Blog

In arid regions with already unreliable water and sanitation services, climate change is a threat multiplier for those who rely on functional infrastructure for basic water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) needs.

• 11/12/2019
• Brittany Ajroud, Patrick Nease

Climate change worsens familiar challenges to water and sanitation services, including limited access and poor infrastructure. Innovative approaches, such as games to inform sanitation enterprise development, have the potential to catalyze local solutions for sanitation.

• 11/01/2019
• Jesse Shapiro, Liz Jordan

In Ghana, a changing climate is affecting the production of cocoa, one of the country’s major cash crops and its second leading foreign exchange earner.

• 10/29/2019
• Alexandre Grais, Lara Murray

This month we are exploring what it means to build local capacity to address climate change. Building local capacity starts with an understanding of the local stakeholders’ needs.

• 09/10/2019
• Isabela Barriga

Because of the wide array of threats faced by modern energy systems, power sector resilience is increasingly important. It is critical for policymakers, planners, and system operators to safeguard their power systems from these threats by proactively planning for future needs and investing in resilient power systems.

• 09/03/2019
• Sadie Cox, Isabel McCan

Their summits often soaring to more than 20,000 feet, the great intersecting mountain ranges of Central and South Asia collectively stretch thousands of miles across the continent. Within this vast, often impenetrable, and sparsely inhabited wilderness, snowfields and glaciers store water that has fallen as precipitation and accumulated over the course of years, decades, or in some cases, even centuries.

• 08/06/2019
• Russell Sticklor

Rivers are the world’s main source of clean drinking water, and their economic and environmental value are fundamental to the health of people and ecosystems. However, river basins face interrelated challenges — population growth, industrialization, urbanization, land use changes (including deforestation and land degradation), and changes in water quantity and quality.

• 07/17/2019
• Owen Scott, Fernanda Zermoglio

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

The Ferlo region of north-central Senegal is a vast expanse of dry savannah covering over a third of the country’s total area. With only a few small, scattered settlements, this region is almost exclusively reserved for pastoralism, both by tradition and government policy.

• 05/23/2019
• Agrilinks Team

Water security is integral to the health and sustainability of our communities and ecosystems. Achieving water security, however, is challenging for several reasons including poor governance, resource competition and poorly-conceived economic development.

• 05/20/2019
• Basil Mahayni

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

Gordon Mumbo grew up in the small village of Kamuga, in Kenya’s Kisumu County. Year after year, he watched as frequent floods from one of Kenya’s major rivers, the Nyando, disturbed the peaceful flow of village life.

• 03/28/2019
• Global Waters

Happy World Water Day! This year’s “Water for All” theme highlights the importance of leaving no one behind. It brings to light the fact that billions of people still live without access to safe water.

• 03/21/2019
• Stephan Hardeman

Since the 1970s, the Sahel region of northern Africa has been experiencing ongoing drought. The ecological, economic and social impacts are far-reaching, and coastal and estuarine ecosystems have
not been spared.

• 03/14/2019
• CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry

In Peru, a new cross-sector initiative supported by USAID and the Government of Canada is moving beyond concrete-and-steel projects to an expansive new vision of 21st-century water infrastructure that includes natural ecosystems, ancestral approaches, and people themselves.

• 03/06/2019
• Genevieve Bennett