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This month’s episode is all about the blue economy – the economic, social and environmental activity that revolves around marine and coastal resources – of the East and Southern Africa region. This sector offers many potential opportunities for governments, the private sector and small-scale producers, along with some challenges.

Peatlands store twice as much carbon as all the world’s forests and are home to everything from orchids to orangutans – but today, these lands are in peril. A partnership between IFAD and Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry is working to set a national policy agenda that will protect peatland ecosystems.

The end of COP26 is fast approaching, and we’re still waiting for a final agreement. However, based on the draft texts that have been released, it’s clear there’s still a risk of gaps between long-term targets and short-term action.

In recent years, saline intrusion – the encroachment of seawater into fresh water sources – has become a serious threat to small-scale farmers in Viet Nam’s Mekong Delta. Thanks to a public-private partnership, a local technology company was able to collaborate with an IFAD-supported project to create a lasting solution.

Agriculture is the main source of income and livelihood in rural Lao. But Lao crops are highly climate-sensitive, leaving farmers with little room for error when it comes to climate adaptation.

The start of the second week of the Glasgow Climate Change Conference marked a shift to a more political phase of the conference. Ministers arrived, former US President Barack Obama drew a crowd, and negotiations continued.

“Nature-based solutions” (NbS) might sound like a buzzword, but these techniques are some of the most effective tools in our arsenal against the effects of climate change.

As changing climates affect farming conditions across the world, how can geospatial and remote sensing tools help IFAD and others decide on where adaptation investments are best needed and what impact these interventions will have?

A new US$143 million investment programme will ensure millions of the most at-risk rural people living in the Sahel region of West Africa can adapt to climate change, with a wide-reaching plan to restore degraded land and provide climate information systems and agricultural insurance. The announcement was made today at the UN climate change conference (COP26) during a signing ceremony of the grant agreement between IFAD and the Green Climate Fund (GCF).

Sweden today signalled its strong commitment to help some of the world’s poorest small-scale farmers to adapt to climate change, by pledging SEK100 million (nearly US$11.7 million) to IFAD. The announcement was made at the UN climate change conference (COP26) in Glasgow.