Post-war countries are among the most difficult policy arenas. The challenge is not only to stop violence and prevent violence from rekindling, but moreover to help countries reset their internal relations on a peaceful path. Increasingly, researchers and practitioners are interested in the potential of natural resources in post-war settings in the hope that good governance and sustainable management can contribute to this reset. Indeed, the international community acknowledged the relevance of the link between peaceful societies and environmental issues by including both in the Sustainable Development Goals.

When we think about countries on the Indian subcontinent with destabilizing demographics, Pakistan comes to mind immediately. First, it’s a country with a very young population. Almost two thirds of its nearly 200 million people are under 25, and the median age is about 22. Second, this youth cohort is highly susceptible to radicalization. Nearly every terrorist attack in Pakistan since 9/11 has been perpetrated by someone under 30. In recent years, the Wilson Center has focused on Pakistan’s youth demographic challenges in detail. India, however, needs to be included in this conversation as well.

The ongoing violence in Syria exhibits the potential for water problems – a historic drought, in this case – to exacerbate existing social and political problems and contribute to humanitarian crises. In a recently released infographic, Circle of Blue combined data from the European Commission Joint Research Center’s Global Conflict Risk Index and the World Resources Institute’s Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas to identify 10 hotspots around the world where water “could play a role in developing or exacerbating humanitarian crises” in 2016.

It is “not sufficient to look at history for lessons on how we should prepare for and prevent future security risks in a climate change world,” said Swathi Veeravalli, research scientist at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Geospatial Research Laboratory, at the Wilson Center on January 14. Climate change and the extreme weather events it brings pose an “unprecedented” threat to human security. [Video Below]

Patterns of trade and consumption in the global food system are shifting. In the past, most trade in agricultural commodities occurred between developed and developing countries. But, in recent years, the volume of South-to-South trade has increased significantly. Today, some of the most problematic crops in terms of their effect on the environment, such as soy and palm oil, are predominantly traded amongst developing and fast-rising countries.

Myanmar is undergoing multiple transitions, from military rule to democracy, decades of civil war to peace, and from a command economy to a market-based one. No less of an important challenge amidst this backdrop of change and hope is addressing the country’s energy poverty.

This fall, the National Intelligence Council released an intelligence community assessment of the extent to which factors such as climate change, severe weather, conflict, resource scarcity, disease, poor governance, and environmental degradation will impact peoples’ purchasing power and food availability over the next decade. They found “the overall risk of food insecurity in many countries of strategic importance to the United States will increase.”