Blog

In 2021, Climatelinks featured a wide array of USAID’s climate-related work through its blogs. The Climatelinks blog acts as a resource for the global Climatelinks community and serves as a storehouse for information in the form of lessons learned, success stories, newsletter recaps, and report summaries. 

• 12/28/2021
• Steve Hardeman

To help farmers better manage risk, Feed the Future Partnering for Innovation partnered with four organizations and private sector businesses — Farm Africa and Root Capital, Neumann Gruppe GmbH, and Oikocredit — to launch innovative risk management initiatives that enable smallholder coffee farmers to reap more rewards and face less risk as they cultivate this high-value crop.

• 12/21/2021
• Feed the Future Partnering for Innovation

In 2021, the Climatelinks community submitted over 160 resources on topics ranging from climate resilience in WASH and agriculture to environment and energy trends in Latin America and the Caribbean. Other notable documents included the 2020 Amazon Vision Report, an updated SERVIR Service Planning Toolkit, and more than 30 Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) Annexes on climate change. 

• 12/16/2021
• Stephan Hardeman

The Climatelinks Resources Library grew by more than 160 documents in 2021, covering a broad range of topics from climate action in education to projected health impacts caused by climate change. Here are some resources you may have missed.

• 12/14/2021
• Sophie Schrader

Over the course of 2021, the Climatelinks community contributed over 140 blogs on topics from youth climate action to a new wave of private investment for climate solutions. Climatelinks blogs share USAID’s work on climate and development while also offering the global network of climate and development practitioners a platform to share their own work. Blogs highlight the vast range of work achieved by past and ongoing programs and activities and often connect to monthly themes such as climate finance, air pollution, health, youth climate action, and climate and gender. 

• 12/09/2021
• Sophie Schrader

Since its inception in 2019, the Climatelinks photo gallery has grown to host more than 400 images of climate and development across 54 countries. Through community submissions and annual photo contests, the photo gallery has matured into a resource for the entire Climatelinks community. Images found in the photo gallery are available for viewing, download, and use by the Climatelinks community (with proper credit).

• 12/07/2021
• Stephan Hardeman

The U.S. Government’s Feed the Future program is making climate change a central objective of their strategy. Global food security is under stress from increasingly intense and frequent heat waves, droughts, heavy rains, and major storms, according to the new report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which issues a dire warning of the risks posed with every incremental increase in global warming. Using Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA), Feed the Future helps farmers adapt to climate variations, mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and build resilience to climate shocks.

• 11/30/2021
• Tedi Rabold

The agriculture sector across the globe not only feeds the world’s population but it also provides nearly 27 percent of worldwide employment. Yet the sector faces significant sustainability challenges: it is estimated to contribute more than one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions through a combination of agricultural activities and land use changes, and it consumes, on average, 70 percent of the world’s freshwater resources.

• 11/18/2021
• Feed the Future Enabling Environment for Food Security

At first glance, USAID and NASA seem like an unlikely pair. NASA’s satellites watch the world from above; USAID helps farmers around the world grow crops from the ground up. But through a 15-year partnership, we’re helping solve one of the greatest threats to Earth — the climate crisis — and simultaneously strengthening resilience against poverty, hunger, malnutrition, and lack of access to safe water and sanitation.

• 11/16/2021
• Pete Epanchin

While technological and institutional innovations in agri-food systems over the past century have brought dramatic advances in human well-being worldwide, these gains increasingly appear unsustainable due to massive, adverse spillover effects on climate, natural environment, social justice and public health and nutrition. To deflect future world food crises created by climate change and growing consumer demand, the expert panel created a roadmap for global agricultural and food systems innovation, reform and sustainability. 

• 11/10/2021
• CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)

As the 26th Conference of Parties approaches, many least developed countries have struggled to advance their National Adaptation Plan (NAP) processes. A decade after the introduction of the NAP process, now is an opportune time to reflect on lessons learned and consider how USAID and other development partners can most effectively support developing countries’ NAP processes into the future.

• 11/04/2021
• Dr. Keith Bettinger

As an Agency that stares down the world’s toughest challenges, none pose a greater threat than climate change. The science is clear: we have a narrow window remaining to dramatically reduce global emissions or we all face catastrophic consequences — with the most vulnerable populations continuing to get hit the hardest.

• 11/03/2021
• Gillian Caldwell

A wide range of environmental changes threaten development. Of these challenges, climate change and plastic pollution in particular inspire concern and action from governments, scientists, and advocates alike. USAID’s work on ocean plastic pollution operates at the intersection of these related problems, and highlights opportunities for innovation in waste management.

• 10/26/2021
• Ruby Rorty

CEADIR’s final report contains summaries and links to seven years of assessments, analyses, tools, and training and technical assistance materials on planning, financing, and implementation of clean energy, sustainable landscapes (natural climate solutions), and climate adaptation.

• 10/19/2021
• Eric Hyman, Christine Chumbler

The 2021 Climatelinks photo contest was a huge success! We received more than 100 stunning submissions from the Climatelinks community, representing more than 22 countries.

• 10/18/2021
• Steve Hardeman