Women who are treated with respect and dignity during childbirth are more likely to have positive birth experiences, feel empowered to make informed decisions about their care, and have better health outcomes for themselves and their newborns. 

At a recent Brookings Institution event titled Climate Change, Food Insecurity, and Migration in the Middle East, Ferid Belhaj, Vice President for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) at the World Bank, observed that the MENA region relies heavily on grain exported from both Ukraine and Russia. When the 2022 invasion reduced grain exports to a trickle, the entire region suffered heavily.

A new initiative by the Climate Action Reserve, a nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles, could play a significant role in curbing emissions of a potent climate pollutant from chemical plants in China while filling a gap in international climate agreements and China’s environmental regulations. 

A recent report on global maternal mortality by the World Health Organization (WHO) reveals a hard truth: the world has been ignoring the needs of pregnant women. While there have been substantial reductions in maternal death rates since 2000, progress has stalled or been reversed in some countries after 2015, even before COVID-19 exacerbated the situation. Nations affected by humanitarian emergencies, conflicts, and other crises fared the worst.

The Central Sahel is increasingly deemed the new epicenter of terrorism, accounting for 35 percent of global terrorism deaths in 2021. Yet as the situation in the region continues to deteriorate, artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) both persists and proliferates. For instance, in Mali, where much of the region’s security crisis originates, this conundrum is laid bare.

Nigeria is home to many violent conflicts, one of which is the farmers-herders conflict that has posed severe security challenges in the country. The human toll of the violence has been immense, claiming more lives than the Boko Haram insurgency. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed or displaced. Nigeria has also experienced increased ethnic, regional, and religious polarization, and this crisis has undermined national stability and unity.

China is Brazil’s main trading partner and accounts for over a quarter of all Brazilian exports. Yet two of the largest products in this trading relationship—beef and soybeans—are also crops that drive deforestation in the Amazon. Brazil’s deforestation rates declined substantially between 2004 and 2012, but forest clearage needed to raise cattle reversed the trend: The Amazon lost 10,476 square kilometers of rainforest in 2021, the highest total in the decade.  

Of the more than 4 million pregnant people in the United States annually, 90 percent report taking at least one medicine during pregnancy, and about 50 percent receive the influenza or tetanus toxoid/reduced diphtheria toxoid/acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccines. Yet 69 percent of clinical trials conducted in the United States explicitly exclude enrollment of pregnant people.