Environment
As part of efforts to reverse trends in deforestation and forest degradation, USAID supports women's groups in Tanzania to grow native trees from seedlings and distribute them area-wide. Photo: African Wildlife Foundation
Africa's abundant natural resources hold the promise of broad-based, sustainable economic growth. The African continent is home to the world's greatest concentrations of large mammals, the world's second largest tropical rainforest, and other important desert, wetlands, and coral reef ecosystems. The richness and diversity of ecosystems is central to the livelihoods of rural Africans, an estimated 70 percent of whom depend on natural resources for their livelihoods.
However, with the highest rates of deforestation in the world and growing urbanization, Africa's natural resources are at risk. Most of the damage to Africa's biodiversity is caused by humans-including logging, overhunting, pollution, and expansion of human settlements-and climatic variations. Africa's water resources cannot sustain the status quo given the continent's vast size and rapidly growing population. Approximately 300 million Africans lack access to clean drinking water, and high population growth rates put increasing pressure on limited water resources.
While Africa's contribution to global emissions is relatively low, it is highly susceptible to the effects of global climate change. Limited resources hinder the ability of Africa's poorest people to cope with the effects of weather and climate extremes. Africans are increasingly living in cities and working in industrial jobs, underscoring the need for development strategies that simultaneously achieve economic and environmental goals.
USAID environment programs across Africa demonstrate the sector's ability to be a robust vehicle for rural economic growth, stronger local governance and conflict mitigation, as well as reduced environmental degradation. The Global Climate Change Initiative in Africa has three main areas of focus: 1) equipping governments, communities, and individuals to better respond and adapt to changing climatic conditions; 2) encouraging the use of clean energy sources; 3) and managing land effectively to protect and sustain natural landscapes.
USAID works with African governments to strengthen data collection and analysis to help effect sound environmental decisions and policies. Biodiversity conservation has been a part of USAID investments in Africa for more than 30 years, and these investments now provide an evidence-based foundation for conservation. In collaboration with the scientific and agricultural communities, USAID improves the adoption and use of new and existing technologies. To respond to the region's growing energy needs, USAID helps to attract investment in clean technologies to reduce carbon emissions while supporting robust and sustainable growth. USAID also supports the development of sustainable landscape management systems and reforestation efforts, which mitigate the effects of land degradation and desertification, as well as provide economic benefits to tourism and other industries.
Select USAID-Supported Resources
A peer-to-peer network for natural resource management practitioners to improve knowledge sharing, access research and tools, and participate in discussions and networking.
The portal provides natural resources management and development-related document management services, collections of categorized media, and current news and content.
A USAID-funded activity that collaborates with international, regional and national partners to provide timely and rigorous early warning and vulnerability information on emerging and evolving threats to food security.
USAID Regional Programs in Africa
SERVIR-East Africa integrates satellite observations and predictive models with other geographic information to monitor and forecast ecological changes and respond to natural disasters. This evolving regional visualization and monitoring platform has been established in east Africa to improve scientific knowledge and decision-making in a range of areas including conservation, disaster management, agricultural development, and climate change adaptation. Recently SERVIR data was used in coordination with FEWS NET to predict and help respond to the drought crisis in the Horn of Africa.
The Central African Regional Program for the Environment (CARPE) is a USAID initiative to promote sustainable natural resource management in the Congo Basin. The Congo Basin forest is the second largest contiguous moist tropical forest in the world and plays a key role in securing the livelihoods of central African citizens. The forest also provides critical habitat for biodiversity conservation and supplies vital regional and worldwide ecological services. Through CARPE, USAID works to reduce the rate of forest degradation and loss of biodiversity by supporting increased local, national, and regional natural resource management capacity.
Sustainable and Thriving Environments for West African Regional Development (STEWARD) is a regional program, covering Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire, and Ghana, addressing regional threats to biodiversity as well as capitalizing on regional opportunities to spread best practices, harmonize policies and improve regional markets.
The Southern Africa Regional Environmental Program will improve the abilities of the Permanent Okavango River Basin Water Commission member states to plan and manage their trans-boundary resources. The program focuses on strengthening institutional capacity in the areas of trans-boundary cooperation, sustainable water resource management and biodiversity conservation. In the Okavango River Basin, improved water management will protect critical biodiversity within areas that are identified for conservation, including the Okavango Delta, the world's largest recognized "wetland of international importance."
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