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]

In many parts of the world, climate change exacerbates existing inequalities – between men and women, rich and poor, landed and landless. Climate change responses, therefore, should carefully address these forms of vulnerability.

We hear this often, but in practice, it can be difficult to do.

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.”

Twenty thousand girls under the age of 18 give birth every day, and 90 percent of these births occur within the context of marriage, according to the UN Population Fund’s latest State of the World Population report. This year’s edition, launched at the Wilson Center on October 30, focuses on adolescent pregnancy and finding ways to better protect this vulnerable group of young women.

As more organizations in the international development community commit themselves to supporting women’s empowerment, it has grown increasingly difficult to evaluate what that really entails. [Video Below]

The past three years – and more pointedly the past 12 months – have laid witness to monumental, if not heartbreaking, incidents of gender-based violence. The gang rape of a 23-year-old woman in New Delhi last December; the gang rape of a 16-year-old girl left for dead in a pit latrine in Western Kenya last June; the mass sexual assault of women in Tahrir Square during the 2011 revolution in Egypt and since; all were high profile atrocities that ignited outrage around the world.