Implementation of sustainable agricultural and natural resource management practices

Food and water security for nutrition

Sustainable agricultural inputs and water are essential to all of CARE's outcome areas, vital resources for all sectors and foundational to resilience. Water scarcity and insecurity, caused by poor water resources management and exacerbated by climate change, drive cycles of drought and food insecurity, migration and chronic emergencies. CARE’s work to ensure the protection, restoration and management of ecosystems that supply water resources is a critical path to ensuring food security, nutrition and livelihoods. It reduces forced migration and humanitarian emergencies, mitigates potential for conflict and promotes wider economic and social well-being.

CARE will build on decades of experience in landscape approaches, inclusive governance, integrated water resources management, climate change adaptation and water- and climate-smart agriculture models to ensure that communities and governments are addressing risks to the ecosystems upon which they depend. We will enable women and youth to engage in the development and scale-up of innovations and models for improved water and agriculture resource management and protection. We also will continue to engage with partners at all levels in driving better practice and policy. Our work to increase land- and water-use efficiency and reduce water stress includes promoting climate- and water-smart agriculture to reduce agricultural water withdrawals, increase rainwater harvesting and ensure women small-scale farmers have access to water for agriculture, especially in vulnerable watersheds and water-scarce contexts. This work also relies on the integration of agriculture and water resource management in disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and humanitarian, nexus and development interventions.