XIANGYANG, China – This factory located in a quiet island of central China’s Xiangyang city probably won’t grab your attention. Its stainless steel complex and three-story office building look similar to any other. But don’t be fooled by appearances. The plant here holds a secret that has lured more than 100 Chinese mayors to pay their respects and uncover how they can replicate its success.

“As we go forward, we will discover that 2015 was when we really started getting serious about transdisciplinary challenges inherent in sustainable development,” said Melinda Kimble, senior vice president for programs at the UN Foundation, at the Wilson Center on April 13. [Video Below]

I recently returned to Washington, DC, after 10 days in India. New Delhi was warm, moist, crowded – and buzzing with mosquitoes. Fortunately, at least for now, their bites are little more than an itchy nuisance, which is just as well.

Between 2010 and 2015, Tanzania received more than $320 million in assistance via the U.S. government’s Feed the Future Initiative – the most of any country. But despite these commitments and an average of six to seven percent annual economic growth since 2000, Tanzania did not meet the first Millennium Development Goal: to reduce hunger and extreme poverty by half by the end of 2015.

Surrounded by water, the Philippines is especially vulnerable to climate change. Its islands and its people are enduring increasingly unpredictable rains, intensifying cycles of flood and drought, and strengthening storms forming in the Pacific. These changing weather patterns have not only derailed livelihoods and agricultural productivity in rural areas, they have also worsened water insecurity in cities, where 45 percent of the population live.

How will climate change affect you? Probably through water.

That’s the major message of a new World Bank report that finds the ways governments treat water can have a profound effect on the economy.

The Middle East, as much as ever, is the focus of international attention, but the obvious crises may be a distraction from deeper underlying issues.