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NewSecurityBeat

The blog of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
Showing posts from category USAID.
  • Generation 2030: The Strategic Imperative of Youth Civic and Political Engagement

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    Guest Contributor  //  November 30, 2021  //  By Michael McCabe & Steven Gale
    Sharekna_082018_USAID_0

    According to a recent poll, young people are deeply concerned about the world they will inherit, want to be more engaged in meeting the development needs of their communities, and are helping to lead democracy or social justice protests in their countries. At the same time, new research shows a large decline in trust and admiration for democratic governance. According to Freedom House, for the first time in decades, authoritarian leaning regimes outnumber democratic leaning ones, with a majority of the world’s population now living in authoritarian leaning countries.

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  • All Systems Go: Integrating Climate Security Across the U.S. Government

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    From the Wilson Center  //  October 18, 2021  //  By Shruti Samala
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    “We are really taking a whole-of-government approach to address the challenges posed by climate change,” said Jennifer DeCesaro, Director for Climate Security and Resilience at the U.S. National Security Council, at a recent Wilson Center event hosted as part of the 2021 Berlin Climate and Security Conference. President Biden has taken an unequivocal position on climate change: The administration’s first order of business was to issue a series of executive orders aimed at catalyzing climate action. Putting the full institutional weight of the U.S. government behind this agenda requires a re-orientation of domestic and international security, development, and diplomacy. Creating “new muscle memory” on how we approach these typically siloed challenges is essential to elevating climate policy, said DeCesaro.

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  • A Conversation with Steven Gale on USAID’s New Foresight Unit

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    Friday Podcasts  //  February 26, 2021  //  By Amanda King

    Steven Gale Podcast Thumbnail

    “I think most people will agree today that the development landscape is, well, it’s highly uncertain, it’s increasingly complex,” says Steven Gale, Lead of the Futures/Foresight Team at the U.S Agency for International Development (USAID), in this week’s Friday Podcast. “I think the future is even going to be more complex.”

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  • Reducing the Risk of Pandemic Disease Threats Through Multisectoral Action

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    Covid-19  //  Guest Contributor  //  November 24, 2020  //  By Dara Carr
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    “No single individual, discipline, sector or ministry can preempt and solve complex health problems.”

    — Rwanda One Health Steering Committee1

    The COVID-19 pandemic underscores the importance of multisectoral action to contain and mitigate the effects of the virus. Presently, during crisis conditions or “war time,” in the language of outbreak experts, multisectoral efforts—including actions traversing health, education, labor, finance and other sectors—are readily apparent. But when policymakers perceive crises have passed, during so-called “peacetime,” governance structures that enable multisectoral collaboration tend to diminish or languish.

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  • Agriculture’s Achilles’ Heel: Water Insecurity Is the Greatest Threat to Sustaining Global Food Production

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    Guest Contributor  //  October 5, 2020  //  By Peter McCornick & Aaron Salzberg
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    This article was originally published by CSIS’s Global Food Security Program as part of their Reset the Table series.

    Simply put, without water there is no food. Global food and nutritional security require resilient agricultural systems, which, in turn, depend on reliable and sustainable supplies of freshwater, whether from rainfall or irrigation. It is an often-neglected dependency, and one that threatens to undermine our ability to meet our future food needs and maintain the ecosystems upon which all life depends.

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  • Many Companies Struggle to Comply with Conflict Mineral Reporting Rules

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    Reading Radar  //  September 25, 2020  //  By Cindy Zhou
    Conflict Minerals

    “The exploitation of the mining and trade of conflict minerals in the eastern DRC [Democratic Republic of the Congo] has contributed to instability, violence, displacement of people, and severe human rights abuses,” says the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in its annual report, Conflict Minerals: Actions Needed to Assess Progress Addressing Armed Groups’ Exploitation of Minerals. The report examines a sample of filings from 1,083 companies that submitted conflict mineral disclosures required by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2019.

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  • USAID’s New Center for Water Security Signals Progress, But More is Needed

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    Covid-19  //  Guest Contributor  //  July 27, 2020  //  By Stephanie Cappa & Sarah Davidson
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    As the COVID-19 crisis grew this spring, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) revamped its Water Office, renamed it as the Center for Water Security, Sanitation, and Hygiene, and added it to the Bureau for Resilience and Food Security, home to the Feed the Future Initiative.

    Placing the Center for Water Security in the Bureau for Resilience and Food Security was a strategic shift. With 70 percent of freshwater use designated for agriculture, this move elevates water as an integral component of resilience and food security. Referencing water security in the Center’s name also highlights the need for water supplies to be managed sustainably and the role that water plays in resilience and peace. 

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  • COVID-19 Reignites Interest in Scenario Planning for Development … But Will It Last?

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    Covid-19  //  Guest Contributor  //  June 29, 2020  //  By Steven Gale

    Bayan Bayanihan will provide installments of food to support the most vulnerable households for a period of up to 8 weeks, with an estimated $20 million needed for essential food supplies in this period. ADB has already approved $5 million in grants for part of this need and created a team to rapidly lead implementation of the program. Additional funds and in-kind contributions will be needed for the program. Photo: Eric Sales/ Asian Development Bank

    Not since COVID-19 burst onto the scene a few months ago have so many individuals and institutions, outside the business, military, and intelligence communities, woken up to the need for a smart way to characterize and communicate uncertainty. The overwhelming choice for many is scenario planning. Today, scenario planning applies to a wide spectrum of issues, not just international development. It has been used to anticipate changes in higher education, rethink workforce composition, and explore options for individual financial planning.  

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