July 11 is World Population Day—a day designated annually by the United Nations that should prompt us, in the words of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, to “focus attention on the urgency and importance of population issues.”

Examining population trends helps describe where we’ve been and suggests where we’re headed. Yet these facts about human existence on our planet also offer insights into how we got here—including a window into places where inequities exist and rights have been denied.

As the world struggles to recover from the relentless coronavirus pandemic, the goal of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) has become more relevant than ever. UHC means that people have access to community services that promote healthy habits, disease prevention and early detection, quality medical treatment and rehabilitation services without suffering financial hardship.

Headlines about India’s pressing security challenges often focus on tensions with Pakistan, border friction with China, and internal interethnic violence. However, the threat of climate change is in fact the paramount security threat to India in the coming decades.

According to a recent poll, young people are deeply concerned about the world they will inherit, want to be more engaged in meeting the development needs of their communities, and are helping to lead democracy or social justice protests in their countries. At the same time, new research shows a large decline in trust and admiration for democratic governance. According to Freedom House, for the first time in decades, authoritarian leaning regimes outnumber democratic leaning ones, with a majority of the world’s population now living in authoritarian leaning countries.

Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6.1 for safe, sufficient, and available water has always been important. Compounding challenges—from climate change and increasing migration within and across borders to COVID-19 and its multiple variants—makes achieving the human right to water more urgent. But what is often missed in discussions related to water access is that what determines access to safe and sufficient water is about more than gaps in governance or lack of funding—it is intertwined with entrenched inequality in societies, including the planning of urban spaces.

No country has escaped the setbacks caused by COVID-19, but impacts on low-income countries are proving far worse. The World Bank estimates the pandemic and the actions necessary to contain it will drive 150 million people globally into extreme poverty. Post-pandemic, there will likely be long-term effects. Even with this grim reality, there is hope. Governments and international development organizations have accumulated a wealth of knowledge about what works to reduce poverty and increase economic activity. As the Biden administration and other actors work to build a post-pandemic environment, key lessons can be drawn from this knowledge to inform recovery efforts.

The United States is facing a crucial moment, one in which more pregnant women are at risk of becoming housing insecure than at any other time in recent history. This leaves an unprecedented number of mothers and babies vulnerable to the associated adverse health risks.  Housing instability – which includes challenges ranging from struggles paying rent to chronic homelessness – harms maternal and neonatal health as much as smoking during pregnancy. The economic effects of COVID-19 threaten to exacerbate the adverse health outcomes associated with homelessness.

Globally, nearly 690 million people were hungry in 2019. Though the number of people who experience hunger in Asia has declined since 2015, the continent still accounts for more than half of the world’s hungry, or undernourished, at approximately 381 million people. Working toward Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2), “Zero Hunger,” will require major changes to the world’s food production systems.