What We Do
Click below to explore the key thematic areas of CARE’s work on climate change:
Locally Led Adaptation & Resilience
CARE’s approach to adaptation focuses on undertaking targeted community based adaptation projects and integrating climate change adaptation into its work in climate-sensitive sectors. Adaptation is critical to protecting millions of poor and marginalized people who are at risk of losing their lives and livelihoods as a result of climate change.
Advocacy
CARE is convinced that it is essential to advocate for policy changes at various levels (sub-national, national, regional, and global) to multiply impact and adequately respond to the climate crisis. Our advocacy efforts focus on both adapting to and dealing with climate impacts after their occurrence, as well as limiting global warming to 1.5°C by quickly reducing emissions. Thus, CARE has been lobbying governments and decision-makers through targeted advocacy for a number of years.
Gender Equality
Involving both men and women equally in decision-making processes results in more sustainable climate action. CARE’s community-based projects prove that through capacity-building efforts, men and women can play complementary roles. The better our understanding of how gender dynamics influence people’s vulnerability to climatic changes, and what options they have to deal with these changes, the more successfully we can target groups and action. Every livelihood has a gender dimension specific to its culture and context. Various CARE initiatives support local practitioners and decision-makers to address the impacts of climate change on communities in ways that are more responsive to gender dynamics. CARE’s experience shows that responding to climate change, while ambitiously tackling gender inequalities, requires committed leadership.
Ecosystems and Nature-based Solutions
In its Food and Nutrition Security (FNS) work, particularly in agriculture, CARE’s approach to environmental sustainability implies the promotion of a set of farming practices. Many of these practices fall under the broader headings of “agro-forestry” and “conservation agriculture” and have been promoted successfully in many developing countries. Community managed natural regeneration is an example of a specific practice that has been used successfully to restore degraded land in challenging contexts, such as Niger and Ethiopia.
Sustainable Livelihoods
In its food and nutrition security work, CARE aims to strengthen sustainable, climate-resilient small-scale agriculture systems to improve food and nutrition security for producers, workers and consumers. CARE works to build food and agriculture systems that are Sustainable, Productive and Profitable, Equitable and Resilient (SuPER). SuPER is a set of principles that guides CARE’s work in small-scale agriculture in a changing climate and articulates the outcomes that agriculture and food systems must deliver to work for small-scale food producers.
Disaster Risk Reduction & Humanitarian Action
Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme events, and this requires increased humanitarian assistance. 2019 saw more climate disasters than ever before, and out of the 33.4 million newly displaced people in 2019, 70% were due to climate-related disasters. Climate change can also aggravate existing larger-scale conflicts, and affects the dynamics of lower-scale communal violence.
