USAID - Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance

Today, USAID announced more than $22 million in additional assistance to build resilience and improve food security in Madagascar. Provided through consortiums led by USAID partners Catholic Relief Services and Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA), this assistance will help up to 88,000 extremely vulnerable and marginalized households access health care, nutrition, and water, sanitation, and hygiene services; build livelihoods; and withstand future shocks. This support builds on USAID’s longstanding emergency programming in Madagascar to respond to recurrent shocks, like drought and cyclones, while strengthening emergency response capacity and increasing resilience in the face of these disasters. 📸: Catholic Relief Services

Heavy rainfall since early November has led to flooding and landslides in Costa Rica and caused significant damage to public infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, and water systems, in Panama. Thousands of people are being impacted and the governments remain on red alert with even more rain anticipated through Monday. USAID is working with Panama's National Civil Protection System to provide hygiene kits, small water filters, and other supplies for use in flooded areas. Our disaster experts in the region continue to work with the local government and agencies to deliver aid to those in need.

Storm Alert: Tropical Storm #Sara is tracking westward near the Honduras–Nicaragua border, where it is expected to strengthen slightly before making landfall over Honduras within 24 hours with wind speeds of up to 45 mph. USAID experts in the region and in Washington, D.C. are monitoring the storm and stand ready to respond if requested.

NEWS: More than 68,000 asylum-seekers have fled to Côte d’Ivoire to escape violence since 2021, and many do not have enough food to meet their daily needs. While Ivorian host communities have helped support people seeking safety, their own resources are already stretched thin due to pre-existing levels of food insecurity. The Government of Côte d’Ivoire and humanitarian organizations are mobilizing to provide emergency food assistance countrywide, but needs among asylum-seekers still remain high. To help, USAID is surging $1 million to trusted humanitarian partners that can scale up food deliveries to these and other food-insecure communities. USAID staff continue to monitor and assess needs among these vulnerable populations.

The first people to respond to a disaster are always locals. That’s why USAID partner Catholic Relief Services has been supporting local organizations, like the ones you see here, all across Latin America and the Caribbean to be better prepared to lead disaster response within their communities, as well as strengthening their ability to build resilience before disasters strike.

Foreign Service Nationals—known as FSNs—are the foundation of USAID’s lifesaving work, and today on FSN Recognition Day, meet three of our hometown heroes who have dedicated their lives to helping others.

ALERT: Tropical Storm Usagi—known locally as Tropical Storm Ofel— is on track to make landfall in the next 48 hours near or over the Philippines’ Cagayan Valley Region located on Luzon Island with estimated wind speeds of more than 109 mph. If it does make landfall, it would be the fifth major storm to hit the country in less than a month. USAID staff in the region and in D.C. are monitoring and stand ready to help if requested.

Community members are often the first on scene after a disaster. That is why it is vital to equip local volunteers, like the ones seen here, with skills in first aid, search and rescue, and triage. This training, which was put on with support from USAID, is a part of the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) and the Sri Lanka Disaster Management Center’s Community Action Disaster Response (CADRE) course. Since its introduction in 2009, CADRE has been the foundation for community response teams across Asia, ensuring that communities are better prepared for disasters.

“Like many of the veterans I know, for humanitarians, service is a way of life — and I don’t think any of us would have it any other way.” On #VeteransDay in the U.S., meet just a few of the USAID staff who, after their years of military service to the country, chose to join our mission to save lives and alleviate suffering – serving in a new way. https://lnkd.in/e46mC4rg

Happy 249th birthday to the United States Marine Corps! Today, we recognize Major Mike Racicot as he continues the partnership and coordination between our two organizations as a USAID Marine Corps Fellow. By learning to leverage each other’s strengths, we are able to better work together, when needed, to save lives when disaster strikes.