Migration is an important strategy for coping with environmental variability and change, but it can also place additional stress on ecosystems. Policymakers and practitioners are not always fully aware of these threats, nor fully prepared to manage them through appropriate interventions. Conservation professionals in the field therefore have a key role to play in reducing the harmful impacts that migration can have on the environment, and in mitigating any tensions that may emerge between migrant and host communities.

Myanmar is undergoing multiple transitions, from military rule to democracy, decades of civil war to peace, and from a command economy to a market-based one. No less of an important challenge amidst this backdrop of change and hope is addressing the country’s energy poverty.

Ask Agnes Namukasa about sustainably managing fisheries in Kachanga, the lakeshore landing site she calls home in Uganda’s Masaka District, and you will soon learn about toilets. From her perspective, community members won’t address conflict between government enforcers and fishers, competition among neighboring villages, or pollution threatening aquatic ecosystems until they can first organize to address their most pressing daily needs. And in Kachanga, where chronic childhood diarrhea and a host of other illnesses stem from poor sanitation, those essentials include public latrines.

On the world stage, the United States is an outlier for many reasons, some good, some bad. Few are more alarming, however, than maternal health. Despite spending two and half times more per person on health than the OECD average, the maternal mortality rate in the U.S. – the number of women who die during or as a result of childbirth and pregnancy – increased from 12 to 14 deaths per 100,000 live births from 1990 to 2015, putting the United States at 46^th in the world. [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.

The deadly West African Ebola epidemic has largely faded from headlines, replaced by mounting concern over conflict in the Middle East, terrorism, and refugees streaming into Europe. But while Guinea and Sierra Leone were declared free of the disease in November, Monrovia saw three new cases two weeks later. At least 149 individuals who came into contact with the infected have been identified thus far, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

“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. 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]

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.