The Bureau of Resilience, Environment, and Food Security (REFS) leads USAID’s integrated and inclusive approach to confront two of the most urgent and interconnected crises of our time: food security and climate change. Together, these challenges threaten our global development progress toward a more resilient, environmentally sustainable, and food-secure world.
REFS coordinates across USAID Missions, Bureaus, and independent offices to foster a world in which all people have sustained access to safe water, nutritious food, a healthy environment, and improved livelihoods as a result of inclusive, locally driven development strategies that protect the planet and our future.
REFS supports their partner countries to protect and accelerate development progress by advancing efforts on agriculture-led growth; energy; infrastructure; climate change; biodiversity conservation; pollution; sustainable urbanization; resilience; nutrition; and water security, sanitation, and hygiene. Critical to these efforts is prioritizing equity and environmental justice through the empowerment of marginalized and underrepresented populations; this includes support for cross-cutting issues like youth empowerment, gender equality, and digital inclusion.
