A New Phase of the Project on Structural Transformation Process / Capacity Building in Climate Change/India

This proposal for a 4-years programme on “Vulnerability Assessment and Enhancing the Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change in Semi-Arid Regions of India” (“V&A Programme”) is based on the outcomes and experiences gained from earlier projects related to mitigation and adaptation to climate change in India and other countries funded by Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation's (SDC) Global Environment Fund.

The V&A Programme will be strongly anchored in SDC's Country Programme India and shall embrace an integrated and holistic as well as a participatory stakeholder-driven and pro-poor approach.

The overall goal of the V&A Programme in India is to secure the livelihoods of rural poor and vulnerable communities by promoting adaptation measures that build and enhance their capacity to better cope with adverse impacts of climate change and by improving their disaster preparedness.

The V&A Programme's focus is put on optimising and integrating climate change related knowledge in existing service delivery systems in the water, agriculture and rural energy sector in the two Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan. Another important feature of the V&A Programme is its aim to catalyze and enhance communication and policy dialogue on climate change issues within and at different decision levels.

The goal and focus of the programme have been articulated through three specific objectives that integrate the local community, the state/district as well as the Indian national and international level.

These objectives are:

1. to build community level capacities with regard to best practices and technologies in the agriculture, water and energy sector,

2. to optimise the service delivery system and services at selected sites of Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan, and

3.  to promote policy dialogue and advocacy at different level and to link up with the 2^nd National Communication process.

To achieve these objectives the V&A Programme combines four different programme components that help to define the way of implementing activities: research and analysis; natural resource management; capacity building and action learning; and local empowerment.

The 4-years V&A programme adopts a three-staged set-up with an initial stocktaking and documentation period, an implementation period and a period of consolidation, focusing on outreach, networking and dissemination.

The programme's institutional set up and structure is based on a strong cooperation between a national consortium of partners, an international consortium of back-stoppers/advisors and various other actors at community, district, state and national government levels. The M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) in Chennai will act as the lead agency within the national consortium, together with the National Institute of Agriculture Extension Management (MANAGE) and Action for Food Production (AFPRO), both based in Hyderabad. The international consortium will consist of Intercooperation (IC), Bern, and INFRAS, Zurich. A programme steering committee will be responsible for overall steering and guidance.

Within an evolving international climate change context this proposed V&A programme in India will make an important contribution to “adaptation science” and will highlight the role of bilateral development agencies in that respect. The programme's aim to demonstrate and implement adaptation measures and coping mechanisms at the community level and at the same time to translate such action learning results to an international policy level makes this SDC programme absolutely unique.