The lost generation: Children in conflict zones
Adel Abdel Ghafar and Fraus Masri A catastrophic by-product of ongoing conflicts in the Middle East is a lost generation of unschooled children. These children find themselves, through no fault of their own, not only displaced but lacking the opportunity for proper schooling and thus, denied a chanc…
Global clean energy employment rose 5% in 2015, figures show
Damian Carrington A boom in solar and wind power jobs in the US led the way to a global increase in renewable energy employment to more than 8 million people in 2015, according to a report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena). More than 769,000 people were employed in renewable ene…
Funding the Sustainable Development Goals With Investment Philanthropy
Jane Wales Buoyed by the success of the millennium development goals (MDGs), the community of nations has come together once again to commit to a shared set of objectives. This time, UN member states have made an even bolder promise: to eradicate poverty by 2030 and to do so in an environmentally su…
The Most Important Outcome of the World Humanitarian Summit
Jennifer L. Windsor As the first-ever World Humanitarian Summit closed yesterday, many important commitments were made, but none as important as the agreement to place women and women’s empowerment at the centerpiece of the international response to humanitarian crises. We know that women bear the b…
ISIL’s evolving strategy should raise security concerns
Rami G Khouri A series of coordinated attacks in three cities in Syria and Yemen on Monday by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) provides important new insights into the group’s current capabilities and strategy, suggesting that the months ahead will be increasingly …
Should Europe Be Concerned About Climate Refugees?
Rob Bailey Europe’s migration crisis is a failure of policy and politics. Granted, the scale of human displacement is without precedent in the EU—over one million refugees and migrants arrived in 2015—but the tragic scenes in the Mediterranean, internal squabbles over quotas and border controls and …
What happens when demand for oil peaks?
Amy Myers Jaffe and Jeroen van der Veer A gradual move away from oil, will have many benefits for the global economy, write Amy Myers Jaffe, executive director of energy and sustainability at the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies, and Jeroen van der Veer, former CEO of Royal Dutch Shell. …
From crisis to development: boosting agriculture
Jose Graziano Da Silva With increasing frequency and magnitude, disasters and conflicts are causing untold human suffering in many parts of the world. These are as diverse as Typhoon Haiyan, Ebola, the civil war in Syria, to name but a few of the more recent. We need more concerted efforts to end co…
Terrorism Shouldn’t Affect Travel Plans
Henry H. Willis and Brian Michael Jenkins Vacationers considering trips to Belgium, France, London or other destinations in Europe may find themselves asking: Is it safe to travel there? This anxiety is understandable, given deadly terrorist attacks in Brussels and Paris and, more recently, possible…
The Greening of African Technology
Graca Machel Technological innovation offers Africa huge possibilities. That is why I joined Africa’s movers and shakers last week at a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. We were there to discuss how the digital economy can propel the kind of radical change the con…