Global Climate Change Adaptation Activities

Success in building resilience to the impacts of climate change will only be realized when we provide the necessary tools and take useful action. USAID has begun a number of activities that enhance the delivery of weather and climate information or test new approaches to building resilience.

Climate Services

USAID is investing in the scientific capacity of partner countries, and improving access to and use of climate information to help societies identify vulnerabilities and evaluate potential adaptation strategies. The programs described below are examples of USAID’s work to provide access to timely and user-driven information for climate change adaptation.

SERVIR

A collaborative effort with NASA, SERVIR provides 8 countries in Central America and 14 countries in East Africa with satellite imagery and useable weather and climate information, informing decisionmaking in health, environmental management, and disaster preparedness. SERVIR expanded in 2010 to cover the Hindu Kush/Himalaya region. Through the Climate Mapper, a broad user community can look at climate change projections for the 2030s and 2050s against 3-D visualizations of landscape.

Climate Services Partnership

The Climate Services Partnership (CSP) was formed at the first International Conference on Climate Services (ICCS) to advance climate services around the world. The CSP draws from a broad membership to promote the matching of the best information with those who need to use it in decision making. In doing so, the CSP supports the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS), a formal international system that facilitates the coordinated support of climate services worldwide.

Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET)

FEWS NET improves the accuracy of famine prediction systems in part by refining and applying climate data to the prediction and monitoring of food insecurity through a field-based presence in 20 countries on three continents, with additional remote monitoring in nine countries.

High Mountain and Glacier Partnership

This partnership grew out of a series of activities that USAID and the National Science Foundation organized to bring together physical and social scientists working on glaciers and decision makers and development practitioners working in glacier dependent areas. These included a stakeholder workshop in Peru that resulted in a research agenda and a development action agenda, and a workshop in Nepal where Andean experts shared their experience reducing the hazards of Glacier Lake Outburst Floods with decision makers from the Himalaya-Hindu Kush and from Central Asia. The idea of the Partnership is to create a community of practice consisting of researchers and decision makers who can turn to each other for support. The Partnership will pursue research and adaptation agendas to reduce the risks, and take advantage of opportunities, associated with development in high mountain environments.

With better access to customized, market-based insurance products, poor farmers and their families will be better able to prepare for and cope with the impacts of the droughts and other severe weather events that are predicted to become increasingly common as the climate changes. Insurance coverage can also help farmers obtain the loans needed to invest in technologies to increase their productivity and build their resiliency. USAID’s approach is mindful of the fact that insurance is not a stand-alone solution; it is most effective when combined with risk reduction measures. The following are examples of USAID’s engagement in this area:

• In Senegal, USAID is supporting the World Food Program and its partners in the implementation of the Rural Resilience Initiative, which is combining risk reduction measures, savings, credit, and insurance in order to promote climate change adaptation and food security, and testing the effectiveness of this packaged approach.

• In Ethiopia, USAID is supporting the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in the design of a micro-insurance product for poor pastoralists who are dealing with increasing drought risk.

• In 2011, USAID signed an MOU with the international re-insurer Swiss Re, to collaboratively strive to increase access to market-based insurance products that can enable the poor to better prepare for and cope with the impacts of climatic disasters.

Gender

Women often possess skills and experiences relevant to climate change, especially knowledge of local ecosystems, agriculture and natural resources management. Women are also disproportionately vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Climate change interventions are unlikely to be successful without the support and involvement of women. USAID aims to make its adaptation efforts inclusive and gender sensitive, and demonstrate ways to effectively integrate this perspective into adaptation programs.

Pilot Work in Peru

In Peru, USAID supported The Mountain Institute (TMI) to conduct a series of community workshops to analyze climate vulnerability and test ways to integrate a gender approach into adaptation. Women identified the need to conserve local ecosystems like high Andean wetlands and grasslands, which are critical for water regulation especially in the context of the melting glaciers. The project is also providing leadership and climate change training to women serving on municipal councils. The trainings inspired these women to establish their own climate change network, helping to ensure that women’s priorities are reflected in local adaptation projects.