Africa

Cronin-Furman said she came to the Belfer Center to be a part of a community that instigates change, one she feels is at the forefront of academic work in international relations and national security.

"Sustaining African agricultural transformation will require national policy approaches which emphasize the need to transition toward sustainable agriculture. More specifically, they will need to pursue strategies that allow for the integration of precision agriculture in existing farming methods. Such policies could focus on six key elements: biological diversity; ecology and emerging technologies; infrastructure; research and training; entrepreneurship and regional trade; and improved governance of agricultural innovation."

Released to the public in early May, the 2014 National Climate Assessment brought to light some of the greatest and most dismaying threats to humanity. In his Harvard Kennedy School “IDEASpHERE” session titled “Sustainable Prosperity on a Crowded Planet,” William Clark talked about these threats, possible solutions, and re-thinking how we approach the topic of sustainability.

In the lead-up to the nuclear security summit, Advancing Nuclear Security: Evaluating Progress and Setting New Goals outlines what was accomplished in a four-year effort launched in 2009 to secure nuclear material around the globe—and what remains to be done. The effort made significant progress, but some weapons-usable nuclear materials still remain “dangerously vulnerable." The authors highlight the continuing danger of nuclear and radiological terrorism and call for urgent action.

The world can only meet its future food needs through innovation, including the use of agricultural biotechnology, Belfer Center development specialist Calestous Juma said in an address to graduates of McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

Since their commercial debut in the mid-1990s, genetically designed crops have added about $100 billion to world crop output, avoided massive pesticide use and greenhouse gas emissions, spared vast tracts of land and fed millions of additional people worldwide, Juma said during the graduation ceremony where he received an honorary doctorate. He asked the graduates to embrace innovative sciences that alone will make it possible to feed the billions who will swell world population in decades ahead, especially in developing countries.

"Over the 1996–2010 period, biotechnology crops have reduced 443 million kilogrammes of pesticide use. This did not only reduce the spraying of chemicals that destroyed biological diversity, but they also cut down harmful exposure by farmers."