Two recent reports reaffirm the particular vulnerability of women and children in disasters, conflicts, and fragile states, but also highlight gaps in common perceptions of their experiences.

Successfully incorporating the rights of young people and women into whatever development agenda succeeds the Millennium Development Goals next year hinges not only on the scope of new goals, but how those goals are worded, says Suzanne Ehlers in this week’s podcast.

The importance of reproductive health and rights in responding to global climate change and facilitating sustainable development is becoming increasingly clear. But as two articles recently published in The Lancet explain, any post-Millennium Development Goals development agenda that hopes to address these issues must do a better job reaching populations that have largely been excluded from recent advancements.

In the quest to improve maternal health care for the world’s poorest women, getting more mothers into clinics for regular check-ups during pregnancy is often trumpeted as a critical starting point. But delivering antenatal care to women in low-resource settings is as much about quality as it is about quantity, says Faith Muigai in this week’s podcast.