The original version of this article, by Lisa Palmer, appeared on Future Food 2050.

As a boy growing up on the shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya, Harvard international development professor Calestous Juma noticed a thing or two about innovations designed to bring more food into his community. He noticed, for instance, that the fishermen were always tinkering with new ways to trap fish while his father, a carpenter, would build the traps. He also noticed that his grandmother, a peanut grower, and other farmers who grew traditional crops such as sweet potatoes, struggled with ways to increase production beyond simply planting the best quality seeds and tubers.

A roadside billboard in Malawi reads: “No woman should die while giving life.” But in many countries, death or grave injury during childbirth is an all too frequent occurrence. [Video Below]

Weather- and climate-related disasters have caused $2.4 trillion in economic losses and nearly 2 million deaths globally since 1971 according to a new report. While the losses are staggering, the report also shows that we have learned from past disasters, lessons the world will need as development continues in hazardous areas and the climate continues to change.

“Environmental specialists need to change,” said Anita van Breda at the Wilson Center on June 25. “In the new normal, our work has to have a different relevancy.” [Video Below]

In March, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest comprehensive synthesis of climate change research. The report concludes that “impacts from recent climate-related extremes, such as heat waves, droughts, floods, cyclones, and wildfires, reveal significant vulnerability and exposure of some ecosystems and many human systems to current climate variability.”

World Population Day began in 1987 after public imagination was sparked by the idea that there could be 5 billion people on Earth. Today, we’re well past 7 billion and according to the latest UN projections, headed north of 9 billion by mid-century.

As the largest-ever generation of young people enters adulthood, armed conflict is having a profound effect on their future. People under the age of 24 comprise nearly half the world’s population but are the primary participants in conflict today. Conflict is more prevalent in younger societies, and half of all forcibly displaced people are children.