The effects of climate change, environmental degradation and natural disasters hit countries in the Global South particularly hard – and pose major challenges for development cooperation. INFRAS has been supporting the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) with its expertise in climate and environmental issues since 2015.
Whether in agriculture, health or education; climate change affects development projects in all areas and may jeopardise the achievements in poverty reduction. Development cooperation must therefore take climate and environmental risks into account in its projects. At the same time, it must also ensure that projects do not have a negative impact on the environment and the climate.
To this end, the SDC operates the Climate, Disaster Risk Reduction & Environment Network with over 700 members in Switzerland and abroad. Over the past ten years, INFRAS has contributed significantly to knowledge transfer within this network with its expertise and will continue this mandate in cooperation with other partners (SKAT, Helvetas, Zoï Environmental Network) over the next four years. Joint activities with two other SDC networks – the Agriculture and Food Systems Network and the Water Network – will be stepped up.
A tool for integrating climate and environmental aspects
A milestone in the collaboration to date is the CEDRIG online tool, which was co-developed by INFRAS. It serves to systematically integrate climate, disaster risk reduction and environment into development initiatives. CEDRIG takes a risk perspective to determine whether existing and planned strategies or projects are at risk from climate change, natural hazards or environmental degradation, and takes an impact perspective to analyse whether these approaches may have adverse impacts on the climate or the environment or may create new or exacerbate existing natural hazards.
In addition to further developing this tool, INFRAS designs thematic events and webinars and develops products such as a climate risk analysis or thematic integration briefs on specific climate and environmental issues. A recently published brief shows, for example, how biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation interact with development cooperation and humanitarian aid. It also proposes concrete measures to avoid or minimise negative effects. For example, switching to agroforestry systems in agriculture.
Further information:
- SDC Climate, DRR & Environment Network
- CEDRIG Mainstreaming Tool
- Thematic Integration Brief «Development Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Biodiversity»
Further INFRAS projects on the topic:
Project team
