The United Nations biannual population projections are some of the most (if not the most) widely used numbers in demography. Researchers and policymakers alike rely on the figures to plan for present and future challenges. But few consider the story behind the statistics. Where does the data come from? The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) recently released a short documentary on conducting censuses in challenging environments, with a spotlight on Indonesia, Chad, the Palestinian Territories, Belarus, and Bolivia.

Twenty-five years have passed since the Brundtland Commission first brought sustainable development to international prominence. Today, the United Nations appears on track to replace the soon-to-expire Millennium Development Goals with “Sustainable Development Goals,” marking the extent to which the international community has embraced the concept. And yet, in spite of its prominence, a specific and measureable definition of sustainability remains lacking.

The original version of this op-ed, by António Guterres, appeared in The New York Times.

For many people, Timbuktu has long represented the essence of remoteness: a mythical, faraway place located on the boundaries of our collective consciousness. But like many of the myths associated with colonialism, the reality is very different.

The original version of this article, by Jill Hagey, appeared on the Population Reference Bureau’s Behind the Numbers blog.

Over the past few months, the Sahel drought has sparked attention of news media and concerned citizens around the world. Throughout this media blitz, I have been struck by the sharp contrast between this coverage and how the devastating effects of malnutrition are usually portrayed. Malnutrition is often overlooked in favor of more “newsworthy” diseases, and it takes a crisis to focus our attention on this public health issue. Yet an emergency such as this drought – affecting more than 18 million people, including nearly 2 million children – is difficult to ignore.

In 1979, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat famously said that “the only matter that could take Egypt to war again is water.” Sadat’s message was clear: the Nile is a matter of national security for Egypt.

Indeed, Egypt relies on the Nile for 95 percent of its water. But it is not the only state with an interest in the world’s longest river. There are 11 states in the Nile River basin, which stretches from Africa’s Great Lakes region – Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – to the Ethiopian and Eritrean highlands through South Sudan, Sudan, and Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea.

Excerpted below is the introduction by Farzaneh Roudi. The full report is available for download from the Wilson Center’s Middle East Program.

Once again, the Iranian government is reversing its population policy – its fertility policy, to be more precise. Alarmed by the country’s rapidly aging population, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is now calling on women to procreate and have more children, and the Iranian Minister of Health and Medical Education Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi has recently said, “The budget for the population control program has been fully eliminated and such a project no longer exists in the health ministry. The policy of population control does not exist as it did previously.”

Burma (also known as Myanmar), a country plagued by internal political turmoil and direct or tacit military rule since 1962, had its first general elections in 50 years in 2010 and long-time jailed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi won a seat in the National Assembly, but questions remain as to how much power the military is willing to cede. Demography provides reason for hope that this turn towards democracy is more than temporary.

“Population-health-environment [PHE] connections have really been a focus of ours here at the Wilson Center for the last 15 years,” said outgoing ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko in an interview at the Wilson Center. The goal of ECSP’s project – HELPS (health, environment, livelihoods, population, and security) – is “really trying to understand these issues together.”