“Valuing women, paying greater attention to women’s rights – that’s the solution to our population growth issues and, I would argue, it’s also the solution to our food security challenges,” said Suzanne Petroni at the Thought for Food Summit in Berlin last year.

An estimated 1.8 billion people today are between the ages of 10 and 24 and 85 percent of them live in developing economies and/or fragile states. Such youthful age structures can lead to a number of challenges, including increased potential for instability, and countries with large numbers of young people must find ways to address their unique needs.

A new report from the International Institute for Environment and Development seeks to understand why Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park continues to be exploited despite park officials’ implementation of “integrated conservation and development” (ICD) efforts. The study finds that local people’s perceptions of the benefits of the integrated conservation and development vary depending on five primary factors: age, level of education, homestead distance to the national park, quality of life, and wealth.

In July, thousands of people attended the 20th International AIDS Conference and the 2014 Girls Summit to work towards an AIDS-free generation and ending child and forced marriage. But such attention is rare; by and large, these girls are invisible to development efforts. [Video Below]

We started the last top 10 post tracking the dramatic battle over Iraq’s Mosul Dam and the most popular of August took a closer look. Cameron Harrington and I explain that this isn’t the first time water has played a major role in the fighting, while also exploring ways it could be a peacemaker.

Nearly 1 billion people lack reliable access to clean drinking water today. A report by the Water Resources Group projects that by 2030 annual global freshwater needs will reach 6.9 trillion cubic meters – 64 percent more than the existing accessible, reliable, and sustainable supply. This forecast, while alarming, likely understates the magnitude of tomorrow’s water challenge, as it does not account for the impacts of climate change.