“All of the major religions of the world are really quite concerned with addressing the needs of the poor and also the disadvantaged,” said Victoria Graham, senior NGO technical advisor at the U.S. Agency for International Development, at the Wilson Center on July 18. “They’re always looking for interventions that address their needs, including health needs. And family planning is probably the most cost-effective way of doing this. Across the continuum – from looking at the economy to the family to saving lives – family planning is an excellent intervention.”

For the past few years, much of my work as a journalist has focused on wildlife and environmental crime. I’ve covered poaching busts and seizures of everything from pangolin scales and big-cat skins to rhino horn, live turtles and songbirds. I’ve reported on the Asian, African and South American markets that sell animals live, dead and in parts, and about the consumers that drive this black-market trade. I’ve written about China, the largest consumer, where many endangered species products are luxury items bought by the wealthiest and most influential as a way to flaunt power and gain prestige. I’ve also explored the trade here in the United States — the world’s second largest consumer. I covered the ubiquitous bird trade in Latin America, where ownership of pet parrots and other birds is so rampant that few realize these animals are endangered, or that it’s against the law to buy or keep them.

“Floods are one of many factors that keep massive amounts of the population in poverty and always on the brink of disaster,” said Eric Viala at the second event in a four-part series on water security organized by the Wilson Center in cooperation with the Sustainable Water Partnership, which Viala directs. Panelists at the event discussed the impact of intense flooding on vulnerable communities and proposed innovative and collaborative approaches to reducing their risks in the face of disasters.

“Climate engineering can be a way to build a better world,” said Katharine Mach, a senior research scientist at Stanford University during a recent virtual workshop on the promises and pitfalls of climate engineering held by the Institute on Science for Global Policy, in partnership with the Forum for Climate Geoengineering Assessment at American University, and the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University.

Preparing for natural disasters might help unlock pathways to conflict prevention, write Florian Krampe and Roberta Scassa in New Security Beat’s most read story last month. They make the case for investing in disaster risk reduction at the city level to manage localized risk and empower communities to peacefully respond to crises.

Without warning, water rushed into a woman’s home on a raised platform above the floodplain of Bangladesh’s Teesta River. She was just a hand’s distance from her infant son, but she couldn’t stop him from falling into the floodwaters. “She can’t recover back from the trauma,” said the University of Dundee’s Nandan Mukerjee of the mother who lost her child to the currents of climate change.

Over the last 30 years, the world has seen a 44 percent decrease in maternal mortality. At the same time, safe motherhood has evolved from an often neglected component of maternal and child health programs to a fundamental element of the global health agenda, leading to improved women’s health and rights. These advancements are, in large part, due to the 1987 establishment of the Safe Motherhood Initiative. To help celebrate the 30^th anniversary of the Safe Motherhood Initiative, Dot Mom asked leaders in the field to reflect on the most impactful intervention of last 30 years. Join us at the Wilson Center on Friday, December 8, 1-5 p.m., to discuss these interventions—and those to come in the next 30 years.