Focus on the Global South

15/07/2026

10/07/2026

🆕 June 2026 is out. From ISDS in trade deals to nuclear revival and mega-dams, this edition traces how decisions over trade, energy, and digital life are pulled further from public hands — and how movements are pushing back ✊

You can read our June 2026 edition of FOCUS Dispatch on the link here: https://mailchi.mp/2dbad60e32c5/focus-dispatch-april-2026-for-our-dead-not-a-moment-of-silence-but-a-lifetime-of-struggle-10150941.

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03/07/2026

18/06/2026

On the anniversary of the historic Welgang Bayan against the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), CSOs, environmental defenders, and community groups renewed their opposition to reviving the facility and expanding nuclear energy development in the Philippines.

Read at https://focusweb.org/civil-society-groups-mark-anniversary-of-welgang-bayan-against-bnpp-renew-call-to-reject-nuclear-revival/

11/06/2026

🆕 NEW ARTICLE: Invisible by Design: How the EU-Philippines FTA Protects Algorithms, Weakens Workers, and Locks In Digital Dependency

Sentro ng mga Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa - Sentro and Trade Justice - Pilipinas Critique on the Digital Trade Chapter of the EU-Philippines FTA

Read at https://focusweb.org/invisible-by-design-how-the-eu-philippines-fta-protects-algorithms-weakens-workers-and-locks-in-digital-dependency/

04/06/2026

🆕 May 2026 is out. From India's labor rights rollback to ASEAN civil society demanding accountability, this edition traces how workers and communities resist the systems that deepen precarity and dispossession — movements continue to resist ✊

You can read our May 2026 edition of FOCUS Dispatch on the link here: https://mailchi.mp/3943ba343428/focus-dispatch-april-2026-for-our-dead-not-a-moment-of-silence-but-a-lifetime-of-struggle-10150503.

Don't miss out on future issues — subscribe to our newsletter and get the Dispatch straight to your inbox!

📮Learn more and subscribe at https://focusweb.org/publications/focus-dispatch.

14/05/2026

14 May 2026, Quezon City — More than 40 civil society organizations (CSOs) from across Southeast Asia gathered in Quezon City on 13–14 May 2026 for the Regional Consultative Meeting (RCM) of the ASEAN Civil Society Conference/ASEAN Peoples’ Forum (ACSC/APF), calling on ASEAN governments to move beyond rhetoric and take urgent action on the region’s worsening political, economic, social, and environmental crises.

Participants from Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam adopted the theme for this year’s Forum: “Resist Business as Usual: Disrupt, Reclaim, Rebuild.”

Established in 2005, the ACSC/APF serves as a regional platform for civil society organizations, grassroots movements, and peoples’ organizations engaging with ASEAN processes and member states’ policies and actions.

The meeting highlighted urgent concerns confronting Southeast Asian peoples, including shrinking civic spaces, attacks on democracy and human rights, worsening climate impacts, labor precarity, gender inequality, displacement, conflict, and growing economic insecurity intensified by global geopolitical tensions, and the climate and energy emergency.

Read more 👇

14 May 2026, Quezon City — More than 40 civil society organizations (CSOs) from across Southeast Asia gathered in Quezon City on 13–14 May 2026 for the Regional Consultative Meeting (RCM) of the ASEAN Civil Society Conference/ASEAN Peoples’ Forum (ACSC/APF), calling on ASEAN governments to mov...

13/05/2026

How can governments protect their food systems from geopolitical chaos and price shocks?

📘 Check out this timely new report from IPES-Food: The New Geopolitics of Food: https://ipes-food.org/report/the-new-geopolitics-of-food

🌍 The report explores how wars, trade disputes, fossil fuel shocks, and climate crises are exposing the fragility of food systems built on volatile global markets and long supply chains.

📈 Drawing on lessons from India, West Africa, Canada and Norway, it shows how governments can stabilise prices, reduce dependence, strengthen local and regional food systems, and build resilient self-reliance.

NEW IPES-Food’s special report explores how geopolitical tensions, climate shocks, and trade disruptions are reshaping global food security – and how resilient, self-reliant food systems can stabilise prices and reduce vulnerability.

01/05/2026

International Workers’ Day 2026

Solidarity with the Indian Working People: A Continued Legacy of Collective Struggle against the Erosion of Labour Protections, Systemic Exclusion and Dispossession

Read at: https://focusweb.org/solidarity-with-the-indian-working-people-a-continued-legacy-of-collective-struggle-against-the-erosion-of-labour-protections-systemic-exclusion-and-dispossession/