Two women walk through a rice paddy field

Conflict and Governance

Climate change—whether through rapid-onset events like floods and storms, or through more slowly moving processes, such as droughts, sea level rise, and temperature change—can contribute to the fragility of areas experiencing or vulnerable to armed conflict and violence. By recognizing the links between climate change and existing social, economic, and political fragilities, USAID programming can help build resilience and decrease vulnerability. Transformative shifts in governance systems to enhance climate resilience can address these dual stressors. USAID's Climate Strategy explains how the Agency utilizes principles of environmental peacebuilding to advance equitable resource sharing and management that both mitigate conflict and increase climate resilience. Similarly, the USAID Bureau for Conflict Prevention and Stabilization can leverage tools like its Violence and Conflict Analysis to ensure conflict-sensitive climate programs.

Addressing Conflict and Strengthening Stability in a Changing Climate
Climate Risk Screening and Management Tools
Exploring the Triple Nexus of Gender Inequality, State Fragility, and Climate Change
Strengthening Adaptation Responses to Support Human Movement in a Changing Climate
Technical Report

Overview of Climate Security at USAID

Document

Land & Conflict: A Toolkit for Intervention 2.0

Several student projects around the world were recognized as winners of the 2022 USAID Science for Development Awards. The projects were in the fields of agriculture and food security, climate and environmental protection, global health, and working in crisis and conflict.
Group of teenagers smiling on a boat in Zimbabwe.
Our 2023 Photo Contest theme is USAID’s Climate Strategy in Action: Confronting the Climate Crisis Across Sectors. We are looking for submissions that show the breadth of issues, impacts, and solutions to climate change across 13 categories. Submissions will be open starting July 11, 2023.
Climatelinks photo contest header image (no text)
Across the Sahel, growing tensions between farmers and herders are more frequently spilling over into deadly clashes. Rapid population growth, along with the impacts of climate change such as extreme drought and increasingly unpredictable weather patterns, are intensifying pressures on land and associated natural resources, contributing to this uptick in violence. 

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