“If there was a perfect slum, Kibera would be it.” The notoriously overcrowded and underserved settlement in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi captivates the public imagination, engendering visions of urban violence, poverty, and hopelessness, said Caroline Wanjiku Kihato of the University of the Witwatersrand at the Wilson Center on February 18. The area was ravaged by ethnic violence that erupted across the country following Kenya’s disputed 2007 elections, pitting neighbor against neighbor in tribal clashes that killed more than 1,000 people, displaced many thousands more, and provoked an alarming surge in sexual violence.

The Wilson Center’s Urban Sustainability Laboratory, in partnership with USAID, International Housing Coalition, World Bank, and Cities Alliance, is pleased to announce the 5th Annual Urban Poverty Paper Competition for graduate students. The competition calls on students currently enrolled in a Master’s or PhD program to submit paper abstracts on topics relating to urban poverty in the developing world.

In Lake Victoria and Lake Chilwa basins, interconnected development challenges defy sectoral boundaries, said experts at the Wilson Center on February 10. According to Deepa Pullanikkatil of Leadership for Environment and Development and Doreen Othero of the Lake Victoria Basin Commission, growing populations, shrinking resource bases, and persistent human health concerns demonstrate the need for integrated development approaches that combine population, health, and environmental (PHE) interventions. “We need different sectors working together to achieve the greater goal,” said Pullanikkatil. [Video Below]

In the wake of natural disasters, the idea that systematic change might be needed to prevent future crises often takes a backseat to restorative efforts. But as disasters become more common, there is often a blurring of disaster response and development initiatives.

In the sleepy northern Thai border town of Huay Luk, a community leader, Pornsawan Boontun, still remembers the day when villagers netted a Mekong giant catfish more than a decade ago. The fish weighed 615 pounds, and it surprised everyone since the elusive species has never been common in this stretch of river.

Family planning, which saw a relative decline in financial support from the international development community over the last two decades, is now back in vogue, thanks in large part to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. After spearheading the London Summit on Family Planning in 2012 alongside many governments, the foundation’s recently released 2014 Annual Letter sets out to dispel three “myths” about development, one of which is “saving lives leads to overpopulation.”