Opinions & Insights

Everything should be going wrong in Tunisia. In 2011, the Arab Spring revolutions engulfed half of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) with the promise of democratization. But these revolutions failed to secure democracy. Tunisia is the stand-out; it has avoided all-out civil war like that in Sy...

In spite of many warnings of a coup in Venezuela, they have all been wrong. Why?

While Colombians signed a peace treaty in November 2016, anger and resentment remain on all sides. The government is working to reincorporate the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and other rebels into mainstream Colombian society. But can Colombians truly find peace when neither side ac...

Our team’s on-going field work on Lake Victoria was designed to look at big fish – Nile perch, tilapia, and the Lake’s biggest catfish, the imposing Bagrus docmac – and little fish alike. Several team members, both on the boats and abroad, are madly (quite literally) obsessed with biodiversity of th...

Four case studies highlight how Somali businesses have leveraged investments through the Somali AgriFood Fund, a partnership between IFAD, OEF's Shuraako program, and BiD Network.

Secure Fisheries’ mission of improving fisheries governance in order to eliminate the root causes of organized political violence, particularly in fragile and post-conflict states, supports the goals of SDG 14.

Civil society actors play an influential role in supporting human rights.

Trends in urbanization and climate change are altering the nature of human settlements.

A new report by OEF Research explores the links of climate change to urban fragility and underlines how city governments can address the peace and security challenges that arise from influxes of climate migrants.

Researchers in Tanzania explore the importance of biodiversity in Lake Victoria’s colorful cichlid populations.

In the Kenyan part of Lake Victoria, invasive water hyacinth, illegal fishing, and poor water quality are threats to fisheries sustainability.

Lake Victoria illustrates one of the quintessential dilemmas of today’s world: how much short-term gain can humans continue to eek out of a system that is being driven to a potential breaking point?

In the small fishing village of Punta Bonita, peoples’ livelihoods are based on collecting piangua, a mollusk that lives under the nutrient-rich intertidal mudflats in coastal mangrove forests.

Livelihoods in Punta Bonita, Colombia are closely tied to collecting the mollusk known as piangua. Women, who make up a majority of the piangua fishers, tend to be overlooked and underpaid, and meanwhile, piangua are becoming harder to find.

Research on peacekeeping has revealed that peacekeeping has several benefits. However, there is also a relationship between peacekeeping and sexual abuse and exploitation.