Climatelinks Photo Gallery

Climate change-related risks in North-East Nigeria add to poor rainfall, droughts, food insecurity, and risk of famine. The crop and vegetable growing season of June-July is crucial for Easter Thomas, 54, a mother of eight children who live in the Wakama community of Biu in Borno state of Nigeria. She is an agri-entrepreneur who understands the importance of food access during the coming dry season and increasing climate change events of low rainfall and droughts. While diversifying her livestock and chickens, she also prepares herself for the next 6-8 months, when there will be almost no access to vegetables in her area. She is drying the Okora-ladyfinger and Amaranthus leaves traditionally by processing and preserving them to extend their storage life to make them available in the off-season. Easter was trained under Feed the Future Nigeria's Integrated Agriculture Activity program in August 2020 on various livestock management and nutrition-related aspects, including homestead gardens to grow different vegetables. 

Grace Michael, 45, is a farmer in the Zarawuyaku community of Biu, Borno state in North-East Nigeria. With seven children, she is the only income earner in the family and an active member of the Diza Farmers Producer group, formed under Feed the Future Nigeria's Integrated Agriculture Activity program in October 2020. Her group selected Grace as a Community Based Seed Producer CBSP and was provided with Foundation seeds of groundnut (SAMNUT-22 variety) to grow Certified seeds after training from Nigerian National Agricultural Seed Council-NASC. The improved variety of groundnut seeds she grows are climate-resilient in terms of high yielding, early maturing, drought-resistant, pest-resistant, and have high oil content compared to the traditional variety. Grace, who lost her husband ten years back, expects about 1,000kg of certified seeds that she can sell for ₦471,500 (US$1,150). With this income, she can support herself and her children to buy food, education, and better care.  

Irrigation systems help smallholder farmers conserve water and improve the quality of their crops. Having access to agricultural technologies can help farmers increase their resilience to climate change.  

This was a very interesting flash flood that lasted about three days in Kafue district (Zambia)

Mrs. Taghreed, an active member of Disi Women Cooperative, has been working in these nurseries located in Wadi Rum, Aqaba Governorate, Jordan. These nurseries aim to preserve and grow seedlings, and to be planted in their natural habitat, at the heart of the desert. Mrs. Taghreed is supporting and providing for her family by working in the Mitsubishi Corporation funded “Wadi Rum Ecosystems Restoration Project”. 

This activity improves the livelihoods of Wadi Rum locals, especially women, through ecosystem conservation and restoration. This activity works with Disi women cooperative (DWC), a local women’s community-based organization with 300 women members that was established in January 2010, targeting Bedouin women of the Disi basin villages to improve their lives. DWC main goals are:

• Women’s empowerment
• Provision of jobs and business opportunities to Disi women to improve their livelihoods
• Environment Protection

Mitsubishi Corporation supports this program as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility, providing a fund for WADI for Sustainable Ecosystems Development. This funded program is called “Wadi Rum Ecosystems Restoration Project”.

Waste is an overlooked and significant contributor to the climate crisis. Product manufacturing, distribution, as well as managing the resulting waste after its use, all result in GHG emissions and contribute to global climate change. USAID’s Clean Cities, Blue Ocean (CCBO) program – the agency’s flagship program for combating global ocean plastic pollution – works to empower women in the solid waste management sector, who have a sizable impact on reducing global ocean plastic pollution and lessening waste’s impact on climate change as they work around the world to capture and prevent waste from leaking into the environment and put plastics back into the circular economy.

CCBO program grantee, Project Zacchaeus, works to empower women and youth as ocean plastic pollution and climate leaders in their communities. Taken in the Spring of 2021 in Puerto Princesa City, Philippines, a waste collector and grant participant, or "Eco-Warrior," poses with aggregated waste from her community.

Lola Vásquez Fernández looks toward a hopeful future. The Imiría lagoon fisheries resources, in the Amazonian region of Ucayali, have slowly restored themselves over the years, providing food security for neighboring Indigenous communities and settlements. Academic and international cooperation institutions are providing technical assistance in the area, aiming to mitigate the effects of depredation and climate change the lagoon once experienced. A proper Fisheries Management Plan, currently being designed with the support of the USAID Pro-Bosques Activity, will help in the sustainable management of the resources. Thus, this Shipibo-Konibo woman will be able to continue to see the future with optimism. 

Jellard Muraho stands in front of a man-made dam wall his community built in Ward 14, Zaka district in Zimbabwe. A few years ago, people in his community had to herd their cattle 10km at a time to the nearest dam to drink water. Some cattle could not withstand the distance and those that survived were ravaged by hyenas. Losing their livestock to the scavengers, Jellard and his community identified a location where they could trap rainwater and build their very own dam closer to home. At $10 United States dollars per month, per household, it has taken the five villages three years to build the current wall. Through the community visioning process hosted by Takunda, community members shared the challenges they’ve come across, the solutions they’ve implemented and their vision as development committees.

USAID/Malawi supports sustainable forest management in Malawi. This picture shows a forest ranger measuring tree diameter in Namizimu Forest Reserve near a customary land in Mangochi district in Malawi’s Southern Region, during the 2021 National Forestry Inventory (NFI) exercise. The NFI enables the Government of Malawi to take stock of its forest resource status and quantify Malawi’s contributions towards climate change abatement through land-based interventions. Photo credit: Michael Chirwa, Modern Cooking for Healthy Forests (MCHF), July 2021.

The most scenic Mekong River landscape of the Koh Samseb Community-Based Ecotourism in Kratie province of Cambodia. The wide water basin full of human-uninhabited and inhabited green islands such as water forests, giant fishes, and endangered bird species. Visiting the Koh Samseb will not only expose visitors to the mighty Mekong River but also provides them with opportunities to contribute to social development and conservation activities. 

Working together is how they achieve their dreams and support their family. Flaviano and Iddy are father and son, and work together in agriculture. Having access to technology has helped them overcome climate change challenges, improve their productivity, and increase their income to support their family.

Agricultural technology can improve farmers’ resilience and help them overcome climate change challenges. Investing in an irrigation system and a structure to protect crops can reduce water waste and the use of harmful chemicals to prevent plagues that end up affecting soil, crops, environment and health.

USAID’s Clean Cities, Blue Ocean (CCBO) program – the agency’s flagship program for combating global ocean plastic pollution – eliminates plastic pollution directly at its source, working at the local level to fix land-based waste management systems and institute more sustainable, resilient practices. Current systems not only perpetuate environmental plastic leakage—amounting to an estimated 8 million tons of plastic flowing into the ocean each year—but fuel other real and serious impacts, including growing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and climate change. The Philippines-based non-profit and CCBO grantee, Communities Organized for Resource Allocation (CORA), helps to transform single-use plastics and other waste gathered at coastal clean-ups (pictured here) into new and recycled products to reduce plastics pollution and waste-linked emissions in the Philippines and increase awareness in local communities.

Kalasha Rawal is from Sisnari, Surkhet District; she depends on her small farm and community forest. Climate change has made drought and pests worse in Sisnari causing outmigration. Kalasha belongs to a Multiple Use Water System (MUS) developed by iDE through the Anukulan project (2015-19), funded by the UKAID BRACED Climate program. The MUS provides water to 20 disadvantaged families for domestic needs and agriculture from a spring source in the community forest. MUS provide environmental services, user fees pay a manager to run the system and protect the water source with fencing, plantings, and a recharge pond. Kalasha uses drip, a bamboo greenhouse, and safe Integrated Pest Management (IPM) including yellow sticky traps purchased from a last mile agent trained by Anukulan. The IPM was developed by the USAID IPM Innovation Lab (2016-21). Kalasha, who is from a disadvantaged ethnic group, produced vegetables using MUS water to improve family nutrition while earning $700/year. These earnings enabled her husband to return from India to work with Kalasha and be with their daughter. iDE Nepal developed over 500 MUS for 80,000 people. iDE works with the government to integrate MUS in adaptation plans shifting farmers from risky rainfed agriculture to piped irrigation.

Mrs. Tahani, an active member of Sabha’s Community (Mafraq Governorate, Jordan), working in Sabha’s Nursery, learning sustainable techniques, and contributing to supporting her family and overall community livelihoods. Through WADI, women will play an integral role in community-based natural resource management across Jordan. In partnership with the Hashemite Fund for the Development of Jordan Badia, the first women-run community nursery was established at Sabha, Mafraq in 2016. The nursery produces high-quality native seedlings using state-of-the art practices. The seedlings are used for landscape restoration throughout Jordan. Many of these women broke social barriers to work at the nursery with proven professional and personal success. They are now role models in their communities and are setting a standard of professional excellence for nursery management in the Kingdom. Hashemite Fund for the Development of Jordan Badia is a partner organization under the United States Forest Service funded Watershed Development Initiative.

USAID and their partners are targeting thousands of farmers, mostly landless women with families, and providing each person with long-term land contracts and incorporating them into Novo Madal’s supply chain as growers of coconuts and other agroforestry commodities. 

By practicing responsible agroforestry, mixing tree crops with annuals, farmers are increasing their resilience to climate change. Once established, coconut trees have the ability to survive varying rainfall levels that occur from year to year. Farmers intercrop these trees with beans, which improves soil health, provides a source of protein, and is a good cash crop.

The road trip to Ririma village was long and dusty, the desert hot and desolate. We stopped at a watering point in Kambinye village when we noticed pastoralists fetching water with their animals. We spoke to a lady who said that she and her entire village were forced to leave their home and head south. They had walked for about 30 kilometers in search of water, food and suitable pastures for their families and animals.