On February 25, Nigeria will begin voting for its new president in one of the most tightly fought elections in decades. And the most likely winner has already set down a marker in his campaign. “You can’t be talking about climate change when people are taking cover from bombs,” observed Nigerian presidential hopeful Peter Obi.

When a military-led or military-influenced coup d’état occur in a foreign country, does evidence from demographic research merit consideration in the U.S. foreign policy response? It’s a question that U.S. policymakers should be asking as deteriorating political conditions in West Africa come increasingly into confluence with the limited tools available either to deter or respond to illegal and extra-legal forms of political succession.

Global demand for copper has climbed dramatically in recent years, a trend that is likely to continue apace. Peru is the world’s second largest producer of copper. Yet the clamor for copper is an opportunity that the nation is unable to seize upon at present. Peru is now undergoing severe political upheaval and protests that have brought new attention to the underlying risks in extractive industries and supply chains. Production cuts stemming from protests and blockades could amount to 3 percent of global copper output.

One can see—and feel—tides shifting significantly on numerous fronts across the globe, especially in the area of climate security. Opportunities and challenges abound—especially for urban communities.

But are those who shape and carry out U.S. foreign policy ready for these extraordinary changes? And how can the growing movement to integrate diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) become vital in U.S. foreign affairs?

For thousands of years, natural factors like rainfall and temperature helped determine the fate of economies and societies. For thousands of years, humans also engaged in human trafficking and kept one another as enslaved people. But as human prosperity increased exponentially beginning in the 19^th century, it may have seemed that such concerns were relics of the past.

We have all the tools we need for the elimination of cervical cancer, a largely preventable cancer that annually kills more than 300,000 women worldwide—the vast majority in low- and middle-income countries.

 

During the 2010s, the United States was on the verge of permanently losing competitiveness in global nuclear energy markets. This weakness threatened American geopolitical goals, with Russia further extending its nuclear market dominance and China eyeing reactor exports across the Belt and Road.

Under the narrow shade of our umbrellas, a community health worker from a local NGO and I walked along a dirt path to the edge of some paddy fields in a village in Tamil Nadu, South India in the summer of 2015. There we met a group of Dalit (oppressed-caste) women who were squeezed together under a clump of trees on a small strip of raised land between two fields.

The summer of 2015 was one of the hottest on record in South India at that time, with temperatures consistently above 40ºC (104ºF) every day. Rains which should have begun to arrive had not come by mid-July. These women were hoping to be called for daily agricultural wage labor in the fields, and they had taken refuge under the shade while they waited. They had been waiting all morning with no work available; it had been the same for several days because there was a drought and the crops were failing.