Blog

We are in a race against time to improve the resilience of the world’s infrastructure. Demand for infrastructure investment is increasing worldwide. From 2015 to 2030, $90 trillion in new infrastructure investments will be needed—an amount equivalent to the world’s total existing stock.

• 07/09/2020
• Doug Mason

According to the International Energy Agency, global energy demand during the first quarter of 2020 declined by almost 4% relative to the same period in 2019 due to the novel coronavirus pandemic and global lockdowns. Electricity demand was down by 20% in several countries, illustrating the magnitude of disruption of our society.

• 06/30/2020
• Stephan Hardeman

Colombia’s Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME) recently completed its first successful renewable energy auction, enabling the government to obtain variable renewable energy (VRE) at globally low-cost prices. The auction awarded contracts that are estimated to attract more than $1.3 billion of private sector investment and will enhance the country’s capacity to provide reliable electricity supplies to its communities.

• 06/23/2020
• Andrew Fang, Kristen Madler, Sarah Lawson

The USAID-funded Kathmandu Vehicle Alliance (KEVA) program, implemented by Winrock International from 2001 to 2006, continues to benefit the environment and people of Nepal due to its role in expanding the electric vehicle market, which has reduced GHG emissions that lower air quality and contribute to climate change.

• 06/22/2020
• Anne Cassidy

Climate impacts social and economic development across sectors, in numerous ways. Each sector also has unique opportunities to contribute to climate solutions. USAID integrates climate change in development programming across a variety of technical fields.

• 06/18/2020
• Isabela Barriga

Less than half of Nigeria’s 186 million people have access to electricity. But in the rural village of Gbamu Gbamu, newly installed utility poles and wires act as markers of a brighter future, powered by a new solar minigrid. The grid, an effort of local developers Rubitec Solar and Winrock’s USAID-funded Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Project (REEEP), is empowering citizens and their enterprises, providing them with a better quality of life and more stable sources of income.

• 06/17/2020
• Winrock International

How can programs encourage and enable local commercial banks to lend to companies supplying solar home systems for off-grid customers? Power Africa supported the USAID-funded Climate Economic Analysis for Development, Investment, and Resilience (CEADIR) Activity’s training and technical assistance on this topic. In the process,

• 06/11/2020
• Power Africa

An irrigation system with solar photovoltaic energy at the Ramon Rodriguez farm, in Dominican Republic, provides resilience to drought using renewable energy. This system was installed in May 2017 under the USAID Climate Resilience and Index Insurance Program for Small Farmers in the Dominican Republic, executed by the REDDOM Foundation.

• 06/10/2020
• Climatelinks

• 05/27/2020
• John Fay, Admore Chiumia, Ramzy Kanaan

When the government of India set a goal of deploying 175 gigawatts of renewable power by 2022, they understood that changes to their power system's operations were needed to achieve that level of renewable power on the grid. India decided to work with USAID and the United States Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to develop a comprehensive grid integration study identifying operational pathways that would enable India to efficiently meet its renewable energy target.

• 02/20/2020
• Isabel McCan

With the climate changing in fast and uncertain ways, getting the right information for infrastructure design is becoming more challenging. USAID spends over a billion dollars a year building infrastructure across our humanitarian assistance and development portfolios, so it’s important that the Agency get it right. Infrastructure matters to international development. How the world grows, advances, and develops is (literally) built on a foundation of infrastructure.

• 02/03/2020
• John Pasch

The USAID Climate Economic Analysis for Development, Investment and Resilience (CEADIR) activity designed and implemented a regional activity to accelerate CE private sector investment aligned with national climate change commitments (e.g., Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs) and CE policy objectives in the target countries of India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

• 12/30/2019
• Marketlinks Team

As one of the highest emitters of greenhouse gases in the world, South Africa is committed to implement an effective national climate change response.

• 12/04/2019
• Katie Capp

The Climatelinks photo contest received an impressive total of 170 submissions from the Climatelinks community, representing more than 40 countries.

• 12/03/2019
• Steve Hardeman

The clean energy sector has seen rapid growth. Countries around the world have embraced these technologies to achieve low emission development goals, increase infrastructure resilience and energy access, and reduce reliance on imported fossil fuels.

• 11/07/2019
• Derina Man