During the 2016 campaign President Trump stated that clean water would be a top priority of his administration, telling ScienceDebate.org “it may be the most important issue we face as a nation for the next generation.” Now is the time to make good on that commitment.

According to their recent Safeguarding the World’s Water report, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) invested $499,995,179 in water-related programming in 54 countries in 2015.

Whether or not we respond to climate change – and the security implications of that decision – is a major public policy question. But increasingly experts are paying closer attention to how we respond.

Do you experience information overload? Feel like there’s always another crisis to worry about? Sense a kind of chaos? Well, you may be a citizen of the early 21^st century.

If you really want to fight the patriarchy, if you want to make a difference in girls’ lives, you have to reach them when they are young, says Joyce Banda.

Joyce Banda, Malawi’s first female vice president, became Malawi’s first female president in 2012 after the sudden death of Bungu wa Mutharika in office. From day one, maternal health and girls’ education were a priority in her administration, she tells the Maternal Health Initiative’s Roger-Mark De Souza in an interview at the Wilson Center.

The United Nations Population Fund’s 2016 State of the World Population report calls for investment in a very specific demographic: 10-year-old girls. At age 10, young girls are at a “pivotal” stage in their lives, the report says. They face a world of limitless possibilities, yet far too many end up thwarted in their ambitions by sexual violence, forced marriage, female genital mutilation, child labor, and other “systematic disadvantages.”

Where violent conflict displaces people and disrupts societies, maternal and child health suffers, and such instability is widespread today. According to the UN Refugee Agency, there are 65.3 million forcibly displaced people, 21.3 million refugees, and 10 million stateless people over the world. In addition, more than 65 million people who are not displaced are affected by conflict.