Natural resources rarely feature during peacebuilding efforts, but there is growing evidence that’s a mistake. Unresolved natural resource management issues can make peace more fragile, while addressing them can act as a bridge toward cooperation.

This year’s World Water Day is taking on a broader theme than years past: sustainable development. The theme makes sense as two major international processes – the drafting of the Sustainable Development Goals to replace the Millennium Development Goals, and the most anticipated UN Climate Summit in years – are taking place in 2015. Decisions made over the next nine months will play a huge role in relationships between nations and global development priorities going forward.

With intense drought in Sao Paulo and California, devastating floods in Malawi, and escalating water-energy confrontations in many developing countries, it is no wonder water is making headlines. It’s also gained the attention of the World Economic Forum (WEF), which lists water crises as the world’s number one risk in its recently released Global Risk Assessment.

As the international development community looks back on the Millennium Development Goals and ponders what remains to be done under the proposed Sustainable Development Goals, the maternal health field has some reflecting to do, said Dr. Ana Langer, professor and director of Harvard’s Maternal Health Task Force at the Wilson Center on December 1. [Video Below]

Natural resource management is a trust issue. There’s no better illustration of this than a scenario exercise. A new CNA Corporation report, Bone Dry and Flooding, details a simulation they ran for transboundary water management in the Indian sub-continent. Players of the game – nationals of China, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh who had all previously worked in politics, policy, or development – were given a hypothetical five-year time span to manage shared water resources.