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Newsletter, July

This week we have blogs on gender equality and COVID-19 responses in Ethiopia and Bangladesh, coverage from last week's London Climate Action Week discussions, an update on CBA14 and more.

India’s Anganwadi rural childcare centres provide vital healthcare to millions. The centres are mainly staffed by women, and they have been fighting for better pay for years (Photo: Public Services International via Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0)

Tackling gender inequality to promote inclusion and justice in society

Tackling increasing inequalities in society is a complex and sensitive process but is a key part of our institutional strategy. Reducing gender inequality is just one aspect.

Rosalind Goodrich, IIED's head of research communications, reports on recent progress to integrate this into our work. Read her blog now

Sharma, the UK Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, made the comments during a keynote speech in a discussion titled ‘Resilience in light of COVID-19: climate action on the road to COP26’, hosted by IIED and E3G during London Climate Action Week.

News

Ministers, NGOs, academia and grassroots discuss resilience beyond COVID-19

COP26 President-designate Alok Sharma last week said the world does "not have the luxury of time" to take urgent action to address the climate crisis.

Read the news story and watch the full discussion

"Time is a luxury we don’t have, so early interventions can create an inflection point in climate action, as better early warning systems can give communities more time to prepare for extreme conditions."

The pandemic has disrupted local food chains, which is particularly a problem for producers of perishable foods who don't have access to storage facilities (Photo: Charles Roffey via Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Guest blog by Amare Molla

How can farmers in Ethiopia work safe and smart during COVID-19 lockdown?

IIED’s Facebook page regularly invites our followers to blog about their opinions and experiences. In this month’s blog we hear from Amare Molla, assistant professor of development studies in the College of Agriculture at Wollo University, on how farmers in Ethiopia are managing the fallout from COVID-19 and options for operating safely during the pandemic.

Read the guest blog

Climate-smart villages use a mix of technologies to adapt to climate change and build resilience (Photo: S.Kilungu, Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security via Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Guest blog by Heather McGray and Chris Henderson

CBA14: Same great conference, entirely new environment

Heather McGray of the Climate Justice Resilience Fund and Chris Henderson from Practical Action discuss how the 2020 international conference on community-based adaptation will be digital – but it will still have community at the centre.

Find out more in the guest blog

Dhaka’s urban poor communities protect themselves against the spread of COVID-19 by spraying sanitising liquids and wearing facemasks (Photo: copyright Saikat Mojumder)

Guest blog by John Taylor

How Dhaka's urban poor are dealing with COVID-19

COVID-19 presents not only a health crisis, but a food crisis for Dhaka’s poorest. Guest blogger John Taylor of FAO Bangladesh describes how urban poor communities have risen to the challenge.

Read the blog

COVID-19 has shown that risk is multidimensional. For the poorest countries in particular, climate change magnifies all other risks (Photo: michael_swan via Flickr, CC BY-ND 2.0)

Blog by Neha Rai and Ritu Bharadwaj

Three things climate funds can learn from the COVID-19 response

COVID-19 relief packages have used social protection programmes as vehicles for getting finance directly to those in greatest need; the big climate funders could do the same by investing in these programmes that reach out to the extreme poor.

Read the blog

Briefings

IIED Briefing papers

Closing the learning loop in locally led adaptation

Local institutions: resilient in the face of change?

Résilience institutionnelle face au changement

Producteurs forestiers en zones reculées : récolter les fruits de l’action collective