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To Reduce Future Conflicts over Water, Reconceptualize “Shared Waters”
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In the years ahead, climate change and the proliferation of new technologies and information availability will require us to reshape our vision of shared waters. Because these megatrends are experienced in concert, the opportunities, challenges, and uncertainties for shared water management will continue to compound over time.While it is impossible to know precisely how shared water will look in the future, we should already be working to expand how we conceptualize shared waters, address inequities embedded within water management, and develop criteria and processes that successfully identify and include non-traditional shared water actors in decision-making. These shifts will strengthen our ability to generate creative and sustainable management strategies and help us avoid water-related conflicts.
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To Address Security in Africa, Focus on the Citizen: Ambassador Phillip Carter III on the Connections between Development and Security
›To address the security challenges facing Sub-Saharan Africa we need to shift the focus from a concept of state security to one of citizen security, says Ambassador Phillip Carter III (ret.), former Ambassador to the Ivory Coast and the Republic of Guinea, in this week’s Friday Podcast. “Our current strategy of a military response to terrorist organizations or criminal networks is inadequate at best, and probably unsustainable at worst,” says Carter. “To me, the greatest security threat in Africa is poor or bad governance.” -
Mohamed’s Story: The Climate Conflict Trap in the Lake Chad Basin
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Years ago, Mohamed’s family had enough to eat, despite being poor. His daughter owned a vegetable stall at a bustling market in northeastern Nigeria. The family had options: during the dry season, when Lake Chad was shallow, Mohamed could farm; and during the wet season, he could fish or graze his cattle.
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The Environment Has Become a Hostage of Armed Conflict
›This year, 2019, marked a new nadir for the environment that may reflect an ominous trend in warfare: Environmentally sensitive targets are being weaponized and taken hostage. Farmland went up in flames and burning oil tankers dominated the headlines, serving as a stark reminder of conflict’s ripple effects.
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Climate Change, Conflict, and Peacebuilding in Solomon Island Communities
›Meaningful engagement with the social and conflict implications of climate change in Solomon Islands must be firmly grounded within local worldviews—within Solomon Islanders’ physical, economic, political, and social and spiritual worlds. As we note in a recent policy brief for the Toda Peace Institute, when addressing conflict challenges exacerbated or caused by climate change, approaches should be draw upon community understandings of what constitutes peace and justice.
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Family Planning in Humanitarian Settings is Achievable and Effective
›“Family planning saves lives, even in times of crisis,” said Gwen K. Young, Managing Director at the Global Emergency Response Coalition at a Wilson Center event on October 8 on the importance of providing family planning and reproductive health services in humanitarian settings. Speakers from Save the Children, CARE, the International Rescue Committee, and FP2020 spoke to programmatic successes, innovative solutions, and local partnerships in fragile settings. Young highlighted that 1 in 70 people worldwide need humanitarian assistance and a quarter of these are women and girls of reproductive age. All told, more than 30 million women and girls in 42 countries.
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Understanding and Responding to the Role of Drought in National Security
›“We don’t have a world water crisis, we have a world water management crisis,” said Brigadier General Gerald Galloway (U.S. Army Ret.) at the 2nd National Drought Forum, hosted by the National Integrated Drought Information System and the National Drought Resilience Partnership at the United States Institute of Peace. The Forum brought together subject matter experts with federal and state leaders to discuss how to strengthen the state-federal relationship to improve U.S. drought readiness and resilience.
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How Terrorists Leverage Climate Change
›Policymakers and emergency managers tend to build a conceptual wall between natural hazards and terrorism. The causes of—and remedies for—these two kinds of disasters are seen as separate and distinct. But, in the era of climate change, the wall between the two is crumbling.
Showing posts from category conflict.
In the years ahead, climate change and the proliferation of new technologies and information availability will require us to reshape our vision of 
To address the security challenges facing Sub-Saharan Africa we need to shift the focus from a concept of state security to one of citizen security, says Ambassador Phillip Carter III (ret.), former Ambassador to the Ivory Coast and the Republic of Guinea, in this week’s Friday Podcast. “Our current strategy of a military response to terrorist organizations or criminal networks is inadequate at best, and probably unsustainable at worst,” says Carter. “To me, the greatest security threat in Africa is poor or bad governance.”
