Advancing Capacity for the Environment

Introduction

USAID’s Advancing Capacity for the Environment (ACE) is a global program that facilitates the Agency’s ambitious work to fight climate change, conserve biodiversity and manage natural resources, improve land governance, and expand access to secure, modern energy and resilient infrastructure. The program strengthens capacities for technical leadership and effective programming through integrated support in four areas: communications, knowledge management, training, and organizational development.

Approach

ACE is designed to meet the Agency’s needs and goals through technical assistance to USAID’s Washington offices and field Missions to sustain and grow their capacities for communication, learning, and knowledge-sharing.

ACE employs an integrated framework to build linkages across the program’s main task areas through:

Generating

Capturing

Sharing

Applying

A Critically Endangered Jamaican Rock Iguana rests within the Hellshire Hills, Portland Bight Protected Area, Jamaica. The International Iguana Foundation, with the support of USAID, through the Caribbean Regional Program of USFWS, works with local stakeholders to protect and manage this iconic endemic species. Once thought to be extinct, this species was rediscovered in the 1990s and has since been the focus of intensive conservation efforts. Preliminary surveys located only a handful of old individuals. Through invasive species control, protection and monitoring, and a head starting program, more than 600 iguanas now reside within the Hellshire Hills, making this a globally recognized conservation success on track to becoming a self-sustaining species in the near future. Location: Hellshire Hills, Jamaica Photographer: Joey Markx, International Iguana Foundation

Generating

new information and knowledge by drawing on the growing evidence base for more effective, equitable environmental and climate change programming.

A local fisher woman from the indigenous ethnic Tharu community casts her net on the Rapti River, Dang, Nepal. Fisherfolks were key beneficiaries of the USAID PANI Program (2016-2021). PANI helped form, organize, strengthen capacity, and mobilize community aquatic animal conservation groups that comprised multiple users of the river system including fisherfolks to conserve and co-manage river stretches in collaboration with their local governments. Fishing is a main source of livelihood for the Tharu community that live along the rivers in the southern plains of Nepal. Location: Rapti River Basin, Nepal Photographer: Sudin Bajracharya

Capturing

this information in user-friendly ways—through the USAID Links websites, communities of practice, and lessons from USAID’s programs to ensure that this evidence can inform future work.

Happy old man showing off a nature benefit, giant mushrooms collected in the forest. Licuati is a forest reserve with a strong cultural value for local communities of Matutuíne region in Maputo city, Mozambique. BIOFUND is helping this communities to explore new and innovative financing mechanisms to support biodiversity conservation and promote community development. Location: Licuati Forest Reserve, Matutuíne, Maputo, Mozambique Photographer: Denise Nicolau

Sharing

best practices in environmental programming through innovative communications that reach global audiences to improve development outcomes.

Kanla-on Green Brigade (KGB) volunteers, a group of community-based forest protection officers in Bago City, Philippines, dismantle an illegally established hut. Noel P. Labutap/USAID

Applying

knowledge through state-of-the-art training, facilitation, and organizational development to help USAID staff and partners build the skills to become agents for integrated climate and environment action.