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Presented by Adobe for Nonprofits | A drone attack in Ukraine whistles past a high-ranking UN official.
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You can’t fix what you can’t see — and new gaps in a major data network designed to aid response to humanitarian crises are making the world’s famines harder to see. Also in today’s edition: A new candidate for the U.N. secretary-general role throws her MAGA-esque hat into the ring.  On Sept. 21-24, Devex Impact House returns to UNGA and New York Climate Week for four days of live journalism, high-level convenings, and candid conversations. From the role of AI in transforming global development to the next chapter of multilateralism and the growing influence of private capital, we will unpack what it takes to build resilience in an increasingly volatile world. Request an in-person invitation or sign up for on-demand content here.
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Hunger goes unseen
Some of the world’s worst hunger crises are no longer showing up in America’s leading famine warning system. The Famine Early Warning Systems Network, aka FEWS NET, has ceased reporting on Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen — three countries where an estimated 27.5 million people need food assistance. That means all three are missing from FEWS NET’s latest assessment of the world’s most urgent food crises. Gaza is absent too, continuing a reporting gap that first emerged under the Biden administration in late 2024. “If you take out three of the countries of highest concern, you are skewing the global assessment of need,” one person familiar with FEWS NET tells my colleague Elissa Miolene. “That’s the fundamental problem here.” And FEWS NET matters. Created by USAID in 1985, it became the gold standard for spotting hunger emergencies early enough for governments and humanitarian groups to respond. One in 3 Afghans is facing acute food insecurity, while 1 in 4 children screened by Médecins Sans Frontières in southwestern Somalia is severely malnourished. Nor is this only about FEWS NET. Funding cuts and restrictions on data collection are opening gaps across humanitarian monitoring systems, meaning some of the world’s most serious crises are becoming harder to track just as resources to respond to them are dwindling. The World Bank recently estimated that about 1 in 3 people in crisis-affected areas were excluded from official monitoring coverage, and a U.N. report on the availability of humanitarian data found that information was weaker on food security than any other category it assessed. Read: Famine tracker stops monitoring Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen 
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Baki-n action
The race for U.N. secretary-general just got a bit more crowded. Ivonne A-Baki, a multilingual Ecuadorian politician and diplomat with family roots in Lebanon, has entered the race to lead the world body, nominated by Tonga.
Baki, who served as Ecuador’s foreign trade minister and its first woman ambassador to Washington, D.C., has been running an informal campaign for the top U.N. role throughout the year, highlighting her experience in conflict resolution and offering flattering praise for U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace efforts. She’s the second Ecuadorian national in the race, though neither Baki nor María Fernanda Espinosa have been nominated by the Ecuadorian government. Baki’s formal entry comes just days before the 15-nation U.N. Security Council is set to hold its second informal straw poll on Aug. 21, which will assess the prospects of the now eight candidates vying for the top diplomatic post. In a previous round, Costa Rican candidate Rebeca Grynspan led the field with 10 members of the council voting to encourage her to continue her bid, and only one voting to discourage her. It remains unclear whether any of the five permanent members of the council with veto power cast the discourage vote, which could signal an intent to disallow her candidacy. It is also unclear whether Baki has the support of Trump. The U.S. president is reported to have a warm relationship with the Ecuadorian aspirant, who helped organize the 2004 Miss Universe pageant in Quito, Ecuador — run by the Miss Universe Organization, which was owned by Trump at the time — Devex Senior Global Reporter Colum Lynch writes. Either way, she has taken to sporting a blue and white “Make the UN Great Again” cap. In nominating Baki, Viliami Va’inga Tōnē, Tonga’s U.N. ambassador, highlighted her “two decades” of public service, noting that “she is well placed to engage all Member States and to serve as an impartial, accessible and effective steward of the Charter.” |
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Under drone fire
An armed drone struck a municipal building in Kherson, Ukraine, while the U.N.’s emergency relief coordinator, Tom Fletcher, and his team were receiving a briefing on war-time conditions in the town, according to a well-placed humanitarian source. The U.N. team was not injured, Colum writes.
Fletcher, the U.N. under-secretary-general general for humanitarian affairs, was touring the town, which sits across a river from the Russian frontline, on Tuesday to draw attention to the plight of residents, who have been subject to daily barrages of drone attacks from Russian troops, as well as the risks humanitarian aid workers face in the field on the eve of World Humanitarian Day. Fletcher drove to Kherson from the town of Mykolaiv along a highway, known locally as the “Road of Death,” and toured the town that has become internationally recognizable for the extensive web of netting that helps prevent drones from reaching their targets. Fletcher and his team met with the regional governor and visited a hospital as bombs could be heard exploding in the background. At one point, the U.N. relief coordinator was forced to make a dash from the hospital to safety. He also met with survivors of drone attacks, and witnessed an older woman receiving training on how to tend to trauma victims. “Today in the south of the country, Fletcher visited the regions of Mykolaiv and Kherson,” according to a statement issued by OCHA. “In Kherson, he met displaced families at collective sites and heard from patients at the regional hospital about the psychological toll of living in front-line areas. Among the patients were victims of drone attacks who suffered severe physical injuries and amputations.” Background reading: Inside the effort to finance Ukraine’s development at war |
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‘Good, big heart’
The global development community has lost one of its most respected figures. Gautam Kaji, former World Bank managing director whose three-decade career spanned Africa, Asia, and the institution’s top ranks, died Aug. 14 in McLean, Virginia.
Born in Mumbai and educated at the Wharton School, Kaji rose through the World Bank to become vice president for East Asia and the Pacific and later managing director. Along the way, he helped steer major programs in South Korea, Indonesia, and the Philippines during a period of extraordinary economic transformation. But colleagues remember more than the billions mobilized or policies shaped, writes Vinod Thomas in an obituary for Devex. Kaji had a reputation for cutting through development jargon, listening carefully, and then saying exactly what he thought — while never losing sight of the people the work was supposed to help. Former Filipino finance secretary Jesus Estanislao once captured it simply: “He is a man with a good, big heart.” That influence continued long after Kaji left the World Bank in 1997, through the Centennial Group, Emerging Markets Forum, and private sector roles. For a generation of development professionals, his legacy was as much about how to do the job — with clarity, courage, empathy, and integrity — as what he accomplished while doing it. Read: Remembering Gautam Kaji — a World Bank leader who put people first |
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Tax talks gather steam
Negotiators wrapped the fifth round of talks on a U.N. Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation in New York last week, capping 10 days that pushed forward one of the most ambitious efforts yet to rewrite global tax rules.
The negotiations, launched by the Africa group and backed by other low- and middle-income countries, aim to replace a fragmented patchwork of bilateral tax treaties with a unified framework, potentially unlocking hundreds of billions in revenue for development, climate, and public services. The first week centered on a newly released zero draft of the framework convention, while the second focused on two early protocols — one on taxing cross-border digital services, the other on preventing and resolving tax disputes. Civil society groups tracking the process said the discussions showed genuine momentum on long-stuck issues such as how countries share taxing rights over multinationals and how to tax wealthy individuals more effectively. “Countries are pushing us towards a more fair and equitable international tax system,” said Dereje Alemayehu, executive coordinator of the Global Alliance for Tax Justice, at the close of the fifth session. However, he also noted that global south countries drove most of the ambition while many global north delegations held back — despite what could be a beneficial deal for them. Talks now move to a written-comments phase, with governments and stakeholders submitting feedback on the draft texts before an updated version is released ahead of the next negotiating session set for Nov. 30-Dec. 11 in Nairobi. The full process is expected to run through mid-2027. Related: UN tax talks reach critical stage as global south pushes for fairer rules |
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In other news
Aid worker attacks hit a record high in 2025 with 907 killed, injured, or kidnapped, the U.N. says, with Gaza being the deadliest location. [Reuters] Matthias Schmale, the U.N.’s representative in Ukraine, warns the organization is no longer “fit for purpose” and risks collapse, citing the Security Council’s veto system and Russia’s ability to block action despite violating the U.N. Charter. [The Telegraph] The U.N. is scaling up aid for more than 100,000 people after a 7.4-magnitude earthquake in western Colombia killed 304 people, injured 4,400, and destroyed more than 26,500 homes. [UN News]
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Thank you for reading today’s Newswire, edited by Fiona Zublin, copy edited by Nicole Tablizo, and produced by Adia Pauline Lim. Have a news tip? Email [email protected].
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