USAID, Rockefeller launch $100 million climate resilience fund

Thin Lei Win in Reuters, via the Thomson Reuters Foundation: A $100 million fund launched on Tuesday aims to make people in disaster-prone regions of Asia and Africa better able to cope with natural disasters and crises, so that they can get their lives and economies back on track more quickly and effectively.

The Global Resilience Partnership (GRP) set up by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Rockefeller Foundation will focus on South and Southeast Asia, the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, where typhoons, floods, earthquakes and drought destroy lives and jobs and hamper development.

Scientists say climate change could bring more frequent and more intense weather-related disasters. If communities become more resilient, disaster recovery and relief efforts will cost less, and people will be able to reduce the disruption to lives and jobs and avoid falling into destitution.

“Both USAID and the Rockefeller Foundation see resilience as a vital framework to help alleviate poverty, promote more sustainable development and lessen the impacts of disasters,” said Michael Yates, director of the USAID regional mission in Asia.

The GRP’s first project is the Global Resilience Design Challenge, a multi-phase competition to be launched in September at the USAID Frontiers in Development Forum in Washington, D.C....