Since the integrated population, health, and environment (PHE) approach is relatively new in international development, donors, partners, and implementers want to know how it’s improving people’s lives. In the PHE community, we believe that combining efforts to address natural resource management, reproductive health, and livelihoods is making a difference in places where rapid population growth combines with poverty and environment degradation. But to know for sure and be able to convince others, we need to have data to support those beliefs.

It is well known that public health issues that affect the world’s most vulnerable populations – food insecurity, maternal and child health, water- and sanitation-related disease, and resource scarcity – are inextricably linked. Where these linkages are strongest, experience on the ground has shown that community-based integrated approaches to development provide more effective and sustainable solutions over vertical, sector-based programs. But so far, there are very few comprehensive evaluations providing strong quantitative evidence of this advantage.

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.

“When young people claim their right to education and health – including sexual and reproductive health – they increase their opportunities to become a powerful force for economic development and positive change,” said Nicole Gaertner, of UN Refugee Agency and the U.S. Department of State, quoting Secretary of State Hilary Clinton at the Wilson Center on December 13. [Video Below]

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.

The original version of this article, by Ruth Greenspan Bell, appeared on Bloomberg News.

Every year the United Nations convenes diplomats from more than 190 nations to negotiate a climate change treaty, and in many years negotiators go home with little more than the promise of another annual meeting.

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.