The Challenge
For millions of people around the world, the consequences of climate change are increasingly devastating. Higher temperatures bring more droughts and the spread of heat-related, infectious diseases such as dengue,
Human actions have degraded ecosystems more drastically in the last 50 years than in all of history.
malaria and cholera. Flooding and the loss of food and safe water—and more frequent and more intense storms—lead to dramatic coastal erosion.
All of these impacts, taken together, could result in the loss of homes, jobs and food. For many, they could also result in the loss of lives. Over the past 50 years, severe weather disasters have caused more than 800,000 deaths. The far-reaching effects of climate change hit poor people the hardest. They have the fewest resources and the least capacity to prepare for, plan for, and withstand climate change crises.
Our Strategy
The Rockefeller Foundation’s Developing Climate Change Resilience Initiative aims to catalyze attention, funding and action to promote resilience to climate change on several levels. We focus on three pivotal areas: Asian urban environments, African agriculture and US policy. We are creating models for action on climate change in cities—models that can be replicated and expanded in other regions. We are helping adapt African agriculture to cope with environmental changes. And we are promoting awareness and guiding funders and policymakers to support broader action on climate change resilience, nationally and internationally, to help poor and vulnerable people around the world.
Specifically, the Foundation partners with governments, other foundations, donors, NGOs and groups from the private sector, to work in the following areas:
- Piloting urban-based resilience strategies through the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network
- Adapting African agriculture for climate change resilience
- Promoting policies and funding to build climate change resilience for poor and vulnerable people
- Building new constituencies for climate change resilience policies
- Communicating with policymakers about climate change resilience-building tactics
- Building capacity and networks and developing new funding streams for resilience strategies
Key Outcomes
We aim to to develop a deeper understanding of climate resilience and the capacities and resources needed to build resilience to current and future climate risks on a large scale. This inititiative has three anticipated outcomes:
- In an urban context, the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) builds the capacity of city stakeholders to implement resilience strategies and share knowledge.
- Within the agriculture development sector in Africa, the initiative supports more climate resilience practices within agricultural development institutions.
- Within the US context, the initiative informs federal and local government policymakers about the benefits of both adopting domestic resilience efforts and policies and supporting international resilience efforts.
Full Summary: Developing Climate Change Resilience & ACCCRN (PDF)
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