Blog

Increasing global demand for timber has led to a surge of illegal exploitation and deforestation which is accelerating climate change. To address this challenge, researchers in the USAID-supported Partnerships for Enhanced Engagement in Research (PEER) in Peru, Madagascar, and Indonesia are partnering with the U.S. Forest Service to develop tools to assist private and public organizations with wood species identification and help curb illegal logging.

• 11/02/2022
• Melissa Trimble

To ensure a just energy transition for the Indigenous Wayuu people, USAID partnered with Colombia’s National Training Service to provide young people in Wayuu communities the skills needed to enter the labor market and become entrepreneurs in the region’s new renewable energy economy.

• 11/01/2022
• Sandra Garavito

Nature-based solutions (NbS) are one of the five foundational principles of USAID’s new 2022-2030 Climate Strategy. On August 30, 2022, USAID held a webinar to explore the ways the Agency is developing and applying NbS to the challenges of climate change.

• 10/31/2022
• Christine Chumbler

SERVIR, a joint program of USAID and NASA, is responding to the needs of farmers in West with new efforts focused on financial instruments and private-sector engagement.

• 10/27/2022
• Erica Kriner

This is the story of how USAID has supported IBIS Rice since 2009 to source and sell wildlife-friendly, low-carbon emission rice from the Northern Plains of Cambodia and the company’s multi-year journey from donor-subsidized commodity producer to commercial bank investee.

• 10/25/2022
• Richard Chen

In the fight against climate change, the private sector plays a strategic role in addressing development challenges. This blog describes how USAID partners with the private sector to consult, strategize, align, collaborate, and implement technological, financial, or strategic solutions to conservation, adaptation, and mitigation challenges.

• 10/25/2022
• Tedi Rabold

In Kenya, USAID and USDA are partnering with the Fresh Produce Consortium of Kenya to pilot the new Food Loss and Waste Value Chain Selection Guide. This guide helps identify and evaluate which value chains should be prioritized to reduce food loss and waste, promote food security and nutrition, and help with environmental sustainability efforts.

• 10/24/2022
• Julia Shuck, Diana Nduku, Rashmi Ekka

With a presence in 100 countries and more than 10,000 staff globally, USAID has a unique and timely opportunity to help reshape the renewable energy ecosystem and promote the adoption of a circular economy approach to renewable energy, plastics, and other sectors – helping to shift the balance of natural resource use for all our stuff from one of waste and disposability to one of sustainability while providing and creating new economic opportunities.

• 10/24/2022
• Gillian Caldwell

Private sector engagement is one of the foundational principles of the USAID Climate Strategy. In the Amazon Region of Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, the Amazon Regional Environment Program is working with the private sector to help confront climate change.

• 10/20/2022
• Lindsey Larsen

Illegal farming is threatening Madagascar's largest dry forest in the Menabe Antimena Protected Area. With the support of USAID Hay Tao, the forests and their unique biodiversity have a better chance of withstanding the complex challenges facing one of the poorest countries in the world, whose citizens depend on its natural resources for their livelihoods.

• 10/11/2022
• Becky Band Jain

Co-funded by USAID and UKaid, Modern Cooking for Healthy Forests is a five-year climate change activity designed to support the Government of Malawi to address the growing charcoal-led deforestation crisis.

• 10/04/2022
• Nicholas J. Parkinson

Climate adaptation strategies should make more concerted efforts to incorporate the multi-dimensional nature of women’s empowerment, as this research shows the important role of women’s decision-making in strengthening agricultural resilience to climate change.

• 09/28/2022
• Elizabeth Bryan, Alex De Pinto, Greg Seymour, Prapti Bhandary, Francesca Edralin

As energy demand increases in Ghana, its government is seeking to diversify the country's energy mix and find innovative ways to integrate variable renewable energy (VRE) into its national grid. USAID and the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) are promoting the development of new hydro-solar resources.

• 09/27/2022
• Emily Klos

Surendra Bahadur Rana and his brothers live in Palpa District, Nepal. While not the highest district in the mountainous country, it is one of the drier ones, and like so many other people in Nepal, Surendra has always relied on rainfall to water his small family farm. Under PREPARE, USAID has promoted climate change adaptation techniques to nearly 137,000 farmers.

• 09/21/2022
• Jenna Jadin

USAID is helping decision makers visualize and plan where investments in land-based climate mitigation can be most effective while also providing co-benefits for both people and the environment.

• 09/20/2022
• Ioana Bouvier, Janet Nackoney, Christine Urbanowicz