Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

Cabo Delgado is Mozambique’s northernmost province, bordering Tanzania. Since 2017, it has been gripped by a violent insurgency, when Islamist militants began attacking villages, towns, and governmen…

When people don’t trust their institutions, the social fabric of a society is weakened.

But that “trust deficit” can — and must — be closed.

In this episode of our Future of Africa series, we explore…

A new study out of Kenya shows that one of the most impactful ways to reduce infant and child mortality is to provide cash—no strings attached—to pregnant women. A randomized controlled trial by econ…

Making promises on financing for development is the easy part. Following through on them is hard. Ambassador Chola Milambo speaks frankly about turning global financing commitments into tangible bene…

In 2023, the United Kingdom hosted the world’s first major international summit on the risks of advanced artificial intelligence. That Bletchley Park gathering kicked off a series of high-profile sum…

What does it mean to make peace with nature — and why could that be the key to lasting peace between people? Former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos shares the extraordinary indigenous mandate …

The past week has seen a frenzy of diplomatic activity on Ukraine, culminating in Donald Trump’s extraordinary announcement that he will host Vladimir Putin in Alaska for talks on the war. Setting as…

Africa is the world’s youngest continent — and its future is everyone’s future. By 2030, 70% of sub-Saharan Africa’s population will be under the age of 30. By century’s end, one in three people on t…

“The worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip.”

That was the conclusion of a July 29 report by the leading global authority on food security, the Integrated Food Secur…

In 1997, Jessica Matthews' landmark Foreign Affairs essay “Power Shift” captured the growing influence of NGOs and other non-state actors in shaping global affairs. But nearly three decades later, th…

A groundbreaking new study published in the British medical journal The Lancet Global Health finds that unilateral economic sanctions—most of which are imposed by the United States—lead to approximat…

I caught up with Comfort Ero at the Aspen Security Forum last week. She is the President of the International Crisis Group, and in that role, she brings a truly global perspective on the drivers of c…

My guest today, Thordis Gylfadottir, served as Iceland's foreign minister until 2024. We spoke last week at the Aspen Security Forum, where she delivered a forceful case for the necessity of continue…

Trump’s pick for UN Ambassador, Mike Waltz, faced questions from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week. You may recall he previously served as National Security Advisor before being sideli…

A furious backlash against gender equality, women’s rights, and LGBTQ rights is sweeping the globe. In a new report for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, my guest today, Saskia Brechenm…

The farmer-herder conflict in Nigeria is a long-running and deadly struggle over land and resources, primarily between nomadic herders—mostly from the Fulani ethnic group—and settled farming communit…

The major Financing for Development Conference wrapped up in Seville last week with the so-called Compromiso de Sevilla, which commits countries to accelerating efforts to fund the Sustainable Develo…

As of July 1, what remains of USAID’s programming is being folded into the State Department. The independent agency, created 64 years ago to advance American values and support global humanitarian ca…

The leaders of NATO met in The Hague on June 25th for a rather truncated meeting with a limited agenda. Unlike recent NATO summits, this one did not focus much on the war in Ukraine, countering China…

Will the ceasefire between Israel and Iran actually hold? How might Iran respond to the unprecedented American attacks on its nuclear program? And more broadly, how have events over the last two week…