Worldwide, one in three women suffer beatings, coercion into sex, or other abuse from an intimate partner during her lifetime, according to the UN, while one in five is a victim of rape or attempted rape.

“Gender-based violence is a pervasive global challenge. It serves as a barrier to national economic and social advancement across the world,” said Alex Dehgan, former chief scientist and director of the Office of Science and Technology at the U.S. Agency for International Development, on December 9 at the Wilson Center. [Video Below]

The original version of this article appeared on the Aspen Institute blog.

When journalist Alan Weisman proposed a new book on the challenges posed by human population growth, his editor said, “That one’s a live wire; don’t touch it.”

2014 promises to be a superlative year – and that’s not necessarily a good thing. Complex, “super” disasters like Super Typhoon Haiyan are becoming more frequent, more systemic, and more destructive. Global trends, from population dynamics to food, water, and energy scarcities, threaten to further complicate the playing field. But by finally getting serious about resilience – the much discussed buzzword of 2013 – we might reduce our vulnerability, restore our communities, and build back better, rather than just picking up the pieces.

We made the crossing at night from Chamoli, reaching Okund, a Himalayan foothill town after dark. The innkeeper, anxious for guests in a travel economy that came to a standstill in mid-June, cooked dal and nan bread for dinner and then showed us to a room that was unlit and unheated.

The past three years – and more pointedly the past 12 months – have laid witness to monumental, if not heartbreaking, incidents of gender-based violence. The gang rape of a 23-year-old woman in New Delhi last December; the gang rape of a 16-year-old girl left for dead in a pit latrine in Western Kenya last June; the mass sexual assault of women in Tahrir Square during the 2011 revolution in Egypt and since; all were high profile atrocities that ignited outrage around the world.