Good water governance requires transparency, accountability, participation, responsiveness, and the rule of law, ensuring water is allocated fairly, used efficiently, and protected for future generations through effective institutions and policies. Growing pressures, including floods, droughts, pollution, competing demands, and climate change, are intensifying risks, threatening agriculture, fisheries, public health and economic stability across communities nationwide. Fragmented mandates across ministries weaken coordination and enforcement, highlighting the need for stronger legal frameworks, clearer institutional roles, integrated planning, and adequate capacity and resources at both national and subnational levels. Inclusive participation is critical, empowering women, indigenous groups, farmers, and local communities to co-manage resources, resolve conflicts, and strengthen accountability through community-based approaches. Data, technology, and innovation must guide decision-making, supported by monitoring systems, open data, early warnings and context-appropriate digital tools that enhance transparency and resilience. Sustainable financing, private sector engagement and regional cooperation—particularly through the Mekong River Commission (MRC)—are essential to mobilise resources, expand services and collectively manage shared water risks.
Reintegration must move beyond employment numbers towards productivity and income recovery: Large-scale job matching initiatives have absorbed many returnees, but employment alone does not ensure durable reintegration. Income has declined, vulnerability remains high, and skills mismatch persists. Policy must shift toward job quality, productivity upgrading, employment certification, and income stability. Border provinces represent a strategic opportunity for economic diversification: Return migration exposes spatial imbalances but creates an opportunity to transform border areas into productive economic corridors. Investment in agro-processing, SME upgrading, SEZ reform, logistics, and regional integration can drive reintegration and long-term diversification. Strengthen governance systems and household resilience to sustain reintegration outcomes: High debt, weak social protection coverage, fragmented data, and coordination gaps limit sustainability. Reintegration requires integrated digital systems, stronger institutional coordination, SME support, and expanded financial and social protection frameworks as part of a broader structural reform agenda.
Boeng Sneh Lake is a crucial freshwater ecosystem supporting rice farming, fisheries, water supply, and climate resilience for nearby communities. Its sustainability is threatened by rising water demand, climate- and human-driven hydrological changes, and competing sector needs. The District Technical Working Group (DTWG), a multi-sectoral, ecosystem-based governance model for water management, was piloted to coordinate water users around the lake; however, effective water management is hindered, among other factors, by limited locally accessible data. Existing water datasets are often available at central levels but are fragmented, poorly disaggregated, and rarely integrated into operational tools used by local authorities. The priority is therefore not simply more data collection, but rather improving local access, integration, and decision-making empowerment. Dedicated budget allocations for water-related data collection, monitoring and management should be incorporated into decentralised planning, including commune development and investment plans. Without reliable data, lake water management remains reactive, fragmented, and vulnerable to conflicting sectoral demands. This shows that operational hydrological information enables local institutions to manage shared water resources effectively, providing strong evidence for the government to expand the pilot DTWG's data-driven community water management across Cambodia.
Extreme weather events, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and epidemics cause the loss of countless lives and bring disruption to many countries. Governments and humanitarian aid agencies are expected to be at the forefront of preparing for and responding to such disasters. However, occasionally the scale and impact of some natural disasters are so large that additional resources beyond what governments can provide become necessary. In such cases, efforts may be perceived as insufficient and slow. Resources and efforts need to be augmented in order to provide relief and support to those who need it most. Could the private sector take a more leading role in pre- and post-disaster efforts? How could a structured, long-term engagement reduce the inevitable integrity risks in high-stress disaster situations involving numerous government, business and international actors? This Policy Brief looks at how the Philippines Disaster Resilience Foundation (PDRF) has emerged as a leading private-sector coordinator for disaster risk reduction and management. It illustrates the important role that the private sector can play in responding to – and building resilience to – natural disasters and other humanitarian emergencies. It also showcases how vital it is for good governance, integrity and transparent collaboration to be at the heart of those efforts.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the wide-reaching sanctions which ensued, many Western financial institutions began to de-risk Russian clients. Dealing with Russian clients, in many cases, has become expensive from a compliance point of view and toxic from the reputational side. However, the de-risking of unsanctioned Russian individuals may have a significant impact on the fight against financial crime by potentially causing: an increase in the use of shadow/unregulated channels of moving money; a withdrawal of funds away from the European zone to sanctioned countries or non-cooperative jurisdictions; severe burdens on the investigation of financial crimes (especially in relation to Russian assets and investments) and on international cooperation in criminal matters; increased opportunities for enablers, such as unscrupulous lawyers and accountants, to take advantage of the situation. This Policy Brief outlines the current situation and suggests how to better manage risk without having a negative impact on the fight against financial crime.
Public institutions are confronted with far-reaching and complex challenges in building an inclusive and resilient post-COVID-19 society, ranging from public health and employment to education and social protection. These are coupled with other pressing challenges toward achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including poverty eradication, climate change as well as energy and food crises. As governments alone cannot effectively respond to these multi-faceted challenges and “participation is a key dimension of governance and one of the pillars of sustainable development”1, collaborating with other stakeholders including the private sector, experts, civil society organizations, volunteers and local communities is ever more critical. By forging partnerships and collaboration, public institutions can harness the ideas, skills and resources of diverse stakeholders to better deliver their policies in transformative ways and address their gaps in financial, human and technical resources. This calls for a shift in public governance toward inclusive and participatory governance where citizens, including youth, actively engage and participate in policy processes and act as co-creators of government policies and services.
Environmental impacts of wood-based textile fibresWhat is at stake?The production and use of wood-based textile fibres has been identified as a promising area for carbon storage and greenhouse gas emission reductions.However, other environmental impacts are potentially associated with the processing, manufacturing, use and disposal of (wood) products, including eutrophication, acidification, human toxicity and formation of air pollutants such as ozone.Currently the understanding of these impacts is limited, as there are no systematic studies available that have examined the non-climate environmental impacts occurring throughout the life cycle stages.Life cycle stages for wood-based textile fibres.
From early Bulletin Board Systems adopted by neo-Nazis to the Islamic State’s more recent prolific use of social media platforms, an aspect of terrorism studies that is generally agreed upon is that violent extremists are often early adopters of emerging technologies. These groups, organisations, and networks have demonstrated innovative uses of these digital spaces, harnessed for recruitment, coordination, community building, attack planning, propaganda dissemination, and other purposes. Alongside studying these phenomena, it is important to explore where future trends lie; particularly as findings and recommendations can ensure that relevant stakeholders are aware of and can begin to prepare for emerging threats. This paper considers the potential exploitation of Web 3.0, specifically the metaverse, by violent extremists and explores conceivable opportunities to undertake nefarious activities within these spaces. There is a particular focus on the gamification of violent extremism in the metaverse, an issue—i.e. the gamification of violent extremism—that is causing increasing concern to terrorism practitioners more generally. Although it is difficult to predict exactly how violent extremists will utilise, exploit, and misuse the metaverse and related technologies due to the early stage of its conceptualisation and development, it is possible to develop hypotheses based on past trends and current examples demonstrating manipulation of online spaces that resemble aspects of the metaverse. In fact, aspects of the gamification of violent extremism in the metaverse may well have distinct overlaps with current threats, but simply utilise emerging technologies and take place within developing and more immersive online spaces.
How to govern Europe's forests for multipleForest Ecosystem Services? Four policy pathways to align forest ecosystem services provision & demand…Europe's forests provide multiple forest ecosystem services (FES) including wood, carbon sequestration, habitats, and nature for recreation.The EU Green Deal gives strong momentum for a future European forest policy to incentivise the provision of multiple FES.Four policy pathways can translate this momentum into action:
9;23) Au orstung, Wiederau orstung (2;5) Waldwiederherstellung (Torfgebiete) (2;5) Holzernte (vergrößert) (1;1) Holzernte (verringert) (6;13) andere aktive Bewirtschaftung (7;14) Vermeidung von Entwaldung (1;1)Waldschutz (2;3)
This policy brief focuses on the continued primacy of the counter-terrorism lens for state multilateral responses to the political situation in Afghanistan and the connected implications for long-term justice and accountability. Its analysis highlights the continuum of practices and agendas that offer solutions and processes that not only respond to and prevent the conditions conducive to violence (including terrorism) prevention, but also preserve long-term justice and accountability. The brief demonstrates how the legacy of and continued misalignment of counter-terrorism and international-centric security priorities, paired with lack of investment in long-term justice and accountability, human rights and inclusion, may threaten the effectiveness of policies that could otherwise contribute to improvements in Afghanistan. While this brief focuses on the role of counter-terrorism experts and practitioners in multi-lateral spaces, much of the analysis and recommendations are applicable to those bilateral and regional efforts in Afghanistan.
State practices relating to the repatriation of child returnees from Northeast Syria continue to be inconsistent and incomplete. With an increasing number of European countries escalating their efforts to bring home women and children from the camps, it is imperative that these practices include holistic policies towards child returnees that address the wide range of issues presented not only in the short- but also in the mid- and long-term. This includes recognition that experiences, and therefore their resulting needs, can differ depending on many factors unique to each child and also that many countries have a number of policies and measures that can inform each other’s child returnee management practices and should be utilised. This policy brief provides a child rights-based approach to the management of child returnees based on the concept of the best interest of the child and offers some observations and recommendations for states on how to develop comprehensive policies for the management of child returnees.
