One of the findings of the Worldwatch Institute’s Family Planning and Environmental Sustainability Assessment (FPESA) suggests it’s not accurate to claim that climate change is at the root of growing water scarcity around the world. Based on the best recent scientific evidence we could find, another major global trend – the ongoing growth of human population – has a greater impact on water availability than climate change does.

Struggling to save their failing crops. Walking farther afield to fetch clean water. Protecting their families from devastating storms and violent conflicts. “Women are usually the support systems for our family…we are the last to leave in the event of a catastrophe, which is why women and families are disproportionately hurt by climate catastrophes,” said Wilson Center President, Director, and CEO Jane Harman on June 23 during a conference on women and climate change. [Video Below]

In the late 1990s, world leaders came together to create the Millennium Development Goals – time-bound, quantified targets for addressing extreme poverty and human health and well-being. Notable among them was to “halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to water and sanitation.”

“There are truly global-scale environmental challenges, and they need to be dealt with by thinking of solutions at the same scale,” said Thomas Lovejoy, a senior fellow at the United Nations Foundation, at the Wilson Center on June 29. The interaction between human population and environmental degradation is one of these challenges. [Video Below]

2015 was a deadly year for environmental activism. According to Global Witness, 185 activists were killed, a 60 percent increase from 2014. Of the victims, 40 percent were indigenous people, like Berta Cáceres, who spoke at the Wilson Center last year and was shot and killed in her home in Honduras this March. [Video Below]

At 1.8 billion strong, the current generation of 10 to 24 year olds is the largest in human history. Approximately 90 percent of these adolescents live in less developed countries. This poses an unprecedented challenge for health systems and social policies which largely struggle to meet the unique needs of young people, according to a new Lancet commission.

In recent years, the demographic dividend has garnered enormous traction in African policy circles, and leaders and policymakers have begun to see it as a strategy for achieving their economic growth targets.