It used to be a luxury to talk about the environment when you were addressing conflict. Today, “we recognize it’s not a luxury anymore,” said Liz Hume, senior director for programs at the Alliance for Peacebuilding, at the Wilson Center on April 29. Similarly, gender dynamics are now being recognized as playing a critical role in sustainable development and peacebuilding. [Video Below]

In principle, development organizations and donors have known that gender dynamics affect the success or failure of their efforts for some time. In practice, overturning cultural mores while at the same time improving health outcomes, incomes, or food security can be difficult. [Video Below]

As early as 1911, coal miners in Britain carried caged canaries into mining pits. Any sign of distress from the small birds, which are incredibly sensitive to the presence of harmful gases such as carbon monoxide, meant immediate evacuation. Today’s canaries in the coal mine are low-income, minority communities whose exposure to environmental risks in the United States and elsewhere puts them at the frontlines of the global climate crisis.

After more than a decade studying the wide-ranging effects of poor nutrition on children, former Wall Street Journal reporter Roger Thurow is outraged. Now he wants to inspire action.

A report by the European Union on global food security finds 240 million people are in food stress thanks to conflict, refugee situations, flooding, drought, and El Niño. Part of a 2012 commitment by the EU to better target the root causes of food insecurity, the report analyzes the hunger situation in 70 countries and provides deeper analysis for 20.

Population, reproductive health, and environmental sustainability are inextricably linked. Growing populations place increasing demands on the environment, while meeting the reproductive health needs of populations usually slows their growth. Often, however, policymakers, scholars, and journalists discuss these issues separately, as if unrelated.

In the southwestern part of Indonesian Borneo, known as Kalimantan, there’s a small town on the outskirts of an incredibly diverse forest where the community has turned from illegal logging to stewards of the land.

Over the past decade, the number of undernourished people around the world has declined by around 167 million, to just under 800 million people. However, this positive trend glosses over a stark reality: Food insecurity is increasing in the world’s mountains. This pattern has been under-recognized by development experts and governments, a dangerous oversight with far-reaching social and environmental repercussions.