Iran is poised to reap a vast “demographic dividend” if the appropriate national and international policies are adopted, including a nuclear deal with the P5+1 (five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany).

Pope Francis sparked worldwide discussion and jubilation among many green advocates after releasing Laudato Si, the first Papal encyclical to focus directly on the environment. The pontiff touched on everything from pollution and sustainable development, to anthropogenic climate change and water security in his 180-page missive.

A new article from the Wilson Center’s own Roger-Mark De Souza explores how population trends can bolster community resilience in the face of climate change and other security threats. De Souza argues that demographic trends such as age structure help determine how well a population is able to respond to and bounce back from shocks, especially environmental ones like drought and famine.

In their first annual report, the ResilientAfrica Network (RAN), a partnership of 15 African universities, Tulane University, Stanford University, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, outlines efforts to explore and define multiple “pathways of vulnerability” in sub-Saharan Africa. The report acknowledges that these pathways can be very different from place to place, but by working with African communities more closely, they hope to find new ways to break cycles of chronic crisis. One of the interventions piloted by Stanford was “deliberative polling,” which is  based on the premise that communities are more likely to respond to development interventions if they understand the logic behind them and are involved in the process.

Researchers have been warning about future water scarcity for decades, but new data reveals a majority of the world’s largest aquifers are already running out of water.

President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to run for a third term in April plunged Burundi into a state of unrest not seen since the end of the country’s civil war in 2005. Refugees are arriving in neighboring Tanzania, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the tens of thousands, raising the possibility that the deteriorating security situation could spill over borders.

On a warm January afternoon, Tesema Merga, a village elder in Endibir, Ethiopia, surveyed the latest improvements to the long dirt road just outside his house. Eventually this road will be paved, which will bring significant changes to the community.