“The same criminals that are trafficking in drugs, guns, and people, traffic in wildlife,” said Christine Dawson, the director of the Office of Conservation and Water at the U.S. Department of State, at a recent event in the Wilson Center’s “Managing Our Planet” series. Experts from Vulcan Productions and Brookings Institution joined Dawson to discuss the links between national security and wildlife trafficking, which is now the fourth largest transnational crime in the world, and to mark recent legislative successes and innovative tools.

Since 1987, the number of women dying during pregnancy and delivery has dropped by 43 percent, saving hundreds of thousands of women’s lives—and changing the lives of their families—around the world. “Our achievement in making maternal mortality an injustice that needs to be recognized by health ministers, by heads of state, by heads of agencies, has been, I think, the single greatest achievement of the Safe Motherhood Initiative” since it began 30 years ago, said Ann Starrs, President and CEO of Guttmacher Institute, at a Wilson Center event marking the anniversary of this important effort.

The new year promises some big changes for the field of environmental security—and some big moves for the Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP). As we say hello to 2018, we wave goodbye to Roger-Mark De Souza, and welcome him to our team of advisors and fellows. And I’m excited (if a bit daunted) to step into his shoes as our Acting Director and tackle the challenges to come.

This new year brings new projects—and some sad goodbyes. Today, I’m excited to begin my leadership of Sister Cities International, the world’s largest and oldest network of citizen diplomats. And I’m sorry to leave the Wilson Center, which has been my home for the last five years. But it’s not a long goodbye: I will continue to work with the Global Sustainability and Resilience team as a Global Fellow and as an advisor to the New Security Beat. In all of these roles, my New Year’s resolution is to renew our commitment to making a real difference in global well-being and sustainability. And while this year promises great changes, three key priorities will continue to inspire me and guide our collective efforts: resilience, complexity, and diplomacy.

The burden of care—the time, energy, and costs of caring for other people—is growing, and women shoulder the heaviest load. This burden can have negative consequences for businesses, too, as it affects the health and productivity of workers, as well as economic growth. At a recent Wilson Center Ground Truth Briefing, four leading experts discussed the ways in which progressive policies could help balance the burden of care to increase economic productivity and benefit both employers and employees.

“All or most of the children living in these communities are by nature vulnerable,” said Melanie Yahner of Save the Children at a recent Wilson Center event on the sexual, reproductive, and maternal health of urban adolescents. Given that half of the global population living in urban areas today is under the age of 25, addressing the health needs of adolescents living in cities has become critical. “Who is shaping their norms and practices?” said Yahner. “How do we develop and adapt interventions that are meaningful for their needs?”

“Resilience isn’t an outcome,” said USAID Resilience Coordinator Greg Collins at a recent Wilson Center event on measuring resilience; it is “the ability to manage adversity and change without compromising future well-being.” The wide array of individual factors that contribute to building resilience—ranging from livestock insurance and microsavings, to risk tolerance and women’s decision-making—can be challenging to measure individually, let alone in concert. But this assessment is essential for designing and implementing successful development projects: “We have to be able to answer the question: Is this building resilience, yes or no?” said Cornell University’s Chris Barrett.

In the war-torn Jordan River Valley, we can meet the “strategic objective of reducing conflict by promoting cooperation on shared waters,” said former defense official Sherri Goodman at a recent Wilson Center event on environmental peacebuilding. Even in the midst of political disputes, Jordanians, Israelis, and Palestinians must work together to manage the scarce supplies of clean water to protect their health, their economies, and their security.