“Violence against women is obviously a major factor in maternal and reproductive health,” says Jay Silverman, co-director of the Program on Gender Inequities and Global Health at the University of California, San Diego, in this week’s podcast. From hypertension to early delivery, “all of these things occur at significantly higher rates among women who have an abusive partner.” Silverman gives an overview of the “state of knowledge” about the effect of abuse on mothers and children and suggested that interventions during antenatal care that targets both women and their partners can reduce this important source of child and maternal morbidity.

“We know that a number of these countries in Africa have the least to do with climate change in terms of emissions, but they are the most vulnerable, and they are the ones with the least capacity to deal with the effects of climate change,” says Clive Mutunga in this week’s podcast. Mutunga, a senior associate at Population Action International, discusses the results of a study PAI conducted looking at the entwined and related impacts of climate change and population growth, as well as other factors like water scarcity, on Kenya and Malawi.

“[Family planning] has great value for women’s health, for children’s health, but it also has great value for the environment, and it can also help…to promote economic development,” says Eliya Zulu in this week’s podcast. Zulu talks about the research he has conducted as executive director of the African Institute for Development Policy and emphasizes the need to pay attention to population and climate issues both at higher levels of development policy discussion and grassroots action. “We need to make sure we integrate at all levels,” he says.

There’s renewed interest in looking at future trends at USAID, said Steven Gale, a senior advisor at the agency. But “we’re always asking ourselves, ‘what is the development goal that [USAID] wants to achieve, and how is this megatrend going to increase or decrease the actual probability’” of that goal will be met?

In this week’s podcast, Gale describes the role of futures analysis at USAID, including the history of past efforts and similarities to other forward-looking projects, like the National Intelligence Council’s quadrennial Global Trends reports.

“The proliferation of disasters has gotten a lot of people talking about resilience, about how we can lessen our risk, and how we can recover more quickly from disasters of all kinds,” says Laurie Mazur in this week’s podcast.

Mazur describes the qualities of communities that can weather adversity, including social cohesion and the ability to make decisions for themselves. Above all, she reiterates that “humans are nothing if not resilient,” and the governance structures and disaster mitigation schemes we employ should capitalize on that native resilience, rather than infringe upon it.