For Ahumwire Justine, a banana farmer from Shuku, in Uganda’s southwest, a day last October brought home just how vulnerable her plantation was to extreme weather. That day, a devastating rain and hailstorm destroyed 300 of her banana trees and killed two of her cows. The damage was so bad, she and her family considered leaving their two-hectare plot, which was not insured. “We had no food, no money for school fees for my children and no food for my animals,” the mother of four says. The frequency and intensity of storms like the one that destroyed Justine’s crops is increasing due to climate change, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The NDC Action Project – a joint initiative between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre (UNEP-CCC) – is aiming to give farmers like Justine a measure of protection from increasingly extreme weather. “We know farmers, particularly smallholders, are struggling to adapt to the effects of the climate crisis,” says Mirey Atallah, Chief of the Adaptation and Resilience Branch within UNEP's Climate Change Division. “That’s why projects that combine technical and financial instruments such as these are so important. They increase resilience and ensure that extreme weather does not have to be catastrophic for farmers.” A pilot project allows farmers use mobile phones to submit images of damaged crops to their insurers, speeding up the claims process. Photo by UNEP/ Eugene Kaiga Related Story Traditional building practices offer sustainable solutions as African cities grow
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Table of Contents
- How a novel type of insurance is helping Uganda’s banana farmers avoid catastrophe 1
- Further Resources 4
- Also part of this series 5
- In the heart of the Amazon, a forest-friendly model for development takes root 5
- How social forestry and private investments can save Indonesia’s forests 5
- Clean energy powers a silent revolution on Togo’s roads 6
- How energy-efficient lighting is helping Pakistan counter climate change 6
- With protective greenbelt, Mexican city hopes to fend off climate change 7
- How communal loans are helping Antigua and Barbuda brace for hurricanes 7
- Panama taps solar energy to heat water and reduce deforestation 7
- African cities embrace walking and cycling as climate crisis deepens 8
- Traditional building practices offer sustainable solutions as African cities grow 8
- Burundi’s fishers and farmers adapt to climate crisis 9
- As the climate dries, American west faces problematic future, experts warn 9
- The race to save Zambia’s wetlands 9
- Sponge City: How San Salvador is using nature to fight floods 10
- Related Content 10
- GOVERNANCE & LEADERSHIP 11
- FUNDING & PARTNERS 11
- STRUCTURE 11
- KEY DOCUMENTS 11
- RESOURCES 12
- ADVOCACY 12
- MEDIA 12
- WORK WITH US 12
