Padu S. Padmanaban has worked with USAID/India for over a decade, and is the program director of the South Asia Regional Energy Initiative.
Three years ago, Halima Khatun was a stay-at-home mother of two, barely scraping by on her disabled husband's meager income. Though her household was poor, her home deep in the Medha Kachhapia forest was rich in natural beauty—with 12 species of wood plants and about an equal number of herb and shrub varieties. It was a boon for Khatun, but a threat to the fragile forest.
It is my pleasure to have joined USAID earlier this year, and to have this opportunity to reach out to the broader development community about USAID's leadership on climate change. As many of you know, climate change is one of the greatest economic, social, and environmental challenges of our time. USAID is working to help countries accelerate their transition to climate-resilient, low-emissions development, helping advance the global green economy.
Kit Batten
It's difficult to imagine a country with greater energy needs and more acute climate vulnerability than Bangladesh. More than half of Bangladesh's 158 million people have no access to electricity, and the vast majority of those with access do not have a reliable or affordable supply. What's more, unmet electricity demand is growing at a rate of 10 percent per year. The shortage of reliable power limits the country's economic growth and contributes to high poverty rates. At the same time, climate change puts the lives of millions of Bangladeshis at risk and threatens to stall or reverse development gains over the last several decades.
Ashley Allen and Ashley King
Asea One is one of 21 companies in Asia that have launched new clean energy projects as a result of a USAID-supported initiative called the Private Financing Advisory Network (PFAN). Until PFAN, dozens of small- and medium-sized clean energy businesses (involving $1 million to $50 million investments) like Asea One—which should be the most dynamic sector of the clean energy market—struggled to find financing, which is much more easily available for conventional, larger types of energy-sector investments. PFAN bridges that gap.
Peter du Pont and Orestes Anastasia
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our generation. The poor in developing countries will likely be the first and hardest hit by climate change impacts because they are heavily dependent on climate-sensitive economic activities such as agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and tourism, and lack capacity to cope with economic and environmental shocks.
Julie L. Kunen
The science and practice of analyzing the interaction of climate change and conflict is new and evolving. There is little certainty over exactly how climatic change will manifest in specific locations or its consequences for economic development, political stability, and peace and security.
Cynthia Brady
Your Voice, a continuing FrontLines feature, offers personal observations from USAID employees. Nora Ferm is a climate change specialist in the Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade.
Nora Ferm
When the rain stops falling in Kenya, catastrophe strikes. The year 2009 hit the African nation with its worst drought in over 25 years. Crops were wiped out, entire herds of cattle killed. Farmers and livestock herders could no longer provide enough food for their own families, let alone the 23 million people across East Africa facing critical food and water shortages.
Staff
