Guwahati, Sep 14: More than 11,000 people, mostly farmers, in Assam and Meghalaya have benefited from the GEF-Small Grants Programme (SGP) in its first two years, with over 17,000 hectares of land brought under improved management, officials said.
The programme seeks to empower communities to take collective action for conservation and sustainable development, particularly in vulnerable and least-developed areas.
As the seventh Operational Phase (OP7) of the GEF-SGP concluded on Monday, implementing partners in the northeastern region are working to further expand its reach by bridging the gap between field-level practices and formal policy, officials associated with the programme said.
The Environment, Forest and Climate Change ministry, in collaboration with the UNDP, is implementing GEF OP7 of the SGP in India, with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) being the National Host Institution.
The Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Guwahati, is the knowledge partner for the Northeast region, which is among the three regions of the country focused under OP7.
“The OP7 aimed to enable communities and organisations in some of the most vulnerable and least developed areas to take collective action through a participatory landscape planning and management approach aimed at enhancing socio-ecological resilience through innovative livelihood options producing local and global environmental benefits,” Abhinandan Saikia, project lead, SGP Project-TISS Guwahati, told PTI.
Besides the highlands of the Northeast, central semi-arid areas and coastal regions were the three focus areas under OP7.
Saikia emphasised that the contextualisation of the Northeast is very difficult, and the large number of groups, including women groups, is testimony to the success of small-fund projects.
Sharing details on the outcomes of the first two years of the five-year project, Dipankar Saharia, senior director at TERI, said, “More than 11,000 lives have been impacted, with farmers accounting for 61 per cent of those reached. Over 17,000 hectares have been brought under improved management and 2,800 hectares restored. The interventions have reached 250 villages across 11 districts of Assam and Meghalaya and added 182 kW of renewable solar capacity.”
He stressed that the project should not be a source of funds for organisations, but a push to start working on community-driven approaches to keep the intervention going beyond the specified period.
Saikia added that importance was also being given to bridge the gap between field-level practices and formal policy by bringing together traditional knowledge, community-led clean-energy solutions, appropriate technologies and modern innovations.
In this regard, a two-day national conference, ‘Indigenous Traditional Knowledge, Clean Energy and Grassroots Innovation to Policy Solutions for Biodiversity, Climate Resilience and Land Restoration in Assam and Meghalaya’, was organised here recently.
More than 150 community farmers, grassroots practitioners, 22 NGO partners with over 60 representatives, resource persons and development professionals from Delhi, Assam and Meghalaya participated in the meet, Manish Kumar Pandey, national coordinator, SGP-India, TERI, said.
“We are focused on how successful grassroots initiatives supported through small grants can move beyond the pilot stage and gain larger institutional and financial support,” he added.
Saikia said the work with the communities will continue through the SGP, with emphasis all along being on sustainable and community-driven work, through OP8 and such interventions. (PTI)
