Climate action
The growing climate crisis is driving a rise in acute food insecurity and malnutrition. Agrifood systems are both part of the problem and part of the solution to the interconnected climate and hunger crises.
FAO supports food crisis countries and their communities in building more resilient agrifood systems by managing climate and disaster risks and impacts through complementary actions across humanitarian, development and peace efforts. This means addressing immediate needs while tackling underlying vulnerabilities and reducing the multiple risks faced by communities that depend on agriculture and food-based livelihoods, through a portfolio of climate actions over the short, medium and longer term.
With decades of global experience, FAO integrates climate action across all areas of its emergency and resilience work to help countries manage, reduce and adapt to climate risks and impacts from both extreme and slow-onset events. Small-scale farmers, herders, fishers, forest-dependent communities and other food actors are on the frontline of climate change, facing the brunt of climate losses and damages. With FAO’s support, they can drive transformative change towards more resilient, adapted and food-secure livelihoods and agrifood systems.
As outlined in FAO’s Strategy on Climate Change, climate action refers to stepped-up efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while strengthening resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related impacts.
In FAO’s emergency and resilience work, it encompasses any activity that manages climate risks, hazards, shocks or stresses, and addresses the impacts of climate-related events, including loss and damage. It includes efforts undertaken before, during and after such events.
Amid today’s overlapping crises, complementary climate actions are needed to strengthen the capacity of local communities and institutions to prevent, anticipate, absorb, adapt and transform in the face of shocks and stresses.
FAO’s emergency and resilience work provides a portfolio of comprehensive risk and impact management solutions tailored to fragile and food crisis contexts, including:
- Agroclimatic, food security and disaster risk information and early warning systems
- Preparedness, anticipatory action and rapid recovery from climate shocks
- Climate and disaster risk governance, decision-making processes and policies
- Climate-resilient agricultural practices and technologies at farm and community levels
- Climate-resilient infrastructure along food value chains
- Risk transfer mechanisms, such as climate insurance and social protection
- Nature-based solutions, including ecosystem and natural resource management
- Reducing food loss and waste from farm to table
- Promoting climate-friendly and healthy diets
Through these actions, FAO works with partners and communities to turn climate challenges into opportunities for more resilient and sustainable agrifood systems.
FAO good practices of climate action in food crisis and fragile contexts
FAO has identified and documented impactful climate action solutions from fragile and food crisis settings. These examples demonstrate how local communities and agrifood systems actors are sustainably adapting and protecting agricultural livelihoods in the face of climate change.
Explore good practices on the map below:
FAO good practices of climate action in food crisis and fragile contexts
Communities living in food crisis and fragile contexts rely mainly on weather dependent agrifood livelihoods, placing them on the front line of the climate crisis. As heat waves, droughts, floods and storms intensify with rising temperatures and erratic rainfall, existing vulnerabilities deepen, food insecurity worsens and livelihoods erode. In these complex settings, climate action must address multiple climate risk and impacts to build adaptation and resilience.
Stories, publications and multimedia from the field on impactful climate action solutions from fragile and food crisis settings
Publications
Improved Adaptive Capacity and Resilience to Current Climate Variability and Change in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda - UNJP/SFE/004/WMO
07/2025
The Greater Horn of Africa is highly vulnerable to natural disasters, especially droughts, which are becoming more frequent and severe due to climate...
Publications
Colombia: Project Highlights - OSRO/COL/135/GER
04/2025
Germany’s Federal Foreign Office, through the Special Fund for Emergency and Rehabilitation Activities - Anticipatory Action Window, contributed USD...
Publications
Guatemala, Colombia, Honduras and Nicaragua: Local Technical Agroclimatic Committees (MTAS)
04/2024
Local stakeholders and agricultural producers in Latin America have limited access to agroclimatic information and, when they do gain access to it,...
Photo Collection
Afghanistan: Afforestation/reforestation initiatives in Khust Province
23/09/2024
View this gallery on Flickr.
Photo Collection
Yemen: Fodder and livestock distribution for emergency agricultural and livelihood support
10/03/2025
View this gallery on Flickr
Photo Collection
Somalia: UN Joint Action for Building Resilience
07/01/2025
View this gallery on Flickr.
News on FAO and climate action in food crisis
News
Rebuilding lives through resilient farming in flood-affected Rubkona County
11/11/2025
Communities in South Sudan are finding hope and independence through climate-smart agriculture
News
Uganda secures $31 million from Green Climate Fund for Africa’s first results-based climate project
29/10/2025
FAO-led initiative recognizes Uganda’s forest conservation efforts and boosts climate resilience
News
Growing resilience: From home gardens to harvests, farmers in Lesotho rebuild after the floods
20/10/2025
In the wake of disaster, smallholder farmers across Lesotho are growing hope, income and resilience, one harvest at a time
Publications on FAO and climate action in food crisis
Publications
The Philippines: Project highlights - OSRO/PHI/081/GER
11/2025
The Government of Germany, through the Special Fund for Emergency and Resilience Activities, contributed USD 428 590 to strengthen preparedness and...
Publications
Mozambique: Project Highlights - OSRO/MOZ/142/GER
11/2025
The Government of the Federal Republic of Germany contributed USD 800 000 to the FAO project, "Anticipating the impacts of La Niña-induced floods to...
Publications
Somalia: Project Highlights - OSRO/SOM/079/DEN
11/2025
The Government of the Kingdom of Denmark contributed USD 2 272 029 to the FAO project, "Scaling up FAO’s recovery response in drought-affected regions...
Multimedia
Video
The importance of agrifood systems to tackle climate change: Interview with Kaveh Zahedi
18/10/2024
Three crucial United Nations climate and environmental summits will be held in the last quarter of 2024.
Video
Community Perspectives on Anticipatory Action in the Asia and the Pacific Region
17/03/2025
When disasters strike, communities are often the first to act to protect their families and neighbours. In response to the increasing frequency and...
Video
Government Perspectives on Anticipatory Action in the Asia and the Pacific Region
17/03/2025
In response to the increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters, governments across the Asia-Pacific region are protecting livelihoods and...