Post Type: Announcement

Integrated Natural Resource Management Digest: December 2023 – January 2024

While there has been much progress in overall economic prosperity around the world, the loss of biodiversity continues at an unprecedented rate. Growing environmental challenges, like biodiversity loss and climate change, have negative impacts on the natural systems that sustain global development.

To address these challenges, USAID has committed to conserving biodiversity through strategic actions to reduce threats and drivers and integrate biodiversity conservation with other development sectors. INRM supports USAID in achieving this goal by contributing the latest evidence to inform the upcoming USAID Biodiversity Policy update; advancing integrated biodiversity conservation solutions, such as researching the linkages between participatory natural resource management and democratic outcomes; providing data to support decision-making; providing biodiversity-related conflict reduction strategies; incorporating land and resource governance into biodiversity programming, and more.

See below for more details on INRM’s efforts and resources from across USAID to support integrated biodiversity conservation.

In this digest:

INRM’s support for biodiversity conservation

• Assessing USAID’s 2014 Biodiversity Policy
• Strengthening democracy and protecting nature by elevating community voices
• Facilitating conservation finance roundtables
• Measuring conservation impact in Eastern Kafue, Zambia
• Supporting sustainable aquaculture in Madagascar
• Securing land rights to protect biodiversity
• Curating biodiversity resources in the ENRM Resource Library

Selected USAID resources on biodiversity integration

• ENRM Integration Essentials: Biodiversity
• Incorporating Land and Resource Governance into Biodiversity Programming
• Integrating Biodiversity and Sustainable Landscapes in USAID Programming
• USAID’s Indigenous Peoples’ Guidance on Biodiversity
• Biodiversity Integration in Practice: A Case Study of USAID in Western Honduras
• Biodiversity Integration in Practice: A Case Study of USAID in Mozambique

This decade will be decisive for the future of our planet and for USAID. Mounting environmental challenges — from climate change to air and ocean pollution to unprecedented biodiversity loss — impact virtually everything that USAID does and threaten the development progress we have supported over more than 60 years.

On January 22-26, 2024, USAID is hosting our Environment & Sustainability Conference, a week-long, interactive capacity building experience for USAID staff from across the Agency and from USAID Missions around the world.

While the conference is for USAID staff, we appreciate how important our partners and other stakeholders are in helping us advance our understanding of these issues and galvanize integrated programming and partnerships to make a real difference. In order to share information from USAID about the environment sector, foster collaboration between USAID staff, partners and stakeholders, and promote coordination and facilitate synergies among our partners and stakeholders, we are hosting an evening reception with on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 from 5:30-7:30pm at a venue in Silver Spring, Maryland.

If you are interested in attending the reception and your organization has not already received an invitation, please express your interest by completing this nomination form.  The deadline to submit your nomination form is January 19, 2024 at 12:00 pm ET and we will notify you of your attendance status by January 19, 2024.  Nominations will be reviewed on a first-come, first-served basis based on approximately 115 total available spaces.

Please note that USAID cannot pay for travel or other expenses related to any partner’s attendance.

If you have any questions, you can contact Andrea Stone at rsvp2024eoc@usaid.gov.

Visit SERVIR’s newly redesigned website, which showcases the breadth and impact of SERVIR’s global network. 

SERVIR combines cutting-edge science and data from NASA with development expertise from USAID to connect space to village. Our work in Africa, Asia, and Latin America supports locally led efforts to strengthen climate resilience, food and water security, forest and carbon management, and air quality. 

The new design includes new pages highlighting SERVIR’s work across five service areas:

• Agriculture and Food Security
• Water Security
• Ecosystem and Carbon Management
• Weather and Climate Resilience
• Air Quality and Health (new!)

The updated website also highlights two cross-cutting areas important to the work of SERVIR: Climate Change and Gender Equality and Social Inclusion. 

To access information about SERVIR service areas and cross-cutting themes, go to the new SERVIR Global homepage and select “What We Do” in the navigation bar. Within each service area page, you will find featured services, key related resources, and the most recent news and impact. 

The website redesign also includes the updated and fully integrated SERVIR Service Catalog and a new and growing Resource Library. With these new features, it is now easier for anyone who is interested in SERVIR’s work to search for relevant resources, information and tools.

Please help us spread the word about the refreshed website! You can:

• Bookmark your favorite page and share it with your contacts;
• Share our announcements on X and LinkedIn and tell us which content is your favorite by tagging @SERVIRGlobal;

Contact the SERVIR Support team and let us know what you think of the redesign. We welcome any feedback on how to improve the user experience for our community.

The Climatelinks 2023 Photo Contest theme is USAID’s Climate Strategy in Action: Confronting the Climate Crisis Across Sectors. Climatelinks is looking for submissions that show the breadth of issues, impacts, and solutions to climate change across 13 categories. Submissions will be open starting July 11, 2023.

The main categories are listed in bold below. Examples of submissions under each category are also noted. For images containing any identifiable individual, a release form will be requested upon submission.

**Photo submissions captured from June 2022 until July 2023 will be accepted.**

You may submit up to five images complying with the contest rules and requirements. Entries will be judged on relevance, composition, originality, and technical quality. Winners will be selected overall through an evaluation panel composed of USAID staff and the Climatelinks team.

The contest runs until August 7, 2023. Winning photos will be announced in Fall 2023, subsequently featured in Climatelinks communications, highlighted on the website’s topic pages, and showcased in the Climatelinks photo gallery.

A picture is worth a thousand words. This year, Feed the Future and Agrilinks are hosting a photo contest to help tell our story. Amidst devastating climate shocks, rising food prices and protracted conflict, partnering with and empowering communities to fight against hunger is more vital than ever. Submit your photos by March 3, 2023, to highlight the progress made in building a food-secure future for all and get a chance to win up to $250! Learn more here.

Submission requirements:

• High-resolution photos at least 1024 pixels. Please send us the highest resolution version of the photo you have — submissions must be at least 1 MB. Accepted formats include JPG and JPEG. If you are using Photoshop, please send only level 7 or higher compressed photos.
• Photos must each be an original submission, submitted by the photographer or with permission, and not previously submitted to a Feed the Future, Agrilinks, or other USAID photo contest.
• Photos must each include a credit: name of the photographer and, if applicable, organizational affiliation.
• Photos must each include a unique, robust caption (two to three sentences). This caption should include a description of what is going on in the photo, who is involved, where it was taken, and how it relates to Feed the Future or Agrilinks.
• Photos must be taken within the last three years.
• Photos must be in color.

View the full list of submission requirements here. Please email your entries to ftfphotos@gmail.com. Be sure to include all of the information required above and attach your photo(s). Individuals may submit up to three photos.

Submissions are due by Friday, March 3rd, 2023.

Calling all photographers! Share your photos highlighting USAID’s work in the Biodiversity sector in the Biodiversity 2023 Photo Contest. 

The contest has been extended to February 13, 2023. Winning photos will be announced in spring 2023. You may submit up to five images complying with the contest rules and requirements. Entries will be judged on relevance, composition, originality, and technical quality.

For instructions and detailed submission guidelines, please visit https://www.usaid.gov/biodiversity/photo-contest.

The Climatelinks 2021 Photo Contest theme is Climate Change and People: The Challenges and Opportunities. We’re looking for submissions that capture the human dimension of climate change, in particular, social and economic responses to global change.

Examples of relevant photos include depictions of the links between climate change and:

• Conflict and migration
• Adapting to climate and weather extremes
• Economic challenges and opportunities 
• Nature-based solutions
• Youth climate leaders and climate action champions

You may submit up to five images complying with the contest rules and requirements. Entries will be judged on relevance, composition, originality, and technical quality. Winners will be selected overall through an evaluation panel composed of USAID staff and the Climatelinks team.

The contest runs until July 16, 2021. Winning photos will be announced in Fall 2021, subsequently featured in Climatelinks communications, highlighted on the website’s topic pages, and showcased in the Climatelinks photo gallery. The winning photos will also be featured in the USAID Climate and Cross-sectoral Strategy Branch’s official 2022 calendar, which will be distributed to contest winners.

Submit your photos today!

BiodiversityLinks, USAID’s newly refreshed and relaunched knowledge portal for biodiversity conservation, features key USAID tools and resources, as well as new evidence and learning.

Many long-time users likely remember BiodiversityLinks’ predecessors, the Natural Resources Management and Development (RM) Portal and the Biodiversity Conservation Gateway. BiodiversityLinks takes the best of these sites forward into a platform that fuels learning to improve biodiversity programming.

The site features a redesigned homepage and updated navigation throughout. Landlinks users are now able to explore biodiversity’s interactions and systems-based approaches to improve land and property rights and cross-sectoral connections. You can discover successfully completed projects like Biodiversity Understanding in Infrastructure and Landscape Development (BUILD) and Forest Carbon, Markets and Communities (FCMC), or explore organizations such as Landesa and resources on land or marine tenure, while also taking advantage of the new Library functionality to more easily share curated resources with colleagues and partners. 

Enjoy exploring the new site, and please contribute your resources, learning, and stories related to biodiversity! We will continue adding resources and adapting the site based on your feedback so please reach out to the site managers with any submissions, thoughts, or questions so we can address them and better meet your needs.

Partnership opportunity to address two Sustainable Landscapes challenges!

First, how do we speed and scale up profitable business models that secure sustainable, deforestation-free supply chains? Second, how do we develop and innovative strategies to scale landscape restoration and conservation? To support the co-creation of these models and strategies for Sustainable Landscapes, the Global Climate Change Office of USAID’s E3 Bureau (E3/GCC) posted to grants.gov and beta.sam.gov) a new partnership opportunity. Seeking collaborative and integrated solutions to the challenges of 1) reducing commodity-driven deforestation, and 2) scaling up landscape restoration, USAID encourages participation from both traditional and nontraditional, private sector actors.

Register for Climate Change Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) Industry Day Webinar 

Click here to register, and receive instructions on this live virtual session.

E3’s Offices of Land and Urban (E3/LU), Forestry and Biodiversity (E3/FAB), and Global Climate Change (E3/GCC) are pleased to announce a new jointly managed global integrated resource management activity that provides cross-cutting programming support to Missions.

The Integrated Natural Resource Management (INRM) activity provides on-demand support services and technical assistance for USAID Missions, Bureaus and Independent Offices across a wide array of environmental and natural resource management issues.  INRM covers the full range of environmental issues USAID works on and is managed jointly by the USAID E3 Offices of Land and Urban, Forestry and Biodiversity, and Global Climate Change.  The activity is designed to help Operating Units achieve higher impact environment programming and to support the uptake of principles and approaches outlined in the Agency’s Environmental and Natural Resource Management (ENRM) Framework.

The Integrated Natural Resource Management activity will support Missions with integrated programming across the program cycle and across sectors, such as food security and biodiversity, health and climate change, land use and environmental protection.  INRM’s overarching cross-cutting principles consider climate risks and the inclusion of women, girls, and other marginalized populations.  Technical services include:

• Strategic planning based on timely analysis and best available evidence;
• Project and activity design and adaptive management;
• Testing and learning from new approaches for integrated environmental programming;
• Monitoring, evaluation, and learning of multi-sectoral programs; and
• Communications and knowledge management.

For more information about how to access INRM’s technical services, please download an info sheet about the new Mission-support mechanism here:  INRM Factsheet.