The Climate Change Resilient Development (CCRD) project was a four-year project (2011-2015) implemented under the leadership of the Global Climate Change Office in the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID’s) Bureau for Economic Growth, Education, and Environment (E3). The project goal was to “enhance resilience of developing country peoples, assets, and livelihoods through improved design of USAID programs and increased capacity to respond to climate change impacts.”

The USAID CCRD Compendium (PDF) describes CCRD's activities, products, findings, and key accomplishments. It also provides links to connect USAID Bureaus and Missions and international practitioners to the large library of project resources, including tools, guidance, training materials, technical reports, and journal articles. In addition, the CCRD team provided some suggestions for future work to advance USAID’s development first approach to climate adaptation.

Over the course of the project, the CCRD team conducted a wide range of activities to help define and advance climate-resilient development in developing countries.

CCRD collaborated with the GCC Office to create, test, and implement a climate-resilient development framework. Technical assistance and training were provided by the CCRD team on climate services, climate risks related to rapidly changing glaciers and glacial lakes, and climate-resilient agriculture and urban infrastructure services. The CCRD team conducted adaptation-focused stakeholder and training-of-trainer workshops, convened peer learning and knowledge-sharing events, developed climate planning tools, and provided small grants to researchers, trainers, and practitioners.

The GCC Office has primary responsibility within USAID to provide technical leadership and guidance on adaptation and disseminate information on climate information and good practices in assessing and implementing adaptations to address climate vulnerability. In addition, the GCC Office provides support to USAID field missions and headquarters bureaus and offices, covering training and program/project design and evaluation. CCRD was designed to support the GCC Office in fulfilling its responsibilities for adaptation within the Agency. The CCRD team was tasked to develop tools and information resources to support adaptation actions on the ground, build capacity to adapt to climate change within USAID and among its partners, and pilot innovative adaptation approaches.