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.

As policymakers respond to the threat of climate and environmental change, the concept of resilience has found itself at the center of discussion. Few scientists and policymakers, however, can come to a consensus on how to define, evaluate, and build resilience.

This past December, Bangladesh turned 42, bringing the country Henry Kissinger once predicted would become a “basket case” into comfortable middle age (though perhaps this analogy breaks down for countries like Switzerland, age 722).

“What’s become clear to me on population is that it’s really a local issue,” said Andrew Revkin in an interview at the Wilson Center. “You get the impression, ‘Oh didn’t we solve that problem?’” And to some extent, demographic shifts around the world are largely heading in the direction people anticipated, with a leveling off mid-century. But “no one really knows what happens then,” he said. “All it takes is a tiny diversion of fertility rates and things could really grow or shrink.”

The original version of this article, by A. Tianna Scozzaro, appeared on Population Action International’s All Access blog.

For the past 11 months, a group of United Nations member states has been holding meetings seeking input on future goals for sustainable development once the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expire in 2015. Led by co-chair ambassadors from Hungary and Kenya, this Open Working Group of 69 countries has delved into topics ranging from governance to health and everything in between.

2014 promises to be a superlative year – and that’s not necessarily a good thing. Complex, “super” disasters like Super Typhoon Haiyan are becoming more frequent, more systemic, and more destructive. Global trends, from population dynamics to food, water, and energy scarcities, threaten to further complicate the playing field. But by finally getting serious about resilience – the much discussed buzzword of 2013 – we might reduce our vulnerability, restore our communities, and build back better, rather than just picking up the pieces.

When Super Typhoon Haiyan ripped through the Philippines last month, the incredible damage visited on the people, infrastructure, and land was shaped by trends that have been in motion for decades. The country’s population has been growing rapidly, with high concentrations of people living in cities and along the coast; economic growth had been steady, but weak governance and corruption may have exacerbated vulnerability; and the gradual loss of coastal forests and mangroves left many communities exposed to the full brunt of the typhoon’s storm surge. On a positive note, wireless technology and crowd-sourced data helped in disaster response.