Blog

The USAID Exploratory Programs and Innovation Competitions (EPIC) team and EnCompass are thrilled to announce a new mechanism to propel innovative solutions into action: the Innovative Design, Execution, and Acceleration Support (IDEAS) Activity. 

• 03/11/2024
• Whitney Adams

NREL identified ten climate finance levers that could be applied to USAID programs to increase the scale of investment in clean energy and energy efficiency in partner countries.

• 02/28/2024
• Sophie Schrader

Hundreds of sector practitioners participated in the UN-Habitat’s 5th Congress of the Global Water Operators Partnership Alliance (GWOPA).

• 02/13/2024
• David Favazza, Sumbi M Shimwambwa

As of March 2023, USAID had mobilized more than $1 billion in private capital for development through INVEST, working in 81 countries across a wide range of sectors.

• 02/05/2024
• Sharon D’Onofrio, Kristin Kelly Jangraw

USAID is putting the infrastructure in place to phase out fossil fuels and improve energy efficiency while expanding energy access in hard-to-reach places. Read on to learn how the Agency promotes clean energy and improved climate and development outcomes across the world.

• 06/27/2023
• USAID

Strengthening and transforming systems to enhance climate resilience is crucial for vulnerable communities. Explore USAID efforts in the context of coastal communities, the power sector, urban planning, and more. 

• 01/19/2023
• Sophie Schrader

Throughout the first week of the 27th UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP27) gathered in Sharm el-Sheikh, Climatelinks featured blogs related to the themes of each day, along with ways that USAID is working advance its climate goals. Here’s a recap of the week-one blogs.

• 11/30/2022
• Ariel Schindler

Last year at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference, USAID committed to partnering with countries to reduce, avoid, or sequester at least six billion metric tons of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030. (Preventing six billion metric tons of GHG emissions is the equivalent of taking 100 million cars off roads for a decade, or roughly the amount of GHG emissions the United States emits each year). After making the commitment, USAID then codified it as one of its six ambitious goals in the Agency-wide 2022-2030 Climate Strategy. 

• 11/15/2022
• Claire Hubert

As USAID is accelerating its efforts to meet the urgency of global climate change, INVEST is providing support through activities focused on encouraging the flow of private capital toward climate adaptation, resilience, and mitigation. A closer look at three activities — Power Africa in Kenya, ThirdWay Africa Rural Development Corporation in Southern Africa, and USAID Colombia’s Energy for Peace program — demonstrates how USAID is working with the private sector to scale and speed climate actions that result in climate benefits that are equitably shared.

• 05/05/2022
• Robin Young, Carolanne Chanik

In September and October, we highlighted work focused on climate finance. We posted the first two parts of a blog series highlighting a new wave of private investment for climate solutions, answering the call to climate action and climate finance in action.

• 11/05/2021
• Sophie Schrader

Climate mitigation is essential for helping communities prepare for the impacts of climate change and prevent worst-case climate scenarios. USAID helps countries achieve more ambitious climate targets under the Paris Agreement and provides the foundations for sustainable growth through renewable energy and natural climate solutions.

• 05/20/2021
• Isabela Barriga

Improving energy efficiency is an integral but often-overlooked part of low-emission development (LED) strategies that can help countries reach their climate targets while meeting growing demands for energy.

• 05/05/2021
• Andrew Fang, Michael McNeil, Katie Koerper

Strong, resilient infrastructure can help countries better prepare for climate variability and change, such as more severe and frequent weather events or sea level rise. Basic infrastructure is failing, insufficient, or non-existent in many developing countries, and changes in climate can damage infrastructure across sectors from energy, health, education, and others.

• 01/29/2020
• Isabela Barriga

During 2019, the Climatelinks community contributed over 100 resources on a wide range of topics, from clean cook stoves to sustainable forest management.

• 12/12/2019
• Stephan Hardeman

The USAID-NREL Partnership developed a suite of resources within the Grid Integration Toolkit that provides information about the role that battery energy storage systems (BESS) play in integrating variable renewable energy, such as wind and solar, into large-scale power systems.

• 10/17/2019
• Isabel McCan