Blogs & Opinions


Biden's Climate Plan Will Not Address Gender and Racial Inequality

Dec 28, 2020 | Greer Gosnell and Sara Hastings-Simon

Women and minorities have suffered disproportionately from the pandemic recession and must be part of any comprehensive recovery program. The Biden administration’s quest to green the…


Terror in a Renewed Era of Interstate Conflict — Bringing Climate Change Center Stage

Dec 28, 2020 | Mohammed Sinan Siyech

The year 2020 has been marked by COVID-19, a pandemic that took over the world and complicated the security landscape in various nations of South…


Women Working on the Front Line

Dec 23, 2020 | Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a crisis reaching far beyond health, challenging fundamental aspects of the ways we have previously arranged our social and economic…


Climate Change in the US Arctic: A Growing Concern for Homeland Defense?

Dec 21, 2020 | Agata Lavorio

Is climate change shaping U.S. Arctic posture? For much of its modern history, the U.S. has been considered a reluctant Arctic state, given its limited…


Tackling Gender Inequality Is ‘Crucial’ for Climate Adaptation

Dec 15, 2020 | Ayesha Tandon

Efforts to tackle gender inequality can play a key role in how countries adapt to the growing risks posed by climate change, a new study…


What Afghan Women Leaders Want You to Know about the Peace Talks

Dec 14, 2020 | The Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security

Peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban officially began in October of 2020, opening the possibility for ending to decades of violence through…


Visions Toward a Federal Land Governance System in Myanmar

Dec 11, 2020 | Transnational Institute

In Myanmar’s evolving transitional context, the land sector is particularly important and strategic: what happens here will have wide effects and long-term consequences. The country’s…


To Raise Ambition at the Climate Summit, Let’s Promote Quality Education - Especially for Girls

Dec 10, 2020 | Christina Kwauk and Lucia Fry

Last month, over 330 youth delegates to the Mock COP26 from over 140 countries signed a treaty of demands aimed at world leaders to address the greatest intergenerational equity…


Peacebuilding without Protection: Yemeni Women’s Barriers to Peace

Dec 10, 2020 | Nadia Ebrahim, Aïcha Madi, and Nesmah Mansoor

Women peacebuilders at the frontlines face multidimensional threats and violence in Yemen. The Peace Track Initiative’s staff can only deplore a lack of international awareness…


The Taliban Are Megarich – Here’s Where They Get the Money They Use to Wage War in Afghanistan

Dec 8, 2020 | Hanif Sufizada

The Taliban militants of Afghanistan have grown richer and more powerful since their fundamentalist Islamic regime was toppled by U.S. forces in 2001. In the…


Escalating Tigray Conflict Can Spiral into a Regional Water War

Dec 7, 2020 | Simon Wolfe

The power and communications blackouts that followed Ethiopia’s bombing of Tigray’s regional capital, Mekelle, are an ominous sign that this conflict is far from over…


In the Words of Riko Nagu: “In Order to Build an Inclusive Society and a Resilient Community both Women and Men Should Work Together.

Dec 3, 2020 | Anastasiia Tiurmenko

The IGNR project presents a series of articles, the heroines of which are local leaders who participated in the Traditional Governance and Facilitation Bill consultations…


How the Women, Peace and Security Agenda Must Change in Response to the Climate Crisis

Dec 3, 2020 | Carol Cohn and Claire Duncanson

The 20th anniversary of UNSCR 1325 in October this year has been an occasion of reflection for feminist peace activists around the world. What has…


New Constitution Could Help Chile Avert the Lithium Curse

Dec 3, 2020 | Matthew Gallagher

Chile is on the cusp of a new era. Just as its lithium—a common element of energy storage technology, which is itself a critical component…


Climate Change, National Security, & the New Commander-in-Chief

Dec 2, 2020 | Mark Nevitt

President-elect Joe Biden is 50 days away from assuming office as commander-in-chief. He has committed to taking bold, historic action on climate change and has…


Reversing Conflict Minerals: Let’s Formalize Artisanal Mining for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies

Dec 2, 2020 | Jorden de Haan

Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is a largely informal industry, known for its close relations with armed conflict, organized crime, human rights abuses, and corruption.…


Climate War in the Sahel? Pastoral Insecurity in West Africa Is Not What It Seems

Nov 30, 2020 | Leif Brottem

As violence in Mali and Burkina Faso reached a ten-year high this year, the West African Sahel appears to be experiencing the perfect storm of climate stress,…


Women, Peace, and Security: This Is How We Win

Nov 29, 2020 | Kelley E. Curie

Brave women, stepping forward and refusing to be ignored, have been critical to shifting the trajectory of ... threats to international peace and security.

This idea — that women’s…


Women, Peace and Security in Cameroon: The Missing Voices of the Anglophone Crisis

Nov 27, 2020 | Corinne Aurelie Moussi

The 21st century has been marked by growing calls to promote the inclusion and participation of women in peace processes as well as recognise their unique…


Fire, Conflict and Land Systems in the Middle East

Nov 27, 2020 | Lina Eklund

Since 2019, the author has been involved in a Marie Curie project on fire and conflict in the Middle East: FIRE – Fighting Insurgency Ruining…


The Environmental Cost of Conflict

Nov 26, 2020 | Naghi Ahmadov

On 9 November, the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a Russia-brokered agreement to end the military operations in Karabakh that had started on 27…


Deforestation, Dying Rivers Leading to Water Wars

Nov 25, 2020 | Michael A. Bengwayan

An eerie calm exists over the villages of Fedelisan, Sagada and Dalican of Bontoc of Mountain Province, Philippines. It is because, there is no telling…


Can Promotion Groups Help Strengthen Women’s Access and Control over Land?

Nov 24, 2020 | Ibrahima Dia

In Senegal, women’s ‘promotion groups’ have traditionally been vehicles for helping women share resources, ideas and experiences to increase income. But they are also –…


Re-Envisioning Climate Action to Sustain Peace and Human Security

Nov 17, 2020 | Catherine Wong, Stephen Gold, Samuel Rizk, and Cassie Flynn

A combination of crisis, conflict, climate change and COVID-19 means that we live in truly unprecedented times. In complex contexts, the message of environmental protection…


Global Water Security & Sanitation Partnership (GWSP) – Rising to the Challenges of 2020

Nov 16, 2020 | Jennifer J. Sara

The year 2020 has been shaped by interlocking crises: the COVID-19 pandemic that threatens to roll back years of hard-won development progress, the struggles of…


Masculinity Is the Unspoken Undercurrent in Trumpism and the Fracking Debate

Nov 16, 2020 | Zack Rearick

Deindustrialization emasculates. It hits at men’s pride and devalues a kind of blue-collar physicality that has traditionally been revered (glorified in culture) and rewarded (paid…


Will Bangladesh Ever See An End To Gender-Based Violence?

Nov 16, 2020 | Rosie Pasqualino

Acid and dowry-based attacks have been particularly prominent in the country, though sexual, physical, psychological and economic abuse has been recognized as forms of abuse…


In the Caribbean, Climate Change Is a Gender Issue

Nov 16, 2020

Caribbean countries are vulnerable to climate change and its impacts, including rising sea levels, extreme and unpredictable weather (including natural disasters), drought and flooding, biodiversity…


Integrate Gender When Designing Climate Policy

Nov 16, 2020 | Mara Dolon and Jessica Olson

The team of people tasked with coordinating the global climate change negotiations for the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in 2021, we recently learned, consists…


The Ancient Band of Shepherds Taking on a NATO Land Grab in Montenegro

Nov 13, 2020 | Pablo Dominguez

While all eyes were focused on elections in the US, few noticed that a new government was to be sworn in in Montenegro. Shepherds and…