In 2011 Thailand was hit by unprecedented monsoon rains far above the average rainfall of the previous 30 years. Two million people across 26 provinces were affected. During the crisis, hundreds of civilians took it to the streets to protest discrimination by the Flood Response Operation Center and the unfair distribution of water, electricity supply, shelter, and food. Civilians were so angry that they broke a sandbag wall in Bangkok which was protecting a wealthy district from water surges. Public unrest and discontent with the government continued until a military coup in 2013.

The discovery of oil in Chad in 1969 did not yield many immediate benefits for a population that would soon be wracked by civil war, but hopes were high by the late 1990s. Chad had largely stabilized, and a new, World Bank-backed project to build a pipeline through Cameroon to the Atlantic Ocean coast was touted as a model for socially and environmentally responsible oil exploitation in developing countries.

Millions of people across the Middle East face drought, scarce drinking water supplies, and poor sanitation due to civil wars and conflict. Meanwhile, resource constraints and foreign military interventions risk more severe humanitarian disasters.

May 5 was the International Day of the Midwife, an opportunity for the global community to come together to recognize the incredible impact midwives have on maternal and newborn health and decreasing mortality. Want to know more about what global leaders are doing to strengthen midwifery?

At the close of a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Lübeck today, ministers announced a stronger collective commitment to tackling climate-related risks in states experiencing situations of fragility.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Yemen has collapsed – again. A country that has split and been pulled together before, has the youngest and fastest growing population in the region, is running low on oil and water, and possesses a “personalist” government rather than stable institutions, was on the top of every expert’s list as the fragile state most likely to fail next.

For two villages in southern Malawi, climate change and contraception have become intertwined. So much so, that long-held cultural assumptions are starting to change.

When I began working in Liberia right after the Accra settlement ended Liberia’s civil war in 2003, I could not help worrying about whether the peace would last. Burnt-out cars lined the streets of Monrovia, bullet holes scarred many of its buildings and the wary U.N. peacekeepers manning checkpoints behind sandbags and barbed wire reinforced the sense that violence could flare up again at any time.