New Day, New Way: U.S. Foreign Assistance for the 21st Century, a report from the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network, was unveiled at a packed House Foreign Affairs Committee event this week.

The Economist continues to brush off those who worry that there are too many people consuming too many resources on Earth: “If global growth and development continue, worries about overpopulation may, in hindsight, seem a uniquely 20th century phenomenon.”

“Countries that stagnate are less able and sometimes less willing to help address transnational issues, many of which originate within their borders, including illegal migration; trafficking in narcotics, weapons, and persons; health threats such as HIV/AIDS and avian flu; and environmental concerns such as loss of biodiversity,” says USAID’s economic growth strategy.

“We know that the cruel indignities of life without clean water, adequate sanitation, sustainable livelihood, or democratic governance can deny us our basic freedoms as surely as any despotic regime,” says Condoleezza Rice, quoted in USAID’s report Expanding the Impact of Foreign Assistance Through Public-Private Alliances.

The Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa, headed by Wilson Center collaborator K. Y. Amoako, presented its report Securing Our Future to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon earlier this week.

The authors of “Reassessing HIV Prevention,” an article in the most recent issue of Science, question the assumptions behind current HIV prevention interventions in Africa. The authors challenge the commonly accepted belief that poverty and political instability increase a population’s vulnerability to HIV infection, arguing that it is not supported by the evidence. They point to data demonstrating that “African regions suffering from conflict, genocide, and rape, such as Rwanda, Congo, and Angola, are much less affected by AIDS than peaceful, wealthier, and more literate countries such as Botswana or Swaziland, which have the world’s highest HIV prevalence.”

Studies have shown that civil war and the breakdown of health service delivery result in an increase in preventable deaths—such as those due to malnutrition, diarrhea, and malaria—but perhaps HIV follows a different pattern. Clearly, there is a need for research that compares the spread of HIV/AIDS in politically stable, wealthier African countries with those torn by conflict.

At a 2007 ECSP event on the human cost of war, Dr. Frederick Burkle of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative—who will discuss public health management after natural disasters on June 17—admitted that the direct impact of poverty, inequality, and cultural incompatibilities on the spread of infectious diseases and mortality during complex emergencies is “difficult, if not impossible,” to measure.

In Dead Water, a report released today by the UN Environment Programme, warns that pollution, overharvesting, invasive species, and climate change pose grave threats to the world’s fisheries and coral reefs. “Fishing for a Secure Future,” a recent meeting series hosted by the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP), examined the many challenges facing fisheries—as well as potential solutions.

U.S. officials might have taken more aggressive steps to combat climate change at the recent UN climate change conference in Bali had the Pentagon pressured them more forcefully, argue John Podesta and Peter Ogden in a Financial Times op-ed. According to Podesta and Ogden, climate change will threaten the U.S. military’s ability to effectively perform many of its duties, including responding to natural disasters and stabilizing fragile states.

“While governments continue to rely on the military as a preferred tool of security policy, the nature of many of the world’s intractable conflicts suggests severely misplaced priorities. Research suggests that among the underlying reasons for many tensions today are competition over lucrative resources and the repercussions from environmental degradation,” writes the Worldwatch Institute’s Michael Renner, who argues that UN peacekeeping forces, if given sufficient funds, could do a better job calming unstable regions than militaries. Renner also discussed environment-conflict links at the Wilson Center in June 2007.

Mongolians are moving from the steppes to cities in record numbers, and climate change is one of the drivers of this migration, reports National Geographic. “Reign of Sand,” a multimedia report by the Wilson Center’s China Environment Forum and water NGO Circle of Blue, explores how desertification is threatening Inner Mongolians’ traditional livelihoods.

A report by the Population Council examines the impact of the Partners for Food Security project, which aimed to reduce the food insecurity of HIV-infected households in Tororo, Uganda, by fostering collaboration among agricultural, health, and economic development organizations. According to the report, “the coordination of agricultural extension and HIV/AIDS education and awareness can enhance the outcomes of both sets of activities.”

A paper commissioned by the Institute for Global Dialogue and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa explores the prospects for sharing and jointly managing the water resources of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). “Water resources availability has been and still is high on the national security agenda of most SADC states,” write Daniel Malzbender and Anton Earle.

A report from the Institute for Policy Studies analyzes the disparities between the U.S. government’s FY 2008 spending on military security and climate security.

The United Nations, European Union, and United States each have important roles to play in mitigating climate change’s security threats, argue John Podesta and Peter Ogden in The Washington Quarterly. The article echoes The Age of Consequences: The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Climate Change, published jointly last year by the Center for a New American Security, which Podesta heads, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

UNAIDS released a statement earlier this week expressing its concern that the recent violence in Kenya is disrupting efforts to combat the country’s HIV/AIDS epidemic.

In the Global Dashboard blog, David Steven remarks on three “hidden drivers” of instability in Pakistan: the government’s failure to capitalize on the “demographic dividend,” the potential socio-economic benefits of a large working-age population; the rising food, water, and energy scarcity faced by working- and middle-class Pakistanis; and what Steven calls “the worrying role being played by the Pakistan army, once a source of national stability and pride.”

“Cities themselves represent microcosms of the kinds of changes that are happening globally, making them informative test cases for understanding socioecological system dynamics and responses to change,” argue the authors of “Global Change and the Ecology of Cities,” published in today’s issue of Science magazine. The article focuses on changes in land use and cover, biogeochemical cycles, climate, hydrosystems, and biodiversity.

In an op-ed in today’s Washington Post, Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai argues that the country’s post-election violence is partially the result of “the inequitable distribution of natural resources in Kenya, especially land.” Maathai has written extensively on the links between peace and natural resource management.

A joint policy brief by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the World Resources Institute lays out the challenges associated with simultaneously increasing energy security and reducing carbon emissions, and proposes principles to guide these transitions.

Austria has not abided by its promise to crack down on a leather factory that Hungary contends is polluting the transboundary Raba River, said Hungary’s minister of environment, who proposed bilateral talks to resolve the issue.

This mid-term report evaluates progress made by the USAID-funded Okavango Integrated River Basin Management Project, which seeks to strengthen regional water management institutions and preserve the basin’s biodiversity.

“HIV and AIDS affect all people in a community by driving faster rates of resource extraction and use, increasing gender inequality, lowering the general health of the labor force, and impeding an individual’s ability to maintain a viable livelihood,” argue the authors of “Guidelines for Mitigating the Impacts of HIV/AIDS on Coastal Biodiversity and Natural Resource Management,” which suggests ways to combat these challenges.

The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a $15 billion commitment, is set to expire at the end of fiscal year 2008. This critical boost in U.S. AIDS funding has helped millions of individuals infected with HIV, and in so doing, has improved developing nations’ health and education systems and decreased violence against women. In an original podcast by the Environmental Change and Security Program and the Global Health Initiative, UNAIDS Executive Director Dr. Peter Piot discusses how reauthorizing PEPFAR at increased levels of funding, expanding AIDS prevention programs, and coordinating global efforts to combat HIV/AIDS under U.S. leadership could amplify the effectiveness and sustainability of the global AIDS response.

Click here for the Wilson Center, “PEPFAR Reauthorization and the Global AIDS Response” event summary.

Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who was a practicing surgeon before his political career, announced last week that he would return to medicine—in a big way. The New York Times reports that Frist will lead Save the Children’s new “Survive to Five” initiative. This program aims to reduce the number of children—estimated at nearly 10 million annually worldwide—who die before they turn five years old. Save’s website describes five solutions to the five biggest contributing factors to child mortality. By applying these solutions—all of them proven, and most of them very inexpensive—they hope to save as many as 6 million children every year.

The Times mentions that other American politicians, such as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, have dedicated much of their post-political lives to global health, with excellent results. Perhaps even more encouraging is that some current world leaders are addressing these issues as well. Last month, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and German Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed “urgent action” on health issues in developing countries. Their International Health Partnership, which began on September 5, will address child mortality, as well as maternal mortality and HIV/AIDS prevention and education.

The Times notes that Frist is playing a key role in a similar campaign with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, along with former rival Senator Tom Daschle—although it doesn’t mention that while majority leader, Frist broke with political tradition by campaigning against his counterpart. It is encouraging that they have put political differences behind them and are working together on a new campaign that could save and improve the lives of millions of children around the world. Hopefully, they will be successful in persuading Americans and their elected officials that child mortality is not only unacceptable and preventable, but that reducing it is a worthy use of taxpayer dollars.

This effort may seem daunting, given that less than one-half of one percent of the U.S. budget goes to international assistance. Frist was successful in ushering through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which dedicated $15 billion over five years to fighting AIDS, principally in Africa. This was a major victory for global health, but there is room in the budget and the priorities of American leaders for more global health programs—especially if PEPFAR is doubled, as is now being considered, to $30 billion over the next 5 years. Campaigns to reduce childhood mortality do not face the political scrutiny of HIV/AIDS programs such as PEPFAR, but it will still be important that Frist and others involved allow science-based medicine to dictate funding priorities; one of PEPFAR’s main failings is that it has caved to ideology in placing an unadvisedly large emphasis on abstinence education.

Frist and his colleagues certainly have a difficult battle against child mortality ahead of them. But Frist—a surgeon, politician, and businessman—has an impressive range of skills and an equally enviable Rolodex of supporters to call upon.

A new study (login required) by the UN High Commission for Refugees and the University of Copenhagen, published in the June 30 issue of the Lancet, contradicts the prevailing belief that conflict fuels the spread of HIV. Data from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Southern Sudan, Rwanda, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and Burundi “did not show an increase in prevalence of HIV infection during periods of conflict, irrespective of prevalence when conflict began.” Additionally, the study finds “insufficient data to support the assertions that conflict, forced displacement, and wide-scale rape increase prevalence or that refugees spread HIV infection in host communities.”