Global Communities has deep experience partnering with communities experiencing the direct impact of climate change. As weather patterns change and disasters become fiercer and more frequent, supply chains are disrupted and homes, families and livelihoods are destroyed. Climate change threatens shared resources as conflicts and crises become more protracted. In 2019, there were over one billion people living in countries impacted by long-term humanitarian crises, including conflict, displacement and weather-related disasters. 

At Global Communities, we leverage learnings, best practices and expertise across humanitarian assistance, sustainable development and financial inclusion programming to deliver a comprehensive, evidence-based response to climate change in communities around the world. 

Our work includes partnering with communities in the aftermath of climate-driven disasters to address immediate needs and rebuild resilient infrastructure that lays the foundation for long-term recovery. We offer sustainable, innovative solutions to help families, farmers, neighborhoods and communities mitigate and adapt to the threats climate change poses to their lives and livelihoods. We enhance food security with climate-smart agriculture techniques and help design water systems that can survive stronger storms. Global Communities expands economic opportunities for smallholder farmers, supporting more diversified income streams so their families can survive droughts, floods and famines. We connect homeowners, businesses and entrepreneurs left out of the traditional financial system with access to credit so they can enhance structures to withstand climate-related damage and launch clean energy companies and green businesses.   

Our work is community focused and led, with strong support from public and private sector partners. 

Our Approach

Global Communities brings a forward-thinking, proactive approach to climate action. Our work includes a range of adaptation and mitigation activities that bolster communities' ability to prepare for, recover from and adjust to the impacts of climate change without compromising long-term prospects. Our work addresses the urgent, cross-cutting nature of climate change by combining innovative solutions with traditional knowledge to build resilient communities.

The impacts of climate change are considered across all our programs, however, our unique approach to climate action specifically targets vulnerable groups, including women and children, by integrating climate adaptation in food production and disaster risk reduction to avoid costly losses due to extreme weather events. To mitigate the potential negative environmental impact of our development efforts, we are also increasingly adopting approaches such as conservation agriculture to preserve and enrich soil, utilizing combined energy efficient stoves and tree planting initiatives to stem deforestation and exploring opportunities for carbon sequestration within our programs.

Global Communities’ climate action includes innovative public-private partnerships that span Africa, Asia and the Americas. One example is a partnership that includes Global Communities and the Insurance Development Forum working together to support the development of natural disaster risk insurance products for the city of Medellín, Colombia. The InsuResilience Solutions Fund is providing co-funding for the development of an insurance solution for municipal governments and individual citizens who face catastrophic losses due to climate-driven disasters, enhancing their resilience and ability to recover and rebuild lives and livelihoods.

8,000

farmers adapting to climate change through improved cultivation practices on more than 50,000 hectares through the Zambia Emerging Farmers Program partnership with Global Communities, Corteva and John Deere

14,000 

trees planted in Guatemala to promote reforestation and provide a renewable source of cooking fuel in the community

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