EDITORIAL │ Week of September 28 to October 4, 2026
Yvon Bonhomme │ Editor in Chief │ CPGNNews │ Global Perspective, A View from the Caribbean.
Born in the Caribbean, Open to the World!
We are living through what may well be one of the most paradoxical moments in human history. Never before has our species possessed such an extraordinary accumulation of knowledge, scientific capabilities, technological power, financial resources and communication tools with which to shape its environment. We can observe the Earth from space, manipulate molecules, develop vaccines at speeds once unimaginable, transmit information across the world in seconds, process vast quantities of data and now develop artificial intelligence systems capable of assisting human beings with tasks that, only yesterday, appeared to belong exclusively to human intelligence. We have acquired immense material and cognitive power. Yet this power coexists with forms of vulnerability, some of them remarkably basic, that affect hundreds of millions of people.
The paradox is therefore no longer simply one of wealth and poverty. It has become a paradox of power and vulnerability. Humanity can build technological infrastructures of extraordinary sophistication while allowing ancient forms of deprivation to persist. It can mobilize enormous financial resources for defense, research and digital transformation while still struggling to guarantee universal access to safe drinking water, education, healthcare, social protection and a sufficiently secure environment. The essential question of our time is therefore not merely what we are capable of producing, but what we choose to do with that capacity.
The figures on hunger bring this contradiction into sharp relief. According to the FAO, approximately 673 million people, or 8.2% of the world’s population, experienced hunger in 2024. The global proportion declined slightly compared with previous years, but this improvement remains profoundly uneven, and hunger continues to rise across much of Africa and Western Asia. In a world capable of producing, transporting and distributing enormous quantities of food, the persistence of hunger reveals less an absolute lack of productive capacity than a problem of distribution, access, stability, income, conflict, governance and resilience.
The same contradiction appears in the way we define security. The world spent $2.718 trillion on military expenditure in 2024, according to SIPRI, representing a real increase of 9.4% in a single year, the largest annual increase recorded by the institute since at least 1988. These expenditures respond to genuine strategic concerns, and states have legitimate responsibilities in matters of defense. Yet this reality should also lead us to broaden our understanding of security. A society cannot be considered durably secure when it protects its borders while leaving part of its population exposed to hunger, lack of healthcare, educational exclusion, precarious living conditions or the consequences of environmental degradation.
Contemporary power now has another dimension: computing power. Artificial intelligence, data centers, digital infrastructure and automated systems represent a new frontier of economic and strategic power. But this power also has a physical reality. According to the International Energy Agency, electricity consumption by data centers could double, under its central scenario, to around 945 TWh by 2030. Accelerated servers, widely associated with artificial intelligence applications, are expected to grow particularly rapidly. Digital intelligence therefore does not exist above the physical world. It depends on electricity, infrastructure, minerals, water, supply chains and territory. The question of innovation is consequently inseparable from the question of its energy and ecological costs.
This is where the environmental question ceases to be a peripheral concern and becomes one of the very foundations of our understanding of power. The United Nations Environment Programme speaks of a triple planetary crisis: climate change, biodiversity and nature loss, and pollution and waste. These are not three isolated problems. They reinforce one another and affect the very conditions under which human societies can produce, feed themselves, stay healthy, build and prosper. When ecosystems deteriorate, when water resources become more difficult to secure, when agricultural land is weakened or when extreme climate events damage infrastructure, environmental vulnerability simultaneously becomes economic, social, health and security vulnerability.
Water illustrates this interdependence perfectly. According to data from the WHO and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene, approximately 2.1 billion people still lacked access to safely managed drinking water services in 2024. This situation cannot be understood merely as an infrastructure deficit. It affects public health, education, productivity, gender equality, social stability and the ability of communities to withstand crises. In many regions, climate change is placing additional pressure on water resources. The environment has therefore become a human security issue in the most concrete sense of the term.
The same logic applies to education. UNESCO’s 2026 Global Education Monitoring Report estimates that approximately 273 million children, adolescents and young people were out of school worldwide in 2024. This figure includes around 79 million children of primary school age, 64 million at lower secondary level and 130 million at upper secondary level. Even more concerning, in low income countries, the out of school population has increased by 29% since 2015. Humanity can develop artificial intelligence systems capable of supporting personalized learning while still being unable to guarantee millions of children basic access to a classroom, a teacher and a stable educational environment.
This contradiction should lead us to reconsider the way we measure progress. A society does not necessarily become more advanced simply because it possesses more sophisticated technologies. It becomes more resilient when its scientific, economic and institutional capacities translate into real opportunities for its citizens. Education is one of those fundamental opportunities. It transforms potential capacity into autonomy, economic participation, citizenship and the ability to contribute to society. Without this conversion, technology risks becoming an accelerator of inequality rather than an instrument for reducing vulnerability.
The situation of people with disabilities reveals another dimension of this question. The World Health Organization estimates that approximately 1.3 billion people, nearly 16% of the world’s population, live with a significant disability. The issue is not to regard disability itself as a weakness. Much of the resulting vulnerability stems instead from the social, economic, institutional and physical barriers that prevent some people from participating fully in collective life. WHO notes that some people with disabilities may die up to twenty years earlier than others, partly because of health inequities and preventable barriers. Once again, the problem is therefore not a lack of human capacity, but the inability of systems to make those capacities genuinely accessible.
Population ageing raises a comparable question. WHO estimates that approximately one in six people aged 60 and over experienced some form of abuse in a community setting during the previous year. A review focusing on care institutions also found that 64.2% of staff surveyed in the studies concerned reported having perpetrated some form of abuse during the previous year. This figure must be interpreted cautiously: it is not a measure of the prevalence of all institutional abuse, but it does reveal a problem significant enough to raise fundamental questions about systems of protection, training, oversight and care.
Social protection is precisely one of the invisible infrastructures that determine a society’s ability to absorb shocks. According to the World Bank, approximately two billion people in low and middle income countries remain either uncovered or inadequately covered by social protection systems. In low income countries, three out of four people receive no social protection coverage. These figures show that vulnerability does not arise only from exceptional events. It can be produced by the absence of mechanisms that allow a family, a worker, an older person, a child or a person with a disability to withstand a crisis without falling into lasting insecurity.
Young people offer another illustration of this difficulty of conversion. In the Arab States, the youth unemployment rate was estimated by the International Labour Organization at 28.6% in 2024, compared with 12.8% globally. Among young women in the region, the rate reached 39.7%. These figures belong to a regional category defined by the ILO and do not uniformly describe the situation in every country. They nevertheless point to a structural difficulty: a society may have a large young population, expanding education systems and a modern economy while still struggling to transform demographic potential into genuine economic opportunities.
This may be one of the great challenges of our century. We have learned to measure production, investment, military power, computing capacity, patents, infrastructure and gross domestic product growth. We are relatively good at quantifying available resources. We are far less capable of measuring the quality of their conversion into dignity, human security, social mobility, institutional trust, ecological resilience and concrete opportunities for future generations.
This question matters because vulnerability is rarely isolated. Poverty can restrict access to education. Insufficient education can limit access to employment. The absence of stable employment can weaken access to housing and healthcare. Weak social protection can turn an illness or natural disaster into a family economic crisis. Environmental degradation can increase health and food risks. Conflicts can destroy educational and health infrastructure. Climate shocks can trigger displacement, agricultural losses and economic tensions. Vulnerability therefore operates as a system.
This is why twenty-first century security can no longer be understood exclusively through borders and military capabilities. Food, energy, health, digital, environmental and social security now belong to the same strategic space. Protecting a society also means protecting its critical infrastructure, water resources, health systems, schools, energy networks, data, ecosystems and the institutional mechanisms that enable citizens to withstand crises.
This shift does not mean that military or strategic power has become irrelevant. It means that the concept of power must be placed within a broader framework. Power that fails to protect the fundamental conditions of life remains incomplete power. An economy capable of accumulating capital but unable to durably reduce social exclusion encounters a limit to its development. A technology capable of automating complex tasks but unable to guarantee equitable access to the benefits of innovation may widen the very gaps it claims to reduce. Growth that destroys the natural resources on which its own functioning depends ultimately undermines its own continuity.
Yet this is not about setting power against justice, technology against the environment, or growth against dignity. The real challenge is to bring them together. Investments in education, healthcare, water, social protection and climate resilience are not simply acts of solidarity. They are also investments in economic stability, productivity, social cohesion and collective security. Environmental protection is not merely a moral obligation toward future generations. It also protects the material foundations of agriculture, industry, health and prosperity.
The contemporary problem could therefore be described as a deficit of conversion. We possess resources, but we do not always transform them into human opportunities. We possess knowledge, but we do not always translate it into effective policies. We possess technologies, but we do not always make them accessible to those who need them most. We possess considerable wealth, but we do not convert enough of it into protection against avoidable vulnerabilities. And we possess a growing understanding of our planet’s ecological limits, yet we still struggle to translate that knowledge into decisions consistent with the physical conditions of our future.
The twenty-first century will therefore be judged not only by the power of its machines, but by the quality of its institutions. It will be judged by societies’ ability to use science without losing sight of the human being, to develop artificial intelligence without forgetting social intelligence, to strengthen security without neglecting human security, to create wealth without destroying the ecological conditions that sustain it, and to organize globalization without abandoning those who remain at its margins.
The Caribbean offers a particularly relevant vantage point from which to consider these questions. A region shaped by great human, commercial and cultural movements, yet also exposed to climate risks, natural disasters, economic vulnerabilities, energy constraints and institutional fragilities, it reminds us that the power of a society cannot be measured solely by its economic size or geopolitical weight. It must also be measured by its ability to absorb shocks, protect its people, preserve its resources and transform constraints into collective capacities.
THE CPGNNEWS PERSPECTIVE
Looking at the world from the Caribbean does not mean looking at the world from its periphery. It means observing it from a space where many of the great questions of the twenty-first century converge: climate, migration, food security, energy, debt, development, resilience, governance, inequality and the movement of cultures. The Caribbean reminds us above all that vulnerabilities that appear distant are often deeply interconnected. A climate crisis becomes an agricultural crisis. An agricultural crisis becomes a food crisis. A food crisis can become a social crisis. A social crisis can become a political crisis. And a political crisis can quickly cross borders.
The great question of our time may therefore no longer be whether humanity possesses enough power. It already possesses an unprecedented amount. The question is whether it can transform that power into sustainable human capabilities. If knowledge becomes accessible schools, if technology becomes a tool of inclusion, if wealth also becomes protection against shocks, if energy becomes compatible with ecological limits, if security also protects populations, if growth preserves natural resources and if institutions become capable of reducing avoidable vulnerabilities, then power ceases to be a mere accumulation of capabilities and becomes a genuine instrument of progress.
Humanity will probably never be able to eliminate all vulnerability. Illness, natural disasters, accidents, grief and uncertainty are part of the human condition. But a considerable share of vulnerability is avoidable. It can be reduced through better institutions, better governance, more accessible education, stronger health systems, more effective social protection, resilient infrastructure and more responsible management of natural resources.
Perhaps this is where the true measure of progress lies. Not only in what we are capable of building, but in what we are capable of making possible for those with the least power. Not only in the height of our skyscrapers, the power of our computers, the sophistication of our weapons or the speed of our networks, but in our ability to ensure that collective power genuinely serves human life and the ecological conditions that make it possible.
We have never been so powerful. But this power will only acquire its full meaning when it ceases to be measured primarily by what it allows us to conquer, accumulate or accelerate, and is also measured by what it allows us to protect, preserve, transmit and make possible.
The question is therefore not only how far humanity can go, but what kind of humanity it wishes to become. This transformation requires shared responsibility, but each actor has a different capacity for action and must therefore assume responsibilities commensurate with its means.
At the individual level, the first responsibility is to reject indifference: to help when someone is in difficulty, respect the dignity of others, share knowledge, oppose discrimination, preserve natural resources, remain informed with discernment and participate in community life.
At the family level, the priority is to protect those who are most vulnerable, provide children with an environment conducive to learning, support older people and people with disabilities, pass on values of respect, solidarity and responsibility, and ensure that isolation does not become an invisible form of exclusion.
At the community level, the task is to organize solidarity, identify people exposed to risk, develop networks of mutual support, protect common resources, prepare for disasters and create spaces in which everyone can participate in decisions affecting their immediate environment.
For teachers and researchers, the priority is to make knowledge more accessible, develop reliable knowledge, produce solutions adapted to real needs and allow science to circulate beyond social, economic and geographic boundaries.
For journalists and media organizations, the primary responsibility is to seek facts, verify information, give a voice to realities that are insufficiently heard, make vulnerabilities visible without exploiting suffering, combat disinformation and keep the public interest at the heart of the journalistic mission.
For businesses, action must begin with the creation of decent jobs, respect for workers, investment in responsible innovation, reduction of environmental impacts, responsible use of resources and contribution to the development of the communities that make their activities possible.
For civil society organizations, the priority is to defend rights, support vulnerable populations, document realities on the ground, hold institutions accountable, develop local solutions and transform community needs into proposals and collective action.
For public institutions, the responsibility becomes structural: effectively guarantee access to education, healthcare, water, social protection and justice; strengthen transparency; measure the results of public policies; prevent crises; reduce inequalities in access; and direct resources toward the most urgent vulnerabilities.
For states, the challenge is to transform public power into a capacity for protection and human development: invest in essential infrastructure, strengthen education and health systems, ensure effective social protection, preserve natural resources, support employment and resilience, prevent crises and cooperate with other states on challenges that transcend national borders.
For the international community, finally, the responsibility is to make cooperation a concrete instrument: share knowledge and technologies, mobilize financing where needs are greatest, support countries most exposed to crises, strengthen collective response mechanisms and protect global commons, including the climate, oceans, biodiversity, peace and knowledge.
These responsibilities do not compete with one another; they complement one another. The individual cannot replace the state, just as the state cannot replace the family, the community, civil society, research or business. Yet each can act within its own sphere of responsibility, and each can help reduce a vulnerability, open an opportunity or protect a common good. True progress is therefore measured not only by what we are capable of creating, but by our ability to transform knowledge into decisions, resources into opportunities, power into protection and awareness into action. Our age possesses the means to do far more; it must now find the will to place those means at the service of life, human dignity, solidarity and a shared future. Power becomes truly human when it no longer serves merely to take us farther, faster or higher, but to enable everyone to move forward, to ensure that no one is left behind, and to allow future generations to inherit a world that remains habitable.
CPGNNews: Thinking the Caribbean. Understanding the World.
CPGNNews │ CaribPulse Global News Network │ Independent International Public Interest Media │ Research • Investigation • Analysis • Journalism.
Pro Dignitate et Progressu.
Born in the Caribbean, Open to the World!
Yvon Bonhomme
Editor in Chief
CPGNNews │ CaribPulse Global News Network.
