Climate Adaptation Research Program

USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance | $12M+ across two grants | 2022-2025

The Problem

The communities most at risk from climate change are also the least heard in climate research. Global South researchers are the closest to the floods, droughts, extreme heat, and hurricanes devastating their communities and have historically been excluded from the research systems designed to address those very disasters. Funding flows in. Findings flow out. Local knowledge and local leadership rarely lead.

CARP was built to change that.

 
 

What CARP Was

The Climate Adaptation Research Program was a transcontinental research initiative designed to strengthen disaster preparedness and climate adaptation decision-making by putting Global South researchers in the lead. Rather than importing outside expertise, CARP reversed the traditional research funding model. The program provided grants, training, and a global peer network so that local researchers could define their own questions, own their results, and connect their findings directly to the governments, NGOs, and communities that needed them.

The program operated across three regions through institutional partnerships with:

  • Stellenbosch University & the PERIPERI-U Network — an 18-university African disaster risk reduction network

  • Consejo Superior Universitario Centroamericano (CSUCA) — representing 25+ universities across Central America and the Caribbean region and connected to networks of universities of over 500 institutions across Central and South America

  • Auckland University of Technology — serving as the Pacific Islands hub for building the research and institutional capacity disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation

  • University of Arizona — hosted the program as the main convening partner across the three CARP regions and served as the direct liaison to the USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance

What Was Built

Scale

  • 55+ countries engaged across the program

  • 300+ scholars supported across cohorts

  • 73 proposals received across competitive, multi-region funding calls

  • 33 applied research projects implemented across 11 countries in the African cohort alone, supporting 125+ scholars from 10 universities

  • 20 projects selected across Africa and 20 across Latin America and the Caribbean in the 2024 cohort, supporting 200+ scholars in 21 countries

  • 500+ universities across Latin America and the Caribbean represented at the regional launch

  • 100+ organizations and partners engaged

Convenings & Learning

  • Six in-person, multi-day workshops delivered across Africa, Guatemala, and Arizona

  • A 15-session global webinar series focused on leadership development, applied research skills, and evidence-to-decision pathways

  • Direct South-to-South partnerships built across regions — connecting researchers facing similar disaster dynamics across different continents

Program Infrastructure

  • A team of transcontinental 18 faculty partners and staff, and 8 graduate researchers

  • Governance structures, workflows, and decision-making processes built from scratch for a new, experimental initiative

  • A foundational platform for cross-sector, transcontinental collaboration, mentorship, and applied learning at the intersection of climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction

In Their Own Words

The Funding Stopped. The Need Didn't.

CARP concluded early in 2025 following federal funding terminations tied to changes in U.S. government priorities. At the time of termination, 40 additional projects had been selected but not yet fully funded in the 2024 cohort, representing 200+ scholars across 21 countries who were ready to do the work.

Climate disasters are intensifying. The researchers, networks, and institutional relationships built through CARP remain. The need for a transcontinental research community connecting evidence to action across the Global South is as urgent as it was when CARP launched, and more so now that the infrastructure that was beginning to support it has been dismantled.

What This Demonstrates

CARP was an institution-building exercise at global scale. It involved securing and launching a new program from scratch, building a multinational team and governance structure, designing and managing competitive funding calls across three continents, and delivering convening and capacity-strengthening experiences for hundreds of early-career scholars simultaneously. Simultaneously, funded researchers worked directly with leaders, communities, and organizations within their own countries and shared their findings with relevant audiences to inform and improve localized disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation action.

For organizations serious about building research systems that connect evidence to action in service of communities facing climate risk, this is what that looks like in practice.