As the war in Syria shows no signs of letting up, a recent article in Middle Eastern Studies put forward the hypothesis that the brutal conflict was triggered by government mismanagement of the country’s recent drought, which lasted from 2006 to 2010. It’s a story we’ve heard before.

Sudan’s pastoralists gained infamy during the conflict in Darfur last decade, when outsiders described the violence as a result of competition between climate-stressed, semi-nomadic herders and sedentary farmers. But Sudan’s pastoralists may not be as fragile as previously thought and could even hold the key to survival for similar groups in Africa, said a panel of experts at the Wilson Center on November 13. [Video Below]

The original version of this article, by Harry Verhoeven, appeared on ChinaDialogue.

The growing intensification of economic, political and social ties between China and Africa in the last 15 years is often told as a story of copper, petrodollars, emerging Chinatowns, and bilateral visits by heads of state.

The original version of this article, by Matthew Berger, appeared on The Interdependent.

Last summer, after walking for days to a refugee camp across the South Sudan border, some Sudanese refugees reportedly chose to dig holes to reach muddy water rather than face the fist-fights breaking out around a failing tap. Boreholes dug by aid agencies collapsed in the crumbling soil. Even the coming rainy season brought more challenges than relief, washing out roads used by water tanker trucks and threatening the camp with flooding.

Sub-Saharan Africa is perhaps the riskiest place for a woman to give birth. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), African women comprise approximately 56 percent of the maternal deaths and 91 percent of HIV-related maternal deaths worldwide every year. In order to bring life into this world, women in Africa literally must put their own lives on the line.

In 1979, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat famously said that “the only matter that could take Egypt to war again is water.” Sadat’s message was clear: the Nile is a matter of national security for Egypt.

Indeed, Egypt relies on the Nile for 95 percent of its water. But it is not the only state with an interest in the world’s longest river. There are 11 states in the Nile River basin, which stretches from Africa’s Great Lakes region – Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – to the Ethiopian and Eritrean highlands through South Sudan, Sudan, and Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea.