Catalyze urgent mitigation (emissions reductions and sequestration) from energy, land use, and other key sources: Intermediate Result 1.1
Under this Intermediate Result, USAID will help partner countries reach near-term climate targets and avoid locking in longer-term emissions trajectories by working with partners to reduce emissions from energy, urban areas, transportation, industry, waste, food systems, and land use, including agriculture, deforestation, and degradation of critical ecosystems. In the energy sector, USAID will work with partner countries to achieve both economic development and ambitious climate objectives through emissions reductions across power, buildings, transport, and industry. USAID will work with countries to achieve ambitious emissions reductions and sequestration through natural climate solutions, which conserve, manage, and restore forests, mangroves, wetlands, agricultural lands, and other natural and managed systems. USAID will also support countries to dramatically reduce emissions of short-lived climate pollutants (like methane and black carbon), one of the strongest levers for slowing near-term warming and toxic air pollution. Pursuing ambitious and equitable mitigation to advance a just transition will have many economic, health, ecological, and social benefits. Mitigation efforts will use an inclusive approach that empowers a broad range of stakeholders, including the labor movement and marginalized and underrepresented groups, to ensure shared and sustained outcomes, as well as to limit any negative impacts.
Strengthen climate resilience of people vulnerable to climate impacts (adaptation): Intermediate Result 1.2
Climate impacts are pervasive and have disparate and disproportionate impacts across sectors, populations, and geographies. Extreme weather events and slow-onset climate impacts pose new risks, aggravate existing social, economic, and political challenges and inequities, and degrade ecosystems and natural resources. They also drive migration and increase the risk of conflict. Under this Intermediate Result, USAID will support and scale actions that build the climate resilience of people, places, ecosystems, and livelihoods that are vulnerable to the impacts of climate variability and change. Actions under this Intermediate Result will help people, communities and countries anticipate, prepare for, and adapt to current and future climate impacts while fostering human dignity and hope. This work will strengthen adaptive capacity and harness the robust evidence that adaptation can save lives, reduce food and water insecurity, safeguard ecosystem services and livelihoods, and improve health, including mental health, education, and well-being outcomes. Adaptation efforts will use conflict- sensitive and gender-responsive approaches, and will be co-developed with those most vulnerable to climate change, including poor households, Indigenous Peoples, women, youth, persons with disabilities, those affected by migration and displacement, and other marginalized and/or underrepresented groups. These actions will directly support the implementation of countries’ national and local adaptation priorities as identified through relevant plans and strategies, including Nationally Determined Contributions and National Adaptation Plans under the Paris Agreement.
Increase the flow of and equitable access to finance to support adaptation and mitigation:Intermediate Result 1.3
Additional resources are needed across all sectors and at all levels, ranging from national government investments like electric grids that can handle extensive clean power sources, down to the community level for actions like reforestation to reduce flood risks. Under this Intermediate Result, USAID will provide and mobilize public and private finance to support equitable climate actions in the areas of mitigation and adaptation in line with our partners’ priorities. This greater focus on inclusive climate finance will deliver significant emissions reductions while increasing economic productivity, creating decent work, ensuring a just transition, and improving quality of life. It will also support interventions such as climate smart agriculture, accessible and sustainable water and sanitation services, inclusive health and education services, climate information services, resilient infrastructure, ecosystem protection, assistance to populations after climate shocks, and nature-based solutions.
Partner with Indigenous Peoples and local communities to lead climate action:Intermediate Result 1.4
Indigenous Peoples and local communities are key stakeholders and agents of change in addressing the climate crisis. Indigenous Peoples and local communities have tenure rights to and/or manage more than a quarter of the world’s lands, which intersect with 40 percent of land-based Protected Areas, intact landscapes, and critical ecosystems. There is clear and growing evidence that the lands that Indigenous Peoples and local communities manage are highly effective at sequestering emissions and promoting adaptation through land and water management. However, much of their land is not legally recognized, contributing to marginalization and reducing incentives for conservation. Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ relationships with the environment are profoundly affected by climate change, yet these groups are frequently excluded from climate decision-making processes and lack the resources they need to advance climate action. Further, the rights of Indigenous Peoples and environmental defenders are not adequately protected, and they are persistently criminalized and targets of harassment and violence. These tactics minimize Indigenous Peoples’ ownership, voice, knowledge, and leadership and detract from global efforts to address climate change.
Under this Intermediate Result, USAID will partner with Indigenous Peoples and local communities to lead gender-responsive climate actions, respecting traditional values and practices and measuring success not only by increased resilience, security, and reduced emissions, but also through the increased agency and leadership these groups play in program design, implementation, and effecting change. Through these partnerships, USAID will help accelerate global efforts to address sustainably and equitably the climate crisis. UDAID’s partnerships with Indigenous Peoples and local communities will be in line with the USAID Policy on Promoting the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (PRO-IP) and accompanying guidance and toolkits.
Enable and empower women and youth and other marginalized and/or underrepresented groups to lead climate action:Intermediate Result 1.5
Women, youth, and other marginalized and/or underrepresented groups constitute a vast majority of the world’s population and are leading many of the most influential climate movements around the world, and yet they are not always included or appropriately resourced. A successful approach to climate programming recognizes that their leadership, knowledge, and skills are vital to addressing the climate crisis. Successful climate action should also take an intersectional approach that recognizes that many elements of a person’s identity can affect how they experience the world. In combination with systems of inequality, these intersecting identities can lead to varying degrees of power and privilege that, in turn, create unique power dynamics, effects, and perspectives for contribution to climate solutions.
- Women
- Women, including adolescent girls, have unique knowledge, skills, and networks that make them critical stakeholders in designing and implementing climate solutions. Work under this IR will take into account the gender norms that shape the lived realities of people and their unique climate risk exposure and coping strategies. It will examine the gendered power dynamics that dictate access to and control over resources that shape climate resilience, and ensure that climate solutions do not exacerbate gender inequality or lead to unintended consequences, such as gender-based violence. This work will be guided by and adhere to the requirements of USAID’s Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Policy. Under this IR, USAID will work with a diverse range of women to identify and implement climate actions, measuring success not only by increased resilience and reduced emissions, but also through the increased agency and leadership of women in their roles as decision-makers.
- Youth
- Youth (ages 10-29) have emerged in recent years as key actors in mobilizing large-scale awareness, demanding government action to tackle the climate crisis, running educational programs, promoting sustainable lifestyles, conserving nature, supporting renewable energy, adopting environmentally friendly practices, and implementing adaptation and mitigation projects.
- Youth are also critical in adopting new technologies and practices to address climate change. They have increasingly strong social and environmental awareness and are engaging as leaders in movements to transform our societies toward a net-zero and climate-resilient future. Youth populations represent an evolving demographic that with time will include today’s infants and young children (ages 0-9) who are particularly affected by climate. USAID will apply principles outlined under the Agency’s Youth in Development Policy, and other relevant policies, of effective engagement of youth in decision-making.
- Marginalized and/or underrepresented groups
- Marginalized and/or underrepresented groups often experience discrimination in the application of laws and policy and access to resources, services, and social protection, and may be subject to persecution, harassment, and violence. During extreme weather events, they may experience disproportionately higher rates of injury and mortality. Such outcomes are not inevitable and should not be assumed to be the result of inherent vulnerability. They result from structural inequalities and power dynamics stemming from the intersections of pervasive social norms. Such groups are accustomed, by necessity, to creative problem-solving and leveraging their diverse and intersectional identities to generate solutions that also benefit society at large. USAID is committed to inclusive climate action that enhances the resilience of all marginalized and/or underrepresented groups and empowers them as positive agents of change.
Foundational Principles, which will be incorporated into all planning and activities:
