Research, evidence and the science-policy interface

• Countries (Natural Earth 1:110m) The 13 countries with any vertex inside the box, as published at 1:110m with their name, ISO3 code and the Natural Earth population estimate. Made with Natural Earth (public domain), version 5.1.2 bundled at build time. read 2026-10-17. Estimate: Boundaries as published imply no position on any territory; the population figure is the Natural Earth estimate carried in the file, not a census count.
• First-level divisions, geoBoundaries gbOpen with a licence gate per boundary First-level divisions of the countries whose API record passes the licence gate in your browser, for the institutional reach view; a refused licence leaves the country without divisions and says why. geoBoundaries (Runfola et al. 2020, www.geoboundaries.org) and, per country, the boundary's own source and licence as the API record states them (Ethiopia ADM1: Open Africa, Code for Ethiopia, CC BY 4.0). Live: this page requests www.geoboundaries.org when the layer is opened; the data date is read from boundaryYearRepresented and buildDate of each record and printed with it. Estimate: Boundaries as published imply no position on any territory. The gate reads each record's boundaryLicense before any geometry is requested; one request per country per page view.
• Disaster alerts, GDACS live The alert episodes of the last seven days that fall inside the box, with their type and alert level, as marks on the globe and a list in the read-out. Source: GDACS (European Commission JRC and UN OCHA), under the European Commission reuse policy; alerts are automatic and algorithmic, not reviewed by people, and never a substitute for the alerts of national authorities. Live: this page requests www.gdacs.org when the layer is opened; the data date is read from properties.datemodified and printed with it. Estimate: Indicative, automatic alerts; never a warning and never a substitute for national alerts.
• Natural events, NASA EONET live Open natural events (storms, fires, floods, volcanoes) of the last twenty days inside the box, with their category and source. NASA Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker (EONET); each event keeps its original source link; no NASA endorsement implied. Live: this page requests eonet.gsfc.nasa.gov when the layer is opened; the data date is read from geometry[].date and printed with it. Estimate: Event metadata curated by NASA from the named sources; not a warning.

Why this place: A region of about 2,300 by 2,500 kilometres where regional bodies (IGAD, the African Union, the East African Community, the Nile Basin Initiative) overlap with shared-water diplomacy on the Nile, drought and flood alerts, displacement and conflict, so institutional mandates, foresight and cross-border policy can be taught on the same globe. The twin is globe-scale rather than terrain-scale: it draws countries and first-level divisions as published, with the disclaimer that boundaries imply no position on any territory. Data quality: Natural Earth is bundled and public domain, geoBoundaries publishes each division with its own licence (Ethiopia ADM1 is CC BY 4.0 from Open Africa and Code for Ethiopia), GDACS and EONET are live and open, and the INFORM Risk Index is published per country by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. It connects to the risk-governance, diplomacy-global-commons, climate-nature-governance, conflict-fragility and foresight disciplines and to the convening and policy context pages of the ecosystem sites.