As the theme of this year’s World Population Day reminds us, investing in data collection is important to understanding problems, tailoring solutions, and driving progress. So is finance.

As the health clock ticks away, let us look at how we can better this world in terms of controlling population growth, improve life expectancy and keeping a check on diseases.

Half of the global population already lives in cities, and by 2050 two-thirds of the world's people are expected to live in urban areas. But in cities two of the most pressing problems facing the ...