Friday Podcasts From ECSP and MHI

“The Sahel faces huge problems,” says Jack Goldstone, Virginia E. and John T. Hazel professor of public policy at George Mason University and Wilson Center global fellow, in this week’s podcast. “It is facing massive population growth. It is facing environmental decay. It has a history of violent conflict.” In the coming decades, Africa will have the only growing working age population in the world, says Goldstone. “The education, the socialization, the stability of young people in this region of the world is going to be, I think, the dominant issue for conflicts in the years ahead.” As governments struggle to meet the needs of growing populations, young people and marginalized groups have become vulnerable to recruitment by extremists. In states already experiencing conflict or displacement, youth populations can be an even greater source of frustration as their potential is capped by limited livelihood options and their schooling is often cut short. Effective governance can overcome these challenges through investments in education and health that allow fertility rates to decline and empower young people, giving them productive pathways to integrate with society. “As young people grow up feeling more in control of their own destinies,” Goldstone says, “they are more likely to turn to constructive group activities and less likely to be drawn to deviant or extremist movements out of anger and frustration.” Goldstone says education, health, and security policies must be viewed as part of a holistic process. Improving secondary education requires many steps, including raising incomes so families can afford it, investing in tertiary schools to train teachers, and creating administrations that can secure and coordinate school supplies. Conflict undermines development as women and children are unable to attend health clinics and school for fear of violence. Likewise, displaced children “do not get the same educational progress that children do who grow up in their own home.” “Population growth, education, and security are all deeply intertwined,” says Goldstone. “The cycle of stopping conflict requires a combination of investment not only in education and contraception but also in building governments that are inclusive, effective, and legitimate.” “If people come to trust the state and public institutions, they have less need to work through private networks to get around the state or to protect their group at the expense of others.” Jack Goldstone spoke at the Wilson Center on May 12. Friday podcasts are also available for download from iTunes.

“The Sahel faces huge problems,” says Jack Goldstone, Virginia E. and John T. Hazel professor of public policy at George Mason University and Wilson Center global fellow, in this week’s podcast. “It is facing massive population growth. It is facing environmental decay. It has a history of violent conflict.” In the coming decades, Africa will have the only growing working age population in the world, says Goldstone. “The education, the socialization, the stability of young people in this region of the world is going to be, I think, the dominant issue for conflicts in the years ahead.” As governments struggle to meet the needs of growing populations, young people and marginalized groups have become vulnerable to recruitment by extremists. In states already experiencing conflict or displacement, youth populations can be an even greater source of frustration as their potential is capped by limited livelihood options and their schooling is often cut short. Effective governance can overcome these challenges through investments in education and health that allow fertility rates to decline and empower young people, giving them productive pathways to integrate with society. “As young people grow up feeling more in control of their own destinies,” Goldstone says, “they are more likely to turn to constructive group activities and less likely to be drawn to deviant or extremist movements out of anger and frustration.” Goldstone says education, health, and security policies must be viewed as part of a holistic process. Improving secondary education requires many steps, including raising incomes so families can afford it, investing in tertiary schools to train teachers, and creating administrations that can secure and coordinate school supplies. Conflict undermines development as women and children are unable to attend health clinics and school for fear of violence. Likewise, displaced children “do not get the same educational progress that children do who grow up in their own home.” “Population growth, education, and security are all deeply intertwined,” says Goldstone. “The cycle of stopping conflict requires a combination of investment not only in education and contraception but also in building governments that are inclusive, effective, and legitimate.” “If people come to trust the state and public institutions, they have less need to work through private networks to get around the state or to protect their group at the expense of others.” Jack Goldstone spoke at the Wilson Center on May 12. Friday podcasts are also available for download from iTunes.

Rapid population growth, which many Sahelian countries are experiencing, is often associated with an increased risk of sociopolitical violence. But in this week’s podcast, Cornell University Professor Parfait Eloundou-Enyegue argues there is another factor related to demographic change that governments and development organizations should account for: inequality. It’s not so much overall inequality rates that are important in this context, he says, but comparisons between peers. The richest among African youth often live very different lives than the rest of their generational compatriots. Things like how likely parents are to invest in their children, how much they have to invest, and family size vary greatly, creating different opportunities which can have life-long repercussions. “Class differences and demographic behavior translate into inequality among children, and these inequalities work their way up through adulthood,” Eloundou-Enyegue says. “If you look at sub-Saharan Africa in particular, including the Sahel region, you find many countries in Africa have higher levels of inequality than the U.S. at a time when the U.S. was at its own historical high,” says Eloundou-Enyegue. “That’s quite impressive.” What’s more, there seems to be a connection between inequality and demographic change. When comparing countries within the Sahel, he points out that inequality, measured in a variety of ways, is higher among countries where women on average have less than six children apiece than those where they have more. This suggests countries are experiencing an “uneven demographic dividend,” as he calls it, which may lead to violence as inequality follows young people from childhood to adolescence, especially when young people seek work for the first time. “It’s especially at the nexus of this transition from school to work that it can actually trigger violence,” Eloundou-Enyegue says. “Young adults are going to remain unemployed after they leave school and that is one of the contributors, in my estimation, to violence.” Recruitment for Boko Haram in Nigeria, which has some of the highest regional levels of inequality in the region, has been linked to unemployment and disillusionment among young men, for example. To fight inequality among youth, Eloundou-Enyegue proposes an emphasis on job training and employment opportunities to help level the playing field. But he adds it won’t be as simple as “just getting a job,” as a push towards civic engagement and behavior change will also be important to change things like family size and propensity to invest in children that lead to such inequalities in the first place. Parfait Eloundou-Enyegue spoke at the Wilson Center on May 12. Download his slides for more.

Rapid population growth, which many Sahelian countries are experiencing, is often associated with an increased risk of sociopolitical violence. But in this week’s podcast, Cornell University Professor Parfait Eloundou-Enyegue argues there is another factor related to demographic change that governments and development organizations should account for: inequality. It’s not so much overall inequality rates that are important in this context, he says, but comparisons between peers. The richest among African youth often live very different lives than the rest of their generational compatriots. Things like how likely parents are to invest in their children, how much they have to invest, and family size vary greatly, creating different opportunities which can have life-long repercussions. “Class differences and demographic behavior translate into inequality among children, and these inequalities work their way up through adulthood,” Eloundou-Enyegue says. “If you look at sub-Saharan Africa in particular, including the Sahel region, you find many countries in Africa have higher levels of inequality than the U.S. at a time when the U.S. was at its own historical high,” says Eloundou-Enyegue. “That’s quite impressive.” What’s more, there seems to be a connection between inequality and demographic change. When comparing countries within the Sahel, he points out that inequality, measured in a variety of ways, is higher among countries where women on average have less than six children apiece than those where they have more. This suggests countries are experiencing an “uneven demographic dividend,” as he calls it, which may lead to violence as inequality follows young people from childhood to adolescence, especially when young people seek work for the first time. “It’s especially at the nexus of this transition from school to work that it can actually trigger violence,” Eloundou-Enyegue says. “Young adults are going to remain unemployed after they leave school and that is one of the contributors, in my estimation, to violence.” Recruitment for Boko Haram in Nigeria, which has some of the highest regional levels of inequality in the region, has been linked to unemployment and disillusionment among young men, for example. To fight inequality among youth, Eloundou-Enyegue proposes an emphasis on job training and employment opportunities to help level the playing field. But he adds it won’t be as simple as “just getting a job,” as a push towards civic engagement and behavior change will also be important to change things like family size and propensity to invest in children that lead to such inequalities in the first place. Parfait Eloundou-Enyegue spoke at the Wilson Center on May 12. Download his slides for more.

In the Sahel, one of the most food-stressed regions of the world, “women bear the brunt in terms of coping mechanisms that are employed at the community level,” says Sylvia Cabus, gender advisor for USAID’s Bureau for Food Security, in this week’s podcast. Women are the traditional guardians of family health and nutrition. But because of this responsibility, they often reduce their own food intake and make unimaginable sacrifices, including selling personal assets and even engaging in sexual bartering to pay for food. They may also take their children out of school or encourage early marriages in order to reduce household size and receive an injection of assets from bridal dowries. “We are operating in a context of scarcity,” says Cabus, as rapid population growth stresses resources and the region has borne several major droughts. The most common coping mechanism among males – to migrate in search of work – may actually hurt households as “the flow of remittances is often irregular or nonexistent,” says Cabus. World Bank data shows that sub-Saharan Africa (including Sahel countries) receives the lowest amount of remittances worldwide, while being the costliest region from which to send them. Male out-migration also puts women in a difficult position as they frequently become the de facto heads of household without the same rights to own property and manage resources that men have. It’s a “very patriarchal culture where women and girls have low status” and “very limited decision-making,” Cabus says. Of the 10 worst countries to be a mother or a child, four – Mali, Niger, The Gambia, and Chad – are located in the Sahel, according to Save the Children’s latest State of the World’s Mothers report. Still, Cabus maintains a positive attitude. “The Sahel is a very lucky region in the sense that it’s been studied and over-studied over decades now,” she says. But “it’s important to ask the right questions.” In one instance, a USAID program in Mali distributed an improved type of millet seed. When asked for feedback, women said the new millet took significantly longer to cook. At the household level, this simple change can mean a lot. More time over the fire means more firewood and more exposure to smoke. It also means higher costs for fuel and more time spent by women and girls traveling to further places for fuel, which can be dangerous. New development strategies to diversify rural economies are working to create new livelihood pathways for women. For example, Cabus and her USAID team visited a group of women in Burkina Faso who saw a niche market for parsley and began growing it their rural community to sell in the capital, Ouagadougou. And men can help too. In Niger, the UN Population Fund began “Ecole des Maris,” or “husband’s schools,” that bring together groups of men to discuss reproductive health matters and promote the empowerment of women at the community level. In the Sahel, as elsewhere, the status of women, their health, and household food security are deeply intertwined. “We know that agricultural production is highly gendered,” says Cabus. “We help farmers…and their husbands.”

In the Sahel, one of the most food-stressed regions of the world, “women bear the brunt in terms of coping mechanisms that are employed at the community level,” says Sylvia Cabus, gender advisor for USAID’s Bureau for Food Security, in this week’s podcast. Women are the traditional guardians of family health and nutrition. But because of this responsibility, they often reduce their own food intake and make unimaginable sacrifices, including selling personal assets and even engaging in sexual bartering to pay for food. They may also take their children out of school or encourage early marriages in order to reduce household size and receive an injection of assets from bridal dowries. “We are operating in a context of scarcity,” says Cabus, as rapid population growth stresses resources and the region has borne several major droughts. The most common coping mechanism among males – to migrate in search of work – may actually hurt households as “the flow of remittances is often irregular or nonexistent,” says Cabus. World Bank data shows that sub-Saharan Africa (including Sahel countries) receives the lowest amount of remittances worldwide, while being the costliest region from which to send them. Male out-migration also puts women in a difficult position as they frequently become the de facto heads of household without the same rights to own property and manage resources that men have. It’s a “very patriarchal culture where women and girls have low status” and “very limited decision-making,” Cabus says. Of the 10 worst countries to be a mother or a child, four – Mali, Niger, The Gambia, and Chad – are located in the Sahel, according to Save the Children’s latest State of the World’s Mothers report. Still, Cabus maintains a positive attitude. “The Sahel is a very lucky region in the sense that it’s been studied and over-studied over decades now,” she says. But “it’s important to ask the right questions.” In one instance, a USAID program in Mali distributed an improved type of millet seed. When asked for feedback, women said the new millet took significantly longer to cook. At the household level, this simple change can mean a lot. More time over the fire means more firewood and more exposure to smoke. It also means higher costs for fuel and more time spent by women and girls traveling to further places for fuel, which can be dangerous. New development strategies to diversify rural economies are working to create new livelihood pathways for women. For example, Cabus and her USAID team visited a group of women in Burkina Faso who saw a niche market for parsley and began growing it their rural community to sell in the capital, Ouagadougou. And men can help too. In Niger, the UN Population Fund began “Ecole des Maris,” or “husband’s schools,” that bring together groups of men to discuss reproductive health matters and promote the empowerment of women at the community level. In the Sahel, as elsewhere, the status of women, their health, and household food security are deeply intertwined. “We know that agricultural production is highly gendered,” says Cabus. “We help farmers…and their husbands.”

The world is changing quickly thanks to a convergence of megatrends, says Singularity University’s Banning Garrett in this week’s podcast, but urbanization could be the most critical. “If we get it right in cities, we can solve a lot of big problems,” he says. “Virtually all population growth will be in cities,” says Garrett. As early as 2050, 70 percent of the world’s estimated 9.6 billion people will live in urban areas, equivalent to 100 more Jakartas in the world. Sustaining these populations will be difficult. “There are about one billion people in slums today. It could be two billion by 2030,” he says. However, cities can play an essential role in sustainable development. “The great thing about cities is that everybody is there,” says Garrett. Concentrations of people living together allows for economies of scale and better efficiency in the delivery of goods and services. Garrett cites a study that found GDP per capita increases disproportionately as cities expand, while relative resource use declines. “Cities can be far more efficient as well as more productive,” he says. Agents of Innovation? Cities are also creating new markets of their own. “Smart city” technologies have attracted new investment in transportation, health care, and communications, and the arrow appears to be pointing up. “It’s going to be a humongous market,” says Garrett, “we’re talking $90 trillion in infrastructure.” Other technologies such as vertical farmingand 3-D printing could mean goods are produced at the point of consumption within cities, rather than shipped from afar, reducing transportation and production costs while minimizing carbon footprint. Gearing a city’s infrastructure for the future is crucial given the staying power of these investments. Garrett pointed out that a coal-fired power plant built in 1949 outside Alexandria, Virginia, was in operation until three years ago, burning an estimated 88 million tons of coal and emitting 233 million tons of carbon dioxide over its 63-year lifetime. “Cities have long outlived states,” says Garrett, “they will still be there when the particular state may be long gone.” While some national governments are “paralyzed,” Garrett says urban areas have been serving as laboratories for new ways to organize society and use advanced technologies. Mayors now play a role as global actors in their own right. Thousands of city delegations travel the globe sharing best practices and promoting city-to-city learning. “Cities are where this game is going to play out,” he says, “where governance is either going to take place, or not, and where good governance is going to have to contain this sustainability that we’ve all been talking about.” “You’ve got to look long term….where would we like to go and what decisions do we have to make to get there?”’ Banning Garrett spoke at the Wilson Center on April 22. Friday Podcasts are also available for download on iTunes.

The world is changing quickly thanks to a convergence of megatrends, says Singularity University’s Banning Garrett in this week’s podcast, but urbanization could be the most critical. “If we get it right in cities, we can solve a lot of big problems,” he says. “Virtually all population growth will be in cities,” says Garrett. As early as 2050, 70 percent of the world’s estimated 9.6 billion people will live in urban areas, equivalent to 100 more Jakartas in the world. Sustaining these populations will be difficult. “There are about one billion people in slums today. It could be two billion by 2030,” he says. However, cities can play an essential role in sustainable development. “The great thing about cities is that everybody is there,” says Garrett. Concentrations of people living together allows for economies of scale and better efficiency in the delivery of goods and services. Garrett cites a study that found GDP per capita increases disproportionately as cities expand, while relative resource use declines. “Cities can be far more efficient as well as more productive,” he says. Agents of Innovation? Cities are also creating new markets of their own. “Smart city” technologies have attracted new investment in transportation, health care, and communications, and the arrow appears to be pointing up. “It’s going to be a humongous market,” says Garrett, “we’re talking $90 trillion in infrastructure.” Other technologies such as vertical farmingand 3-D printing could mean goods are produced at the point of consumption within cities, rather than shipped from afar, reducing transportation and production costs while minimizing carbon footprint. Gearing a city’s infrastructure for the future is crucial given the staying power of these investments. Garrett pointed out that a coal-fired power plant built in 1949 outside Alexandria, Virginia, was in operation until three years ago, burning an estimated 88 million tons of coal and emitting 233 million tons of carbon dioxide over its 63-year lifetime. “Cities have long outlived states,” says Garrett, “they will still be there when the particular state may be long gone.” While some national governments are “paralyzed,” Garrett says urban areas have been serving as laboratories for new ways to organize society and use advanced technologies. Mayors now play a role as global actors in their own right. Thousands of city delegations travel the globe sharing best practices and promoting city-to-city learning. “Cities are where this game is going to play out,” he says, “where governance is either going to take place, or not, and where good governance is going to have to contain this sustainability that we’ve all been talking about.” “You’ve got to look long term….where would we like to go and what decisions do we have to make to get there?”’ Banning Garrett spoke at the Wilson Center on April 22. Friday Podcasts are also available for download on iTunes.

One of the biggest challenges to improving health care in developing countries is that it’s not necessarily a great job. Midwives and other auxiliary health workers often face very difficult working conditions with little training, poor pay, and no hope of advancement. This can translate to poor results and even abuse of patients. Midwives need “a purpose that’s bigger than themselves,” says Barbara Stilwell, senior director of health workforce solutions at the NGO Intrahealth International, in this week’s podcast. “Self-actualization is a basic need for people,” she says, “but when we look at health care, one of the things we do is we task shift.” Task shifting is a concept being explored in many low resource settings whereby certain treatments that previously only doctors were allowed to perform are delegated to auxiliary health workers. The idea is to make up for the lack of doctors by making each one go further. But in practice, this can be demeaning to health workers, Stilwell says. “We give you a task: you can give injections. But heaven forbid that you should ever know what the injections are for, or you should ever be able to tell me that I’ve told you something wrong, or you should ever bring an idea to me about that.” Instead of task shifting, Stilwell suggests giving greater purpose to health care jobs. “There is now some idea in my world…that we need to be coming up with big ideas that are going to change the way we look at these issues in a way that is much more profound than this.” Autonomy and having independent success in one’s work has been shown to increase investment in health care jobs, says Stilwell. In Karnataka, India, Intrahealth International implemented a program where skilled nurses were trained to become mentors. “What we found was not only have the nurse midwives become much better at giving care, but they’ve also shown initiative,” she says. For example, some noticed broken radiant warmers – which are similar to infant incubators –and took steps to fix them on their own. Stilwell points out that taking this initiative not only showed independence, it also brought more value to the job itself. Mastery brings two major benefits: it encourages people to deepen their skills and creates a ladder for those who want to pursue a career in health. Stilwell cites the 2014 State of the World’s Midwifery Report that projects 87 percent of all needed and essential care for mothers and newborns could be completed by midwives if they received the right education. Ascribing health care to a larger purpose also gives providers more incentive and motivation to improve – especially when they see data that shows quality of care makes a difference in their patients’ lives. “There have been some fine examples about the midwives who are connected to communities and get feedback from the communities,” says Stilwell. “That’s their motivation.”

One of the biggest challenges to improving health care in developing countries is that it’s not necessarily a great job. Midwives and other auxiliary health workers often face very difficult working conditions with little training, poor pay, and no hope of advancement. This can translate to poor results and even abuse of patients. Midwives need “a purpose that’s bigger than themselves,” says Barbara Stilwell, senior director of health workforce solutions at the NGO Intrahealth International, in this week’s podcast. “Self-actualization is a basic need for people,” she says, “but when we look at health care, one of the things we do is we task shift.” Task shifting is a concept being explored in many low resource settings whereby certain treatments that previously only doctors were allowed to perform are delegated to auxiliary health workers. The idea is to make up for the lack of doctors by making each one go further. But in practice, this can be demeaning to health workers, Stilwell says. “We give you a task: you can give injections. But heaven forbid that you should ever know what the injections are for, or you should ever be able to tell me that I’ve told you something wrong, or you should ever bring an idea to me about that.” Instead of task shifting, Stilwell suggests giving greater purpose to health care jobs. “There is now some idea in my world…that we need to be coming up with big ideas that are going to change the way we look at these issues in a way that is much more profound than this.” Autonomy and having independent success in one’s work has been shown to increase investment in health care jobs, says Stilwell. In Karnataka, India, Intrahealth International implemented a program where skilled nurses were trained to become mentors. “What we found was not only have the nurse midwives become much better at giving care, but they’ve also shown initiative,” she says. For example, some noticed broken radiant warmers – which are similar to infant incubators –and took steps to fix them on their own. Stilwell points out that taking this initiative not only showed independence, it also brought more value to the job itself. Mastery brings two major benefits: it encourages people to deepen their skills and creates a ladder for those who want to pursue a career in health. Stilwell cites the 2014 State of the World’s Midwifery Report that projects 87 percent of all needed and essential care for mothers and newborns could be completed by midwives if they received the right education. Ascribing health care to a larger purpose also gives providers more incentive and motivation to improve – especially when they see data that shows quality of care makes a difference in their patients’ lives. “There have been some fine examples about the midwives who are connected to communities and get feedback from the communities,” says Stilwell. “That’s their motivation.”

“Even though small-island nation states generally are responsible for less than one percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, small islands are already expending scare resources on strategies to adapt to growing climate threats and to also repair themselves after they have hit,” says Maxine Burkett, associate professor of law at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, in this week’s podcast. The rise in climate-related disasters such as Cyclone Pam, which devastated the archipelago of Vanuatu in March, has elevated concern over the vulnerability of islands. “Island nations are seeing the development they’ve experienced in the last few years being wiped out in a day in some cases,” Burkett says. Sea-level rise is the obvious major threat. In Micronesia, more than half of communities surveyed for one study confirmed having adopted adaptation measures to prevent coastal erosion, but 92 percent reported having experienced continued adverse effects. The collapse of fisheries due to acidification is also a concern, as is “climate departure,” where the lowest average temperature becomes higher than the highest average temperature recorded during normal years. Tropical regions and islands are expected to experience this change first, perhaps as soon as mid-century, Burkett says. In Burkett’s home state of Hawaii, a recent heat wave caused classroom temperatures to peak at 101 degrees Fahrenheit. “I have two young children and I was sort of imagining what the lost opportunity is here when you have children that are attempting to learn under these circumstances,” she says. When Adaptation Is No Longer Possible In some cases damage may prove so great that mitigation and adaptation measures simply cannot cope. “We’re finding that we need to look at insurance, risk transfer mechanisms, and the possibility of compensation for those things that are completely lost,” Burkett says. The conversation around this in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change process is referred to as “loss and damage.” Shared concerns among small islands and low lying coastal countries have led a group to establish the Alliance of Small Island States. This organization represents 47 members and acts as a voting bloc within the United Nations, advocating for an effective loss and damages mechanism that would include disaster risk management, risk transfers through insurance, and compensation. The threat to small islands may be more visible today, but Burkett emphasizes that these proposals are not new. The Alliance of Small Island States has called for a loss and damages policy for nearly 25 years after Vanuatu introduced the concept in the early 1990s. Despite discussions at the Conferences of Parties throughout the years, the UN has failed to adopt such a policy given significant costs and the difficult political problem of claiming responsibility for climate-related damages. Small-island states are mobilizing to advance their agenda once again at this year’s meetings in Paris with the goal to include finance-specific language for a loss and damage policy in what’s expected to be a landmark treaty. “There is a desire to not have to go around with a begging bowl,” Burkett says, “a desire to have more sophisticated responses to [this] 21st century type of disaster.” Maxine Burkett spoke at the Wilson Center on March 25 at the “Island as Champions of Resilience” event. Friday Podcasts are also available for download on iTunes.

“Even though small-island nation states generally are responsible for less than one percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, small islands are already expending scare resources on strategies to adapt to growing climate threats and to also repair themselves after they have hit,” says Maxine Burkett, associate professor of law at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, in this week’s podcast. The rise in climate-related disasters such as Cyclone Pam, which devastated the archipelago of Vanuatu in March, has elevated concern over the vulnerability of islands. “Island nations are seeing the development they’ve experienced in the last few years being wiped out in a day in some cases,” Burkett says. Sea-level rise is the obvious major threat. In Micronesia, more than half of communities surveyed for one study confirmed having adopted adaptation measures to prevent coastal erosion, but 92 percent reported having experienced continued adverse effects. The collapse of fisheries due to acidification is also a concern, as is “climate departure,” where the lowest average temperature becomes higher than the highest average temperature recorded during normal years. Tropical regions and islands are expected to experience this change first, perhaps as soon as mid-century, Burkett says. In Burkett’s home state of Hawaii, a recent heat wave caused classroom temperatures to peak at 101 degrees Fahrenheit. “I have two young children and I was sort of imagining what the lost opportunity is here when you have children that are attempting to learn under these circumstances,” she says. When Adaptation Is No Longer Possible In some cases damage may prove so great that mitigation and adaptation measures simply cannot cope. “We’re finding that we need to look at insurance, risk transfer mechanisms, and the possibility of compensation for those things that are completely lost,” Burkett says. The conversation around this in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change process is referred to as “loss and damage.” Shared concerns among small islands and low lying coastal countries have led a group to establish the Alliance of Small Island States. This organization represents 47 members and acts as a voting bloc within the United Nations, advocating for an effective loss and damages mechanism that would include disaster risk management, risk transfers through insurance, and compensation. The threat to small islands may be more visible today, but Burkett emphasizes that these proposals are not new. The Alliance of Small Island States has called for a loss and damages policy for nearly 25 years after Vanuatu introduced the concept in the early 1990s. Despite discussions at the Conferences of Parties throughout the years, the UN has failed to adopt such a policy given significant costs and the difficult political problem of claiming responsibility for climate-related damages. Small-island states are mobilizing to advance their agenda once again at this year’s meetings in Paris with the goal to include finance-specific language for a loss and damage policy in what’s expected to be a landmark treaty. “There is a desire to not have to go around with a begging bowl,” Burkett says, “a desire to have more sophisticated responses to [this] 21st century type of disaster.” Maxine Burkett spoke at the Wilson Center on March 25 at the “Island as Champions of Resilience” event. Friday Podcasts are also available for download on iTunes.

“Advancing reproductive health and family planning can positively influence and advance a number of sustainable development priorities,” says Director of USAID’s Office of Population and Reproductive Health Ellen Starbird in this week’s podcast. The Sustainable Development Goals, up for adoption later this year, are meant to improve upon the Millennium Development Goals, which have guided international development for the last decade and a half. They will recognize the environment as a more integral part of global development and have goals applicable to all countries, not just the poorest. Sexual and reproductive health and rights is not among the 17 top-level goals, but “there are really none of these SDGs that can be moved along as fast as they could be if we don’t also take this issue into account,” says Starbird. There are at least 222 million women in developing countries that want to space or limit births but are not using modern contraception. “They want to control their fertility, and often lack the means, the access, the agency to do that,” says Starbird. Making universal access – and the agency to exercise that access – a priority has significant health benefits for women and families, she says. It reduces maternal mortality and morbidity, reduces infant and child mortality, reduces abortion, and contributes to lower HIV transmission. “People can understand that you don’t want women and kids to die,” Starbirds says, but there are other knock-on effects that are not as intuitive. “On the more social and economic side, the ability to choose when you’re going to have your children and how many you’re going to have allows women to stay in school, to participate in the workforce, [and] for families to spend more of their resources on the quality of their children.” The phenomenon known as the “demographic dividend” has allowed some countries to boost economic productivity, but is not possible without lower fertility rates. And there are myriad environmental and social effects that come with lower population growth. What’s in a Measurement? Empowerment, not control, is the objective, Starbird says. “Underneath all that, there has to be a guiding principle around voluntarism and informed choice that puts the responsibility and the opportunity to take action in the hands of the woman and not in the hands of the state or some higher order entity.” USAID’s proposed indicator for measuring family planning is a reflection of this focus on the individual. Starbird says the agency is proposing the SDGs measure the percentage of sexually active women of reproductive age who do not want to become pregnant, with a goal of reaching 75 percent in all countries by 2030. This is “ambitious but achievable,” she says, while keeping the focus on unmet demand and encouraging countries to satisfy that demand across wealth, age, residence, and other demographic factors. The rate of increase in modern contraceptive users is slower than what’s needed to reach the goals of the FP2020 Initiative, a major effort by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and many development agencies launched in 2012. Current projections fall 53 million users short of the initiative’s 2020 targets, Starbird says. The SDGs then are a chance to reiterate international commitment. “Universal access to family planning is not the singular route to any of this,” Starbird says, “but without addressing family planning and population issues, the impact and effectiveness of what the other SDGs are trying to accomplish is going to be much less.” Ellen Starbird spoke at the Wilson Center on March 18 as part the “Managing Our Planet” seminar series. Friday Podcasts are also available for download on iTunes.

“Advancing reproductive health and family planning can positively influence and advance a number of sustainable development priorities,” says Director of USAID’s Office of Population and Reproductive Health Ellen Starbird in this week’s podcast. The Sustainable Development Goals, up for adoption later this year, are meant to improve upon the Millennium Development Goals, which have guided international development for the last decade and a half. They will recognize the environment as a more integral part of global development and have goals applicable to all countries, not just the poorest. Sexual and reproductive health and rights is not among the 17 top-level goals, but “there are really none of these SDGs that can be moved along as fast as they could be if we don’t also take this issue into account,” says Starbird. There are at least 222 million women in developing countries that want to space or limit births but are not using modern contraception. “They want to control their fertility, and often lack the means, the access, the agency to do that,” says Starbird. Making universal access – and the agency to exercise that access – a priority has significant health benefits for women and families, she says. It reduces maternal mortality and morbidity, reduces infant and child mortality, reduces abortion, and contributes to lower HIV transmission. “People can understand that you don’t want women and kids to die,” Starbirds says, but there are other knock-on effects that are not as intuitive. “On the more social and economic side, the ability to choose when you’re going to have your children and how many you’re going to have allows women to stay in school, to participate in the workforce, [and] for families to spend more of their resources on the quality of their children.” The phenomenon known as the “demographic dividend” has allowed some countries to boost economic productivity, but is not possible without lower fertility rates. And there are myriad environmental and social effects that come with lower population growth. What’s in a Measurement? Empowerment, not control, is the objective, Starbird says. “Underneath all that, there has to be a guiding principle around voluntarism and informed choice that puts the responsibility and the opportunity to take action in the hands of the woman and not in the hands of the state or some higher order entity.” USAID’s proposed indicator for measuring family planning is a reflection of this focus on the individual. Starbird says the agency is proposing the SDGs measure the percentage of sexually active women of reproductive age who do not want to become pregnant, with a goal of reaching 75 percent in all countries by 2030. This is “ambitious but achievable,” she says, while keeping the focus on unmet demand and encouraging countries to satisfy that demand across wealth, age, residence, and other demographic factors. The rate of increase in modern contraceptive users is slower than what’s needed to reach the goals of the FP2020 Initiative, a major effort by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and many development agencies launched in 2012. Current projections fall 53 million users short of the initiative’s 2020 targets, Starbird says. The SDGs then are a chance to reiterate international commitment. “Universal access to family planning is not the singular route to any of this,” Starbird says, “but without addressing family planning and population issues, the impact and effectiveness of what the other SDGs are trying to accomplish is going to be much less.” Ellen Starbird spoke at the Wilson Center on March 18 as part the “Managing Our Planet” seminar series. Friday Podcasts are also available for download on iTunes.

“The thing that is most gripping about the SDGs is their desire to be much more transformative in terms of what they mean for the planet,” says Manish Bapna, executive vice president and managing director of the World Resources Institute, in this week’s podcast. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are set to succeed the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), an initiative commissioned by the United Nations in 2000 to tackle extreme poverty in the developing world. Much has changed in the years since the MDG’s initial conception. “As we look at eradicating extreme poverty moving forward, we’re working in more difficult political and environmental contexts than may have been the case in the last 15 years,” says Bapna. Environmental change, migration, and instability have also made the distinction between developed and developing countries less relevant. “The Millennium Development Goals were largely about how the rich world can pay for things to improve the condition in the developing world,” he says. “There has been a real seismic shift in moving towards an agenda that would speak to all countries…We want an agenda that is universal, that not only speaks to poverty or depravation in the developing world, but poverty and depravation in all countries.” The sheer complexity of that challenge has led to a more multidisciplinary approach. An intergovernmental body, called the Open Working Group, has been working to draft new goals since 2012 and at last count had reached 17 goals and 169 targets. The SDGs are more comprehensive in scope than the MDGs, particularly in regards to the environment. MDG 7 – “ensure environmental sustainability” – was “largely an afterthought,” says Bapna. “Now there is no shortage of goals that speak to different dimensions of sustainability, whether it is around natural resources, whether it is around climate change, whether it’s around food-energy- water.” This was not an accident but a reflection of how important the environment is to development and wellbeing in many parts of the world. “There was a much greater effort in the design of the Sustainable Development Goals to identify targets or pieces of these goals that spoke to each other,” says Bapna. “Climate and development are inextricably linked…We can’t really solve and eradicate extreme poverty if we have four degrees of warming.” A Critical Nine Months The MDGs expire at the end of this year and the SDGs are expected to be introduced this September in New York. There’s also an important financing for development conference in Addis Ababa in July and one of the most highly anticipated climate summits in Paris this fall. “We’re now at a critical point,” says Bapna. “You have in this very short six-month span this once in a generation moment when all these three incredibly important summits are going to be taking place together.” Political sensitivities will be high, and on the SDGs, there’s a risk that governments will “open up a ‘Pandora’s box’ and everything else will have to be completely renegotiated,” he says. “Do we take what we have with some small incremental change or do we do something more significant but take the risk of opening up the entire political process?” “This is voluntary normative framework,” Bapna says, “it only works if people truly, truly embrace it and integrate it into what they do.” The agenda must be meaningful for the poorest countries; emerging middle income countries, like China, India, and Brazil; and the United States and the rest of the developed world. “You all know the business school literature – 60 to 90 percent of corporations fail not because they have the wrong strategy, they just didn’t e(continued)