Published in November 2022

Earlier this month world leaders, politicians and experts from across the globe came together for this year’s COP27 climate summit in Egypt, in a bid to agree how to tackle climate change and its impacts.

It came at a critical point, as the UN warned that the world is headed for “climate catastrophe” without urgent action, and called for countries to dramatically scale up their efforts to counter the climate crisis.

Time and time again this year, already we have seen extreme weather events occurring all around the world, including monsoon flooding in Pakistan, record-breaking heatwaves across Europe, and wildfires in California. And in the Horn of Africa, communities here continue to battle against the longest and most severe drought in recent history, which sadly is expected to continue well into 2023.

So like many others, I watched on with interest, and hope, to see what solutions and commitments were going to come out of the summit.

"I was encouraged to see water security, agriculture and food systems, and biodiversity emerge as important themes – three areas inextricably linked to each other, and the work that we do at Sand Dams Worldwide."

Protecting the globe’s natural resources, such as soil and water, and maintaining healthy, biodiverse ecosystems is paramount to ensure that communities can be food and water secure for the long term.

Another key issue high on the agenda at the summit was the importance of strengthening the ability to adapt to climate change and build resilience. This too is critical as the impacts of climate change are rapidly getting worse, and in many cases, particularly in the dryland areas where we work, are exacerbating concurrent crises such as food and water shortages.

Building communities’ resilience and strengthening their ability to adapt to climate change is central to Sand Dams Worldwide’s Big Give Christmas Challenge this year (running from November 29th-December 6th). With your help we hope to raise £50,000 in online donations to enable two communities to build three more sand dams in southern Zimbabwe (with each donation to be doubled by our generous partners, helping us to reach our overall target of £100,000).

In addition to building their sand dams, the communities will also be supported to implement a variety of environmental protection measures and to manage community woodlots, to help restore severely degraded land, so that in turn, farmers can grow more crops, providing a sustainable source of food and income for their families.

Find out more about our Big Give campaign here.

Elsewhere, we continue to work tirelessly to ensure more vulnerable dryland communities are able to adapt to the changing climate, by building sand dams, adopting climate-smart agriculture, and protecting environments. And as the UN’s climate summit concludes for another year, we look to governments around the world to dramatically scale up their efforts in the fight against climate change.

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Want to make a donation towards a sand dam project and have it doubled for free!? Click here to find out more about our Big Give Green Match Fund campaign