Four Ways USAID Supports African Climate Leadership

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U.S. Agency for International Development

5 min readSep 5, 2023

The dynamic, diverse nations that make up the African continent have a vital role to play in the global fight against climate change, advancing ambitious actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while supporting the resilience and well-being of their people.

USAID remains deeply committed to Africa. For decades, the Agency has partnered with governments, communities, and the private sector to develop and advance green economies at scale to help African nations mitigate and adapt to the increasingly destructive impacts from climate change.

Here are four ways USAID supports African leaders across the continent to advance their ambitious climate goals and move toward a cleaner, safer, more equitable Africa.

Air Quality (Kenya)

Large cooking pots sitting outdoors on an urban street with steam spilling out as people walk by. — Nairobi’s worst air quality is found in the city’s informal settlements, where more than 70% of Nairobi’s residents live. / Susanna Jolly, USAID

Cities like Nairobi, Kenya are on the frontlines of a growing health crisis inextricably linked to the climate crisis. Poor air quality threatens human health and is responsible for more than 19,000 deaths in Kenya each year.

USAID’s Clean Air Catalyst project is focused on developing solutions that curb toxic pollutants, tackle climate change, and protect human health. The project brings together expertise from air quality science, public health, data science, governance, communications and locally led coalitions that aims to deliver sustainable, equitable interventions. Community partners like the Nairobi County Government, the National Environment Management Authority, and local scientists collect data in the city’s most affected communities. Community, health, and business leaders provide input into the city’s Air Quality Action Plan to build a shared understanding of the root causes of Nairobi’s air pollution in order to address it most effectively.

Projects like these are essential to protect the future of urban communities in Nairobi and other urban cities to achieve cleaner, healthier air.

Forest Conservation (The Congo Basin)

An overhead view of a lush green forest with a winding river and low-hanging clouds. — USAID improved sustainable land-use of more than 3.5 million hectares of biologically sensitive forests in 2022, including in Salonga National Park, DRC, home to endangered wildlife species including four species of great apes. / Cody Pope for USAID

The Congo Basin in Central Africa is increasingly under threat due to rapid tropical forest deforestation, environmental degradation, growing populations, and climate change.

This landscape also provides habitat to vast biodiversity, has one of the world’s largest tropical carbon “sinks,” and regulates weather patterns across the globe.

USAID safeguards vital ecosystems like the Congo Basin by working to reduce pressure on forests and wildlife, and provide sustainable resources and livelihoods for local communities. For example, the Agency is partnering with Nespresso to help farmers plant and grow coffee trees around the Kahuzi-Biega National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a carbon-rich landscape and one of the few remaining habitats of the world’s 6,800 eastern lowland gorillas. This helps keep forests intact while ensuring communities prosper.

Over the last five years, USAID partnerships have created thousands of jobs and improved management of 17.1 million hectares — an area larger than Florida — of biologically sensitive forests in the DRC alone. These efforts contribute to President Biden’s Plan to Conserve Global Forests.

Agriculture (The Sahel)

A man gestures while in field with depleted soil and hip-high plants. — In Mali, Ousmane, an agro-pastoralist, explains: **“Look at this soil. It is completely depleted. Our land has become poor.”** In the face of climatic hazards and severe droughts that have affected agriculture and weakened food security, farmers have extended the practice of intensive agriculture while acquiring supplies from neighboring Burkina Faso. / Samuel Turpin for USAID

Agriculture in the Sahel is extensive and employs large swathes of the population. It contributes 40% of the combined regional GDP and employs nearly 70% of the labor force in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Niger.

Yet, the Sahel is one of the most vulnerable regions in the world to climate change, posing a serious threat to farmers. Various forecasts suggest that the region’s main harvest will decrease by 15 to 30% by 2080.

Chad and Niger could potentially lose their entire rainfed agriculture by 2100. Additionally, in the Sahel, agriculture is poorly mechanized, and almost entirely reliant on the limited three to four months of variable summer rainfall from June to September), making it highly vulnerable to climate variability and change.

Given these vulnerabilities, agriculture is a main focus for USAID in the region, with the Agency implementing several activities to help the people of the Sahel manage these threats. For example, USAID supports efforts to restore the fertility of the land by using techniques that can also reduce soil erosion and increase water retention.

In Burkina Faso and Niger, over the past five years, 76,000 people applied these improved technologies to more than 120,000 hectares of land — the equivalent of nearly 70,000 soccer fields. As a result, farmers saw an average increase of 700% in sales. USAID’s work to increase climate resilience across the region contributes to the U.S. Government-led PREPARE.

Energy (South Africa)

With four windmills behind him, a man in a hardhat and bright yellow safety jacket holds a walkie-talkie while pointing towards the sky. — Israel Thothela, the site manager at the Karusa Wind Farm located three hours outside Cape Town, South Africa, explained this need: **“As a country, we need more and more clean energy produced and supplied to the national power grid, which will also alleviate poverty and create employment in communities.”** / Fraser Schenck, Power Africa

South Africa has been experiencing an energy crisis since early 2022 — with rolling blackouts that affect millions of people and hamper economic development. As a result of the energy crisis, through Power Africa, USAID began to partner with the country’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Program in South Africa’s Northern Cape.

The aim: to increase electricity capacity through private sector investment, bringing the Karusa and Soetwater wind farms online in 2022. Between the two wind farms, over 70 wind turbines — the largest in Africa — generate 4.2 megawatts of power each, totaling 1.1 terawatt hours of renewable energy annually.

This translates into averting 1 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions every year.

In addition, the energy the turbines produce will be integrated into the national energy grid, alleviating poverty and creating jobs in communities all over South Africa.

Since 2013, Power Africa, a U.S. Government-led partnership, has worked for the past decade to convene the decision-makers, development partners, investors, and businesses needed to accelerate a carbon-free future and bolster U.S. and African private sector innovation.

Power Africa has delivered first-time electricity access to more than 180 million people across sub-Saharan Africa and connected nearly 37.5 million homes and businesses to electricity. In 2022 alone, Power Africa helped add 978 megawatts of new electricity generation — 74% of which comes from renewable sources — to the grid and delivered first-time or improved electricity access to over 37 million people through nearly 8 million new on- and off-grid connections to homes and businesses.

About the Author

Susanna Jolly is a Senior Communications Advisor in the Bureau of Development, Democracy, and Innovation (DDI). She supports Agency communications in the environmental sector, with a focus on biodiversity conservation; land and resource governance; and climate change.