Plateau Farmers Turn to Land Documents to Reclaim Their Fields Amid Violence

Although Nigeria "is arguably the worst-run of the world’s major countries," it's biggest city is providing a model for how to turn poor governance around. Lagos, a historically fragile city like the rest of Nigeria, has devolved more power to civilian rule, which has shown positive results for the health of the city.

Farmers in Vietnam face rising sea levels but rejected the city's water engineering projects. They prefer gradual measures to cope with climate change so scientists have allowed the farmers to steer the conversation.

Louisiana and Vietnam both need affordable solutions to rising sea levels. Leaders from Vietnam visited Louisiana to compare ideas.

The World Conservation Union estimates that 40 percent of the more than 40,000 species it tracks on its Red List are close to extinction and this problem requires humans to change their behavior to fix it. Rare’s the Pride Campaign uses social marketing to attract attention and communicate the conservation message between local communities and government entities. The Pride Campaign has been replicated around the world for different conservation efforts to protect biodiversity.

In Colombia, traditional cattle pastures have caused soil degradation, deforestation, and desertification. To reconcile this, several thousand acres of land in Latin America have been transformed into a silvo-pastoral system of grazing and raising cattle with agro-forestry. The Colombia-based Center for Research in Sustainable Systems of Agriculture seeks to reduce pasture land by 26 million acres while increasing cattle numbers by 2019.

In Africa, many people rely on wood from trees to cook food over stoves. The tremendous usage of wood contributes to deforestation and environmental decline. Using bamboo instead of wood is a more profitable and greener solution.

Native American student graduation rates are much lower than that of any other demographic. The Red Cloud school teaches students on a reservation in South Dakota about the Lakota history to empower the kids and encourage resilience.

In a country of limited resources — and perhaps for that very reason — preparing for natural disasters is top of the agenda in Bangladesh. Various grassroots, collaborative programs have been put in place over the years to help address many facets of the calamities caused by cyclones, from improved emergency shelters to long-term support for those who lose their livelihoods in the storms.

Civic leaders in the U.S. struggle to effectively help their distressed neighborhoods. East Lake, Atlanta, created a replicable model that mixes residents of differing socio-economic status, and focuses on education and health in the area.

Officials in Niger are addressing chronic severe droughts causing food shortages and leading to a widespread threat of starvation. They provide aid to malnourished children and resources for a crop planting technique called 're-greening,' which aims to reforest agricultural regions, restore soil quality and, in turn, increase food supply.