Howden Foundation

Ashden Climate Solutions (Ashden) is a climate change charity working to boost climate innovation in the UK and the Global South. 
 
Howden Foundation are supporting Ashden to expand their work with displaced people in refugee camps in Northern Kenya and Uganda. Through a locally-tailored call for applications, this programme will provide nine refugee-led organisations (RLOs) with direct grant funding, technical assistance and communications support, helping them to scale their work and draw funding attention from the donor, investor and climate finance communities. The programme will focus on supporting solutions which provide communities with access to reliable, affordable, clean energy technologies that enable them to adapt to a changing climate, and increase resilience to drought and extreme heat (e.g. solar irrigation, fuel efficient cooking to combat deforestation, and home cooling). 

Climate Resilience for All (CRA) is a women-led NGO dedicated to strengthening and supporting women and vulnerable communities from the impacts of extreme heat. 
 
The Howden Foundation supports CRA’s work with informal female workers in India through their ‘Women’s Climate Shock Insurance and Livelihood Initiative’ (WCSI), which provides financial support and wage protection when it becomes too hot and dangerous for women to work. 

In its first year, CRA provided close to $600,000 in extreme heat insurance and cash through the WCSI, protecting 50,000 women and their families. By giving these women with the choice of whether to risk working in dangerous temperatures, the programme resulted in increased family income and food security, as well as reduced illness, injury, and exploitation. Up to 250,000 women are expected to participate in the second year of the programme.

ClimateWorks Foundation is a catalyst for accelerating climate progress, driving bold solutions that benefit people and the planet. They have granted over $2 billion to more than 850 grantees in over 50 countries since 2008.

Howden Foundation collaborates with ClimateWorks in two core ways. First, as a founding member of the Adaptation and Resilience Fund (A&R Fund) – a pooled fund, led by ClimateWorks, which was launched in 2025 following a call-to-action on extreme heat from the UN Secretary-General. The A&R Fund is directing over $50 million in grants towards locally led, people-centered solutions that help communities build resilience and adapt to escalating climate impacts.

Howden Foundation is also a member of the Adaptation and Resilience Collaborative for Funders (ARC) – a platform convened by ClimateWorks to bring funders together to align strategies, share insights, and shape the future of the adaptation field. 

The Environmental Change Institute (ECI) is a research centre based at the University of Oxford, which is working to democratise access to climate risk data by providing decision-makers with the tools to better understand and address the needs of vulnerable communities in the Global South when planning for climate-related disasters.

The Howden Foundation is supporting ECI to build the J-ADAPT Toolkit - the world’s first fully open toolkit of its kind - which provides tailored, high-quality analytics on climate-related risks, whilst assessing the social and economic impacts of plans that aim to address them. The toolkit specifically focuses on enabling green (i.e. natural) and grey (i.e. built) infrastructure to become better adapted to a changing climate, while also helping governments and communities develop adaptation plans that are as just and inclusive as possible, in order to bring the maximum benefit to the world’s most vulnerable people. The work is being piloted in Kenya.

Humanity Insured is a new, independent charity backed by the Insurance industry with a mission to provide accessible and affordable insurance solutions for those living on the frontlines of the climate crisis.

Howden Foundation is supporting Humanity Insured’s work to provide premium subsidies for insurance solutions that address drought and extreme heat in low-income countries, with a focus on farmers, coastal communities, urban informal workers and those who have been displaced by climate shocks. All initatives Humanity Insured funds are locally-led, co-designed and tailored to the needs of the communities that they support.

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a global environmental nonprofit working to create a world in which people and nature can thrive. 
 
The Howden Foundation supported TNC to develop the United States’ first ever coral reef insurance policy to fund the protection and restoration of Hawai‘i’s coral reefs when extreme weather events such as tropical storms and hurricanes occur. The policy is triggered when wind speeds of 50 knots (57 mph) occur sufficiently close to the coral reefs in question. If this happens, the Hawai‘i Emergency Reef Restoration Network will utilise the payouts to rapidly repair and restore coral reefs damaged by the storm. Through protecting the structural integrity of these reefs, this policy not only reduces the impacts of storm-surges on land, but also protects a vital part of Hawai‘i’s culture, lifestyle and economy.

PELUM Zimbabwe (Participatory ecological land use management) is a Zimbabwean NGO that works with local farmers organisations to spread regenerative practices which improve nutrition security, livelihoods and environmental sustainability throughout Zimbabwe. 

The Howden Foundation is supporting PELUM Zimbabwe to deliver a learning programme focused on livestock and land regeneration in order to build the resilience of local farmers to drought. Across nine partner organisations and working in at least five districts of Zimbabwe, this programme encourages a move away from intensive livestock grazing towards rotational grazing. This leads to improved soil, grassland, cattle and human health - as well as soil water retention – which collectively builds resilience to drought. The programme also engages politicians at a local, regional and national level to promote understanding of and support for regenerative practices like these across the country. 

RedR UK is a humanitarian capacity-strengthening NGO which partners with local NGOs and community-based organisations to enable effective disaster response through learning and development.
 
The Howden Foundation is supporting RedR UK to equip humanitarian workers with the knowledge and resources to respond to climate-related challenges in drought-prone regions of Somalia and Afghanistan through tailored online training.  The trainings cover drought response, management, and resilience planning, with the aim of further developing frontline workers in areas of high climate risk. The programme aims to reduce reliance on external assistance, whilst empowering local actors to manage climate-related challenges independently. This includes equipping local actors with the skills to conduct risk assessments and take anticipatory or ‘preventative’ action, with a critical focus on gender-responsive approaches towards climate change.

Sand Dams Worldwide (SDW) is a UK-registered charity which supports some of the world’s poorest people to transform their own lives through water and soil conservation in drylands. They plan to support the construction of one million sand dams for 0.5 billion people by 2050.

The Howden Foundation is supporting SDW to construct sand dams across four seasonal riverbeds in Malawi’s drylands with their local delivery partner, Churches Action in Relief and Development (CARD). Sand dams are a nature-based rainwater harvesting solution which can store up to 40 million litres of rainwater in the sand that accumulates upstream of the dam wall. The sand dams will provide year-round access to clean water for more than 8,000 people whilst enabling women - who typically bear the brunt of water collection duties - to spend more time tending to the land, including through participating in CARD’s climate resilient agriculture training programme. The programme aims to enhance food and water security, whilst enabling the restoration of degraded land through the implementation of environmental protection techniques including tree planting, which is made possible by the presence of more reliable water supplies and the sand dams raising groundwater levels. CARD will also engage with the Malawi government to advocate for more widespread construction of sand dams across the country.

SCBF is a membership-based organisation of public and private entities dedicated to advancing responsible financial inclusion across emerging markets. They provide catalytic funding to financial service providers, impact-driven organisations, and social enterprises to test, develop and scale client-centric financial solutions for the under-served populations.

Howden Foundation is working with SCBF to develop and scale inclusive index (e.g., weather events) and parametric insurance products focused on extreme heat and drought in the Global South. Through this partnership, we will fund the development of three new insurance products that will protect an estimated 220,000 people over the next two years. These products will be tailored to the needs of low-income households, smallholder farmers and small enterprises (MSMEs) with a strong focus on women and youth particularly in the rural areas. The projects may include the development and scaling of early warning and risk management systems, as well as supporting sustainable livelihoods with tools tailored towards extreme heat and drought, including solutions for livestock management.

SEEDS (Sustainable Environment and Ecological Development Society) is an India-based NGO that partners with vulnerable communities to build their resilience to climate-related disasters and impacts. 

The Howden Foundation is supporting SEEDS’ work to improve resilience towards extreme heat amongst New Delhi’s most vulnerable communities through an innovative tool that combines AI-driven heat mapping with satellite imagery and local weather data to identify households at risk of extreme heat. Having identified 1,450 most ‘at risk’ homes, SEEDS will work to install nature-based cooling solutions to enhance thermal comfort in these buildings, whilst working with local government officials to advocate for this approach across other parts of the country. This includes training inhabitants in roof insulation techniques that can reduce internal temperatures by up to 6-8 degrees Celsius – including jute bags, bamboo mats and green cover creepers - thus reducing the risk of heat-related illnesses and fatalities.  

Seven Clean Seas is an Ocean Impact organisation that has developed solar-powered technology which supports the removal of millions of kilograms of plastic waste before it enters and pollutes the ocean.  

The Howden Foundation has supported the development of the first automatic, solar-powered High-Impact Plastic Pollution remOver (HIPPO) that aims to remove up to 1.4 million kilograms of plastic waste per year from the Chao Phraya River in Thailand. As well as installing the HIPPO which prevents plastic from entering the ocean and polluting marine ecosystems, Seven Clean Seas work with local communities to separate and treat the captured waste, turning recyclables into products (e.g. furniture) and non-recyclable plastics into building products like bricks and roof tiles.

Start Network is a network of over 100 humanitarian agencies working together to revolutionise the existing global humanitarian system, by providing early, effective support to those living on the frontlines of crisis by providing early, effective responses before and when disasters strike.

The Howden Foundation is supporting Start Network’s ‘Start Ready’ programme which works with communities at risk of climate-related disasters to co-create emergency assistance plans, and to fund the roll out of these plans once a pre-agreed crisis threshold has been met. As soon as Start Network receives a warning that a climate-related incident will occur, emergency funding is released. It also supports the Start Fund programme - a rapid response mechanism that delivers humanitarian aid within 72 hours of a crisis alert. This tailored and timely humanitarian assistance both before and during a crisis event dramatically reduces the impact of that event and limits the damage to lives and livelihoods that occurs, including through the provision cash transfers, information exchange and equipment supplies.