Blog

Using firewood more efficiently and promoting alternative energy in Nepal improves women’s health, changes their lives, and reduces climate vulnerability. Building on a foundation of work at the intersection between environment and health in Nepal, the second phase of the USAID’s Hariyo Ban (Green Forests) Program is scaling up approaches to reduce climate change vulnerability and increase community resilience.

• 07/26/2019
• Judy Oglethorpe, Shant Raj Jnawali

The Dominican Republic is one of the world’s ten most climate-vulnerable countries and experiences significant gender inequality in the Latin America and Caribbean region. The combination of these issues can threaten the health, safety, and livelihood of women and girls, who are often directly on the frontlines of impacts.

• 07/10/2019
• Jamie Wen-Besson

Climate change and variability have impacts on human health, especially in developing countries. Extreme weather events, increased temperatures, as well as changes in precipitation and sea level rise can all combine in a variety of ways to undermine development gains and impede progress.

• 07/03/2019
• Stephan Hardeman

The new Financing the Climate-Health Nexus Tool from the Adaptation Thought Leadership and Assessment (ATLAS) project summarizes available sources of funding that are the most relevant and feasible for financing initiatives addressing climate risks to human health.

• 06/28/2019
• ATLAS

Global environmental changes such as landscape conversions alter natural systems and can increase contact between humans and other species.

• 06/27/2019
• Isabela Barriga

Samantabai is a happy woman. The first 'super-champion' farmer in her village, she has been involved in the Climate-Smart Village (CSV) project under the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).

• 06/21/2019
• Arun Khatri-Chhetri, Shalika Vyas

In November, I took a canoe trip down a rural western Madagascar river expecting to see a lot of lemurs, but instead I saw thousands of hectares of burned-down forest. The problem extends all over Madagascar, even encroaching on national parks.

• 06/18/2019
• Rob Cohen

Children with dirty hands. Long lines at public water points. Cholera sweeping through a densely populated settlement. In the short-term, these public health issues can often be solved through Water, Sanitation and Hygiene projects – WASH, for short.

• 06/17/2019
• SWP Team

Women in Nepal used to walk to the forest to collect loads of heavy firewood for cooking. The task itself was burdensome, and the resulting smoke from the fires they built at home often caused respiratory problems.

• 06/14/2019
• WWF Team

The 2015 Rockefeller Foundation-Lancet Commission on planetary health final report, “Safeguarding Human Health in the Anthropocene Epoch,” begins: “Far-reaching changes to the structure and function of the Earth’s natural systems represent a growing threat to human health.”

• 06/13/2019
• Christine Chumbler

Malaria is a treatable and preventable disease, yet malaria kills one child every 30 seconds, or about 3000 children every day. Nearly 92 percent of these cases occur in Africa.

• 06/12/2019
• Fernanda Zermoglio, Sadie J. Ryan

This year’s World Environment Day theme focuses on a global challenge with pressing implications on human health and the environment: air pollution.

• 06/05/2019
• Isabela Barriga

This month saw the release of a dire UN report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) warning that nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history. 

• 06/04/2019
• Agrilinks

Extreme heat is often referred to as a “silent killer.” Its impacts are not starkly visible like the destruction caused by a flood or hurricane, but it can be equally catastrophic. For example, a 2010 heat wave in Russia killed an estimated 55,000 people.

• 05/01/2019
• Joslin Isaacson

Do you work on a project or activity that is increasing climate resilience or reducing carbon emissions while conserving biodiversity? Have you collaborated with colleagues across USAID to design a project or activity that has biodiversity outcomes and tackles development challenges across multiple programming areas?

• 04/04/2019
• Jennifer Kane, Catherine Wahlen