Blog

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

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

Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) is a nature-based method for climate change adaptation that can reduce the vulnerability of people, natural systems and economies to climate stressors. EbA provides flexible and cost-effective approaches that enhance resilience through the improved management and conservation of ecosystems. EbA can be an effective adaptation strategy alone or as an element of broader national, regional and community adaptation plans.

• 04/07/2020
• USAID Biodiversity Conservation Gateway

Climate adaptation and disaster risk management (DRM) are connected by the common goal of reducing the impacts of disasters, minimizing the consequences of extreme events, and increasing resilience. Valuable knowledge sharing and partnership opportunities exist for those willing to bridge climate adaptation and DRM. Climate change can increase the risk of disaster by increasing hydrometeorological hazards -- such as storms, flooding or drought -- that result in damage or loss of life.

• 04/01/2020
• Isabela Barriga

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

Recent reports are taking an economic view of climate impacts, making a clear case for acting early rather than reacting late. The Global Commission on Adaptation’s 2019 report, Adapt Now: A Global Call for Leadership on Climate Resilience, warns leaders around the world that we simply cannot afford the costs of inaction on climate change.

• 03/25/2020
• Jennifer Frankel-Reed

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

Located in Indonesia’s East Java Province, Kalikatir Village is prone to flash flooding caused by the Klorak River. The river runs through three villages: Dilem and Begaganlimo in the upstream, and Kalikatir in the downstream. A major flash flood that hit Kalikatir in 2017 was a warning for the 1,500 people that live there. Even though there were no casualties due to the flood, the physical damage was substantial, and had a big impact on people’s lives.

• 03/18/2020
• Yovianus Toni Sakera, Nyoman Prayoga, Stella Yovita Arya Puteri

The transformative process involved in implementing climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices can be well observed in the villages of Los Cerrillos and El Danubio in the Cauca department of Colombia where a Climate-Smart Village (CSV) site is located. CSV is an initiative of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) in conjunction with the Ecohabitats Foundation and these two communities were chosen to be part of the project due to their vulnerability to climate change and high dependence on agricultural activities.

• 03/11/2020
• CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)

At the Climate-Smart Village in Olopa, Guatemala, we witnessed the different stages of implementing climate-smart agriculture practices. The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) developed the Climate-Smart Villages (CSV) approach, which aims to generate evidence on climate-smart agriculture (CSA). In the CSVs, different actors develop, adopt and evaluate CSA options in a participatory manner.

• 03/03/2020
• Agrilinks

In Southern Malawi, the United in Building and Advancing Life Expectations (UBALE) project, completed in 2019, helped over 240,000 families in three districts produce more abundant harvests, increase income from agriculture, and learn important skills to help cope with changing climate patterns. The project linked agriculture with nutrition interventions to maximize the impact the program had on family nutrition.

• 03/02/2020
• Dooshima Tsee

The Rainforest Alliance is implementing the USAID-supported Alliance for Sustainable Landscapes and Markets project in the states of Campeche, Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Quintana Roo, Mexico. This alliance involves groups of producers, nonprofit organizations, public institutions, enterprises, and consumers in taking actions towards a better future where people and nature thrive in harmony.

• 02/26/2020
• Graciela Zavala

Many of the effects of changing climate patterns on food security are obvious. For example, more frequent and extreme droughts and floods are making farming more challenging, leading to abbreviated growing seasons, lost crops, and depleted family food stores. But climate variability and change are causing many other less obvious effects on food security, many of which are just beginning to be understood.

• 02/25/2020
• Christine Chumbler

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