Global food production will have to increase 70 to 100 percent by 2050 to feed the world’s predicted 9 billion people, and that increase is only possible if more sustainable farming methods are used, according to the U.N.’s annual World Economic and Social Survey released on Tuesday, VOA News reports (7/5).

As a severe drought affecting Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti and Ethiopia forces more people into refugee camps, donor fatigue is harming aid agencies’ abilities to work in the Horn of Africa, because “these recurrent droughts used to happen every 5-10 years but what we see now is it basically every other year … an indication of climate change conditions,” Michael Klaus, UNICEF spokesperson for east and southern Africa, told Reuters in an interview (Gachenge, 7/2).

“We are entering a new era in HIV prevention. PEPFAR promoted a ‘combination prevention’ strategy from the beginning. But the tools were limited. Scientific advances could give individuals the ability to determine the prevention intervention that works best for them. Preliminary mathematical models suggest that combining a full range of prevention interventions is additive – and could drive the epidemic down to a manageable level so that when a vaccine is available, it could mop up what remains,” former U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Ambassador Mark Dybul writes in a Huffington Post opinion piece.

The Global Health Council’s “Global Health” blog published two articles on Wednesday examining family planning in West Africa. In the first article, John Donnelly interviewed Bocar Mamadou Daff, director of reproductive health services in Senegal’s Ministry of Health and Prevention, about participating in the council’s annual conference and speaking to…

In another installment in NPR’s summer-long series “Beginnings,” NPR’s All Things Considered aired a story on Wednesday examining how the controversial drug misoprostol is being used worldwide to save women’s lives.

More than 10 million people in the Horn of Africa “are affected by the drought in one way or other,” Elisabeth Byrs, spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said on Tuesday, Agence France-Presse reports.

This ONE Blog post describes a $28 million public-private partnership between the United Nations Foundation (UNF) and the Vodafone Foundation, which has helped mobile technology “become inextricably connected to global health and humanitarian relief.” The post describes how mobile phones are helping physicians track patient records and disease outbreaks and…

Global food insecurity that has left almost one billion people hungry could become a “permanent disaster” and endanger millions of lives, former U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan said, Bloomberg reports (Javier, 6/27).

U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Ambassador Eric Goosby writes about First Lady Michelle Obama’s trip to Africa and her focus on “youth leadership, education, health and wellness,” including HIV/AIDS, in this Office of National AIDS Policy blog post. “The Obama Administration is more committed than ever to build on the successes of the last decade and to continue to work with other governments and partners as we all work toward our shared goal of a world without HIV/AIDS. And we hope the millions of lives saved to date will inspire youth in Africa and around the world to continue their fight for an HIV-free future,” he writes (6/23).

First Lady Michelle Obama’s trip to Africa this week “is focusing national attention on the serious U.S. strategic interests on the continent,” Steve Morrison, director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Lisa Carty, deputy director of the CSIS center, write in a Politico opinion piece.