The Middle East, as much as ever, is the focus of international attention, but the obvious crises may be a distraction from deeper underlying issues.

In 2015, the NGO Mercy Corps released some surprising findings from conflict management programs in the Horn of Africa. Interventions from 2013 to 2015 focused on building community-level cooperation, strengthening institutions, and enhancing resilience. The results indicate that natural resource management can be a key governance pillar to build around and that such cooperation can strengthen household resilience to climate and food security shocks. [Video Below]

This Earth Day weekend, the U.S. Department of State is hosting more than 2,000 coders in more than 40 cities to encourage creative thinking about technological solutions to ocean issues. The third annual Fishackathon could produce new tools for local communities to track long-distance fishing, a growing problem in some places, as China, in particular, scales up its efforts.

Last month, the World Bank’s Fragility Forum in Washington, DC, brought together some 600 participants to discuss how to advance sustainable development in the context of increasing conflicts and violence. World Bank President Jim Yong Kim opened the forum by emphasizing that we are at a critical moment.

The world is entering a new phase of climate change defined by “failure to mitigate sufficiently and failure to adapt sufficiently,” said Saleemul Huq, director of the Bangladesh-based International Center for Climate Change and Development, at the Wilson Center on March 16. [Video Below]

When I heard of the horrific murder of Berta Cáceres, a Honduran environmental activist who had spent years fighting to protect her community’s traditional lands, I was shocked – though perhaps I shouldn’t have been.

Post-war countries are among the most difficult policy arenas. The challenge is not only to stop violence and prevent violence from rekindling, but moreover to help countries reset their internal relations on a peaceful path. Increasingly, researchers and practitioners are interested in the potential of natural resources in post-war settings in the hope that good governance and sustainable management can contribute to this reset. Indeed, the international community acknowledged the relevance of the link between peaceful societies and environmental issues by including both in the Sustainable Development Goals.

Africa has its share of challenges, but it also leads the way in creative development responses. Take the Lake Tanganyika area in Tanzania. Daily life is hard. There are few roads. Cellphone service is patchy. You must travel by boat for seven hours to reach the nearest hospital. And if you have an obstetric emergency, there is no doctor in the village to help you.