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The ongoing conflicts in Mali are often taken as one and portrayed in relation to religious extremism, irredentism or plain criminality, overlooking tensions arising from changing socio-political relations at the local level. This is particularly...

Geopolitical action is required to cope with the enormous resource challenges that lie ahead.

Actividades extractivas tienen que integrar los intereses estratégicos y las urgencias económicas de los gobiernos con las demandas de los pueblos indígenas.

The suffering of the Palestinians forced off their land is not due to climate change or drought; it is the result of unchecked political forces.

Restricting the mining industry’s access to raw materials will narrow the profit base for mining companies and metal traders, but it will pay dividends on many other levels.

Most discussions of power in natural resource management tend to omit the primary issue of capitalism.

Colombia no es la excepción de adquisiciones masivas de tierras en el mundo.

Deforestation-related conflict reflects the power relations between forest users.

The expansion of the extractive frontiers affects the territories of local populations in Latin America.

In 2007, Ecuador launched the Yasuní-ITT initiative, a proposal to leave oil in the soil of the Yasuní National Park in exchange for financial compensation from the international community.

Land grabbing is an expression of the dominant development model based on production and consumption patterns in which financial capital reigns.

Although the modalities of power employed in resource struggles are all different and context-specific, a recurrent element of these struggles is the use of discursive power.

To really tackle the resource curse, local communities need to obtain a meaningful and informed position in consultation processes, at the negotiation table and in monitoring panels.

Ecosystems scientist Mark Everard makes a compelling case for the necessity of a more sustainable relationship between humanity and the water cycle.

In natural resource management, the issue is not bringing politics back in or taking it out, but the conditions under which issues are politicized.

There is no easy answer to the question of the fate of Ecuador’s Yasuní-ITT region, but a few key steps can maximize the areas of agreement of the many vested interests.

How to eradicate the root causes of resource conflicts?

Sri Lankan and Indian fishermen are embroiled in an enduring dispute over the use of fishing grounds in the Palk Bay. The dispute is not only a matter of big India versus small Sri Lanka, or big boats versus small boats. Rather, Sri Lankan Tamil f...

‘A big idea from a small country’. This is how Ecuador promoted its proposal to leave oil in the soil of Yasuní National Park in exchange for financial compensation from the international community. Yet, in August 2013– six years after its officia...

Natural resource conflicts take many forms, and they are particularly complicated by scope and scale.

The rising production of soy for the global market has been one of the main drivers of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. This is not only affecting the biodiversity of the Amazon region, but is also engendering severe violent conflicts in the...

The Peruvian region Madre de Dios is the scene of an enduring dispute between small-scale miners and the authorities over the use of land. In an attempt to formalize the small-scale mining sector, the Peruvian government has declared all small-sca...

 Minerals play an important role in the Congolese conflict. But it is certainly not only about greed.

A fisheries conflict in Canada shows how power dynamics affect the lives of an aboriginal community.

Ghana needs to focus more on local production and value addition in order to bring its marginalized citizens on board.  

If we want sustainable management of our natural resources to be part of the post-2015 world, an understanding of the water-energy-food nexus is required.

The UN’s two-day event on water issued a call for a Post-2015 development framework that is less fragmented than the process of formulating the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and is integrated with the sustainable development agenda. So far,...

For purposes of setting post-2015 goals for development, inequalities should not only involve income and wealth, but also the power to decide on the uses to which resources are, or are not, put.

The contributors to ‘Prioritising Water’ offered a wide range of sometimes detailed recommendations on how the post-2015 agenda should address the key challenges discussed during the debate. Below we take a look at these recommendations in the con...

International water law  - especially where it concerns fair distribution and sustainability – will be able to provide powerful support to the post-2015 development agenda.

UNESCO can play a vital role in guaranteeing a focus on sustainability and interrelated water challenges in the formulation of the post-2015 development agenda. 

Increasing awareness and knowledge about water use is essential and should be a key part of the post-2015 agenda.

To combat scarcity, leaders must work together to increase water-use efficiency in agriculture.

The implications of climate change on WRM and WASH need to be addressed in the post-2015 development agenda. 

To be effective, strategies on providing drinking water in urban India should tap into complex formal and informal governance networks.

The key areas to prioritize in the UN’s Post-2015 development agenda will soon be determined in a worldwide consultation process coordinated by the UN. Feeding into this process, The Broker brings together international experts to pool their knowl...

Oxfam Novib’s Tom van der Lee writes that development aid should not only support small-scale farmers, but should find links with climate change, land grabbing, biofuels policies, and price volatility.

In this second report on The Broker thesis project we highlight the work of two researchers who examined water management systems in Africa. Their theses have been reviewed by Meine Pieter van Dijk of the UNESCO–IHE Institute for Water Education,...