Blog
Women and Climate Leadership
February 10, 2020
On U.N.’s International Day of Women and Girls in Science, February 11, Winrock salutes all the girls and women our projects educate and empower — as well as the female scientists on our staff, who use their talents to help societies thrive. Last year I was selected to join the fourth cohort of Homeward Bound, […]
Fighting Wetland Loss Through Sustainable Development
January 30, 2020
On February 2, 1971, representatives from a handful of countries gathered in the small Iranian city of Ramsar on the Caspian Sea. Their historic mandate — to sign the first modern agreement between governments to preserve natural resources — built upon a decade of negotiations by environmentalists concerned by […]
Helping Vietnam Track its PFES Impacts
December 20, 2019
Since 2012, the USAID Vietnam Forests and Deltas program (VFD) has been helping the Government of Vietnam develop and operationalize a national Payment for Forest Environmental Services (PFES) program that has already directed over USD $500 million to forest owners as financial compensation for maintaining forest cover. For example, Vietnam’s hydroelectric power plants now reward […]
On the Frontlines of Climate Change
December 9, 2019
Bangladesh regularly tops the list of countries most heavily affected by global climate change. With over half the U.S. population in a country the size of New York state, its vulnerability is compounded by low-lying, flood-plain geography, limited infrastructure and high exposure to natural disasters and extreme weather. The day I landed in Dhaka, the […]
What’s in a Game?
November 13, 2019
This article was originally published in USAID’s Climatelinks. In Ghana, a changing climate is affecting the production of cocoa, one of the country’s major cash crops and its second leading foreign exchange earner. USAID and Winrock International worked together to produce ECO Game: Northern Ghana to provide communities with a better sense of land use planning […]
Encouraging Climate Optimism in Peru
November 6, 2019
“Between 1962 and 2016, Peru lost over 54 percent of its total glacial area.” “More intense rain events are expected, especially during El Niño years, increasing the risks of floods and landslides.” These were among the sobering facts about climate change that my team and I presented during workshops we delivered on behalf of the U.S. […]
Changing the Face of Clean Water Supply in Tanzania
October 17, 2019
It’s Friday morning in Hembeti, a rural village in eastern Tanzania, and Irene Lemelo is hard at work. Members of the local community update her on their progress digging trenches for water pipes, and Lemelo answers their questions about a gravity-fed water system now under construction. When she finished her engineering degree a year ago, […]
Climate Week NYC 2019: Where are we on climate finance?
October 9, 2019
Climate Week NYC takes place every year alongside the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and could be described to a lay person as a climate event with the scale and enthusiasm equal to the combination of Lollapalooza, SXSW and Woodstock. I would have included Burning Man but for the ominous metaphorical link to global warming. […]
In Mozambique, Lean Production Principles Help Farmers Get the Information They Need
October 2, 2019
Traditionally, small farmers in Mozambique prepare their ground with a short-handled hoe and plant by hand, a labor-intensive method that constrains the area of land each farmer can cultivate. But lean production principles are beginning to change that. In the Nacala Corridor of Mozambique, nearly 3,000 farmers have started to apply new agricultural technologies, including […]
Responding to the Call to Action
September 27, 2019
The Global Commission for Adaptation (GCA)’s “Call to Action” report released on September 19, 2019 is a highly anticipated urgent plea for investment and increased effort for adaptation ahead of the UN Climate week and the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties in Chile (COP25) in December. It is a tour […]