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NewSecurityBeat

The blog of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
Showing posts by Josh Feng.
  • Angola’s Oil-Soaked Kleptocracy Is an Empire Built on Inequality

    ›
    August 26, 2015  //  By Josh Feng
    A general view Luanda, Angola's capital

    Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos and the richest woman in Africa, owes her wealth to the oil industry. Delfina Fernandes, a woman living in abject poverty in the village of Kibanga, uses gasoline as an anesthetic to dull the sheering pain of her rotting teeth.

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  • How Successful Were the Millennium Development Goals? A Final Report

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    July 28, 2015  //  By Josh Feng
    MDG_BurningIndiaCrops

    Earlier this month, the United Nations released a final report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the framework that has guided global development efforts for the last 15 years. The document examines each of the eight MDGs and finds that “despite many successes, the poorest and most vulnerable people are being left behind.” As one of the first global poverty reduction movements nears its end, the report calls for better data collection practices to create a post-2015 development agenda that can overcome the MDG’s shortcomings.

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  • Lauri Romanzi on Rethinking Maternal Morbidity Care in a Historical Context

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    Dot-Mom  //  Friday Podcasts  //  July 24, 2015  //  By Josh Feng

    Romanzi-smallIn May 1855, Dr. James Marion Sims opened the first obstetric fistula hospital in New York City. Just 40 years later, it closed, reflecting a sharp decline in maternal morbidity rates in the United States and other Western countries. The Waldorf Astoria Hotel now stands on the site of the former hospital. “We know that we have eradicated obstetric fistula in high income countries; it happened at the turn of the 20th century,” says Dr. Lauri Romanzi, project director of Fistula Care Plus, in this week’s podcast.

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  • As African Cities Grow, Rural-Urban Divides Widen Too

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    Eye On  //  July 22, 2015  //  By Josh Feng
    Table Mountain, South Africa

    In 2007, the world crossed a threshold:  for the first time in human history, the majority of people lived in urban areas. Today, Africa and Asia are the only remaining continents where the rural population outnumbers urban, but they are urbanizing at unprecedented rates. This rapid growth is a double-edged sword. While urbanization spurs economic opportunity and often increases access to infrastructure, it is also widening disparities in health and development, according to a new data sheet by the Population Reference Bureau.

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  • 50 Years of Family Planning at USAID: Successes, Political Challenges, and Future Directions

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    From the Wilson Center  //  July 10, 2015  //  By Josh Feng
    Indonesia

    Since President Lyndon B. Johnson created the USAID population program in 1965, it has evolved in tandem with the global discourse on population and demography. “The agency’s family planning program is as relevant today as it ever was, and is necessary,” said Jennifer Adams, deputy assistant administrator of the U.S. Agency of International Development’s Bureau for Global Health. The bureau houses the Office of Population and Reproductive Health, which implements U.S. development and relief efforts to expand access to modern contraceptives, fight HIV/AIDS, reduce unsafe abortions, and protect the health of women and children. [Video Below]

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  • Soil Security and Incorporating Forestry Into Food Security Strategies

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    Reading Radar  //  July 2, 2015  //  By Josh Feng

    RR_SoilPicEarth’s thin upper-crust of soil is kept in balance by a complex carbon and nutrient cycle that is increasingly threatened by human exploitation and climate change, according to a review in Science. The chemicals trapped in topsoil and subsoil are crucial to plant growth, but are being depleted at rates much higher than they are being replenished, writes Ronald Amundson et al. For instance in the central United States, estimated soil erosion rates exceed production rates by 10 times.

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  • Pope Francis’ Encyclical Calls for Integrated Development – Just Don’t Say “Reproductive Health”

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    On the Beat  //  June 30, 2015  //  By Josh Feng & Schuyler Null
    Pope_Francis

    Pope Francis sparked worldwide discussion and jubilation among many green advocates after releasing Laudato Si, the first Papal encyclical to focus directly on the environment. The pontiff touched on everything from pollution and sustainable development, to anthropogenic climate change and water security in his 180-page missive.

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  • A State Divided: A Snapshot of India’s Water-Energy Choke Point

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    Choke Point  //  Eye On  //  June 29, 2015  //  By Josh Feng

    The landscape of the northeastern Indian state of Meghalaya is rapidly changing. What was once a predominately agricultural economy has shifted to coal mining with significant consequences for people and the environment. “Once you extract coal from the land, it’s really hard to go back to an agricultural economy,” says ECSP’s Sean Peoples in an interview with Wilson Center NOW, about the Global Choke Point film, Broken Landscape.

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