The InterDependent

In the sandy Sahel desert of West Africa, a perfect storm of humanitarian crises threatens to destabilize a fragile region. The pressures start locally: A drier-than-normal year squeezed harvests, and food supplies are dwindling. Meanwhile, guns and people that exited Libya's revolution are now slipping back into Mali, Niger, Mauritania, Chad, and parts of Nigeria and Burkina Faso.

The two-year anniversary of an earthquake that devastated Haiti passed solemnly on the island nation this weekend. Haiti has seen incredible progress in the last two years, under trying conditions. But the challenges ahead are equally daunting. In a state of the Union address on January 9, Michel Martelly, beseeched Haitians to come together and change.

On December 13, the United Nations Mission in Somalia asked donors for $1.5 billion to support the world’s largest humanitarian mission for the coming year. Despite a massive influx of aid in 2011, as the UN declared famine in the country for the first time in nearly 20 years, some 250,000 Somalis are still at risk of imminent death, and another four million remain in danger.

Part 3 in a 3-part series on the elections in Tunisia.
Part 1: The Unlikely Soundtrack to a Revolution in the Birthplace of the Arab Spring