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Washington, DC - Today, delivering on a major commitment announced by President Obama at the UN Climate Summit in New York last September, the Administration is announcing the launch of an international public-private partnership to empower developing nations to boost their own climate resilience. The partnership, Climate Services for Resilient Development, will provide needed climate services – including actionable science, data, information, tools, and training – to developing countries that are working to strengthen their national resilience to the impacts of climate change.

The partnership is launching with more than $34 million in financial and in-kind contributions from the U.S. Government and seven other founding-partner institutions from around the world: the American Red Cross, Asian Development Bank, Esri, Google, Inter-American Development Bank, the Skoll Global Threats Fund, and the U.K. Government.

Climate change threatens our entire planet. Globally, 19 of the 20 warmest years on record all occurred in the past two decades, and the impacts of climate change – including more intense storms and storm surge damage, more severe droughts and heat waves, sea-level rise, ocean acidification, and biodiversity losses – are already being experienced around the world. These impacts can be particularly damaging in developing countries, which often lack the resources and technical capacity to effectively prepare for and adapt to the effects of climate change.

No single entity is capable of addressing the vast needs for improved climate services in these nations: for everything from projections of future sea-level rise that help planners identify places to build and develop that are out of harm’s way, to maps that overlay population, infrastructure, and climate data to help decision makers target resources to areas of greatest vulnerability. To meet these needs, the new Climate Services for Resilient Development partnership will harness the experience, unique capabilities, and resources of a broader set of societal actors and institutions, relying on collaboration between the partners and local stakeholders to ensure long-term ownership and sustainability of the partnership’s impact in focus countries.

The partnership announced today builds on significant progress made by the Obama Administration domestically to support communities across the United States in strengthening their resilience to the impacts of climate change, including by supporting climate resilient investments, planning for climate related risks, and providing tools and information for decision-makers. The Administration is continuing to advance actions to address on-the-ground climate-resilience needs. For example, the President’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 Budget proposal includes $6 million to create a Resilience AmeriCorps program. And this year, the Administration will launch a pilot of the program to support AmeriCorps members in assisting communities to plan for and address the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events. 

About the Partnership:

The U.S. Government’s involvement in the Climate Services for Resilient Development partnership builds on the President’s continued efforts to position the United States as the leader in tackling climate change both domestically and abroad. The partnership will enable the U.S. Government to apply the technologies, scientific expertise, and capacities it has developed under the President’s Climate Action Plan to support resilience efforts in developing nations. The U.S. Government’s involvement in the partnership is being led by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and other U.S. Government agencies contributing climate data and tools to meet the information needs of focus countries. The Peace Corps will devote some of its efforts to support on-the-ground implementation of climate-resilience activities.

In addition to the U.S. Government, the partnership includes seven other founding partners: the American Red Cross, Asian Development Bank, Esri, Google, Inter-American Development Bank, the Skoll Global Threats Fund, and the U.K. Government. The Administration looks forward to others answering the call and growing the partnership.

In recognition of the global diversity of climate service needs, the partnership will deliver tailored and targeted services to countries in sub-regions of Latin America (the Andean region and Caribbean), Africa (East Africa and the Sahel), and Asia (South Asia and Southeast Asia). The partnership’s initial efforts will be organized around development and application of scalable, replicable, comprehensive, and integrative climate services in focus countries representing each of these primary regions: Colombia (Latin America), Ethiopia (Africa), and Bangladesh (Asia).

The U.S. Government already supports a number of successful programs in this domain that this new partnership will leverage and augment, including the Climate Services Partnership, NOAA’s International Training Desks and International Research and Applications Project (IRAP), NASA and USAID’s SERVIR program, and the Global Resilience Partnership (GRP). Likewise, there are many institutions and programs in focus countries that the partnership will build on as a core component of its efforts. 

Commitments from Founding Partners:

Today, the founding members of the Climate Services for Resilient Development partnership are announcing significant commitments to complement existing efforts, expertise, and capacities in order to enable the partnership to achieve its mission to increase resilience to climate change impacts in developing countries:

Additional U.S. Government Commitments: