people were acutely food insecure in the last quarter of 2025, while early projections point to about 2.42 million people facing acute food insecurity during the June-August 2026 lean season. The crisis is reinforced by displacement and livelihood disruption: FAO reports nearly 460,000 internally displaced people in Niger as of December 2025, and says about 85% of forcibly displaced people are concentrated in Tillabéri, Diffa, and Tahoua, increasing pressure on food stocks and host communities. FEWS NET says conflict-related insecurity continues to disrupt agricultural and pastoral production, supply chains, and market functioning, and that 2.5 to 2.9 million people will need food assistance in 2026, with the peak need expected between July and September. FAO also says 2.2 million people are likely to face high levels of acute food insecurity in 2026 and that it requires USD 32.5 million to assist 1.8 million people in Niger this year.

Haiti’s food crisis remains severe and is being driven by gang violence that continues to disrupt farming, transport, markets, and humanitarian access. The latest UN/IPC-backed reporting in late 2025 said 5.7 million people were in Crisis or worse (IPC Phase 3+) and projected that this would rise to 5.9 million by March 2026, with 1.9 million in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) and about 3.8 million in Crisis (IPC Phase 3). Recent UN reporting also says the crisis is concentrated in areas where violence and insecurity block mobility and livelihoods, including Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas, while the broader drivers include political instability, inflation, low agricultural production, and repeated displacement. The UN system described Haiti as needing urgent food assistance, with nearly five million people already requiring some form of food support and 1.64 million facing emergency hunger in earlier 2025 UN-backed analysis. The situation is further strained by armed groups’ control over key roads, ports, and access routes, which limits the movement of goods and aid and contributes to price increases and food shortages. Reuters reported in April 2026 that roughly 5.8 million Haitians were experiencing acute food insecurity, with more than 1.8 million in Emergency, and warned the total could approach 6 million as insecurity and economic shocks continued.

The Horn of Africa is entering a renewed climate-driven food-security crisis in 2026, but the latest evidence points to a mix of extreme dryness and localized flood risk rather than a single uniform shock. FAO reported in early 2026 that the October–December 2025 short rains had essentially failed across the eastern Horn, with many areas in Somalia, eastern Kenya, and southern Ethiopia receiving less than 60% of average rainfall and some places recording under 30%; FAO warned some locations were heading toward their driest season since 1981. ICPAC’s 2026 outlook adds that the region faces a dual-risk pattern this year: very dry conditions across much of the northern and central Greater Horn during July–September, followed by wetter-than-normal conditions and heightened flood potential in parts of the equatorial and southern zones later in the year. The drought shock is already translating into food insecurity, with FAO citing 2.1 million people at high levels of food insecurity in Kenya and 4.4 million in Somalia, and warning these figures could rise as the full impact of the failed rains becomes clear.

Madagascar continues to face a long-running migratory locust threat that can rapidly damage crops, pasture, and rural livelihoods, especially in agricultural and pastoral zones. FAO reporting says the plague has put the food and nutrition security and livelihoods of about 13 million people at risk, with severe episodes capable of infesting up to two-thirds of the island and causing major losses to rice and other staple crops. The most detailed figures in the provided sources are historical rather than 2025–2026 updates: an FAO/WFP mission found that by the end of February 1997 about 2 to 2.5 million hectares had been infested, while later assessments described losses in rice, maize, cassava, and pasture across southern, central, and northern zones. No supplied source confirms a new 2025–2026 escalation, so the most defensible current assessment is that the crisis remains structurally serious but without verified evidence of a recent surge.

Food insecurity remains a major crisis in North America, but the available recent data are strongest for the United States; in 2024, 13.7% of U.S. households, or 18.3 million households, were food insecure at some time, affecting 47.9 million people and 14.1 million children. The prevalence was not statistically different from 2023, indicating the crisis remains persistent rather than rapidly improving. The burden is unevenly distributed. In the United States, food insecurity is higher in Black and Latinx households, in rural areas, and in the South; Indigenous communities also experience disproportionately high rates, with some analyses estimating about 1 in 4 Native Americans face food insecurity. Recent reporting also shows food banks and anti-hunger organizations continue to face sustained demand, while climate-related drought, water scarcity, and supply-chain stress remain important drivers of food-system instability across the region.

Since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, Afghanistan has seen a sustained and expanding system of restrictions that has stripped women and girls of access to education, paid work, movement, political participation, and many public services. Recent reporting and human-rights advocacy describe these policies as an institutionalized regime of gender apartheid, with women from Hazara and other religious minorities facing compounded discrimination. The crackdown has deepened rather than eased. Amnesty International reported that women and girls were blocked from education beyond age 12, from working with UN agencies, NGOs, and state institutions, and from exercising basic rights to movement and expression, while the Taliban also imposed corporal punishment and other abusive penalties. Human Rights Watch reported in 2025 that the Taliban had banned education beyond sixth grade, imposed harsh restrictions on women’s paid employment, and enforced restrictive dress and chaperone rules; academic analysis in 2025 and 2026 described more than 100 edicts and a formalized system of control over nearly every aspect of women’s lives. In July 2025, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani for persecution on gender grounds, underscoring the international legal response to what Afghan women’s rights defenders call gender apartheid.

Women and girls in Gaza remain in a **severe gendered humanitarian emergency** driven by mass displacement, collapsing health and sanitation systems, and restricted humanitarian access. UN Women reported in April 2026 that **more than 38,000 women and girls** had been killed since October 2023, **nearly 11,000** had been injured, and many had been displaced multiple times; the agency also said **nearly 790,000 women and girls** in Gaza were facing crisis-level food insecurity or worse, and **over 540,000** lacked access to reproductive health care. UNFPA reported in 2025 that **46,300 pregnant women** were facing crisis levels of hunger, **155,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women** were struggling to access antenatal and postnatal care, and **690,000 menstruating women and adolescent girls** needed about **10.3 million menstrual pads per month**. UNFPA also said it had distributed **6.1 million menstrual pads** and **50,800 hygiene kits** since the war began, while the Gaza crisis remained constrained by shortages of transport, ambulance access, soap, toilets, and private wash facilities. The crisis has worsened since renewed blockade conditions and continued military operations caused further aid collapse in 2025, deepening hunger, disease risk, and protection threats for women and girls. UN and humanitarian reporting also identifies **pregnant and breastfeeding women**, **women heading households**, and **survivors of gender-based violence** as especially affected, with widespread displacement and damaged water, sanitation, and health infrastructure across the Gaza Strip.

Since *Dobbs*, abortion access in the United States remains highly fragmented by state law, and recent evidence shows the restrictions are harming broader reproductive and pregnancy care. Harvard public health experts say abortion bans do not eliminate need for care; they instead increase barriers, clinician stress, burnout, and provider exits from reproductive health fields. Guttmacher reports that post-*Dobbs* restrictions are also affecting contraception access and overall reproductive autonomy, with ripple effects across care systems. As of the latest available sources in 2026, restrictive state laws continue to constrain timely access through bans, gestational limits, travel burdens, and delays in miscarriage and emergency pregnancy care. Research summarized by the Milbank Quarterly found that clinicians in ban states report new constraints on miscarriage and pregnancy-emergency care, while reproductive-access organizations report worse maternal-health outcomes, including higher maternal mortality in more restrictive states and larger racial disparities. The main current policy risk is further restriction of medication abortion, telehealth, and federal enforcement theories involving the Comstock Act, which advocacy and policy groups warn could be used to curtail abortion pills and related supplies nationally.

Iran’s compulsory hijab enforcement remains an active nationwide gender-rights crackdown. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reported in April 2024 that police were carrying out a violent campaign against women and girls across Iran, including widespread arrests and harassment, many girls aged 15–17, and the use of surveillance cameras to identify women drivers who did not comply. The same UN briefing said hundreds of businesses had been forcibly closed for failing to enforce hijab rules, and that a draft bill was nearing approval with harsher penalties including prison terms, flogging, and fines. More recent reporting indicates the enforcement strategy has shifted rather than ended. Human Rights Watch said in its World Report 2026 that authorities continued to enforce compulsory hijab in 2025 through prosecutions, vehicle impoundments, business closures, and digital surveillance, while the law remained suspended but not repealed. The Center for Human Rights in Iran reported that at least 50 establishments were sealed between late June and early October 2025 for “improper hijab,” with closures, undercover agents, and surveillance increasingly replacing visible street patrols, especially outside Tehran. Amnesty International and UN experts also reported that the 2024 hijab law introduced or codified severe penalties, including long prison terms, fines, flogging, and in some cases the death penalty for related offenses, underscoring that the legal basis for enforcement remains in force.

Saudi Arabia has expanded women’s legal autonomy in some areas, including allowing women over 21 to obtain passports and travel abroad without a male guardian’s permission and to register births, marriages, and divorces. However, the broader male guardianship framework remains embedded in Saudi family law, and rights groups say it continues to shape women’s lives in marriage, divorce, custody, and some access-to-justice settings. The most recent major legal update came on 21 February 2025, when Saudi Arabia published implementing regulations for the Personal Status Law. Equality Now says these regulations strengthened certain protections by allowing courts to override an unreasonable guardian’s objection to marriage and letting women seek transfer of guardianship from an unjust or negligent guardian, including in some cases without a prospective suitor present. Even so, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and USCIRF continue to describe the system as discriminatory in practice, noting that women still face guardian-linked restrictions around marriage and other family-law matters, and that the law continues to privilege male guardianship in key areas.

Saudi Arabia has made partial reforms to its male guardianship framework, but women still face legally and socially enforced restrictions in family law, child guardianship, incarceration-related release procedures, and some healthcare decisions. Human Rights Watch says the 2022 Personal Status Law formally enshrined male guardianship by requiring women to obtain a guardian’s permission to marry and by keeping fathers as default guardians of children, while other restrictions persist despite earlier reforms on passports and travel. Recent reporting and rights-monitoring sources continue to describe the system as a major barrier to women’s autonomy. The UN’s independent rights experts said in 2019 that women still faced numerous restrictions after the travel reforms, including permission requirements to marry and leave shelters, and that more action was needed to fully dismantle guardianship controls. USCIRF also reported that Saudi law and practice have historically restricted women’s travel, marriage, university attendance, and access to medical care, with some reforms not fully eliminating the system.

The Great Barrier Reef experienced mass coral bleaching in 2024 and again in 2025, making this the second consecutive bleaching sequence on record after 2016–2017. AIMS states that the 2024 event was the reef’s fifth mass bleaching since 2016 and part of the fourth global coral bleaching event, which NOAA/ICRI declared in April 2024 after beginning in 2023. AIMS’ 2024/25 condition summary says the 2024 event had the largest spatial footprint ever recorded on the GBR, with high to extreme bleaching across all three reef regions. In 2025, the reef experienced its sixth mass bleaching since 2016; AIMS reported 281 reefs were surveyed across the Torres Strait, the northern GBR, and parts of the central region, and that regional coral-cover declines in 2025 ranged from 14% to 30% compared with 2024, with some reefs losing up to 70.8% of coral cover. NOAA’s global update says bleaching-level heat stress from 1 January 2023 to 30 September 2025 affected about 84.4% of the world’s coral reef area and that mass bleaching has been documented in at least 83 countries and territories.

Indonesia’s coral reefs remain under severe pressure from marine heat stress and bleaching, alongside long-standing local threats such as destructive fishing, pollution, sedimentation, and coastal development. Recent scientific and reporting sources continue to describe widespread reef degradation in Indonesia and across the wider Coral Triangle, with elevated sea temperatures driving mass bleaching and reducing coral cover, fish habitat, and ecosystem services. The crisis is especially important because Indonesia sits at the center of global marine biodiversity, and reef loss can reduce fish nursery habitat, weaken shoreline protection, and harm tourism and coastal livelihoods. Source material also identifies destructive practices such as blast fishing and cyanide fishing, as well as land-based runoff and coastal construction, as persistent drivers of reef decline in Indonesia. However, the provided search results do not include a recent 2025–2026 national reef-cover estimate or a verified countrywide mortality figure, so the latest quantitative severity is not fully established from the available sources.

Madagascar’s Grand South remains in a serious drought-driven food security crisis, with FEWS NET reporting that most districts in the Grand South, parts of the Grand Southeast, and cyclone-affected east-coast districts were still in Crisis (IPC Phase 3) in May 2026 because of below-average crop production, livelihood losses, and recovery needs after severe weather shocks. FEWS NET also reported that more than 20% of households in the affected areas had borderline or poor food consumption, while over 30% were using negative coping strategies such as selling productive assets and livestock, borrowing food, or consuming immature crops. The latest IPC snapshot shows the crisis has broadened beyond the southern drought zone: around 2.12 million people were in IPC Phase 3 or above during June–September 2026, including more than 183,000 in IPC Phase 4 (Emergency), with the worst conditions concentrated in the Grand South, especially Androy region and districts such as Tsihombe, Ampanihy Ouest, Bekily, Beloha, Ambovombe-Androy, Antanimora Sud, and Amboasary Atsimo. The same assessment says the overall national caseload improved from 2.57 million in March–May 2026, but the Grand South worsened in relative terms, and conditions are expected to deteriorate again in October 2026–February 2027 to about 3.72 million people in Phase 3 or above.

The Mekong Delta continues to lose wetlands, shorelines, and riverbanks because of sediment starvation, sand mining, groundwater extraction, upstream hydropower, and climate stressors such as drought and sea-level rise. IUCN says wetland loss in the Lower Mekong threatens biodiversity, fisheries, water security, infrastructure, and livelihoods for nearly a quarter of a billion people across five countries. In Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, recent and longer-term studies show severe ecological decline. Research has found mangrove area fell from 185,800 hectares in 1973 to 102,160 hectares in 2020, while a review found that less than 5% of the Delta’s natural wetlands remain. Another study links rapid shoreline erosion to reduced sediment supply, large-scale sand mining, and groundwater-driven subsidence, with erosion affecting more than 300 km of shoreline and over 50% of the more than 600 km coast during 2003–2012. Agricultural livelihoods are also under pressure from salinity intrusion and drought. Recent research on Vietnamese Mekong Delta paddy fields reports cumulative paddy loss of 542.98 thousand hectares and net loss of 152.55 thousand hectares from 2000 to 2022, with indirect drivers accounting for 74.86% of losses when urban conversion is excluded. World Bank-linked material cited in the literature reports groundwater extraction-induced subsidence of 1.0–4.7 cm/year in 1991–2016, reinforcing the risk of continued land loss and infrastructure damage.

Global biodiversity loss remains a major and worsening environmental crisis, driven by habitat loss and degradation, land-use change, overexploitation, invasive alien species, pollution, and climate change. The World Health Organization says invasive alien species contribute to 60% of species extinctions and cause about US$423 billion in global economic damage each year, while biodiversity loss overall is estimated to cost the global economy about US$10 trillion annually. Recent evidence continues to show severe ecological decline. WWF’s Living Planet Report 2024 found that monitored wildlife populations declined by an average of 73% since 1970, including an 83% decline in freshwater populations. The European Central Bank also notes that biodiversity loss is highly non-linear and can create large knock-on economic risks, including disruption to ecosystem services such as water filtration, flood protection, pollination, and climate regulation. Policy response remains centered on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, but implementation gaps persist. The main affected regions include tropical forests and biodiversity hotspots in Latin America, Africa, and Asia-Pacific, as well as freshwater, wetland, and marine systems worldwide. High-income consumption patterns also drive biodiversity pressure through trade-linked deforestation and ecosystem conversion.

Ocean dead zones are low-oxygen coastal and marine areas that can no longer support most marine life. The latest sources confirm that the main human-driven causes remain nutrient pollution from agricultural runoff, sewage, and industrial waste, which fuels algal blooms; when the algae die, decomposition consumes oxygen. NOAA and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution both state that warming waters worsen the problem because warmer water holds less dissolved oxygen and stronger stratification reduces vertical mixing and oxygen replenishment. The problem is global and persistent. NOAA describes nutrient pollution as the primary human cause of dead zones, and a widely cited synthesis reported more than 400 dead zones worldwide and a spread that has accelerated since the 1960s. The Baltic Sea remains one of the largest and most persistent hotspots because its semi-enclosed geography limits water exchange, while the Gulf of Mexico continues to experience large seasonal hypoxia linked to Mississippi River nutrient runoff; NOAA’s 2026 forecast was 5,574 square miles, above the long-term average of 5,244 square miles. The issue affects fisheries, biodiversity, and coastal economies, and the scale of human dependence on ocean resources remains very large, but a precise global population directly exposed to dead zones is not available in the sources reviewed.

Iran’s water crisis remained severe and deepened through late 2025 and into 2026, driven by a multi-year drought, falling rainfall, depleted reservoirs, and long-term groundwater overuse. Reporting in late 2025 described Iran’s sixth consecutive year of drought, rainfall as much as 40%–45% below long-term averages, and Tehran’s main water-supply dams falling to around 10%–12% of capacity, with Amir Kabir Dam reported near 8% in November 2025. The crisis is affecting cities, farms, and industrial users at the same time. Recent reporting says officials warned Tehran could face water rationing or even evacuation if rainfall did not improve, while at least 19 dams were reported near depletion or dry in late 2025 and protests followed in December 2025 and January 2026 over worsening living conditions. Analysts also continue to describe Iran as one of the world’s most water-stressed countries, with agriculture consuming the vast majority of water, widespread groundwater depletion, and land subsidence in major basins and urban areas.

A July 2025 Science Advances study using NASA GRACE/GRACE-FO satellite data found unprecedented continental terrestrial water storage loss since 2002, with drying areas expanding by about twice the size of California each year and clustering into four major Northern Hemisphere drying regions. The study reported that groundwater depletion accounts for 68% of water-storage loss in non-glaciated regions and that continental freshwater losses now contribute more to sea-level rise than the ice sheets, underscoring a major long-term shift in Earth’s water balance. The same study concluded that since 2002, 75% of the global population in 101 countries has experienced freshwater losses, indicating broad exposure across North America, Central America, Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, China, Southeast Asia, northern Canada, and northern Russia. NASA’s GRACE-FO materials also note that Earth’s total freshwater dropped abruptly starting in May 2014 and has stayed low since then, consistent with an acceleration in drying around 2014–2015. Recent reporting in 2025 has continued to highlight the severity of the trend, including a review of GRACE satellite studies that describes accelerating terrestrial water storage losses and persistent groundwater depletion. The available evidence supports treating this as a worsening global freshwater-security crisis affecting agriculture, sanitation, food systems, and economic stability.

The global water crisis remains a severe, long-running humanitarian and development emergency. The latest WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme update says **2.1 billion people** still lack **safely managed drinking water**, **3.4 billion** lack **safely managed sanitation**, and **1.7 billion** lack **basic hygiene services** as of 2024. UNICEF’s data also shows that in 2022, **2.2 billion** people lacked safely managed drinking-water services, including **1.5 billion** with only basic services and **115 million** still collecting drinking water directly from rivers, lakes, or other surface water sources. The crisis is unevenly distributed and is worst in poorer, fragile, and water-stressed settings. WHO says people in least developed countries are more than twice as likely to lack basic drinking water and sanitation services, and more than three times as likely to lack basic hygiene services; in fragile contexts, safely managed drinking-water coverage is **38 percentage points lower** than in other countries. The World Bank says people with low access to drinking water services are concentrated in **Sub-Saharan Africa**. The United Nations warns that water scarcity affects every continent, and recent UN reporting continues to link the problem to climate change, drought, weak infrastructure, and unequal access to investment.

Europe’s water scarcity problem has intensified in 2026, with drought and heat lowering river, reservoir, soil, and groundwater levels across multiple regions. Reuters reported on July 23, 2026 that climate change is exacerbating this year’s drought, disrupting shipping, farming, and industry in countries including Romania and Greece, while the Netherlands declared a water shortage and seven Greek islands declared drought emergencies to protect supplies. CNN also reported that the Dutch government announced an official water deficit on July 17, 2026, raising its drought response to Level 2. The crisis is no longer confined to southern Europe. Recent reporting says low water levels on the Rhine and Danube have reached record lows in some areas, affecting shipping, tourism, and energy production across central and eastern Europe, with Hungary and Romania reportedly shutting down nuclear reactors that rely on Danube cooling water. Euronews reported on June 29, 2026 that Cyprus remains the EU’s most extreme case, using 72% of its freshwater resources annually and up to 92% in summer, while Malta uses 33% annually and several Mediterranean countries remain in the EU’s warning zone. The European Environment Agency has previously said water scarcity affects a large share of EU land and population, and that climate change is likely to make shortages more frequent and severe.

Pacific Island countries continue to face a severe water security crisis driven by drought, saltwater intrusion, contamination, and fragile water infrastructure. UNDP says communities across Pacific Island countries are still grappling with limited access to safe drinking water, and that climate change is intensifying the problem through rising sea levels, prolonged droughts, and extreme weather that threaten freshwater sources and increase groundwater salinity. The Pacific Community (SPC) also reported in February 2024 that Pacific Island countries met to discuss water scarcity, underscoring that water remains scarce in many parts of the region and that rising sea levels are threatening freshwater supplies. The crisis is especially acute in low-lying atoll states such as Kiribati, Tuvalu, and the Marshall Islands, where small freshwater lenses, limited storage, and high exposure to drought and storm surge make even short dry spells disruptive. A World Bank review found that Pacific water systems are also weakened by pollution, overpumping, and high leakage in urban pipe networks, while inadequate sanitation and waste disposal can be a major hazard to water quality. In Papua New Guinea and parts of Fiji and other island states, population growth, urban drift, and ageing infrastructure further strain supply and raise the risk of service interruptions.

Pakistan’s 2025 monsoon flood emergency caused more than 1,000 deaths by late September, with the highest reported losses in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab. ReliefWeb’s post-season update, citing national authorities and UN humanitarian reporting, said the final nationwide death toll reached 1,037, with 504 deaths in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 304 in Punjab, alongside 1,067 injuries. Earlier UN reporting in August already described a fast-escalating disaster with 739 deaths, more than 978 injuries, and widespread destruction of homes and livestock as heavy rains and flash floods continued. The floods affected at least 6.9 million people by the end of September, with major impacts in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Sindh. Damage included more than 229,700 homes destroyed or partially damaged, about 2,811 km of roads affected, and 790 bridges damaged, while millions were displaced at the peak of the crisis. Relief and early recovery planning for October 2025 to April 2026 sought US$151 million to assist 1.6 million people in 14 priority districts, indicating that the humanitarian and recovery needs remained substantial after the floodwaters receded.

The vaquita (*Phocoena sinus*) remains the world’s most endangered marine mammal and is found only in the northern Gulf of California, Mexico. The most recent monitoring efforts in 2025 reported between 7 and 10 individuals, including calves, and expert summaries now place the likely remaining population at about 6 to 19 animals, meaning the species is in immediate danger of extinction. The main threat remains illegal gillnet fishing, especially nets set for totoaba, whose swim bladders are trafficked for black-market demand. Vaquitas are killed as bycatch when they become entangled in these nets, and recent reports continue to stress that the species’ survival depends on fully eliminating gillnets from its habitat. Conservation monitoring in 2025 also found signs of reproduction, including calves and at least one likely pregnant female, which offers limited hope if enforcement can keep fishing gear out of the protected area.

The global mental health crisis remains severe: WHO’s 2025 reporting says more than 1 billion people are living with a mental disorder, and most people still do not receive effective care. WHO says access is especially poor in low-income countries, where fewer than 10% of affected people receive care, compared with over 50% in higher-income countries. WHO also reports that only 71% of countries meet at least three of five criteria for integrating mental health into primary care, while fewer than 10% have fully transitioned to community-based care models. The system-level gaps remain large. WHO says mental health needs are high but responses are insufficient, with major shortages in workforce, resources, and quality of care. In the United States, NAMI reports that 52.1% of adults with mental illness received treatment in 2024, and 120+ million people live in designated Mental Health Professional Shortage Areas. WHO has also emphasized that depression and anxiety are the most common disorders globally, while the service gap is still wide even in high-income countries.

The Cao-vit gibbon (*Nomascus nasutus*) remains one of the world’s rarest apes and is still classified as **Critically Endangered**. The best recent estimates put the global wild population at **74 individuals in 11 family groups**, based on 2023 research using vocal fingerprinting; researchers and conservation groups say this is a more precise count rather than evidence of a recent crash. The species is confined to a single transboundary karst forest patch on the Vietnam-China border, making it highly vulnerable to disease, inbreeding, and any local disturbance. Recent conservation reporting indicates the population may be **stable or slowly increasing**, with Fauna & Flora noting new groups formed in recent years and 2025 reporting an infant sighting during patrols in Cao Bằng, Vietnam. At the same time, experts warn that the current habitat is far too small for long-term recovery: one assessment says the protected forest can support **no more than about 200 gibbons even in the best case**, so habitat restoration, forest corridor creation, and transboundary management remain urgent priorities.

The Gobi Desert remains a major desertification hotspot in northern China and southern Mongolia, but the most recent credible sources in the search results do **not** confirm that the expansion is still 3,600 km² per year. Older and secondary sources cite that figure for grassland loss in China, while newer material indicates China’s Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program has slowed or even reversed desert expansion in some areas, with one source stating the Gobi was shrinking by more than 2,000 km² per year in 2022. Another source notes the program has been effective at halting desert expansion and reducing dust-storm impacts, though it does not provide a 2025-2026 pan-regional loss estimate. The crisis still affects agriculture, grazing land, and air quality across northern China and Mongolia, where desertification is driven by overgrazing, soil erosion, water depletion, and climate change. Reported impacts include damage to farmland, dust storms affecting Beijing and other eastern cities, and broader land degradation across parts of Central Asia, but the exact current annual loss of farmland and the size of the affected population are not verified by the recent sources provided.

The Philippines remains one of the world’s largest sources of marine plastic pollution. The World Bank says the country leaks **more than 0.3 million metric tons** of plastic into the ocean each year, equal to **8.8% of mismanaged plastic waste**, and it also estimates about **1.7 million tonnes of post-consumer plastic waste** are generated annually. Earlier country profiles and studies also reported that the Philippines generates roughly **2.7 million metric tons** of plastic waste per year, with about **20%** entering marine environments. The crisis is concentrated in river and coastal systems and is closely linked to inadequate waste collection, rapid urbanization, and heavy use of single-use plastics. The World Bank identifies the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia as major contributors to ocean plastic pollution in the **East Asia and Pacific** region, while recent Ocean Cleanup activity has focused on **Manila Bay** to intercept waste before it reaches the sea. Recent secondary reporting also notes that the Philippines and India remain the top two national sources in annual ocean-plastic estimates, with the Philippines at roughly **356,371 to 360,000 metric tons** and India at roughly **126,513 to 130,000 metric tons** per year.

Since Telangana’s December 2025 gram panchayat elections, multiple reports have described the alleged killing of hundreds of stray dogs across several districts, with methods including poisoning and lethal injections. Police figures cited by media outlets confirm at least 354 deaths and later at least 500 deaths, while activists say the toll is much higher, with some estimates reaching around 1,000 to 1,200 or more. The killings have been reported in Jagtial, Hanamkonda, Kamareddy, Shayampet/Arepally, Nagarkurnool, and Yacharam, with carcasses found buried in pits in some villages. Authorities have opened investigations and filed FIRs against village sarpanchs, secretaries, contractors, and other alleged participants under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, while police and veterinary teams continue forensic and post-mortem work.

Sub-Saharan Africa remains the world’s largest electricity access gap, with roughly 560 million people still lacking electricity in 2024 and the region accounting for about 85% to 86% of the global population without power. Recent reporting shows the global total without electricity stood at 655 million in 2024, while progress in Sub-Saharan Africa has slowed because electricity connections are not keeping pace with rapid population growth. The crisis is concentrated in fragile and low-income countries, and it affects both households and economies through frequent outages, load-shedding, and poor supply quality even for connected users. The rural deficit in Sub-Saharan Africa rose from 376 million in 2010 to 447 million in 2024, and the pace of electrification must triple to reach universal access by 2030. The region also includes 18 of the 20 countries with the largest electricity access deficits, with Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Ethiopia among the biggest gaps.

Pangolin trafficking remains extensive despite Appendix I protections, with the latest CITES/IUCN reporting indicating that between 2016 and 2024, seizures of pangolin products involved an estimated 553,042 pangolins across 75 countries and 178 trade routes. Pangolin scales accounted for 99% of confiscated parts, and seizure data likely captures only a fraction of total trafficking because many shipments are never detected. Recent analysis also shows that illegal trade remains highly organized and concentrated along major routes linking African source countries to Asian destination markets. China and Viet Nam are identified as the main alleged destinations, while Nigeria, Mozambique, Cameroon, and the Congo are key alleged origin countries; one Africa-focused analysis found Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo were major exporters, with China, Vietnam, and Singapore as major importers. All eight pangolin species remain threatened or near threatened in the latest conservation assessments, and trafficking is compounded by habitat loss and slow reproductive rates, limiting recovery. The most recent reporting suggests enforcement is still inadequate, but there are signs of targeted law-enforcement and policy response: at least 709 arrests and 188 convictions were recorded from information supplied by nine parties since 2017, and Nigeria has continued moving toward harsher penalties through its Endangered Species Bill.

Iowa’s manure-pollution crisis remains severe in 2025-2026, with state records and recent reporting showing continued illegal discharges, widespread water impairment, and weak enforcement. Food & Water Watch says the Iowa Department of Natural Resources documented 179 manure discharge violations from 2013-2023, and an updated 2025 analysis says Iowa factory farms produce about 109 billion pounds of manure annually, while more than half of Iowa’s rivers and streams were classified as impaired in 2024. Recent reporting indicates the problem is still active: from 2024 to 2025, the DNR reported 13 manure-discharge incidents directly into state waterways, and in 2025 regulators identified 38 agricultural NPDES permit violators while only one was fined, suggesting limited deterrence. The health and financial impacts remain significant, including nitrate contamination in drinking water, fish kills totaling about 1.9 million over the last decade, and cleanup costs for some utilities reaching around $9,000 to $10,000 per day during high-nitrate periods.

U.S. laboratory animal use **declined in 2024** in the subset of species and facilities reported under USDA rules: 776 facilities reported **851,898 animals**, and when birds are excluded for comparability, the total was **763,026**, down from **844,915** in 2023, a nearly **10% drop**. The decline was broad-based, including fewer guinea pigs, dogs, cats, rabbits, nonhuman primates, hamsters, pigs, and sheep, while the only reported increase was in the “Other animals” category. The reporting still captures only a **partial** picture of U.S. animal research, because purpose-bred mice, rats, fish, and some birds remain excluded from USDA reporting requirements; PETA estimates that mice and rats alone number **111 million** in laboratories, and more than **775 thousand** animals were still held captive in laboratories or used in experiments in the reported category in 2024. Painful or distressing experiments without pain relief remained a major concern, with **56,601** animals in that category in the NAVS analysis. Policy momentum is shifting toward non-animal methods: the FDA announced a plan to **phase out animal testing requirements** for monoclonal antibodies and other drugs using AI, cell-based systems, and organoids, and has begun implementation for IND applications. Humane World for Animals also reports that EPA recommitted to a plan to phase out mammal testing for chemical and pesticide tests by **2035**, indicating that federal agencies are increasingly moving toward alternative methods even as large numbers of animals are still used.

Haiti experienced a renewed cholera surge in 2025, with health authorities recording 2,852 suspected cases, 186 confirmed cases, and 48 deaths between January 1 and October 30, 2025. The outbreak has been concentrated in and around Port-au-Prince in the West department, with localized spread also reported in other communes and departments, including Pétion-Ville, Delmas, Cité Soleil, Léogâne, Carrefour, Artibonite, Centre, Nippes, Nord, and Sud-Est. The resurgence is occurring amid severe insecurity, major displacement, and weak water and sanitation services. Human Rights Watch reported that more than 1.4 million people were displaced in 2025, many into overcrowded settlements with limited clean water and sanitation, while the UN has estimated that only 25% of households have sufficient handwashing facilities with soap and 70% lack improved sanitation. PAHO and partners have supported surveillance, treatment, chlorination, and hygiene efforts in displacement sites, but case control remains difficult where gang violence restricts humanitarian access and health services are only partially functional.