Blog

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have provided clear guidance on the most critical measure we can all take to protect human health and reduce the spread of COVID-19: “Hands should be washed with soap and water.” While clear and simple, this directive is far from attainable for the 3 billion people around the world who lack access to soap and safe water at home.

• 07/17/2020
• Evan Thomas, Doris Kaberia

Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) is a region in Southeast Bangladesh historically impacted by porous borders, instability and armed conflict. More than two decades of fighting formally came to a close in 1997 with the signing of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord but social, economic and political integration is a work in progress.

• 07/14/2020
• Agrilinks

Long-term changes in climate and wildlife habitat can pose significant effects on human health and increase the risk of infectious diseases like the coronavirus (COVID-19). Several of the roots of climate change can increase the risk of pandemics; for example, deforestation increasingly places humans and animals in contact, which enables pathogens from animals to spillover to humans.

• 07/08/2020
• Isabela Barriga

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

Do you have great photos of climate and development? Do you want to promote your work on Climatelinks? Now is your chance! Submit your photos so we can share your work or your organization’s work with our global community of climate practitioners. Our 2020 Photo Contest theme is Healthy Forests for a Healthy Future.

• 06/17/2020
• Climatelinks

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

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

Improving access to and use of timely, accurate, and actionable weather and climate information is essential to building resilience to climate change and strengthening livelihoods across Africa. Collaborative partnerships between the public and private sectors can foster innovative, sustainable, and cost-effective approaches to weather and climate services systems.

• 06/04/2020
• Ali Blumenstock

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

The Amazon region is home to 1.6 million Indigenous Peoples, all of whom depend on the region’s forest and water resources for their material and cultural survival. Studies have shown that deforestation rates are much lower in places where Amazonian Indigenous Peoples have strong land tenure rights, making Indigenous Peoples important allies in biodiversity conservation.

• 05/12/2020
• USAID Biodiversity Integration Case Studies

The Siete Pecados, or “Seven Sins,” are seven islets in the Philippines named after a legend about seven sisters who drowned after they disobeyed their mother. Siete Pecados Marine Park is a story of a coastal community’s persistence, in partnership with USAID and other partners, to establish a marine protected area with an integrated approach that includes biodiversity conservation, climate resilience, and economic growth.

• 04/28/2020
• USAID Biodiversity Integration Case Studies

The current global pandemic from COVID-19 is a potent, pressing example of why the international community must focus more on preparedness and risk analysis for a multitude of disasters. Disasters, from floods to droughts to heightened risks of conflict, are increasing in frequency and intensity due to climate change, environmental degradation, and social tensions.

• 04/22/2020
• Sarah Henly-Shepard, Ali Blumenstock

“Myanmar’s location and physical diversity means climate change takes many forms. In the dry zone, temperatures are increasing, and droughts are becoming more prevalent, while the coastal zone remains at constant risk of intensifying cyclones. Extreme flooding in the current wet season has seen over 190,000 people seek emergency shelter, with the damage to homes, schools, and farms compounding the impact of last year’s floods and those from the year before.”

• 04/21/2020
• Timothy D. May

The USAID Vietnam Forests and Deltas program (VFD), implemented by Winrock International, is supporting the Government of Vietnam’s efforts to better manage natural resources through an innovative Payment for Forest Environmental Services (PFES) program, which pays forest owners for conservation. By preventing deforestation and forest degradation, PFES reduces emissions from land use and conserves forest ecosystems that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

• 04/16/2020
• Winrock International

In the Dominican Republic, USAID works to jointly promote climate adaptation and resilience to address a lack of adequate sanitation and wastewater treatment facilities, which limits the population’s access to clean water and presents a key threat to the country’s coastal biodiversity in the form of untreated sewage. USAID/Dominican Republic originally implemented the Climate Adaptation: Climate Risk Reduction activity using only climate change adaptation funding.

• 04/08/2020
• USAID Biodiversity Integration Case Studies