Climatelinks Photo Gallery

An Emberá Indigenous woman in Bagadó, Chocó, Colombia, collects supplies donated by the World Food Programme. The image is from the Government of Colombia’s Department of Social Prosperity's Families in their Land program supported by USAID.

In Colombia's Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range, an Arhuaco Indigenous man looks at the new cocoa processing factory that has emerged as a result of the USAID Alliances for Reconciliation Program. The factory represents an economic opportunity and is a testament to the desire to preserve and revitalize centuries-old traditions. 

In Arauca, Colombia, a family of Venezuelan waste pickers participates in the USAID and ACDI/VOCA Emergency Response in Aracua program, a vital response to the humanitarian emergency caused by migration. As they work to reduce pollution, their presence highlights the importance of their work as recyclers and agents of change in their environment.

A solar-powered irrigation system installed by Solar Green Energy Cambodia (SOGE) in the rice fields in Cambodia’s Pursat province will help hundreds of farmers utilize renewable energy in rice farming. SOGE installed the solar-powered irrigation system for four water communities along Tonle Sap River, helping more than a hundred of rice and vegetable farmers access water for cultivation, by increasing their crop cycles, increase their incomes. Owned by a woman entrepreneur in the renewable energy sector, the company has helped Cambodian farmers adopt climate-smart agriculture technologies and practices to save time and costs in agriculture production.

A solar-powered irrigation system installed in at Handcrafted Cashew Nuts Stung Treng (HCST) effectively distributes water for planting cashew. By generating electricity from solar renewable energy, HCST has embraced climate-smart farming and lowered their production cost. Located in the Stung Treng province in northeast Cambodia, HCST is a woman-owned cashew processor aiming to promote local products to export markets by improving its processing facilities and strengthening supply chains. It has helped hundreds of local producers including women, youth, and members of marginalized groups strengthen climate-smart agricultural practices and increase incomes.

Safe vegetables are planted in the net house installed by Punleu Thmey Pech Chenda Agricultural Cooperative in Battambang province, located in the northwest of Cambodia. On average, this agricultural cooperative collects 24 tons of fresh vegetables from its farmer members monthly to supply to domestic markets across Cambodia. Through a grant received from Feed the Future Cambodia Harvest III, Punleu Thmey Pech Chenda Agricultural Cooperative is expanding the adoption of net houses and strengthening good agricultural practice to other farmers, bringing safe and nutritious foods to consumers.

In Bangladesh, USAID has been at the forefront of transforming agri-food system through promoting inclusive and sustainable climate smart technologies and practices. This group of women has been trained and recruited by a local agro firm in Jashore, in the southern part of the country, to prepare improved "grow media," a critical input for vegetable production that promises better and higher yield. This also contributes to maintaining and improving soil health. Through a grant under a contract, USAID is supporting this local private sector firm to not only promote climate smart agricultural technologies, practices and approaches, but also helping rural women with income earning activities, contributing to their welfare.

Jeremías Gomez Repero cultivates coffee on a small family farm in the department of Caquetá, Colombia. He grew up farming coffee with his family until a deadly fungus decimated their farm. He now has a new focus after joining Amazonia Connect, a partnership between USAID, Solidaridad, Earth Innovation Institute, National Wildlife Federation, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Jeremías and other farmers in the region are learning low-carbon farming techniques that can reduce emissions, protect biodiversity and provide for a sustainable livelihood. Together with USAID’s Amazon Regional Environment Program, producers, companies, local governments and financial institutions, Amazonia Connect promotes and scales the adoption of low-emission commodity production to improve biodiversity conservation and climate resilience in Brazil, Colombia and Peru. 

A fisher uses a kasag caliper to comply with sustainability requirements to catch legal sized blue swimming crabs. The USAID Fish Right Program co-developed the tool with the University of the Philippines Visayas and launched its use with the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) in the island Barangay of Igbon. Igbon is a blue swimming crab model village in Concepcion, Iloilo that is receiving support from public and private sector partners to increase the blue swimming crab stocks. 

A strong public-private-community partnership between BFAR, USAID, blue swimming crab fishers, industry partners, and others, is aimed at improving the rating of the Philippine blue swimming crab from red (avoid) to yellow (good alternative) in the U.S. market. A yellow rating, which is conditional on responsible fishing practices, means broader access to the export market for blue swimming crab fishers. Sustainable fisheries facilitates a more stable livelihood and better incomes for fishers, a key contributor to climate resilience. 

Hadiza Bala bought her farm after joining the Women Empowerment Group supported by Breakthrough ACTION Nigeria. The group helps women understand how to improve the overall health and wellbeing of themselves, their families, and the community and how to start or expand their businesses. On Bala’s farm is a tree where she finds succor after long hours of farming. Planting trees protects the environment and gives people shade from the scorching sun.

An older man grinds sugarcane in Lawang village, West Sumatra. The final product is sugarcane juice which will be cooked into brown sugar. This is an example of an ultra-micro enterprise.

Young Tagbanua women Calauit island in Busuanga, Palawan monitor the Women-Managed Area of their ancestral water after two weeks of rain. 

The Tagbanua elders have awarded parts of the ancestral waters for the women to manage. This partnership has helped conserve the already-dwindling stock of cachipay (windowpane oyster) as the women protect and conserve marine reserves, sustainably harvesting cachipay for food and livelihood. Cachipay is an important food source for the Tagbanua people of Calauit, especially during bad weather when the men cannot go out to fish. The cachipays also served as a critical food resource for the community during the COVID-19 lockdowns. With extreme weather events becoming more frequent with climate change, conserving food sources such as cachipay is crucial for this Indigenous community. 

USAID Fish Right, in partnership with the PATH Foundation Philippines, Inc. and Community Centered Conservation Philippines, helped establish the Calauit Women-Managed Area and trained Indigenous Tagbanua women in natural resource management, entrepreneurship, and environmental protection.

Halima Jotinga is a livestock farmer based in the Jiddari Polo community in Maiduguri. Halima grows crops using hydroponics as a climate-friendly alternative to animal feed, which has become very expensive due to various macro-economic shocks such as inflation. Hydroponics is the process of growing seeds with little water and without soil. The USAID funded Feed the Future Nigeria Rural Resilience Activity is piloting this innovative use of hydroponic fodder technology to support its participants in adopting a climate-smart feeding practice for dairy cattle and poultry. Commercial hydroponics production has a potential to reduce farmer-herder clashes, conserve grasses for dry season use, and replace open grazing during the dry season.

The Ward Development Committee chairman utilizes the locally made hand washing machine at Samika Primary Healthcare Center in Shanga Ward, Kebbi state. The construction of a hand washing machine at the Primary Healthcare Center is a locally-led development and infrastructure project. Hand washing is critical to the response effort for public health emergencies such as Lassa fever, Ebola, and COVID-19. It also contributes to overall health and is a key behavior in the One Health approach.

The Kaamulan Festival is a gathering of the seven indigenous people groups of Bukidnon, Northern Mindanao. Tourists flock the city of Malaybalay as the Indigenous Peoples perform rituals, dances, and prayers for a bountiful year ahead. The subjects in the photo are grandmothers and grandchildren, who are having fun while other people perform. From intense heat to heavy rains, they are resilient, but still need funds to further protect their crops and livelihoods.

The Siete Pecados Marine Park consists of seven islets in barangay Tagumpay, municipality of Coron, province of Palawan, Philippines. USAID helped establish the Park in 2004, with an original area of 0.52 km2, and it has since expanded to 1.53 km2 in 2020, with revenue of at least $124,000 annually from managed tourism. Illegal fishing used to be a serious problem there, but over time, the initiative grew from a local coastal community's effort to restore their fisheries and generate income into an integrated effort that has restored fisheries stocks and coral cover, improved marine biodiversity, enhanced climate resilience, and generated income for local communities and revenue for local government. Siete Pecados Marine Park is now one of the most recognized community-managed marine protected areas in the country in terms of management effectiveness at the local, pro