Climate change and conflict – what’s the relationship? In a recently completed set of field-based studies for USAID, the Foundation for Environmental Security and Sustainability set aside “yes-or-no” questions about whether climate change causes conflict and replaced them with pragmatic and politically informed questions about how climate change is consequential for conflict in specific fragile states.

Imagine an overgrown perennial garden. Impenetrable, shrubby bushes knit themselves together in long rows. Grasses reach chest high. Native hardwood trees hog the perimeter.

One-third of boys in the developing world don’t face the risk of marriage and pregnancy before age 18. There are no laws preventing men from owning land or property. Men don’t bear the brunt of increasingly frequent and severe disasters. And men don’t hold fewer than 25 percent of parliamentary seats worldwide.

China faces a dilemma. It is home to 20 percent of the world’s population but only seven percent of the world’s water resources and nine percent of the world’s arable land. At the same time, a rising middle class is demanding more food. Over the last 30 years, China’s meat demand has quadrupled.

“Valuing women, paying greater attention to women’s rights – that’s the solution to our population growth issues and, I would argue, it’s also the solution to our food security challenges,” said Suzanne Petroni at the Thought for Food Summit in Berlin last year.

Amid stop-and-start ceasefires, the tally of death and destruction from the recent conflict in the Gaza Strip has begun. Whatever the final losses incurred – casualties and damage are considerable with estimates varying significantly depending on the source – Gaza’s youngest residents are likely to be most profoundly affected.