Blog

Illegal farming is threatening Madagascar's largest dry forest in the Menabe Antimena Protected Area. With the support of USAID Hay Tao, the forests and their unique biodiversity have a better chance of withstanding the complex challenges facing one of the poorest countries in the world, whose citizens depend on its natural resources for their livelihoods.

• 10/11/2022
• Becky Band Jain

Climate security is an essential conceptual framework to understand the global interplay of biophysical and socioeconomic forces that threaten our planet.

• 09/08/2022
• Daniel Abrahams, Allison Brown

Over the past decade, our understanding of how climate change affects conflict and security has advanced considerably. Yet, how to best address the overlapping challenges of climate change, conflict, and human security remains an open question.

• 05/25/2022
• Daniel Abrahams

The lasting vulnerabilities brought about by its violent past and rapidly changing socioeconomic structures has made Karamoja particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts.

• 05/19/2022
• Daniel Abrahams

African and Asian countries have developed Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs).

• 03/23/2022
• Funke Aderonmu

During 2020 and 2021, a multiyear La Niña event, strengthened by climate change, has helped produce an exceptional three-season drought. As the region enters a long dry season, temperatures of the land’s surface are well-above normal and vegetation is desiccated.

• 02/11/2022
• Kiersten Johnson

To strengthen communities' access to and management of water and pasture, USAID EKISIL—which means “peace” in the local language of Karamoja—initiated climate risk management (CRM) actions in the Abim, Kaabong, Kotido, and Moroto districts

• 10/13/2021
• Lorine Giangola, Leah Quin

With agriculture driving deforestation, global climate protection and biodiversity conservation goals seem to collide with the drive to produce more food. Researchers warn of an impending “food security-biodiversity-climate” crisis and “looming land scarcity.”

• 10/12/2021
• Daniel Evans

The United States and the world face a profound climate crisis. Climate change is not just a looming existential threat, it is currently threatening development progress and exacerbating global inequities; increasing humanitarian needs, food and water insecurity, and displacement; and contributing to conflict.

• 05/04/2021
• USAID

Cocoa certification may not be doing its job. The expansion of the international cocoa industry across the world’s tropical regions has caused significant destruction of tropical forests, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and destroying habitat.

• 03/11/2021
• David Miller

Kelo Uchendu, a mechanical engineering student at the University of Nigeria, founded the Gray2Green movement in 2018. Grey2Green raises awareness about climate justice and works on student-led engineering projects to innovate new sustainable technology.

• 02/04/2021
• Ruby Rorty

Landfills and wastewater treatment plants generate methane, a potent greenhouse gas (GHG), from decomposing organic waste and wastewater treatment processes, respectively. What if there were ways to reduce GHG emissions while simultaneously creating renewable energy? And what if there were additional benefits beyond reducing emissions and creating energy?

• 12/04/2020
• Peter Nash

According to USAID’s Southern Africa’s Climate Change Risk Profile, “Changes in water quality and availability will be the dominant changes seen under a new climate.” The sensitivity of livelihoods and economies to these changes, together with a lack of access to drinking water (and contamination of existing supply), threatens water security and resilience in a region where water demands are rising in response to an increasing population.

• 11/10/2020
• Suvritha Rampha, Steve Collins

Complex relationships between the climate, population growth, land cover change, and other interactions make decisions on land use planning, water permitting, and donor investments in natural resources management challenging. Decision-making on how and where to make investments is improving in Tanzania due to development partners becoming more proficient in using sophisticated environmental analysis tools such as composite index mapping.

• 10/08/2020
• Leif Kindberg, John Whiting

There is no doubt about it: The world is experiencing an unprecedented wave of urban population growth. Although the challenges posed by this phenomenon are great, the opportunities for advancing equity and sustainability are just as considerable. Indeed, designing “neighborhoods for all” was the central theme of a recent industry training seminar coordinated by the USAID South Africa Low Emissions Development (SA-LED) Program.

• 08/13/2020
• Erica Slowik