Climate change is increasing the variability of interannual rainfall and the frequency of extreme events, resulting in accelerated rates of soil and water degradation. Biodiversity is similarly impacted by climate change, to the detriment of human well-being. However, biodiversity, through the ecosystem services it supports, contributes to both climate-change mitigation and adaptation. That means conserving and sustainably managing biodiversity is critical to addressing climate change.

Making water out of thin air

Hydropanels bringing access to clean and potable water, improving livelihoods, creating jobs, and advancing health and wellbeing in drought affected areas, especially for women and girls.

Lightsmith Resilience Partners Fund (also known as CRAFT) is the world’s first market-driven investment vehicle dedicated to technologies and solutions for climate resilience. One CRAFT portfolio company called Zero Mass Water has invented hydropanels that can create drinking water from just sunlight and air – with the addition of some thermodynamics, materials science and controls technology. The installation of 149 of these hydropanels is now generating a year-round supply of clean, renewable drinking water to 500 members of the Bahía Hondita indigenous community in La Guajira, Colombia. Previously only 4% of the community had access to potable water and women and girls were being forced to spend up to two hours a day looking for ground water, which was often contaminated bringing unwanted health impacts, like skin rashes. This installation is part of a larger global push to scale up of the production and deployment of SOURCE hydropanels, especially in rising drought affected regions, under the investment umbrella of CRAFT, also featured in Section B of this report.

Adaptation actions for Andean dwellers

Investing in animal sheds and infiltration ditches in Bolivia to protect against extreme weather, saving livestock and livelihoods while alleviating work for women.

The communities of Villa Andino have for generations relied on the breeding of llamas and alpacas as their main livelihood. But as glaciers retreat, extreme micro-climatic snow, frost, hailstorms, winds and cold increasingly threaten the wellbeing of this livestock while degrading the pastural lands where they graze.

Tackling these threats, as part of a larger climate adaptation plan, this NDF-supported program, in partnership with Inter-American Development Bank, has built 50 sheds in the community of Villa Andino in the Municipality of Pucarani. The new sheds will protect livestock, nurturing an optimum breeding environment, while reducing herd mortality during severe weather events. They will also lessen the workload for women and children, who are often left in charge of grazing while the men go to work in the city.

Infiltration ditches designed to capture and infiltrate water into pastures have also been constructed in these communities, with over 110 hectares of pasture and wetland now preserved and in recovery. The process of restoring native grassland has been done through introducing ancient local methods that need to be managed closely.

Artisanal fisheries program in Northern Honduras casts a wide net

Conserving mangrove ecosystems in Honduras by boosting indigenous artisanal fishing competitiveness and inclusion while increasing resilience to climate change

The NDF co-financed project in partnership with Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is working with local indigenous fishing companies and organisations to ensure their sustainable and environmentally responsible inclusion in the economy while preserving the mangrove ecosystem on which their economy depends.

The project has been successful in strengthening the community-based artisanal fishing SMEs using a value chain approach. Fishing organisations now have increasingly diverse and safe fisheries businesses with traceability for all fish catch. Solar plants have been installed to provide cold storage and ice production.

A national mangrove inventory has been completed together with the national forestry service and four wetlands and mangrove committees have been established. Project results have benefitted more than 10,900 people of which around 2,840 women, including 286 divers with disabilities.

The project will be completed later during 2022.

Charcoal value-chains for resilience in Rwanda

Promoting efficiency and sustainability along charcoal value-chains in support of forest landscape restoration and rural livelihoods

Forests in Rwanda provide a high percentage of primary energy, mainly for household cooking and industries like tea factories. The forests also form the base for the country’s tourism efforts, protect watersheds and downstream wetlands, prevent erosion, and support agriculture, among many other things.

This six-year project, financed by NDF and the World Bank, is part of larger initiative that has culminated in a new area of UNESCO protected National Park. Through NDF’s support, around 1,490 hectares in Gishwarti-Mukura, North-West Rwanda is now under improved natural resources management. This is specifically due to advances in woodlot management practices but NDF’s support also contributed to improving natural resources management through other means, including seed quality for climate resilience, charcoal production, distribution and marketing.

Woodlot management focused on supporting the use of native species in forest restoration to promote a more diverse tree seed pool, as well as creating a new seed collection centre promoting seeds that may withstand higher temperatures and floods.

Under the project, technical support in charcoal production and biomass processing given to farmer groups and cooperatives has led to more sustainable production, distribution and marketing practices as well as better market access for their end products. This is giving local producers an income boost, as well as reducing the time women and children spend gathering wood fuel. Rural populations are also enjoying the indirect benefits of enhanced ecosystem services and productive functions that their forest resources provide.