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Do Our Part: Special Objective

Strengthen Operations and Approaches to Programming to Address Climate Change and Further Climate Justice Within USAID and its Partner Organizations

Addressing the climate crisis will only be possible if everyone contributes. Therefore, USAID is committed to doing its part to confront the climate crisis by transforming the Agency’s operations and supporting  its implementing partners to undertake similar efforts.These reforms build on U.S. Government commitments outlined in several Executive Orders and USAID objectives detailed in the Agency’s Climate Readiness Plan and Sustainability Plan. Collectively, these reforms will help ensure USAID and its implementing partners are better equipped to confront the climate crisis.

Actions under this Special Objective include, but are not limited to:

  • Reducing USAID’s operational greenhouse gas emissions worldwide as specified in  USAID’s Sustainability Plan, including through increasing the energy efficiency of its infrastructure, vehicle fleet, information technology, and staff travel and ensuring carbon-conscious procurement.
  • Integrating climate resilience and mitigation more robustly in the USAID program cycle through an update and expansion of the Climate Risk Management (CRM) process per existing Agency operational policy (ADS 201).
  • Strengthening the diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility of the climate workforce, including by championing and implementing the USAID Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Strategic Plan.
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Foundational Principles, which will be incorporated into all planning and activities:
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1. Targeted Direct Action

Strategic Objective 1: Accelerate and scale targeted climate actions

USAID will employ context-sensitive approaches to support climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts in critical geographies, mobilize increased finance, and partner with Indigenous Peoples and local communities, women, youth, and other marginalized and/or underrepresented groups in locally led efforts to address the climate crisis.

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2. Systems Change

Strategic Objective 2: Catalyze transformative shifts to net-zero and climate-resilient pathways

USAID will support partner countries, communities, and international organizations to catalyze systems transformation in ways that strengthen and achieve their locally determined goals and promote synergies and manage trade-offs between results, as well as a just transition toward an equitable, climate-resilient world with emissions-reduction based on net- zero pathways.

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