As India faces an emerging cancer crisis, how do South Indian women conceptualize what causes reproductive cancers—and how to cure them? New qualitative research from Cecilia Van Hollen, a medical anthropologist and Wilson Center Public Policy Fellow, illuminates the complex perceptions and personal experiences of women in Tamil Nadu, the first state to integrate cancer screening into its primary health care system.

“Community mobilization, local capacity-building, and innovation are the cornerstones of successful development. And that for us includes resilience,” said Franklin Moore, Africare’s Chief of Programs, at a Wilson Center event on family planning and sustainable development. As rapid population growth intersects with challenges like food insecurity and water scarcity, communities in developing countries need not only the capacity to absorb short-term shocks, they also need transformative capacity to address long-term challenges.

Water variability is increasing “due to climate change and to more frequent natural disasters,” said Jonathan Cook, Senior Climate Change Adaptation Specialist with the U.S. Agency for International Development, at the fourth and final event in a series on water security organized by the Wilson Center and the Sustainable Water Partnership. To solve the problem of increasingly erratic water, “business as usual is really not acceptable anymore,” said Will Sarni, founder of WetDATA.org, who called for new, innovative ideas: “Hope is not a strategy.”

“Hypertensive disorders in pregnancy are responsible for over 76,000 maternal deaths globally, killing a woman every 11 minutes,” said Charlotte Warren, Senior Associate at the Population Council, at a recent Wilson Center event about non-communicable diseases in pregnancy, held on World Preeclampsia Day.  These disorders complicate 8 to 10 percent of pregnancies worldwide and are trending upward due to increased maternal weight and sedentary lifestyles. “In low-income countries, a woman has approximately 300 times higher risk of dying of preeclampsia and eclampsia than a woman in a high-income country,” she said.

“We are seeing increasingly self-reliant countries develop national health sector plans solidly grounded on technical evidence,” said Dr. Jim Ricca of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)’s flagship Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP) at a recent Wilson Center event. Expanding successful reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent healthcare (known as RMNCAH) interventions to the national level could make a significant contribution to meeting the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals for mortality reduction, he said.

“Alaska is a place in which climate change is already impacting us in very observable ways,” says Byron Mallott, the  Lieutenant Governor of Alaska, in a video interview with Wilson Center NOW.  “We have erosion from sea ice leaving the coast. We have patterns of weather change. We have, in the North Pacific Ocean, ocean water change [and] temperature changes taking place. We have ocean acidification moving further north. We have had impact on fisheries already—economic impact.”

“When you enable a family to be able to time and space their children, you actually improve the overall health of that family,” said Dr. Alma Golden, the Deputy Assistant Administrator of USAID’s Bureau for Global Health, at a recent Wilson Center event on the role of faith-based organizations in family planning. Faith-based groups are an “irreplaceable asset,” said Dr. Golden, when it comes to fighting stigma and marginalization and promoting positive health behaviors.

In sub-Saharan Africa, “more than half of the men under the age of 35 do not know their [HIV] status and are not on treatment,” said Dr. Sean Cavanaugh of the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator at a recent Wilson Center event on engaging the faith community in reaching young men and boys with HIV prevention services.  Consequently, men often don’t seek HIV services promptly, decreasing their rates of antiretroviral therapy and viral suppression, and increasing HIV mortality rates.