Blog

Although half of global mangrove deforestation since 2000 has been in Indonesia, Bintuni Bay and Mimika District have some of the largest intact areas of mangroves in the world. These two areas are also home to many indigenous groups and have special autonomous governance status and exceptional biodiversity.

• 09/24/2020
• Dr. Eric Hyman

South Africa—the third most biodiverse country in the world—is home to more than 95,000 known species and a diverse range of biomes, from forests to deserts to river delta systems and more. The rich biodiversity of these natural areas plays an important role in the South African Government’s progressive green economy agenda, as it recognizes that those areas provide a wide range of ecosystem services for its people, including food, water, clean air, medicine, resources for livelihoods, recreation, and energy to power daily life and industry.

• 08/27/2020
• Mona Khadr

The amount of development assistance available for clean energy, sustainable landscapes, and climate adaptation investment is relatively small. Partner governments have multiple urgent and competing needs for public expenditures, recently exacerbated by the global pandemic and recession.

• 08/19/2020
• Dr. Eric Hyman

Why do many community-based forestry enterprises (CBFEs) perform poorly even after years of donor and government investment? This was one of the questions that motivated a USAID Productive Landscape (ProLand) project investigation into CBFEs as a strategy for improving land management.

• 08/14/2020
• Mark Donahue, Ian Deshmukh

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

To support developing countries’ long-term climate mitigation strategies—plans for reaching ambitious, mid-century greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goals—USAID’s Transparency and Long-term Strategies (T-LTS) project will soon start a number of activities. These activities include conducting workshops on regionally important topics in Asia and Latin America, helping countries link long-term strategies to their five-year emissions reduction targets, and extending sectoral planning to 2050 for better sequencing and improved coordination around climate goals.

• 07/31/2020
• Derina Man

Implementors of international development projects as well as countries around the world increasingly recognize the private sector as a key partner to meet development and policy goals. But in order to make these collaborations most effective, there are best practices that all parties should follow, such as having a shared objective, equally investing in the relationship, and setting clear expectations.

• 06/24/2020
• Jennifer Park, Jonathan Schwarz

Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is a global system that certifies responsible forest management. In some cases, FSC has severed ties with, or “disassociated” from, paper and timber giants worldwide when their direct or affiliate operations have harmed forests and people.

• 06/09/2020
• Natcha Tulyasuwan, Binod Chapagain, Panicha Chandragholica

A pivotal insight emerging from three years of co-creating climate-smart business models with companies—both investors and those seeking investment—is that there is not one private sector, but a multitude of actors with varied incentives, timelines, and decision processes. Each requires a targeted approach; any strategy that assumes one homogeneous private sector—or one investor profile—will struggle to gain traction.

• 05/21/2020
• Yohann Formont

Worldwide, local communities in the tropics and subtropics control 22 percent of the forest carbon in those regions. For several decades, development organizations have promoted sustainable forest use approaches to help communities manage these forests. One such approach is the establishment of community-based forestry enterprises (CBFEs) that sell forest products or services.

• 05/19/2020
• Mark Donahue, Ian Deshmukh

Empowering the private sector to drive economic growth can be a powerful force for strengthening communities and accelerating self-reliance. Private Sector Engagement (PSE) is a strategic approach to international development through which USAID consults, strategizes, aligns, and collaborates with the private sector for greater scale, sustainability, and effectiveness of development or humanitarian outcomes.

• 05/14/2020
• Isabela Barriga, Eric Hyman

As one of the world’s most biodiverse countries, Peru has an abundance of natural resources that have represented natural wealth throughout the nation’s history. However, this richness is not often fully understood and has been unsustainably managed as a result. Over the past decade, an increasing turn toward a green economy has helped shift the way that Peru’s natural resources are viewed.

• 04/24/2020
• Paloma Vásquez

USAID/Peru’s Amazonia Verde project aims to conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services in priority areas of the Peruvian Amazon and to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and land use change. To achieve these goals, an inter-office design team at the USAID/Peru Mission spent two years designing an integrated project that supports biodiversity conservation, combats illegal logging and deforestation, addresses negative impacts of extractive industries, strengthens Indigenous people’s rights and resources, and supports Peru’s international commitment to reduce GHG emissions

• 04/14/2020
• USAID Biodiversity Integration Case Studies

The Climatelinks community contributed over 100 resources in 2019 on a wide range of topics, from monitoring and evaluation of urban climate adaptation to climate risk screening tools for low-emission energy development. Each contribution is available from the Climatelinks Resource Library.

• 12/24/2019
• Isabela Barriga