With the advance of climate change and environmental changes threatening livelihoods, their impacts on migration and displacement are receiving increasing attention in research, politics, and civil society. The issue is complex and multi-dimensional, with environmental changes affecting human…

The African Union (AU) Great Green Wall for the Sahara and Sahel Initiative (GGWSSI) has recently launched the Great Green Wall Award in Burkina Faso for the promotion and sustainable management of land. It is intended to reward the work of media professionals. They must submit their productions…

Last year, droughts devastated staple food crops across the developing world, cutting production by about half in some countries. A stream of reports from Central America, Eastern and Southern Africa as well as the Asia-Pacific region painted a grim picture of suffering and upheaval. Poor harvests…

Insights and Analysis on economics and finance

There are a number of trends that have led to increasing frequency of disease outbreaks, but it is the links to climate change and biodiversity that are most striking.

Multi-agency report highlights increasing signs and impacts of climate change in atmosphere, land and oceans

On Sunday we will mark International Women’s Day and this year’s theme is #GenerationEquality—a campaign that seizes on the momentum of a new generation of activists working to close the gaps between men and women. I am proud to be part of this movement by highlighting data that shows where progress…

A growing body of research on the links between climate change, fragility and conflict shows that climate change will make peacebuilding more urgent and complex. Climate-sensitive peacebuilding has the potential to significantly contribute to addressing climate-fragility risks. The Peacebuilding…

At the dawn of the 2020s, building fairer and more inclusive economies must be the goal of global, national and industry leaders. To get there, instilling gender parity across education, health, politics and across all forms of economic participation will be critical.

Prosperity entails much more than wealth. It reaches beyond the financial into the political, the judicial, the wellbeing, and the character of a nation — it is about creating an environment in which people are able to reach their full potential. A nation is prosperous when it has an inclusive…

Lake Chad is caught in a conflict trap. Violence between armed opposition groups – including the so-called ‘Islamic State West Africa Province’ and ‘Boko Haram’ – and state security forces has left 10.7 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. Climate change is compounding these challenges…

This OECD Global Forum on Environment focuses on "Mainstreaming Gender and Empowering Women for Environmental Sustainability". It will identify and propose ways to capitalise on synergies between environmental policies and economic and social goals, such as achieving gender equality and women’s…

An investigation into the private library of Mahmoud Mau inspires new research on Islamic intellectual history and the Swahili poetic production of coastal Kenya.

German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE), African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET), the Africa Growth Initiative at Brookings Institution, the Center for Development Research at University of Bonn (ZEF), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale…

The Governance of Tenure technical guides are part of FAO’s initiative to help develop capacities to improve tenure governance and thereby assist countries in applying the Voluntary Guidelines. They are prepared by technical specialists and can be used by a range of actors to translate principles of…

The assessment of land degradation and restoration by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services shows that land degradation across the globe is a wide and severe issue and is showing no signs of slowing down. This trend must be halted and reversed

Africa’s economic growth has stabilized at 3.4 percent in 2019 and is expected to pick up to 3.9 percent in 2020 and 4.1 percent in 2021 but to remain below historical highs. Growth’s fundamentals are also improving, with a gradual shift from private consumption toward investment and exports. For…

The authors present us with a new narrative, rethinking our relationship to, perception and use of wetlands, championing the already existing natural solutions and community approaches that can change our fate, showing how we can work with nature rather than against it.

The official launch of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013 ushered in a period of remarkable transformations in Central Asia. The development of new regional transit corridors linking north to south and east to west and the modernization of telecommunications networks are connecting the people in…

The African Studies Centre Leiden is the only academic institution in the Netherlands dedicated solely to the study of Africa. In 2016 the ASCL became an integral part of Leiden University, as an interfaculty institute, with its own research agenda, library acquisition policy, and teaching profile.

The Land Accelerator is an exciting four-month program and curated network for entrepreneurs who restore degraded forests and farmland. It is anchored by an intensive week-long workshop when the cohort meets in person. There is no fee to join, and the program does not take equity.

Statistics on global water challenges are daunting: 3 billion people don’t have basic handwashing facilities. A quarter of the world’s population live in countries facing extremely high water stress. There are more than 500 dead zones — areas of the ocean without enough oxygen for most marine life…

Forest protection and tree-based landscape restoration underpin many domestic policy goals and international commitments made by the Government of India. The National Forest Policy, 1988 aims to establish forest and tree cover over 33 percent of India’s geographical area. India’s Nationally…

Millions of people across Sub-Saharan Africa could face grave hunger in the first half of 2020 because of armed conflict, political instability and climate change-linked disasters, a report from the WFP says.The report published by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) this month says that the countries…

The interactive 2019 SDG Dashboards provide a visual representation of countries’ performance by SDGs to identify priorities for action.