Blog

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

On World Water Day, March 22, 2021, USAID announced its second annual Water Warrior Awards, which recognizes the value of its water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) leads who work on the front lines with local partners and communities.

• 09/01/2021
• Portia Persley

This blog series features interviews with the winners of the 2020 Climatelinks Photo Contest. This photo, submitted on behalf of iDE Nepal, is available on the Climatelinks Photo Gallery.

• 03/02/2021
• Climatelinks

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have provided clear guidance on the most critical measure we can all take to protect human health and reduce the spread of COVID-19: “Hands should be washed with soap and water.” While clear and simple, this directive is far from attainable for the 3 billion people around the world who lack access to soap and safe water at home.

• 07/17/2020
• Evan Thomas, Doris Kaberia

Climate impacts social and economic development across sectors, in numerous ways. Each sector also has unique opportunities to contribute to climate solutions. USAID integrates climate change in development programming across a variety of technical fields.

• 06/18/2020
• Isabela Barriga

In the Dominican Republic, USAID works to jointly promote climate adaptation and resilience to address a lack of adequate sanitation and wastewater treatment facilities, which limits the population’s access to clean water and presents a key threat to the country’s coastal biodiversity in the form of untreated sewage. USAID/Dominican Republic originally implemented the Climate Adaptation: Climate Risk Reduction activity using only climate change adaptation funding.

• 04/08/2020
• USAID Biodiversity Integration Case Studies

In this post, the Feed the Future Enabling Environment for Food Security (EEFS) project describes how its Water Governance Scorecard can inform policy discussions on water use within the agriculture sector. Water is at the nexus of food security and climate risk management. Smallholder farmers depend on reliable access to water to support production through rainfall and/or irrigation systems. As climate risks mount, variability in water availability and allocation will affect the competitiveness and resilience of the agriculture sector.

• 03/17/2020
• Feed the Future Enabling Environment for Food Security

Mahila Housing Trust (MHT) is one of 10 challenge winners of the Global Resilience Challenge to transform interconnected risks into opportunities.

• 12/04/2019
• Simone Verkaart

The Climatelinks photo contest received an impressive total of 170 submissions from the Climatelinks community, representing more than 40 countries.

• 12/03/2019
• Steve Hardeman

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

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 new global Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Project was one of the first activities to undergo USAID’s CRM process. The resulting extensive climate risk assessment highlighted the need to include strategies, interventions and assessments to build climate resilience both into program implementation and among beneficiaries in activity design.

• 08/07/2018
• Christine Chumbler, Elaine Gray

USAID took stock of climate risk management (CRM) in programming across all sectors to better understand the Agency’s experience with CRM to better support the practice.

• 07/19/2018
• Rebecca Nicodemus, Anna McGinn

“We know that Haiti is an extremely vulnerable country for the impacts of climate change,” says Jesse Leggoe, Acting Deputy Director in the Democracy, Human Rights and Governance Office, “Having Hurricane Matthew hit during our design process just re-emphasized that for everyone.”

• 07/11/2018
• Climatelinks