The conservation, rehabilitation and climate-informed management of biodiversity and ecosystems increases resilience to climate change and provides low-cost and long-term solutions to protect lives, livelihoods and infrastructure, and advance progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals. Human, economic and social development relies on the health of natural systems. Ecosystems can significantly reduce the impact of floods, catastrophic storms and serious droughts, and can offset vast amounts of the world’s CO2 emissions. It powers industries, provides fresh water supply, food, shelter and reliable sources of incomes. The rate at which current development pathways damage and destroy natural capital, biodiversity and ecosystems is putting Earth’s flora and fauna at risk and is exacerbating climate change impacts across the globe affecting those most vulnerable to climate change. We are fast-losing nature’s capacity to regulate an inhabitable climate and systems that support our life on Earth. Case in point: in 2019, over 4.5 million forest fires worldwide larger than one square kilometer, were registered. Over 90 per cent were caused (either intentionally in the name of development and agri-business, or accidentally) by humans. A vicious cycle is created whereby deforestation increases CO2 emissions, fueling climate change and worsening droughts, which in turn increases the risk of fire. Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) provides multiple benefits in terms of poverty alleviation through livelihood opportunities, carbon storage and biodiversity conservation. It is one of the most effective pro-poor approaches to climate change adaptation by way of enhancing the adaptive capacity of the most vulnerable communities – especially women, the elderly and children – as well as the resilience of ecosystems and their services (fresh water, food security, climate regulation, etc.) through restoration of natural capital and biodiversity conservation, restoration and/or regeneration measures. Ecosystem-based approaches, such as support to wetlands and mangrove protection or reef regeneration, often represent low-cost solutions to grey adaptation measures such as sea walls. Failure to act on rehabilitation is costing our global economy as much as US$20 trillion a year in lost ecosystem goods and services. Across coral reef coastlines, coral reefs reduce the annual expected damages from storms by more than US$4 billion. For successful EbA, sound understanding of ecosystems and their role in adaptation to and mitigation of climate change impacts is critical. First, climate observations and projections must be studied to understand their impact on local ecosystems and ecosystem services and then ecosystem-based solutions can be proposed. EbA measures often have CO2 mitigation and sequestration potential, support regenerative agriculture, increased fish stocks, restoration of degraded areas, increase tree coverage, protection of wetlands and mountain ecosystems that prevent floods and increase water absorption, the restoration of coastal ecosystems that serve as a natural buffer against ever-more-powerful storms for disaster risk reduction. , full_html

Through this thematic area, UNDP supports the advancement of climate resilient livelihoods for vulnerable communities, including resilient agricultural value chain development. Climate change has a large negative impact on a wide range of livelihoods, particularly rural livelihoods that are heavily reliant on agricultural activities and more vulnerable to climate-induced risks and shocks. Investing in adaptation interventions to widen livelihood options and develop more resilient livelihoods is crucial to ensure vulnerable communities are able to cope with the impacts of climate change and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events. A failure to adopt climate resilient measures to support sustainable livelihoods is likely to jeopardize food and income security, and lead to the loss of assets and increasing impoverishment. Given the centrality of agricultural value chains to most rural livelihoods, interventions to facilitate the development of climate resilient value chains are vital in securing resilient rural livelihoods. This work supports global efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, especially goals for ending hunger and poverty, promoting decent work and economic growth, and supporting responsible consumption and production practices.  For climate resilient value-chain development to be effective it must embrace holistic and integrated approaches encompassing various interventions are more successful as they tend to reinforce one another. Multi-stakeholder platforms that foster commercial, technical, and institutional innovation have more significant and lasting impacts than those focused on governance and coordination issues, while improvements in transportation infrastructure help reduce costs and increase market linkages, and applying information technology reduces asymmetries in market information that have traditionally put rural farmers at a disadvantage compared to downstream market actors.  Gender issues need to be considered specifically in the design, implementation and evaluation of interventions as women are especially disadvantaged in terms of access to land, labor, credit and infrastructure. Effective participation in developing value chains requires a minimum set of assets (not only land and financial capital, but also knowledge, skills, social capital, and access to sources of technical support), which the poorest of the poor lack. Project-based interventions are not enough –the most successful interventions have come where economic and policy environments have supported rural enterprise development and where appropriate policy changes accompanied the interventions.  , full_html