Blog

Advancing the field of climate change adaptation requires insight from diverse perspectives, active learning, and creative partnerships. Since 2014, USAID’s Adaptation Community Meetings (ACMs) have served as a platform to share knowledge for climate adaptation and resilience and promote integrated programming.

• 01/23/2020
• Isabela Barriga

The game is simple. On a brown digital grassland with a single tree, tiny goats mill back and forth. When you decide how many of those goats to buy or sell and how many to insure, clouds float across the screen and one of two things happens: the clouds stop and rain falls, roughly doubling the goats and producing milk for sale, or the clouds move steadily across the screen and half your herd is wiped out.

• 01/15/2020
• MRR Innovation Lab, Alex Russell

During 2019, the Climatelinks community contributed over 100 resources on a wide range of topics, from clean cook stoves to sustainable forest management.

• 12/12/2019
• Stephan Hardeman

Since 1991, USAID has been investing in actions that help the Agency in understanding climate change risks and opportunities to reduce vulnerabilities.

• 12/05/2019
• Stephan Hardeman

Countries, like people, rely on stories of the past to guide them in the present and help them prepare for the unknown. The genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda ripped out many pages of stories, climate among them.

• 11/26/2019
• James Hansen, Francesco Fiondella, Gloriose Nsengiyumva, Jacquelyn Turner, Desire Kagabo

The Rwanda Climate Services for Agriculture project, funded by USAID, has been supporting farmers to use weather and climate information through participatory group processes and innovative radio programming.

• 11/19/2019
• James Hansen, Jacquelyn Turner, Gloriose Nsengiyumva, Desire Kagabo

As the frequency and magnitude of climate-related hazards increases, these changes are affecting people’s livelihoods, particularly those of rural and vulnerable populations more than ever.

• 10/24/2019
• Jeff Ratcliffe, Marie-Claire Tuzeneu

In a crowded banquet hall in Niamey, a dozen people gather around a large piece of paper, chatting excitedly in Hausa and French. They are a diverse group - farmers from hours outside the capital, radio broadcasters, extension agents, meteorologists, government officials and a smattering of NGO workers.

• 09/25/2019
• Kristin Lambert, Amanda Lewis, Mary Allen

To mitigate the food security and economic risks of South Asia’s frequent and intense droughts, scientists and policymakers from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) recently joined forces to launch an innovative decision support and agricultural planning system.

• 09/20/2019
• Agrilinks Team

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

The Climate Hazards Center (CHC) has been using the CHC Early Estimates for agroclimatological monitoring and forecast-plus-observation rainfall scenarios since late 2018. The CHC Early Estimates are regional maps that show rainfall conditions for multiple accumulation periods, which are useful for agroclimatic monitoring.

• 09/05/2019
• Agrilinks Team

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

Changes in the frequency, location, and severity of climate impacts are placing more people at risk from health-related hazards such as reduced air quality, extreme heat, exposure to extreme weather events, and shifts in vector borne diseases. The World Health Organization predicts that between 2030-2050, climate change will cause an additional 250,000 deaths annually worldwide due to malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress.

• 07/31/2019
• Fernanda Zermoglio

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

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