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…
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…
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…
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…
El Niño is back and may be stronger than ever. A wooden boat is seen stranded on the dry cracked riverbed of the Dawuhan Dam during drought season in Madiun, Indonesia's East Java province…
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…
Credit: UN-REDD Programme/Pablo Cambronero The countdown is now well and truly onto to the Paris climate change talks in France. A key factor in the talks will be the national plans, known as the…
To development economists (like myself), the uprisings that started in Tunisia and spread to several countries in the Arab world in 2010-11 came as somewhat of a surprise. For the previous decade…
Here are some facts that you might not know: Over the last 60 years, Guatemala has lost almost half of its forests, much of it due to illegal logging. Built-up area around Lake Laguna in the…
This blog originally appeared on the World Bank's Governance for Development Blog, which informs and stimulates debate on how governments can help end poverty and boost shared prosperity. The…