Conflict over environmental resources endangers rural people’s livelihoods and can increase the risk of broader social conflict. Yet joint action to sustain shared resources can also be a powerful means for community building. The Strengthening Aquatic Resource Governance (STARGO) project demonstrated this in three ecoregions: Lake Victoria, with a focus on Uganda; Lake Kariba, with a focus on Zambia; and Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia. The results of the project were released at an event in Berlin in early July 2014.

From Ukraine and the Middle East to sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia, the world is engulfed in a series of significant international crises. But despite such urgent issues, it would be a grave mistake to forget about the structural foreign policy challenges – such as access to water – that could become the crises of the future.

The effects of climate change “are here now” and pose a “serious challenge” for the United States, said Alice Hill, White House senior advisor for preparedness and resilience, at the Wilson Center on July 29. [Video Below]

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.

Tucked away in a recent New York Times story on military operations against ISIS by Iraqi special forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga was a brief description of what these troops discovered when they entered a village in Iraq that had been occupied by ISIS fighters. A naked woman, tied to a tree, who had been repeatedly raped by ISIS fighters. Another woman was discovered in a second village, similarly naked, tied down and repeatedly raped. The fighters, it appears, are “rewarded” by being allowed to have their way with captured women.