New Security Broadcast

“To inform the most pressing issues of our time, to bring new voices to the policy space, and to help our audience better understand these complex connections and where we can be most effective in our responses, we bring you the New Security Broadcast ,” says Lauren Risi, Director of the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP), in today’s launch of ECSP’s new podcast serie...

“Many people have watched fights between communities and big corporations around the world. The corporations usually win so those are the Goliath. The Davids usually lose,” says John Cavanagh, co-author of The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved a Country from Corporate Greed . In this week’s episode of Friday Podcasts , Cavanagh and co-author Robin Broad recount how local activists mobiliz...

Too often, many in my community are excluded from sexual and reproductive health services, said Ruth Morgan Thomas, co-founder and Global Coordinator of the Global Network of Sex Work Projects , in today’s episode of Friday Podcasts. This episode features highlights from a recent Wilson Center and UNFPA event where Thomas and Zandile Simelane, an HIV Youth Advocate from Eswatini, address the barri...

“The world is still feeling the full brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic which most likely had its origins in a wild animal,” says John Scanlon AO, Former Secretary-General of CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) and Chair of the Global Initiative to End Wildlife Crime, in this week’s Friday Podcast. Scanlon spoke at a recent Wilson Center event on...

The decision to have a child usually requires a feeling of stability and confidence in the future, says Natascha Braumann, Director of Global Government and Public Affairs for Fertility at EMD Serono, on this week’s episode of Friday Podcasts.  But with COVID-19, especially in the first months of the pandemic, there was no feeling of stability. “No one knew what was going to happen.” The COVI...

Bodily autonomy is something almost innate in us, and yet also a Eureka moment for many people, says Dr. Nahid Toubia, Director for the Institute of Reproductive Health and Rights in Sudan on this week’s episode of Friday Podcasts. “Every human being really has the right to own their body, to own their decisions, to own their choices regarding their life, their futures, how they want to live, who...

“The more the United States can get itself back on track, the better position it is in to exercise climate leadership,” says Sue Biniaz, a member of Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry’s team, in today’s Friday Podcast. Biniaz spoke about the Biden-Harris administration’s international climate policy at a recent Wilson Center event on climate security risks in the Arctic. In her rema...

“I've been quite impressed by the wide diversity and complexity of young women's and men's engagement for peacebuilding and development often while confronting seemingly insurmountable challenges,” says Marisa O. Ensor, Adjunct Professor in the Justice and Peace Studies Program at Georgetown University, in this week’s Friday Podcast. In her new edited volume, “Securitizing Youth: Young People's Ro...

“It's more than just clinical care. It's cultural. It's connection to country. It's connection to land. It's all of those things that are important to the woman and family, kinship, babies,” says Mel Briggs, a First Nations midwife in Australia, speaking about the importance of Aboriginal midwifery in this week’s Friday Podcast. Like her great-grandmother, Briggs followed the call to midwifery and...

“I think most people will agree today that the development landscape is, well, it’s highly uncertain, it's increasingly complex,” says Steven Gale, Lead of the Futures/Foresight Team at the U.S Agency for International Development (USAID), in this week’s Friday Podcast. “I think the future is even going to be more complex.” “Foresight is probably the most common technique in the futures area,” say...

When Navajo Midwife Nicolle Gonzales talks with Native American women about birth, there's a sense something is missing, she said in this week’s Friday Podcast. “But,” she said, “we don’t know what it is.” Gonzales grew up and remains on a Navajo Reservation in New Mexico. She became a midwife and founded the Changing Woman Initiative (CWI) to address unmet maternal health care needs in her commun...

“The very first political order in any society is the sexual political order established between men and women,” says Valerie M. Hudson, a University Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M, in today’s Friday Podcast, recorded at a recent Wilson Center launch of the book, The First Political Order: How Sex Shapes Governance and National Security Worldwide. Co-authored by Hudson, Donna Lee Bowen, Prof...

“After a period of populist nationalism…multilateralism is back, and climate is the multilateral challenge of the moment,” said David Lammy, a member of Parliament for Tottenham in the United Kingdom and Shadow Secretary of State for Justice, in a recent 21st Century Diplomacy event, co-hosted by the Wilson Center and adelphi. The election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is not a “reset,” but rathe...

Camille Harris, Registered Māori Midwife, is unapologetic about her decision to study midwifery and practice exclusively with Māori families, in this week’s Friday Podcast. “It was always to serve my people,” she said. Both Harris and her professional partner, Registered Māori Midwife, Waimaire Onekawa, started their midwifery careers later in life with a clear dedication to Māori women in New Zea...

“We need to give more weight to the voices of people who are most affected by climate change,” says Vanessa Nakate, a prominent Ugandan climate activist, in this week’s Friday Podcast. At the local, regional, and global levels, Nakate’s work sheds light on the imperative for policymakers to value the lived experiences of oft-overlooked groups such as women, youths, and citizens of developing natio...

In a year that has presented enormous challenges, it is even more gratifying to present evidence that strengthens the importance of midwives as providers of essential sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services and the impact they can have on maternal and neonatal mortality and stillbirths, said Anneka Knutsson, Chief of the SRH Branch at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in this week’s...

“If solar radiation management were done well—that is, the science is right, the engineering is right, and the policy and governance frameworks around all of the stuff work—then solar radiation management could be a really important, positive contribution to humanity’s responding to climate change,” says Simon Nicholson, associate professor at American University’s School of International Service...

If there’s anything about responding to an epidemic, it’s that speed matters, and so does investing in people closest to the problem, said Dr. Raj Panjabi, Assistant Professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and CEO of Last Mile Health, in this week’s Friday Podcast. The latter, he said, is the root of resilience. In addition to threatening immune systems, COVID-19 is a serious threat to the...

“Vaccine hesitancy is to be expected in a normal circumstance—it’s very different from being what we call ‘anti-vaccine,’” says Dr. Rahul Gupta, Senior Vice President and Chief Medical and Health Officer at March of Dimes, in this week’s Friday Podcast. He spoke at a recent Wilson Center event on ongoing efforts to develop and deliver a COVID-19 vaccine, co-sponsored by the University of Pittsburg...

Globally, Indigenous women experience worse maternal health outcomes than non-Indigenous women. In the United States, the risk of maternal death is twice as high for Native women than for white women, while in Australia the risk is four and a half times higher. This week’s edition of Friday Podcasts highlights remarks from a recent Wilson Center event with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA...

“Unintended pregnancy and abortion are reproductive health experiences shared by tens of millions of people around the world, irrespective of personal status or circumstance. What differs though are the obstacles,” said Dr. Zara Ahmed, Associate Director of Federal Issues at the Guttmacher Institute in this week’s Friday Podcast. Research from the Guttmacher Institute on sexual and reproductive he...

“I believe that we're experiencing a national reckoning and in this unique moment, I definitely see an opportunity for Congress, but also for our local governments to enact policies that begin to address our country's greatest ills,” said Representative Alma Adams (D-NC-12) at a recent Wilson Center event on women, race, and COVID-19 in the United States. “COVID-19 has revealed what the Black comm...

“NCDs have raised the risk of and the severity of the COVID-19 infection,” says Dr. Belén Garijo, Executive Board Member and CEO of Healthcare at Merck KGaA Darmstadt, Germany, in this week’s Friday Podcast. Women living with NCDs like cardiovascular disease, hypertension, cancer, mental health disorders, multiple sclerosis, and diabetes, have an increased risk of severe complications and death fr...

COVID-19 has wreaked havoc the world over, and recent data shows that the hardest hit will be the world’s women and girls and populations impacted by racism and discrimination. This week’s Friday Podcast highlights remarks from a recent Wilson Center event sponsored by EMD Serono, the biopharmaceutical business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany in the United States and Canada, on the impact of COV...

The year 2020 has been designated as the Year of the Nurse and the Midwife by the World Health Organization. In April 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO), International Council of Nurses, and Nursing Now, published the first-ever State of the World’s Nursing Report. This week’s Friday Podcast highlights remarks from a recent Wilson Center event on the report’s findings and recommendations. O...