Aissata M.B. Camara grew up in an educated, upper income household in Guinea, West Africa. One morning, she woke up to singing outside her window and knew they were coming. Many in her community thought that she was unclean and would grow up to be promiscuous if she wasn’t cut. She would be unmarriageable. While her family and community members held her down, she realized, “my body no longer belonged to me.” [Video Below]

The sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls must be protected, even – especially – during “the toughest of times, in the hardest of places,” said Kate Gilmore, deputy executive director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), at the Wilson Center on December 3. [Video Below]

Inspired by the success of East Asian economies, the demographic dividend framework is taking off in sub-Saharan Africa, where many are yearning for workable solutions to the region’s ongoing development challenges.

“If we are serious about results, [the Sustainable Development Goals] must be developed from the perspective of the young person, particularly the adolescent girl. It is about her challenges, her rights, and her future. Займ на карту онлайн. Our collective success begins and ends with her,” said Benoit Kalasa, director of the technical division for the United Nation’s Population Fund at the Wilson Center on October 19. [Video Below]

Climate change is a very real threat. It will have major implications for every country and region in the world, but South Asia is particularly vulnerable. To appropriately address the challenges there, the world will have to confront four misconceptions about climate change in South Asia. With world leaders convening in Paris to hash out a new agreement on climate change, now is the right time to do it.

SHENZHEN, China – In 1980, the year Deng Xiaoping established Shenzhen as China’s first special economic zone, opening its mercantile sectors to market capitalism and free trade principles, an attractive, tree-shaded commercial district known as Dongmen was home to 30,000 residents near the center of a metropolitan region of 300,000.

Thirty-five years later, Dongmen is a crowded commercial neighborhood of 300,000 residents at the edge of a metropolitan region of 18 million, China’s fourth largest.

Global attention is understandably focused on Syrian refugees, but the migration crisis in Europe is part of a bigger trend that climate and social scientists have been warning about for years.

The most important and anticipated climate change conference in years is finally underway. In some ways, as Bill McKibben and Andrew Revkin have pointed out, its success is relatively assured thanks to the number of major commitments countries have already made. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to see here. “The conference isn’t the game – it’s the scoreboard,” writes McKibben. To extend the metaphor even more, you might call it the league scoreboard, giving us a glimpse of many different storylines playing out.