“Most risk in African cities is not catastrophic. It’s not even episodic, but it is every day,” said Mark Pelling, a professor at King’s College, London, at a recent event on urban risk and resilience in sub-Saharan Africa. With rates of rural-to-urban migration reaching record highs, more than half of the urban residents in sub-Saharan Africa live in informal settlements, where they lack basic infrastructure and access to critical resources. Integrated projects like Pelling’s Urban ARK seek to build more resilient communities in cities and informal settlements. “African cities are dynamic and are growing,” said Pelling—but so is the vulnerability of their residents to environmental change, natural disasters, and conflict.

“Floods are one of many factors that keep massive amounts of the population in poverty and always on the brink of disaster,” said Eric Viala at the second event in a four-part series on water security organized by the Wilson Center in cooperation with the Sustainable Water Partnership, which Viala directs. Panelists at the event discussed the impact of intense flooding on vulnerable communities and proposed innovative and collaborative approaches to reducing their risks in the face of disasters.

“Water may be the most important issue we face for the next generation,” writes President Donald J. Trump on the first page of the first-ever U.S. Global Water Strategy. Prepared by the U.S. State Department and released in mid-November, the landmark report was required by Congress’ bipartisan Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act of 2014. During the public comments phase, the New Security Beat published recommendations from its fellows and experts. Now that it is out, we’ve asked them to share their thoughts on the final report.

As the Climate Conference of Parties (COP-23) wraps up in Bonn, Germany, the prime minister of the tiny Pacific island nation of Tuvalu, which is sinking a few millimeters every year, made an impassioned call for transparency in the Paris Agreement “rule book” and for ratcheting up worldwide ambitions to reduce climate change.  While informal texts were drafted to guide implementation of the historic 2015 Paris Agreement, formal adoption of these rules will have to wait until COP-24, to be held in Poland next year.

The frontlines of climate change are the world’s shorelines. “It goes without saying that people living in coastal communities are already observing impacts,” said Erin Derrington, a coastal resources specialist working in the Northern Mariana Islands, at a recent Wilson Center event, the third in a series on coastal resilience presented in collaboration with the Hoover Institute and the Stanford Woods Institute on the Environment. “Although that is a challenge, it is also an opportunity and a driver for change and innovation,” said Derrington.

As our climate changes, “we are vulnerable to unacceptable risks of failures in functionality, durability, and safety,” said Alice C. Hill, former senior director for resiliency policy for the National Security Council, as she launched Resilience Week at the Wilson Center. During the week, members of the UN Resilience Academy joined representatives from the Wilson Center, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the Hoover Institute for in-depth discussions on building global resilience in the face of environmental change. “Resilience is proving necessary to withstand the disruptions to our very interconnected systems,” she said.

Hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated Puerto Rico, leaving many on the island without power, drinking water, or cellular service. Such disasters are not just an issue for the Caribbean, said the Wilson Center’s Roger-Mark De Souza in an interview with WOUB that was last month’s most read story on New Security Beat. All coastal areas of the United States, with their growing populations and vulnerable but valuable infrastructure, should be prepared to face more severe climate-related natural disasters.

A threat looms on the sun-splashed horizon of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. The specter of climate change wraps its fingers around the islands, raising sea levels, salinizing soils, and sapping freshwater resources. These changes will make it even harder to sustain crops, which could push the population to even greater reliance on  processed foods, which has already spurred a diabetes epidemic on the islands. The major role played by the United States in the history of the Marshalls, where nuclear bombs were famously tested during the Cold War, may continue, as the impacts of another existential threat—climate change—continue to increase.