Climatelinks Photo Gallery

A USAID Community Support Program (CSP) worker installs environmentally friendly LED streetlights in damaged neighborhoods around the Beirut Port blast area in Lebanon. In the aftermath of the Beirut Port explosion, USAID CSP rehabilitated damaged streetlights in affected neighborhoods and installed 500 LED lightbulbs, replacing previous high-energy consumption bulbs. This intervention is drastically decreasing fuel consumption and enhancing safety and security for an estimated 56,400 residents and local businesses.

USAID Community Support Program (CSP) engineers inspect the photovoltaic solar farm CSP installed to enhance electricity provision to more than 8,700 residents in Lebanon. Hasbaiya residents have been grappling with lengthy power outages amidst the economic crisis, and the municipality was forced to rely on backup generators to supply household electricity. However, the crisis limited the municipality’s ability to afford maintenance and fuel costs. In response, USAID CSP hybridized Hasbaiya’s backup electricity infrastructure by installing a photovoltaic solar farm and equipping it with necessary structures and electro-mechanical systems to ensure safe and environmentally compliant operations. Since its operation, the solar farm led to accumulated municipal savings of $20,000, which the municipality will use to fund an additional solar farm to benefit more residential areas.

A farmer uses a USAID Community Support Program (CSP)-provided solar-powered mobile welding station to repair irrigation lines, minimize water losses, and maintain livelihoods amidst ongoing economic crises in Lebanon. Ainata el Arz is an agricultural village in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley. Known for its cultivation of apples, cherries, apricots, and vine leaves, the village established a cooperative to improve farming practices and enhance local economic opportunities. However, located at 1,500m altitude, the village regularly faces harsh weather conditions, threatening local crops and placing significant importance on timely cultivation. Furthermore, amidst the economic crisis in Lebanon, farmers have been facing rising costs of production coupled with diminished incomes. To support farmers’ livelihoods, USAID CSP provided the cooperative with needed agricultural equipment and a solar-powered welding station to repair irrigation lines through the innovative use of clean energy.

After unprecedented flooding swept through South Sudan, families fled their homes and sought high ground and safety in Paguir. With little resources left, many faced widespread poverty, food insecurity, and life-threatening malnutrition. 

After months of submerged crops and ruined harvests, Action Against Hunger partnered with the community to seek new solutions to combat hunger in the face of these climate shocks. Today, men and women are building resilience through a rice growing project, the first of its kind in Paguir, which allows farmers to plant even in the deepest floodwater. The crop replaces sorghum, which is unable to grow in water. Along with seeds and farming tools, the people of Paguir are using newfound skills and collaborating to achieve greater resilience. 

In their own paddies, women plant, cultivate, harvest, and process rice, which helps them earn their own income. For the people of Paguir, growing rice is a climate-resilient strategy that has transformed the entire community. The project has not only created Paguir's first rice farmers, but also the teachers who will pass down their craft for generations to come.

After unprecedented flooding swept through South Sudan, families fled their homes and sought high ground and safety in Paguir. With little resources left, many faced widespread poverty, food insecurity, and life-threatening malnutrition. 

After months of submerged crops and ruined harvests, Action Against Hunger partnered with the community to seek new solutions to combat hunger in the face of these climate shocks. Today, men and women are building resilience through a rice growing project, the first of its kind in Paguir, which allows farmers to plant even in the deepest floodwater. The crop replaces sorghum, which is unable to grow in water. Along with seeds and farming tools, the people of Paguir are using newfound skills and collaborating to achieve greater resilience. 

In their own paddies, women plant, cultivate, harvest, and process rice, which helps them earn their own income. For the people of Paguir, growing rice is a climate-resilient strategy that has transformed the entire community. The project has not only created Paguir's first rice farmers, but also the teachers who will pass down their craft for generations to come.

The Horn of Africa is suffering from the worst drought in 40 years. In Kenya alone, more than 5 million people struggle without access to safe water. In the region of West Pokot, collecting water has never been easy—women and girls typically have to walk miles in the burning sun, facing threats from the environment and passersby, all for the possibility of filling up a single jerrycan in a livestock trough. The Smart Tap System, funded with support from USAID and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, is helping to make it safer, faster, and easier for people to collect the water they need for drinking, washing, and planting. It functions like a “solar-powered vending machine,” allowing someone to withdraw water with simply a tap of a token on the machine’s electronic interface. The interface and its water pipes are connected to a massive storage tank, which simultaneously pulls and treats groundwater. For people like Habiba Kanchora Wario, shown here on February 16, 2023, this invention has done more than provide clean water, combat community-wide malnutrition, and even save lives—it has also inspired hope. Habiba is responsible for feeding herself and her three young children and, without water to cook, they would all often go hungry. Today, even amidst the ongoing drought, it takes only moments for her—and thousands of others from her community—to safely collect all the clean water they need.

Deforestation is a problem in Colombia and throughout the world. Some farmers decide to cut down trees to expand their crops. Others decide to implement agroforestry crops, i.e., those that mix different species of trees and plants within the plot. This is the farm of Eugenia Jiménez, a cocoa producer from San Pedro de Urabá, Colombia, who chose the latter model for her farm, which has helped protect the biodiversity of the area. Eugenia is supported by The Cacao Effect, a Global Development Alliance between USAID/Colombia, Luker Chocolate, the Luker Foundation, Enel Colombia, the Saldarriaga Concha Foundation, EAFIT University, and IDH (The Sustainable Trade Initiative) that seeks to strengthen the cocoa production chain and contribute to improving the living conditions of producers and their communities, providing opportunities in four sub-regions of Colombia: Urabá, Bajo Cauca, Huila, and Tumaco.

Aaita Sing Pakhrin, a trained mason, is photographed at work on a newly constructed house belonging to Jit Bahadur Thing, a USAID ReCoVER project participant. The house is located in Bakaiya-2 Makwanpur District of the Bagmati Province, Nepal and is built by the USAID ReCoVER project under the full construction house activity implemented by Catholic Relief Services.

A group of women community scouts from Conservation Lower Zambezi met with the United States Second Gentleman, Doug Emhoff, in Lusaka National Park during the Vice President’s visit to Zambia in May 2023. Over the last 5 years, the USAID Integrated Land and Resource Governance program has worked with government and conservation NGOs like Conservation Lower Zambezi to recruit and train women for community scout positions, a traditionally male-dominated sector. Scouts patrol Zambia's National Parks and adjacent Game Management Areas, contributing to biodiversity conservation to protect Zambia’s natural resources for generations to come.

Soma Dey, a smallholder farmer in West Bengal, India, shows off her vermin compost bin in the fall of 2022. Under a partnership between USAID (through the Integrated Land and Resource Governance program) and PepsiCo, Soma and other women in her community have received extension support in agronomy and sustainable farming practices, with the aim of better integrating women into PepsiCo’s potato supply chain. Applying learnings from sustainable farming practices training, Soma received worms from the project to set up her own compost bin. She uses the dirt on her potato fields to reduce her reliance on chemical fertilizers and has seen improved production on both her potato plots and vegetable garden. Helping women farmers adopt climate-smart agricultural practices is key to achieving both food security and climate change adaptation goals.

Rekha Patra Ghosh shows other farmers in her community proper potato planting and row spacing during a field visit at her PepsiCo demonstration plot in West Bengal, India in spring 2023. Under a partnership between USAID (through the Integrated Land and Resource Governance program) and PepsiCo, Rekha and other women in her community have received extension support in agronomy and sustainable farming practices, with the aim of better integrating women into PepsiCo’s potato supply chain. Rekha serves as a demonstration farmer under the project, where she cultivates a demonstration plot following all of PepsiCo’s package of practices and sustainable farming guidelines, and a control plot where she follows traditional community practices. Community members visit her demonstration plot three times to see practical applications at various points in the growing season. The goal of demonstration plots is both to show women in leadership roles in farming, as well as demonstrate proper practices to improve community adoption of sustainable farming practices to better respond to climate change adaptation needs as floods become more common in the region.

Marjina Begam Sheikh cuts potato seeds by hand in West Bengal. India in spring 2023. Under a partnership between USAID (through the Integrated Land and Resource Governance program) and PepsiCo, Marjina and other women in her community have received extension support in agronomy and sustainable farming practices, with the aim of better integrating women into PepsiCo’s potato supply chain. Women play a vital role in potato farming, performing key tasks like seed cutting and treatment, which are critical for productivity. These women are now adopting better farming practices and advising their husbands and day laborers. Helping women farmers adopt climate-smart agricultural practices is key to achieving both food security and climate change adaptation goals.

Anchá Vasco holds up heads of lettuce from her grower plot on agroforestry firm Grupo Madal lands in Quelimane, Mozambique. About 50,000 people have been farming on Madal’s underutilized landholdings. Rather than evicting these farmers, Madal has granted approximately 4,0000 of them (85% women) land use rights and farming contracts under a USAID pilot, providing farmers with inputs such as coconut saplings, cowpeas, maize, and peppers and extension support, with a guaranteed purchase by the company. Quelimane was recently hit by Hurricane Idai, making these livelihood opportunities even more important to help families rebuild. Post cyclone, Madal helped farmers like Anchá replant horticulture plots so they would have some income for the 2023 growing season. As climate change puts increasing pressure on smallholder farmers, innovative partnerships with the private sector can help farmers diversify their livelihoods and have a guaranteed source of income each season.

Morris Kwaku Nu walks through his cocoa farm in Asankrangwa, Ghana. Under a payment for ecosystem services (PES) scheme supported by the USAID Integrated Land and Resource Governance program and Hershey’s, Morris and other farmers in his community receive annual payments for maintaining naturally occurring trees on their cocoa farms. These trees provide needed shade to cocoa trees, protecting them from the sun and increasing productivity. Artisanal mining is a growing threat in the area, so PES systems can help incentivize farmers to maintain their naturally occurring trees, which supports Ghana’s larger climate change goals and ability to meet nationally determined contributions.

Grace Annison and her husband Kofi Acquas have been farming cocoa for over 40 years in Assin Fosu, Ghana. Cocoa dominates the Ghanaian economy, but low global prices, tree disease, and changing climate conditions make it increasingly hard to earn a living from cocoa farming. As a cash crop, cocoa is often considered a man’s domain, yet in reality, cocoa farming is a family affair. Under a partnership between USAID (through the Integrated Land and Resource Governance program) and cocoa commodity broker Ecom (which sources cocoa for major brands like Hershey’s, Mars, and Lindt), USAID is helping Ecom strengthen its gender equality and social inclusion approach to better target women and men farmers in cocoa value chains. This includes providing extension support to women and men at times/locations where women can participate, supporting farmers to adopt alternative livelihoods to diversify their incomes, and establishing village savings and loans associations to help families save for new businesses, home improvements, or support during the lean season. Helping cocoa farming families become more resilient to a changing climate supports both food security and climate adaptation goals.

Green Groups conducted an outreach session to students at the Prek Leap National Institute of Agriculture in Phnom Penh, Cambodia as part of a social and behavior change communication (SBCC) campaign to protect the region's wildlife by encouraging people to reduce buying and eating bushmeat.

One of Green Future’s strategic approaches is to promote youth as leaders in biodiversity conservation and forest protection by establishing Green Groups that serve as a key forum for facilitating conversations and action planning among youth on the project's three themes and other top environmental issues. After receiving SBCC toolkit training on the three themes, Green Groups conduct SBCC toolkit sharing and outreach sessions with peers in their schools and communities as well as promote the three themes’ campaign and other environmental messages.