This paper reflects on the recent, rapid rise in the use of “people-centered justice” language in global policy and international cooperation contexts. People-centered justice has provided a valuable common language to achieve policy buy-in and structure discussions on achieving justice for all, and breakfree from path dependencies of earlier rule of law assistance, and donor support long dominated by top-down support to courts and formal institutions of the justice system. However, recent uses of people-centered justice—without additional clarity—gloss over crucial differences in how justice challenges are framed, which could risk undermining some of its initial progress, or repeating past challenges encountered with rule of law support. Experiences of the OECD, USAID and in the United Nations systems provide contrasting examples of charting new paths, or clinging to well-worn path dependencies. We conclude with several reflections to overcome concerns with current uses.

In today’s world, smart algorithms—artificial intelligence (AI) and other intelligent systems—are pivotal for promoting the development agenda. They offer novel support for decision-making across policy planning domains, such as analysing poverty alleviation funds and predicting mortality rates. To comprehensively assess their efficacy and implications in policy formulation, this paper conducts a systematic review of 207 publications. The analysis underscores their integration within and across stages of the policy planning cycle: problem diagnosis and goal articulation; resource and constraint identification; design of alternative solutions; outcome projection; and evaluation. However, disparities exist in smart algorithm applications across stages, economic development levels, and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While these algorithms predominantly focus on resource identification (29%) and contribute significantly to designing alternatives—such as long-term national energy policies—and projecting outcomes, including predicting multi-scenario land-use ecological security strategies, their application in evaluation remains limited (10%). Additionally, low-income nations have yet to fully harness AI’s potential, while upper-middle-income countries effectively leverage it. Notably, smart algorithm applications for SDGs also exhibit unevenness, with more emphasis on SDG 11 than on SDG 5 and SDG 17. Our study identifies literature gaps. Firstly, despite theoretical shifts, a disparity persists between physical and socioeconomic/environmental planning applications. Secondly, there is limited attention to policy-making in development initiatives, which is critical for improving lives. Future research should prioritise developing adaptive planning systems using emerging powerful algorithms to address uncertainty and complex environments. Ensuring algorithmic transparency, human-centered approaches, and responsible AI are crucial for AI accountability, trust, and credibility.

Can United Nations peace operations improve their effectiveness and strengthen longer-term positive legacies in host nations by shifting to greater use of renewable energy? Since the end of the Cold War and the growth of modern UN peace operations, attention has been focused on the missions’ mandate of supporting political strategies for peace and core objectives such as protecting civilians. Could missions better meet their mandate with improved energy options and reduced emissions, or is there a trade-off with the core objectives? As the missions are nearly fully dependent on diesel generators to power their operations, what is the UN’s responsibility to reduce emissions at a time when addressing climate change is a priority of the UN Secretary-General? Is there an ethical case to make for the UN to support greater use of renewable energy where it operates? And could the UN partner with host nations and others to support a shift in energy use that benefits the communities that host peace operations? This essay argues that missions could reduce their emissions and leverage their energy needs to increase security, strengthen ties to local communities, increase energy access, and support the climate goals of host nations. Drawing on case studies in recent peacekeeping missions and the author’s review of UN commitments across mandates, the Sustainable Development Goals, peacebuilding, and climate goals, this essay will address this area of potential innovation that can help build a positive legacy for UN missions and countries emerging from conflict.

Food insecurity remains a global issue, particularly in developing countries like Ethiopia. Thus, this study focused on identifying factors contributing to food insecurity and the strategies used to cope with it among agrarian and pastoralist communities of South Ari and Benatsemay Woreda, respectively. A facility-based qualitative study was carried out in Southern Ethiopia. Participants were selected using a purposefully targeting health extension workers, health centre directors, woreda programme experts, district health managers, and pregnant women staying in maternity waiting homes. The selection process included one health facility from each district, focusing on those with the highest number of pregnant women in maternity waiting homes. A total of 17 participants were involved in in-depth interviews, and 2 focus group discussions were conducted with 27 pregnant women, continuing until data saturation was achieved. Field notes were taken, and sessions were voice recorded. Participants in both in-depth interviews and focus group discussions frequently identified several causes of food insecurity in the community, such as food shortages, climate change, rising prices of agricultural products, inadequate agricultural technology, scarcity of farmland, and income constraints. Tailored intervention is highly demanding to implement policies to stabilise food supply chains and mitigate food shortages in both agrarian and pastoralist areas, invest in modern agricultural technologies to boost productivity, encourage the adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices to help farmers adapt to changing weather patterns, optimise the productive use of available farmland, promote income-generating activities, and diversify livelihoods to alleviate income constraints and improve food security.

Sleep is a topic of scientific and technological relevance, as it is closely related to cognition, emotional well-being, and human health. In addition, health-related geopolitical and social changes have significant implications for sleep research, which in turn is linked to the sustainable development goals (SDGs). An integrative review is conducted to analyze multidisciplinary studies in the field of sleep, considering the socioecological model of sleep health and the SDGs. Sleep was found to play a key role in promoting several SDG: (1) Social and economic inclusion: sleep is linked to poverty eradication, food security, reducing inequalities, and promoting peace and justice; (2) Promoting well-being and quality of life: sleep quality directly affects health, education, gender equality, environmental protection, and combating climate change; (3) Economic and environmental sustainability: Adequate sleep contributes to decent work, innovation, infrastructure, responsible consumption, sustainable communities and collaboration through partnerships. This thematic organization provides an overview of the different aspects of the intersection between sleep health disparities and the SDG.

Serious games are a method that can be used to reach the public on complex topics related to the ocean. Although games used for learning generally, and ocean literacy specifically, have developed gradually since the 1970s, it was not until the popularization of digital games, around the turn of the millennium, that serious games rose to prominence in academia. Since then, vast amounts of serious games research have been published each year – chiefly on digital games, but also increasingly on hybrid and analogue games. In this article, we present results from a series of serious games that were played in three geographical regions in Norway with future-generation stakeholders and tie this to ocean literacy. We report on the potential benefits of serious games for learning and motivation based on these results. The games were played within the context of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science, the sustainable development goals and multilevel governance, with a special focus on microplastic pollution and jellyfish blooms. We argue that using serious games can be beneficial not just for outreach but also as a tool for unintrusive collection of qualitative data in the form of narratives from transcriptions post-gaming session and contribute to ocean literacy.

This study was conducted to provide empirical evidence of geographical variations of neonatal mortality and its associated social determinants with a view to improving neonatal survival at the subnational level in Nigeria. With a combination of spatial analysis and artificial intelligence techniques, this study analysed data from the 2016/2017 Nigeria Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey. The analysis focused on the neonatal period of a weighted national representative population of 30,924 live births delivered five years before the survey commencement. Global Moran’s I index and local indicator of spatial autocorrelation cluster maps were used to determine hot and cold spots. A multilayer perceptron neural network was used to identify the key determinants of neonatal mortality across the states and geopolitical zones in Nigeria. The overall neonatal mortality rate was 38 deaths per 1000 live births. There is evidence of geographic clustering of neonatal mortality across Nigeria (worse in the North-Central and North-West zones), majorly driven by poor maternal access to mass media (which plays a critical role in promoting positive health behaviours), short birth interval, a higher position in a family birth order, and young maternal age at child’s birth. This study highlights the need for a policy shift towards implementing state and region-specific strategies in Nigeria. Gender-responsive, culturally, and regionally appropriate reproductive, maternal, and child health-targeted interventions may address geographical inequity in neonatal survival.