NIRDPR launches initiative to help rural poor farm holds cope with climate change

For the first time in India, National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRDPR), has launched an initiative to improve the adaptive capacity of the rural poor engaged in farm-based livelihoods to cope with climate change.

It seeks to establish a large-scale proof of concept on integrating community-based climate change planning and adaptation by working with climate-smart Community Resource Persons (CRPs) and National Resource Persons (NRPs).

The training manual for this 'Sustainable Livelihoods and Adaptation to Climate Change (SLACC)' certificate Course was released by Dr W.R. Reddy, IAS, Director-General, NIRDPR, last week during the first training program for Community Resource Persons (CRPs).

The aim of this course is to create a cadre of over 200 certified 'climate-smart' CRPs and over 100 young professionals in villages, who will combat the impact of climate change and secure their livelihood through climate proof planning and adaptations. The cadre will further disseminate the climate resilient technologies to the farming communities in their respective allocated villages, as assigned by the SRLM Mission staff.

As many as 638 drought and flood-prone villages in some districts of Madhya Pradesh and Bihar will be covered initially under this initiative, which will be scaled up nationwide subsequently.

"The Ministry of Rural Development is striving to protect the small and marginal farmers from climate vagaries and secure their well-being. This World Bank-supported SLACC has developed the training modules to build the capacities of hundreds of CRPs as master trainers in the states of Madhya Pradesh and Bihar - both having high climate risk," Dr Reddy said.

Further adding that 23 technology interventions are prioritised for farm level activities for climate resilience, Dr Reddy said, "They aim to reduce the cost of cultivation, improve yield and income, profitability, empower women and generate employment."

Conducted over a period of two weeks, the course is divided into four modules that will help the participants to understand the climate change interventions and the easy methods of training for the community.

The SLACC project is funded by the Special Climate Change Fund, which was set up under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to finance global projects relating to adaptation, technology transfer and capacity building, among other areas.