Trump budget threatens Zimbabwe climate change resilience programs
A narrow dirt road snakes along the banks of a small river and leads to the remote village of Birirano. Marked by baobab trees and drought tolerent shrubs, this small community is sandwiched between desolate mountains in Zimbabwe’s eastern district of Chipinge. Far from the main highway, it is largely cut off from the rest of the country and the world.
With limited livelihood possibilities, villagers here have long been locked in an unending cycle of poverty. Over the past decade, their hard scrabble lives have grown even harder as lengthy and intensifying climate change-induced droughts have made rain-fed agriculture increasingly unsustainable, with crops repeatedly withering and dying.
Then, over the last few years, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) stepped in and became synonymous with hope in Birirano, as the agency funded projects to build resilience against escalating global warming threats.
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