USAID Comprehensive Action for Climate Change Initiative (CACCI)
Highlights
- An Abt-led team will help countries develop tailored climate adaptation plans.
- Localization and equity will be key elements of the plans.
- The team will provide data analysis, capacity strengthening, technical assistance and support institutional infrastructure.
The climate crisis, an existential challenge for all of humanity, disproportionately affects women, youth, Indigenous Peoples, and other marginalized groups. To avoid the most calamitous effects, governments must take decisive action soon to implement equitable climate mitigation and adaptation policies. Those policies will not be one-size-fits-all, for countries vary greatly in everything from population density to greenhouse gas emissions. While there may be some standard lessons to adopt collectively, each country needs a customized solution and roadmap informed by the nation’s unique context and circumstances.
Abt Associates will lead USAID’s Comprehensive Action for Climate Change Initiative, the agency’s global flagship program to help nations meet their Paris Agreement climate commitments by creating programs and policies to mitigate and adapt to climate change. CACCI will contribute to USAID’s Climate Strategy by helping countries implement their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), while ensuring inclusion and local ownership of solutions and their benefits. These efforts will support USAID’s target for aligning development and humanitarian assistance programs with NDCs, NAPs, and partner country climate policy priorities in at least 80 countries by 2030. The Abt team, which includes International Institute for Sustainable Development, NAP Global Network, Purdue Applied Research Institute, and World Resources Institute, will provide data and analysis, capacity strengthening, and technical assistance.
The team will help countries:
- Design and update climate policies and implement climate adaptation plans
- Access climate financing
- Integrate climate into general planning and budgeting processes
- Leverage participation of the private sector and civil society in policy planning and implementation
- Track, monitor, and report progress
The goal of the five-year, $49 million program is to partner with governments to help them adopt ambitious, sustainable plans, tailored to each country’s circumstances, to combat climate change. To help stakeholders develop the plans, the Abt team will use numerous USAID priority threads: local ownership of solutions, inclusion, alignment of development and humanitarian assistance, evidence-based initiatives, and integration of public and private sectors. Initiatives co-developed with civil society organizations, especially from marginalized communities, will support development of policies that avoid or address unintended negative consequences of climate change. CACCI also will build on and develop tailorable tools for policy development and implementation while using existing in-country networks and cross-ministerial relationships to provide on-demand policy support.
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