The USAID approach to addressing climate change through its development assistance programmes is set out in this paper. It describes past, existing and future initiatives against a background in which the focus of USAID development assistance has shifted from a strategy based on official development assistance (ODA) to the current Global Development Alliance (GDA) approach based on partnerships with the private sector.Broadly their strategy is based on three components designed, within a broader context of sustainable development, to address both the near-term and long-term aspects of climate change:slowing the growth of GHG emissionslaying the groundwork for both current and future action through major investments in science, technology, and institutionsinternational cooperation with other nations to develop an efficient and effective global responseIt has aimed to link climate change and development together in projects which promote development that:minimises the associated growth in GHG emissionsassists vulnerable populations and ecosystems to adapt to potential impacts from climate variability and changesupports climate observationIn the future this focus will continue but with greater emphasis on measuring the effects of projects, and the development of tools which can be more easily applied by development projects to address and measure climate change components.Past and current initiatives are described which focus on or included a climate change component including:The first USAID Global Warming Initiative (GWI)Global Climate Change Strategy (GCCS) U.S. Country Studies Program.Regional initiatives Climate Change Initiative (CCI)Global Climate Change ProgramEconomic Growth, Agriculture and Trade (EGAT) BureauProjects seem to be focused in a number of sectors namely:agricultureforestrynatural resource managementenergycapacity buildingtechnology transferThis paper was presented at the OECD Global Forum on Sustainable Development: Development and Climate Change, Paris 2004.

Publication date
Type of publication
Document
Objective
Adaptation
Collection
Eldis
Cross-sectoral enabler
Governance and planning
Sectors
Agriculture and forestry
CTCN Keyword Matches
Mitigation in the pulp and paper industry
Climate change monitoring
Ecosystems and biodiversity
Ecosystem restoration and conservation plans
Agriculture
Embedding climate variability in hydropower design