A new law in Peru encouraging investment in the country’s extractive industries has reignited debate on the lack of power indigenous women have in the mostly rural societies where they often live. The International Indigenous Women’s Forum, which drew more than 60 native women from across the world to Peru last month, highlighted this important issue.

Since the early 1990s, the rising price of crude oil and other key natural resources – and the resulting drive by governments and private companies to extract those resources – has led to sharp conflicts in Latin America. At the core of these disputes is the clash between national economic interest and the rights of indigenous people inhabiting the land where most natural resources are located.

Since the end of World War II, a number of the world’s most dramatic political events have resulted from demographic shifts and governments’ reaction to them. Despite this, political demography remains a neglected topic of scholarly investigation.

“You can’t build a peaceful world on an empty stomach,” Secretary of State John Kerry said yesterday at a high-level working session on resilience and food security, quoting Norman Borlaug, the father of last century’s “Green Revolution.”

As presidents, prime ministers, and other policymakers from across the continent gather in Washington, DC, this week for the first-ever U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, what are the issues to watch?