In 2009, economist Jeffrey Sachs, alongside more than 20 eminent scholars from different fields, highlighted the importance of biodiversity for human well-being in a policy commentary published in Science. They noted the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) included a target to achieve, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of species loss, and they also noted that it was one of the MDG targets that was most off-track. “Our lack of progress toward the 2010 target,” they said, “could undermine achievement of the MDGs and poverty reduction in the long term.” The 2010 target was missed, and today species are moving toward extinction at an ever faster pace. Last week’s announcement confirming the extinction of Africa’s western black rhino is the latest sad example of this trend.

“We knew that we had a lot of reports, we knew that we had a lot of policy papers, but what we wanted to tell was a good story,” said ECSP’s Sean Peoples speaking recently at Duke University about the short documentary, Healthy People, Healthy Environment: Integrated Development in Tanzania.

The first time Almaz, a teenager living in rural southern Ethiopia, went to the crowded health care clinic in her village to get contraception, she was told they only helped older women with children. The second time, she waited hours only to find out that her preferred method of contraception was out of stock and she would have to return another day. [Video Below]

Since 2009, the “Advancing Dialogue on Maternal Health” series, co-produced by the Wilson Center, Harvard’s Maternal Health Task Force, and the United Nations Population Fund, has been one of the few public policy forums dedicated to maternal health. [Video Below]

It’s not often that we are presented with the perfect opportunity to affect a broad set of development policies as we are currently with the UN’s post-2015 agenda.

The use of storytelling, through evocative writing, short films, infographics, and maps, to convey global issues is increasingly popular, yet few organizations are able to invest the time and energy needed to develop emotionally compelling and visually expressive content. [Video Below]