“The best predictor of a state’s stability and security is the level of violence against women in society,” said Texas A&M University’s Valerie Hudson in this interview with ECSP. That link is “based on rigorous empirical analysis,” she said. “There’s something to it. It’s not just political correctness.”

“In a future world affected by climate change, population growth is one lever that can be addressed to ameliorate the impacts of climate change, particularly in the area of food security,” write Scott Moreland and Ellen Smith in “Modeling Climate Change, Food Security, and Population,” a recent study for MEASURE Evaluation and USAID. Moreland and Smith combine demographic changes, food needs, and economic capacity into a single aggregate model to assess how family planning and climate change might affect food security from now until 2050. Using Ethiopia as an example, the model finds that if access to family planning services were increased to meet existing needs, the subsequent decrease in demand for food would reduce child malnutrition and effectively counteract a projected 25 percent shortfall in caloric availability from climate change’s impact on agriculture. Programs designed to increase access to family planning should therefore be incorporated into national adaptation and food security strategies, they conclude. “Family planning, especially in countries with high unmet need, provides a potential solution not only for women’s reproductive health, but also for adapting to the effects of climate change.”

A few months ago, Elizabeth Leahy Madsen broke down Afghanistan’s first-ever nationally representative survey of demographic and health issues in a two-part series here on the blog. Now, we’ve published her analysis in a rich new policy brief format. It is the first issue of Environmental Change and Security Program Report 14, the latest volume of ECSP’s flagship publication.

“What we have discovered is that the very best predictor of how insecure and unstable a nation is not its level of democracy, it’s not its level of wealth, it’s not what ‘Huntington civilization’ it belongs to, but is in fact best predicted by the level of violence against women in the society,” said Valerie Hudson, co-author of Sex and World Peace, at an April 26 book launch at the Wilson Center. [Video Below]

“Nigeria is a country of marginalized people. Every group you talk to, from the Ijaws to the Hausas, will tell you they are marginalized,” said Peter Lewis, director of the African Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Lewis spoke at an April 25 conference on Nigeria, co-hosted by ECSP and the Wilson Center’s Africa Program, assessing the country’s opportunities for development given its demographic, governance, natural resource, health, and security challenges. [Video Below]

The original version of this article, by Roger-Mark De Souza, appeared on the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN).

In late May, I presented research on population and climate dynamics in hotspots at the Planet Under Pressure conference in London, in a session organized by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network. As we prepare for the Rio+20 Earth Summit in June, I reflect on the roles of population dynamics and climate-compatible development for ensuring a future where we can increase the resilience of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

“The gains we have made [in reducing maternal mortality rates] are remarkable; however, gains are fragile and donor resources are declining. Substantial investments must be maintained to safeguard these hard-wins,” said Afghan Minister of Health Suraya Dail at the Wilson Center on April 23. [Video Below]

The original version of this article, by Carl Haub, appeared on the Population Reference Bureau’s Behind the Numbers blog.

The Bangladesh 2011 Demographic and Health Survey is the ninth demographic survey taken in the country since 1975. Except for a few very small countries and city-states, Bangladesh is the world’s most densely populated country with about 1,100 people per sq. kilometer. The country’s area is about the same as the U.S. state of Arkansas and a bit more than Greece but is home to over 150 million people.