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Locally-Led Drought

Resilience 

We’re supporting local disaster responders in Afghanistan and Somalia to adapt to climate change. 
Stock image from IFRC website depicting an dead tree, camel, and people in the background in Somalia.

Afghanistan and Somalia are two of the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world

Somalia’s climate is becoming increasingly unpredictable. The country, still recovering from the drought of 2020-23 and severe flooding in 2023 and mid-2024, continues to contend with climate change – as dramatic shifts between hot droughts and erratic rains contribute to water scarcity, heat mortality, low agricultural productivity and intense flood risks. These consecutive climate shocks displaced 2.2 million people in 2023, with almost 6 million people currently in need of humanitarian assistance.
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Afghanistan has been experiencing a prolonged drought since 2021, with climactic and human-induced drivers interacting to create severe humanitarian crises. The country is among the most vulnerable and least prepared to adapt to climate change, with the population caught in a vicious cycle of floods, droughts, cold and heatwaves; 14.8 million people, one-third of the population, were facing food insecurity in March 2025.

Why Afghanistan and Somalia?

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    people in Somalia projected to be in crisis levels of food insecurity

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    Somalis estimated to have died due to drought between January 2022 and June 2024

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    people in Afghanistan affected by the 2021 drought

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    of the Afghan population employed by agriculture sector

We’re supporting a skilled climate workforce

RedR trained 325 local responders from NGOs, local governments and community-based organisations in drought-affected rural areas of Afghanistan and Somalia as part of our Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction (CCA DRR) programme between May 2024 and April 2025.

 

We worked with regional consultants and local experts to adapt our flagship CCA-DRR course to local contexts, sharpening its focus on community-based adaptation and climate resilience. The training was hugely popular, with over 1,000 applications received. We selected participants from organisations that play a leading role in furthering climate resilience and who are best place to lead change in their communities.

 

To leverage further impact from the seven-week course, five-day workshops focussing on Training of Trainers were held (2 in Somalia and 2 in Afghanistan) to bolster the facilitation skills of participants who completed the 7-week core course and help further cascade knowledge within rural drought-affected communities. An additional stand-alone, 2.5 hour condensed module focused on Inclusion was delivered to a further 105 participants.

 

The course received hugely positive feedback, with 99.4% of participants rating it as ‘excellent’ or ‘good’. Participants went on to integrate CCA-DRR principles into their work, influence organisational strategies, and deliver their own training sessions to colleagues and community groups. In several cases, alumni have supported community-based resilience initiatives such as the development of local early warning systems. 

 

Read more about how one former participant – Abdulhadi Achakzai – used his learning to support disaster preparedness and improve community resilience in rural communities in Afghanistan.

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    people trained through the core and inclusion courses

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    of participants rated the core course as ‘excellent’ or ‘good’

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    of participants rated the ToT course as ‘excellent’ or ‘good’

Extending the programme

Given overwhelming interest in the initial pilot programme (we received over 1,000 applicants for the core course – three times as many as we could initially take), we are delighted to extend the CCA-DRR programme further in response to growing humanitarian needs in Afghanistan and Somalia.

 

Thanks to the continued generous support of the Howden Foundation, RedR will extend the programme in Afghanistan and Somalia for an additional two years, enabling us to engage more consistently with participants and offer more in-depth learning.

We aim to:

 

  • Train 280 new climate leaders across 8 intensive cohorts
  • Launch an impactful microgrant programme that places funding directly into community hands
  • Provide personalised coaching for emerging climate champions
  • Pioneer new modules on climate finance and proposal writing
  • Create and grow a strong alumni network of drought resilience experts to foster learning and collaboration

 

By embedding locally-led adaptation and inclusive decision-making into its programming, RedR hopes to continue supporting communities in drought-vulnerable contexts to lead their own climate adaptation efforts.

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