Despite the inherent risks, India is determined to join China, Bhutan, Nepal, and Pakistan in turning the Himalayas into the Saudi Arabia of hydroelectric energy. Almost 300 big hydropower projects are under construction or proposed for India’s five Himalayan states, according to the Central Electric Authority.

USAID funding is “far outstripped” by private investment and business relationships in “nearly every country” in which it works – and that’s a good thing, according to USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah. [Video Below]

“If there was a perfect slum, Kibera would be it.” The notoriously overcrowded and underserved settlement in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi captivates the public imagination, engendering visions of urban violence, poverty, and hopelessness, said Caroline Wanjiku Kihato of the University of the Witwatersrand at the Wilson Center on February 18. The area was ravaged by ethnic violence that erupted across the country following Kenya’s disputed 2007 elections, pitting neighbor against neighbor in tribal clashes that killed more than 1,000 people, displaced many thousands more, and provoked an alarming surge in sexual violence.

Earlier this week, the Department of Defense released its first Quadrennial Defense Review since fiscal cliffs, shutdowns, and spending cuts hit the federal government. Not surprisingly, “austerity” shows up in almost every chapter of the report. What shows up even more? Climate change. For the second QDR in a row, the Pentagon has called out climate change as a “significant challenge for the United States and the world at large.”

Worldwide, one in three women suffer beatings, coercion into sex, or other abuse from an intimate partner during her lifetime, according to the UN, while one in five is a victim of rape or attempted rape.

“Gender-based violence is a pervasive global challenge. It serves as a barrier to national economic and social advancement across the world,” said Alex Dehgan, former chief scientist and director of the Office of Science and Technology at the U.S. Agency for International Development, on December 9 at the Wilson Center. [Video Below]

The original version of this article appeared on the Aspen Institute blog.

When journalist Alan Weisman proposed a new book on the challenges posed by human population growth, his editor said, “That one’s a live wire; don’t touch it.”