Join The Aspen Institute in welcoming Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, Dr. Walid Abdelkarim, Principal Officer and Team Leader for Somalia and Support to the African Union, United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and Geoff Dabelko, Director of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program.

Nineteen years after she visited Somalia as President of Ireland, Mary Robinson returned this summer to an all-too-familiar crisis on an even larger scale. Six regions in Somalia have been declared famines. Families are fleeing disaster and drought brought on by changing environmental conditions and poor access to resources and health services. Children are dying every day – over 30,000 in the past three months. Join us as Mary Robinson, Walid Abdelkarim and Geoff Dabelko discuss what lessons we can learn from the challenges of Somalia. This country has the 8th highest birth rate in the world, with an average family size over 7 children. How do issues like population, women’s empowerment, and resource distribution impact economic and food security in Somalia and other fragile or failing states? How are the population growth rate a part of the impact – or of the cause?

This event will be moderated by Peggy Clark, Executive Director of Aspen Global Health and Development and Vice President of Policy Programs at The Aspen Institute, and will be preceded by lunch at 12:00 p.m.