Blog

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

Reliable electricity can mean life or death for a patient. Healthcare facilities need electricity to power lifesaving medical equipment and preserve perishable supplies, such as vaccines. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the stakes are even higher, as more people around the world need treatment and services.

• 08/20/2020
• Kristen Madler, Janice M. Laurente

Half the world’s total mangrove deforestation since 2000 has taken place in Indonesia, where the main driver is conversion for shrimp ponds. A new cost-benefit analysis by the USAID-funded Climate Economic Analysis Development, Investment, and Resilience (CEADIR) Activity sheds light on the financial and economic value of mangrove conservation, including impacts on near-shore fishing and greenhouse gas emissions.

• 08/11/2020
• Dr. Eric Hyman

Open, transparent, and competitive renewable energy procurement, coupled with declining prices for solar and wind technologies, has facilitated billions of dollars of investment at record low prices. According to the Renewables 2020 Global Status Report, 109 countries around the world had held renewable energy auctions by 2019, up from 98 in 2018. Worldwide, auctions have become an emerging best practice to procure least-cost energy.

• 08/04/2020
• Sarah Lawson, Araí Monteforte

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

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

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

In many developing countries, the companies that build, supply, and sell clean energy solutions have difficulty obtaining bank loans or other financing to expand their businesses or reach new markets. This was the case in Rwanda until Power Africa, through USAID, at the demand from financial institutions and providers of solar PV solutions, took action to educate, connect, and support commercial lending programs for off-grid electricity.

• 06/01/2020
• Power Africa

Typhoon Maysak crossed Chuuk and Yap States in Micronesia between March 29 and April 1, 2015, leaving a path of destruction in its wake. As USAID’s implementing partner under the Disaster Preparedness for Effective Response project, the International Organization for Migration mobilized to implement USAID’s Typhoon Maysak Reconstruction Project (TMRP).

• 03/26/2020
• Climatelinks

Over the past 13 years, I have had the opportunity to work with the poorest communities across Zimbabwe. I have seen families struggling to adapt to the changing climate, as their livelihoods mainly depend on limited and dwindling natural resources. However, through asset creation, I have also seen incredible strength, resilience, and community dedication to improving communal resources and food security.

• 03/24/2020
• Erina Machoko

In this post, the Feed the Future Enabling Environment for Food Security (EEFS) project describes how its Water Governance Scorecard can inform policy discussions on water use within the agriculture sector. Water is at the nexus of food security and climate risk management. Smallholder farmers depend on reliable access to water to support production through rainfall and/or irrigation systems. As climate risks mount, variability in water availability and allocation will affect the competitiveness and resilience of the agriculture sector.

• 03/17/2020
• Feed the Future Enabling Environment for Food Security

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

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

As USAID and the international community know, if infrastructure fails during a crisis, the implications on human lives are enormous. To ensure future floods and other extreme weather events don’t cause the level of damage and misery seen in the wake of Idai and Kenneth, there are two myths that we urgently need to dispel.

• 01/28/2020
• Michael Szönyi