The original version of this article, by Elisabeth Rosenthal, appeared in The New York Times.

In the tiny tortillerias of this city, people complain ceaselessly about the high price of corn. Just three years ago, one quetzal – about 15 cents – bought eight tortillas; today it buys only four. And eggs have tripled in price because chickens eat corn feed.

1.8 million food producers using improved technologies or management practices. Nearly 9 million children reached through nutrition programs. 2.4 million hectares under improved technologies or management practices. New mechanisms for donor coordination. A forward-looking agricultural research agenda. Innovative private-sector partnerships to support smallholder farmers. These are among the successes reported for the first three years of Feed the Future, the U.S. government’s new global hunger and food security initiative.

The future is urban – but is it sustainable?

For decades – centuries, really – warnings have been issued: The burgeoning human population will outgrow the planet’s capacity to sustain us. The formula seems simple. More people equals fewer resources and greater environmental damage.

As recently discussed by the National Intelligence Council, sub-Saharan Africa is home to both the most rapidly growing populations in the world and its fastest expanding cities. Save the Children’s recent report, Voices From Urban Africa: The Impact of Urban Growth on Children, explores the challenges faced by the continent’s youngest age cohort, revealing what forces are driving children and families to migrate to urban areas and the poverty many are experiencing upon getting there. In response to the report’s findings, the authors recommend training and deploying more health care workers, facilitating public-private dialogue to identify long-term water and sanitation solutions, improving access to jobs and skills training, expanding access to early childhood care, and strengthening the education system to ensure widespread attendance. Compiled from 1,050 interviews, the report is unique for its first-hand accounts of the daily lives of children, their families, and community members.

At a major summit in London this summer the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation launched one of the most significant efforts yet to revitalize commitments around the world towards providing universal access to family planning. More than 220 million women around the world – mostly in developing countries – want to delay or avoid pregnancy but are not using effective methods of contraception. Meeting the unmet needs of these women could save the lives of hundreds of thousands of mothers and millions of infants, not to mention significantly impact the future of human development. But the last decade has been a period of relative neglect by international donors.

The Wilson Center Policy Briefs are a series of short analyses of critical global issues facing the next administration that will run until inauguration day.

We live in a world that is different from that inhabited by our ancestors in many profound ways. Among the most important changes is that, for the first time, almost half of the world’s people live in cities. According to the United Nations, in 2008 the global urban population surpassed half of the world’s population of 6.7 billion compared with 13 percent a century ago and 3 percent a century before that. This trend will require profound changes in the way the U.S. government addresses everything from development policy to international security.

Carbon offsets have fallen in and out of favor since they were established with the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. Critics say they allow wealthy organizations to placate consumers and claim their products are “green” without making any real, lasting changes. But, if the scheme works properly, some action is supposed to be taken somewhere, so what is it like at one of these credit-producing organizations?

Population growth “is highly concentrated in what are today the poorest and least well-governed areas of the world,” said George Mason University professor Jack Goldstone at the Wilson Center on December 5.

Goldstone was joined by Suzanne Ehlers, president and CEO of Population Action International (PAI), and Matthew Erdman, population-health-environment technical advisor at USAID, to discuss the implications of seven billion people and counting for the environment as part of the joint Wilson Center-George Mason University Managing the Planet series. [Video Below]