Climatelinks 2023 Year in Review: Most Visited Blogs

Climatelinks has over a thousand blogs, with more than 150 published just this year. The most visited blogs in 2023 offer technical guidance for practitioners, share successful interventions from countries where USAID works, and explore the intersections between climate change and other development sectors. 

Here are the five most visited Climatelinks blogs of 2023: 

Lunar Landscaping: How Digging ‘Half-Moons’ Helps Re-Green Niger

In the West African Sahel, climate change and desertification are contributing to reduced rainfall and increasingly poor soil health, which presents a problem for the many people in the region who rely on subsistence agriculture and herding livestock. In Niger, “half-moons” are an increasingly popular strategy for rainwater retention because of their low cost–but do they work? Satellite imagery from SERVIR can help answer this question.

What is Water Security?

This water security primer explores why water security matters, what works to improve it, and how to measure its outcomes. Water is essential to the stability of every country, so understanding water security means looking beyond the immediate question of supply to political, economic, social, and environmental impacts, including how strengthening water security can improve climate resilience. 

Towards Sustainable Fisheries in the Philippines

In the Philippines, overfishing, ocean acidification, and climate impacts have reduced fish catch and degraded marine resources. In the face of these challenges, local communities, with support from USAID, are taking steps to protect their way of life and create resilient and sustainable growth for fisheries and fishing communities.

How Can Climate Action Be Inclusive?

Inclusive climate action means both reducing the effects of climate change on the most vulnerable communities and ensuring the benefits and burdens of climate action are equitably distributed. This blog covers why inclusive climate action is important, how to achieve it, and where it is already being implemented. 

Hydropower in Tanzania: Planning for Resiliency

Hydropower generation is a key component of low-emissions development strategies, providing two-thirds of global renewable electricity generation. However, climate change impacts, such as sea level rise, flooding, and drought, threaten hydropower as power stations have to be near water sources. In drought-prone Tanzania, USAID supported the national utility to take an Integrated Resource and Resilience Planning approach to assess the impact of drought and other future scenarios on alternative power sector investments.

Honorable Mentions 

These blogs published in 2023 were also among the most-visited on the site this year. 

2023 Climatelinks Photo Contest Winners

The 2023 Climatelinks Photo Contest, which asked people from around the world to submit photos of their climate change and development work, received more than 250 submissions representing over 40 countries. This blog highlights the thirteen winners, which were selected from across sectors, including WASH, biodiversity, natural climate solutions, and more. 

Helping Communities in Zimbabwe Restore their Wetlands—and their Water

In Zimbabwe, only 21 percent of the country’s wetlands are considered ecologically stable. USAID Resilient Waters conducted an extensive series of discussions and meetings with communities in Zimbabwe to identify problems and develop solutions for conserving the other 79 percent. As a result, the community agreed upon four activities to support the rehabilitation of wetlands and rangelands.

Focusing on Agency can Strengthen Social and Behavior Change Programming to Support Climate Adaptation

Agency is a critical component of people’s ability to adapt and respond to changing circumstances and has the potential to strengthen resilience in the face of shifting external conditions. By studying agency through a gendered lens, health-focused social and behavior change practitioners can create programs that strengthen everyone’s capacity for climate change adaptation and build resilience to climate change.

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