The world’s greatest challenge requires a collaborative, digitally supported response.
“Climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing humanity today,” says Gidraf Wachira, Climate Intersections Lead at NetHope. “Climate-caused or exacerbated disasters are increasingly requiring our Members, predominantly humanitarian NGOs, to respond.”
Many of the people and communities our Members are working with have already had to adapt to respond to the changing climate and are now living under the constant threat of a climate disaster. Until now, climate mitigation has received the majority of climate research, funding, and resources, while adaptation and resilience have received minimal attention. But with climate disasters increasingly impacting communities globally, mitigation, while essential, is not enough. Furthermore, a 2024 report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reveals that national climate adaptation plans barely include women and the rural poor, despite the significant impact on them emanating from climate crisis.”
The race is on for humanitarian organizations to embed climate adaptation and resilience into their programs — and to help ensure those most vulnerable are heard and prioritized in local, regional, and national responses.
NetHope believes technology has a key role to play in equipping the nonprofit sector to respond to this enormous challenge. That’s why we’re focusing on digital for climate adaptation and resilience as a key priority in our New Digital Divides strategy.
“Technology is an accelerator of impact,” says Gidraf Wachira. “Firstly, to be able to respond and have early warning systems, you have to have access to climate data—both historical and real-time—to forecast. Therefore, digital technology plays a crucial role in not only speeding up response times but also enhancing their accuracy. Second, the availability of more climate data is a positive development, and I believe that digital solutions such as Gen AI will assist our members in interpreting this data, enabling them to develop effective adaptation plans. In the same vein, it's crucial to acknowledge that data in certain regions of the world, such as Africa, may not be sufficient or precise enough for accurate modeling. So, our role will be to upskill our Members on the use of data and other digital solutions. Our third focus will be climate equity, specifically how to gather and elevate vulnerable voices. Regrettably, the adaptation plans have yet to incorporate a significant number of human voices, despite the fact that humans bear the majority of the impact of climate change. The majority of the data shared in global forums primarily pertains to temperature rise, greenhouse gas emissions, glacier conditions, and weather patterns. However, there is a dearth of information regarding the effects and impacts of climate change on livelihoods, health, socioeconomic status, mental health, migration, and conflict.”
NetHope is drawing on the full might of our convening, grant making, accelerating, and catalyzing power to scale effective digitally-powered responses to climate-related challenges across our sector and especially for women, youth, indigenous people, and disenfranchised communities.
New digital solutions are essential to respond to an ever-growing crisis
As the climate crisis puts increasing pressure on our planet and its people, NetHope’s work in this area is expanding. In 2022, we released the first installment of our Digital for Climate Adaptation and Resilience report, featuring 24 examples of digitally enabled climate adaption initiatives that are being implemented by NetHope Members and partners, to share knowledge and best practice with the whole sector.
In 2023, we launched a Climate Intersections Program and started our Climate Intersections Working Group, which meets monthly and acts as a collaborative, upskilling platform for our 65+ leading nonprofit Members. During this period, Members and partners consulted on strategies and digital solutions for their climate programs, the Climate Strategy Framework and Climate Adaptation Assessment whitepapers were published.
NetHope has also gained observer status at COP/UNFCCC, signed the IFRC Climate Charter, and is also part of the Green Digital Action.
We’ve also begun awarding grants for digital solutions to climate adaptation and resilience. We’ve given six grants to Members so far for piloting or accelerating solutions, as well as one for climate equity, creating digital solutions to collect, and amplify unheard voices through social media in Uganda, to facilitate evidence-based climate responses.
As part of the grants scheme, awardees agree to share their learnings with the NetHope community, providing opportunities for collaboration and scale. The goal? Benefitting one benefits all.
For impact at scale, the NetHope effect is needed.
"Our Members serve over 1.67 billion people, which is 20% of the world's population," says Gidraf Wachira. "If we can equip our Members with climate data and skills that they can incorporate into their programming, we can significantly increase our impact."
NetHope focuses on enhancing the skills of our Members to integrate digital tools for climate adaptation and resilience into their programming. Localized solutions to climate change require the right systems in place, access to accurate data, and the tools to analyze it effectively is essential to localized solutions to climate change.
We’re also committed to finding ways to gather and amplify the voices of those most vulnerable to the climate crisis. We hope to enable the nonprofit community to collect qualitative and quantitative data that can feed into local, regional, and national adaptation efforts, ensuring those most in need of support receive it.
As part of its 2025 research goals, NetHope's Center for the Digital Nonprofit also plans to research community decision-making around climate adaptation and resilience. We plan to gather case studies of communities already using their local data (potentially in combination with externally provided data) to make their own informed decisions when it comes to responding to climate change, their learnings, and their skills gaps. The goal is that this research will lead to scaling opportunities and proposals for closing climate data capability gaps.
This can save lives
"With or without technology, with or without our Members, people are still trying to adapt because it is a reality we all have to live with," says Gidraf Wachira.
“However, we recognize the potential of digital technology in combating climate change, which could save lives. One of the things that we are really excited about is early warning systems—how we can use technology, such as satellite imaging and Gen AI, to predict better and save many more lives. Also, right now, national adaptation plans are not addressing the challenges of the most vulnerable. What excites us is the opportunity to amplify the voices of those most affected, with the hope that the collected data can serve as a tool for countries to tailor their adaptation plans to the most vulnerable. Finally, we hope that this collaborative effort will significantly improve the resilience of more communities, enabling them to respond with early warning systems tailored to their risks and vulnerabilities, thereby increasing their resilience over time.”
“The job is big; it's enormous. If we can impact even a few, it will be worth it. But the focus is to reach as many people as possible.”
Don't miss...
Every installment of our six-part series exploring how NetHope’s 2024-2030 strategic plan is tackling the New Digital Divides:
Climate Intersection Resources
