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Everybody Counts: New Podcast Series on How Global Population Trends Shape Our World
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From mass urbanization to massive refugee flows, high fertility to record low birth rates, global population is changing in unprecedented ways. “Everybody Counts,” a new podcast series hosted by Rhodes College Professor and Wilson Center Global Fellow Jennifer D. Sciubba, launches a lively and thoughtful conversation about the ways human population shapes our world and how we live today. -
As Afghanistan’s Water Crisis Escalates, More Effective Water Governance Could Bolster Regional Stability
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“Kabul be zar basha be barf ne!” This ancient proverb—“May Kabul be without gold rather than snow”—refers to snowmelt from the Hindu Kush Mountains, a primary source of Afghanistan’s water supply. To recover from years of armed conflict, Afghanistan needs a stable water supply, but its sources are increasingly stressed by severe droughts. The Norwegian Refugee Council estimates that today, 2 out of 3 provinces are impacted by drought, putting two million people at risk of hunger. Improving the country’s water governance—the social, legal, and administrative systems that guide how water is distributed and used—may help it avoid both internal and regional conflicts by stabilizing its economy and its citizens’ livelihoods.
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A Firm Foundation: Contraception, Agency, and Women’s Economic Empowerment
› According to a raft of experts, empowering women to be economic actors would change quite a bit. The UN Secretary General set up a High-Level Panel on it; Melinda Gates keeps talking about it; and the World Bank and Ivanka Trump recently launched an initiative to unlock billions in financing for it. Targets related to women’s economic empowerment cut across multiple Sustainable Development Goals, including advancing equal rights to economic resources, doubling the agricultural productivity and incomes of women who are small-scale farmers, and achieving full and productive employment and decent work for all women. -
This Indian Women’s Union Invented a Flexible Childcare Model
›In 1971, the wives of textile workers in Ahmedabad, western India, became the main earners in their families overnight, after several large textile mills closed down. They were part of the 94 percent of India’s female labor force working in the informal sector—recycling waste, embroidering fabric, and selling vegetables—and thus they remained largely invisible to the government and to formal labor unions. In response, Ela Bhatt, a young lawyer, met with 100 of the women in a public park to establish the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), which would later register as a trade union and swell to the two million members it boasts today. -
Geoengineering, Water, and Population: Top Posts of June 2018
›With climate adaption and mitigation efforts failing to keep pace with climate-related risks, the need for a global regime on geoengineering will be increasingly pressing, write Elizabeth L. Chalecki and Lisa Ferrari in June’s top post. The norms of just war theory could provide a starting point for developing a code of conduct for geoengineering.
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Measuring Up: USAID Proposes New Indicators to Assess Countries’ “Journey to Self-Reliance”
›“At the heart of…USAID’s transformation, is the core belief that each country must lead its development journey, and finance and implement solutions to its development challenges,” said Susan Fine of USAID at a recent Center for Global Development event introducing USAID’s new “Journey to Self-Reliance ” indicators.
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Mapping Refugees and Urban Job Opportunities
›Although most of us picture refugees living in remote, dusty camps, as many as 2.1 million of the developing world’s working-age refugees reside in major urban areas—where they should have greater access to employment opportunities. However, according to a new report from the Center for Global Development, finding employment remains “one of the major unmet needs identified by refugees.”
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Energy Innovation in Remote Arctic Communities
›Without connections to wider electrical grids, communities in the remote, rural Arctic depend on diesel generators for power—which makes electricity “ten times more expensive” than in the rest of Canada or the United States, said Martha Lenio of the World Wildlife Fund-Canada Arctic Team during a recent Wilson Center Ground Truth Briefing. In addition, spilled diesel “can harm wildlife, impact food and water security, and compromise permafrost integrity,” said Lenio. These challenges have led some communities in the Arctic to seek cheaper, safer, and more innovative energy solutions, said panelists during the briefing organized by the Wilson Center’s Polar Initiative and Canada Institute.
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According to a raft of experts, empowering women to be economic actors would change quite a bit. The UN Secretary General set up a 
In 1971, the wives of textile workers in Ahmedabad, western India, became the main earners in their families overnight, after several large textile mills closed down. They were part of the 94 percent of India’s female labor force working in the informal sector—recycling waste, embroidering fabric, and selling vegetables—and thus they remained largely invisible to the government and to formal labor unions. In response, Ela Bhatt, a young lawyer, met with 100 of the women in a public park to establish the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), which would later register as a trade union and swell to the two million members it boasts today.
