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The day is held to make the public aware about the problems of desertification, land degradation and drought. As the population of the world grows, so does the demand for land to live on, feed off, grow fibre for clothing and food for animals. All this activity is making fertile areas become increasingly more arid, bringing about desertification and drought. As we near June 17, which marks the…

A typical drought is a slow-motion catastrophe. But scientists are trying to figure out a phenomenon called a flash drought, which forms in as little as two weeks. In late spring of 2012, climactic chaos descended upon the Midwest and Great Plains in the midst of the growing season. A drought is supposed to unfold on a timeline of seasons to years, but in the two weeks between June…

Today, women have just three-quarters of the legal rights of men. In 1970, it was less than half. The Women, Business and the Law 2020 report presented results from our recent effort to document how laws have changed since 1970. This exceptional dataset has already facilitated ground-breaking research that shows that a country’s performance on the Women, Business and the Law index is associated…

“The Sahel Region is a priority for the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank’s fund for the world’s poorest countries. During the last three years we have scaled up our support by 50 percent and we will go even further in the next three with expected investments of over $7 billion in the Sahel I have recently travelled across the Sahel region from Mali to…

On Sunday we will mark International Women’s Day and this year’s theme is #GenerationEquality—a campaign that seizes on the momentum of a new generation of activists working to close the gaps between men and women. I am proud to be part of this movement by highlighting data that shows where progress is being made and where gaps still exist. As we reflect on the progress to advance gender…

Climate change and environmental degradation are an existential threat to Europe and the world. To overcome these challenges, Europe needs a new growth strategy that transforms the Union into a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy where there are no net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050 economic growth is decoupled from resource use no person…