Blogs & Opinions


Global Assessment Highlights Growing Environmental Risks to Human Security

Apr 25, 2019 | Doug Weir

The Sixth edition of UN Environment’s Global Environment Outlook – GEO6 – was published to coincide with the fourth UN Environment Assembly in March. As…


Top Funders and NGOs Think Empowering Women Farmers Can Reduce Hunger. Are They Right?

Apr 24, 2019 | Michelle Sieff

In 2017, about 11 percent of the world’s population—around 821 million—was undernourished, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). This data confirms a recent…


Left Behind- the Mongolian Herders Living at Home With Mum

Apr 23, 2019 | Narangerel Yansanjav

“I am one of the woman-headed households in this soum. I have been a herder for many years. For me life is still good, because…


To Mitigate Climate-Fragility Risks, Build Preventative Capacity in Fragile States

Apr 23, 2019 | Truett Sparkman

States facing major climate hazards, such as flooding, drought, and sea level rise, will be forced to contend with the cost of humanitarian and adaptation…


Blockchain Is Great, but It Can't Solve Everything. Take Conflict Minerals.

Apr 23, 2019 | Fritz Brugger

Blockchain technology can help trace a product as it moves through a supply chain, but it cannot create trust where it’s often most needed. 


Bloody Gold in Zamfara: Threat to Stability or Development Opportunity?

Apr 22, 2019 | Donald Inwalomhe

Although Zamfara gold should provide development opportunities but renewed gold interest in Zamfara represents a real threat to stability in a still vulnerable conflict in…


Was the Fate of Sudan's Ruler Sealed When Oil Prices Fell?

Apr 21, 2019 | Robin Mills

When Sudan shut down the pipeline from South Sudan in 2013, the new state was plunged into economic crisis within two years. Now, one of the…


Is It Times to Consider a More Federalized Iraq?

Apr 19, 2019 | Paul Iddon

Could granting more autonomy to the oil-rich region of Basra help its residents improve their livelihood? asks Paul Iddon.


Science Diplomacy and Environmental Peacebuilding: Overcoming Political Boundaries by Leveraging Science and Protecting the Environment in Cyprus

Apr 18, 2019 | Carla Isobel Elliff, Sunitha Anup, and Dhanasree Jayaram

This webinar series on science diplomacy and environmental peacebuilding seeks to explore the role of science diplomacy in environmental peacebuilding. The first webinar focused on Cyprus, which is…


Opinion: What More Than 150 Members of ISIS Taught Us about Water Security

Apr 17, 2019 | Anne Speckhard and Ardian Shajkovci

Former ISIS members have described in detail how water plays into terrorism and terrorist strategy. The authors have conducted interviews with more than 150 ISIS…


Titling Priorities

Apr 16, 2019

Maritza Losada moved to Puerto Guadalupe, Meta five years ago when her husband found a job with a large biomass energy company that grows sugar cane. She…


The Essential Triad: Water, Gender and Integrity

Apr 15, 2019 | Anga Timilsina

Water is critical for socio-economic development, energy and food production, healthy ecosystems, and human survival. Although 2.6 billion people have gained access to improved drinking…


Why Women Led the Uprising in Sudan

Apr 12, 2019 | Nasredeen Abdulbari

The protests that led to the ouster of Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, have been dominated by women. Day after day on the streets of Khartoum,…


Craft and the Council: Will Kelly Knight Craft End Climate Action at the UN Security Council?

Apr 11, 2019 | Oli Brown

In late February, Donald Trump announced Kelly Knight Craft, a 57-year-old Kentucky native, as his pick to succeed Nikki Haley as US Ambassador to the United…


Afghanistan's Transformation into a Narco-State

Apr 11, 2019 | Gareth Rice

As though Afghanistan’s problems couldn’t get any worse, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime’s most recent Afghanistan opium survey (released in November last year) was a…


Four Climate Change Factors That Might Contribute to Existing or Future Conflicts

Apr 10, 2019 | Loic Tchinda

According to the SIDA Report (2017), climate change might not have a clear and linear relationship with violent conflict but under certain circumstances, climate-related change can…


Pig Pens Power a Solution to Climate Change in Vietnam

Apr 9, 2019

When Trin Gim first started her biogas digester business, she raised many eyebrows. In the little district of Ung Hoa, located south of Viet Nam’s…


Gender Equality? Add Water

Apr 9, 2019 | Sonia Lowman

Imagine having to wait all day to defecate in the dark, just to get the tiniest semblance of privacy—and then getting raped because you went…


For Planet and Country: National Security's Climate Moment

Apr 9, 2019 | Jon Powers and Kevin Johnson

It is no overstatement that the greatest threat facing America’s national security and the world at large is climate change. Denials of science and fossil…


The Case for Planetary Stewardship

Apr 9, 2019 | Georg Kell

We know with scientific certainty that the impact of climate change will soon force governments to take bolder steps, both in terms of reducing emissions…


China’s Assertive Maritime Policy Is Older Than Xi

Apr 9, 2019 | Andrew Chubb

The toughening of China’s policies in the South and East China Seas is widely regarded as a defining characteristic of Xi Jinping’s foreign policy. But…


Vietnam Wants a South China Sea Dispute Resolution Pact with Teeth, Not More Politics

Apr 9, 2019 | Le Hong Hiep

Asean member states and China are a step closer to forming a Code of Conduct for the South China Sea after years of operating a…


Better Water Security Translates into Better Food Security

Apr 8, 2019 | Kyla Peterson

“Food production is the largest consumer of water and also represents the largest unknown factor of future water use as the world’s population continues to…


Environmental Issues Are Ravaging the Middle East - Why Aren't Newsrooms Taking It Seriously?

Apr 7, 2019 | Bel Trew

Safe water is the most basic need for humans. It is life.  And yet water crises – which are often man made and have solutions – never get…


From Bolivian Cocaine to Colombian Gold, Low-Level Involvement in Illicit Economies Is Often Driven by Poverty and Marginalisation

Apr 5, 2019 | Allan Gillies

Across Latin America, many impoverished communities rely on income from illicit economies for their survival, yet international development agencies and NGOs have long been reluctant…


South Sudan, Where a Water Crisis Is Leading to Child Kidnappings and Rape

Apr 4, 2019 | Bel Trew

For a split second it looked like the young South Sudanese woman and her baby, swaddled in a cloth-carrier on her back, were taking a…


How to Avoid Flawed Minerals-for-Infrastructure Deals Like DR Congo and China's Sicomines Pact

Apr 3, 2019 | Adoni Maiza Larrarte and Gloria Claudio-Quiroga

It was confidently billed at the time as the "deal of the century." The Sino Congolaise des Mines (Sicomines) was the most significant Chinese investment project…


Lancang-Mekong Cooperation: Blessing or Curse?

Apr 3, 2019 | Jason Thomas

The Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) marked its third anniversary last week with the announcement that China’s trade with the five Mekong member countries – Cambodia, Lao,…


Land Is Power: How Land Rights Can Enfranchise Liberia's Women

Apr 3, 2019 | Loretta Alethea Pope Kai

Liberia is in the throes of finalising one of Africa’s most progressive land rights laws but its potential will be thwarted if women are excluded. So…


From Joseph Kony to Nile Perch: Complex Links Hook Armed Conflict to Fisheries

Apr 1, 2019 | Sarah Glaser and Cullen Hendrix

Fisheries are complex systems, so numerous factors like human population growth, climate change, and changing lake chemistry come into play. But as our recent article…