Climate Change and Adaptation

The University of Arizona is part of a consortium led by Tetra Tech that has been awarded a contract for an estimated $50 million to provide a broad range of support services to USAID’s 12 headquarters bureaus and offices in Washington and over 60 USAID field missions around the world.  This project puts the University of Arizona at the center of the conversation at USAID and within the context of USG foreign affairs on climate adaptation. The project will create opportunities, research and engagement for faculty from across the university. 

The $2m funded modification to the Humanitarian Assistance Technical Support (HATS) project builds upon the projects current objectives to support the disaster management mission of USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) and to expand the institutional capacity of the University of Arizona (UAz) in addressing global humanitarian crises. The expanded funding seeks to raise the institutional capacities of African universities by providing African researchers with funded opportunities to conduct climate change adaptation research in Africa. HATS is collaborating with Stellenbosch University and the Partners for Enhancing Resilience of People Exposed to Risks (Periperi U), a network that consists of 12 higher education institutions across Africa, on this initiative. In doing so, the collaborative project will help USAID deliver on its commitment to locally led development. Additionally, it will help address the current lack of funding for climate adaptation research in Africa despite the continent being both least responsible for and most impacted by the accelerating impacts of climate change.

For further information, visit the HATS website.

The Enhancing Evidence for Humanitarian Action activity aims to provide USAID’s BHA, its partners, and the broader humanitarian community with indicators and methods for measuring the impact of investments in early warning, Disaster Risk Reduction, and climate adaptation programming. The project draws on UA’s strength in interdisciplinary science to research indicators and methods for measuring behavior and landscape change through recurrent monitoring, remote sensing and earth observation, and qualitative inquiry. 

The Principal Investigator is Zack Guido, the Director of the Arizona Institute for Resilient Environments and Societies (AIRES), International Programs and Assistant Research Professor, School of Natural Resources and Environment. Team members include Alex Braithwaite from the School of Government and Public Policy; Jeff Michler and Anna Josephson from the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics; Beth Tellman from the School of Geography, Development, and Environment; Corrie Hannah from AIRES; and Tim Finan from the School of Anthropology. The project team includes the Tucson-based consulting firm Technical Assistance for NGOs (TANGO).

The Stakeholder Engagement Activities in the Caribbean: Prospects and Pitfalls project assesses current activities at regional and national scales that create structured opportunities for weather and climate service producers and decision makers to define user needs and provider capabilities and eventually promotes effective decisions based on climate information. The project focus on 15 Caribbean Island nations and territories, with specific emphasis on Jamaica, Dominica, and Guyana. The goals of this project are to provide key lessons about interdisciplinary collaborations around climate services to the World Meteorological Organization in order to inform their future activities that advance the use of weather and climate information in the Caribbean and beyond.