The events of the Arab Spring took the world by surprise: there were no obvious signs of an approaching storm in the Levant and the Maghreb. Objective measures—used on a regular basis—showed that…

Elena Ianchovichina, Martijn Burger, Efstratia Arampatzi |

The agreement reached by 196 countries at Paris to collectively work to limit the growth of global average temperatures to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels is a landmark…

Charles Cormier |

The evidence is clear: When countries value girls and women as much as boys and men; when they invest in their health, education, and skills training; when they give women greater opportunities to…

Sri Mulyani Indrawati |

The Climate Change conference in Paris only confirmed what we already knew—that increasingly, there’s an overlap between conventional security threats of a military nature, which are focused on…

Mohamed Abdallah Youness |

Defense budgets are not publicly available, oversight is weak, and information about hidden spending is non-existent, says Transparency International-UK (TI-UK) of defense spending by the 17…

Christine Petré |

I wasn’t in Socotra or the southern Yemeni city of Aden when the two cyclones hit them in mid-November, but I have a big family and many friends who live there. As I listened intently to the news…

Ahmad Lajam |

From a normative perspective, we can all agree that child labor is reprehensible and should be banned, particularly in its worst forms. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO),…

Caio Piza, Andre Portela Souza |

Children work in their classroom. Photo: Maria Fleischmann / World Bank “Ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that…

Samuel Berlinski |

Syrian refugee students listen to their school teacher during math classes.  Photo © Dominic Chavez/World Bank ​In Europe, the year 2015 will be remembered as the year of the “refugee crisis.”…

Christian Bodewig |

Over 25, 000 people have descended on the Bourget in the suburbs of Paris to attend the much anticipated 21st Conference of Parties on climate change, or “COP21”. The first meeting today is due to…

Maria Sarraf, Martin Heger |