An initiative to help rural poor to cope with climate change

The National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj in Hyderabad Tuesday launched an initiative to improve the 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),' NIRDPR said in a release Tuesday.

The training manual for the 'Sustainable Livelihoods and Adaptation to Climate Change (SLACC)' Certificate Course was released by W R Reddy, Director-General, NIRDPR, Tuesday, during the first Training Programme for Community Resource Persons (CRPs). The aim of the course is to train a cadre of Climate Smart Community Resource Persons who are expected to disseminate the practice of sustainable livelihood through adaptation to climate change.

The programme will strengthen the skill sets of resource persons, it said. It is being implemented in 638 villages in Mandla and Sheopur districts of Madhya Pradesh, and Gaya and Madhubani districts of Bihar under National Rural Livelihood Mission. All these districts are either drought-prone or flood-prone, according to the release. The project would be scaled up nationwide subsequently.

The SLACC will create a cadre of over 200 certified climate-smart Community Resource Persons 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 release said. The cadre will further disseminate the climate resilient technologies to the farming communities in their respective allocated villages, as assigned by the State Rural Livelihood Mission (SRLM) staff, it said.

"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," Reddy said. On completion of the programme, the participants will be able to train or advocate other farmers or community in the villages on the climate resilient interventions using tool kits, it said.

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