An estimated 1.8 billion people today are between the ages of 10 and 24 and 85 percent of them live in developing economies and/or fragile states. Such youthful age structures can lead to a number of challenges, including increased potential for instability, and countries with large numbers of young people must find ways to address their unique needs.

Is it possible to prepare for the unexpected? Could anyone have foreseen, for instance, a nuclear meltdown triggered by an earthquake-induced tsunami? Or a brutal band of transnational militants quickly capturing Iraq’s largest dam while attempting to establish a new Islamic caliphate? Perhaps not exactly, but that shouldn’t stop us from anticipating unlikely events, says Chad Briggs, a risk assessment expert and strategy director of consulting firm GlobalInt.

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.

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.

“The greatest challenge we have today is that we have a world that is pushing back on rights,” said Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), at the Wilson Center. [Video Below]

“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 global environmental change accelerates, understanding how population dynamics affect the environment is more important than ever. It seems obvious that human-caused climate change has at least something to do with the quadrupling of world population over the last 100 years.