Notwithstanding last minute shenanigans and the possibility of backroom deals by powerful states, two women from Latin America are leading contenders in the race for the UN’s next Secretary-General.

By Asal Abasian, exiled Iranian human rights researcher, journalist and queer feminist writer and Ines Pousadela, CIVICUS Head of Research and Analysis, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

By Mandeep Tiwana, CIVICUS Secretary General and Susan Marx, Chiefs Programmes Officer Across authoritarian regimes and even democracies, state apparatuses frequently achieve the same outcome through formal legal machinery: weaponizing extraordinary counterterror statutes in the name of national security, imposing endless pre-trial detention, and relying on procedural delays to remove dissenting voices from the public sphere.

By Jesselina Rana, UN Advisor The annual High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) brings together government officials, civil society, and UN agencies to assess progress on the SDGs.