Sustainable Development Impacts

The impact synchronizes with the SDGs. Specifically, this project ensures that the poor and vulnerable have equal rights to economic, social, and natural resources, access to appropriate technologies and financial services, building resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate-related extreme events (SDG1 - Goals 1.4 and 1.5). It augments agricultural productivity for marginal indigenous people and implements resilient agriculture that strengthens its capacity for adaptation to climate change (SDG2 - Goals 2.3 and 2.4). It ensures gender equity (SDG5 - Goal 5.5) and expands international cooperation for capacity-building in water activities and implements integrated water management (SDG6 - Goals 6.5 and 6.6). By augmenting adaptive capacity to climate hazards and disasters and strengthening institutional capacity on mitigation, adaptation and impact reduction, it promotes mechanisms for climate planning and management, focusing on women, youth and local marginalized communities. (SDG13 - Goal 13.1).


RESILIENCE, ADAPTABILITY, AND SELF-SUFFICIENCY

The intervention has enabled local capacities to ensure flood resilient agro-farming for livelihood and food security in states of India and Bangladesh wherein 2,200 households (10,000 heads) in 178 villages have accepted flood and salinity as an opportunity rather than hazard. 200 hectares of inundated farmland are back to production, conserving their ecosystem services through crop cycle planning, integrated farming, water resource management, etc., augmenting community resilience and preparedness. This project is furthered with government stakeholder participation like NABARD and international cooperation from GDN USA, GIZ, Germany, etc. Credit linkages and insurance has spread out the risk of marginal commons, whereas inclusive growth has engaged beneficiaries from all cross sections of indigenous societies, encouraging gender parity and leaving no one behind (LNOB) in economic sustainability. Women have taken the lead in the management of local institutions, enabling a stronger decision support system.Floodplain villages in India and coastal villages of Bangladesh are geographically remote and distinctly alienated from the mainstream economy, especially in monsoon owing to a lack of livelihood opportunities and disaster vulnerability that gets escalated with ENSO-like climate hazards. Present intervention, wherein LNOB (Leaving No One Behind) principle is a core component, has abridged this spatio-temporal inequality by enabling alternative livelihoods and food security with flood-resilient float-farming, thereby stopping the migration of youth as casual laborers or internal displacement of families by a food crisis. The economic inequality in the community owing to land disadvantages and fiscal inabilities are addressed by creating more floating arable areas on inundated farmlands and promoting collective community farming, whereas fiscal risk reduction is ensured by forming joint liability groups for credit linkages and group insurances. Socio-anthropogenic inequalities of different indigenous communities, mostly owing to policy discrimination are addressed through technological cooperation and by building capacities, wherein shared values of knowledge and delivery value chains in services have assured sustainability and inclusive growth. By reinstating the environmental services of the habitat and thereby compensating for the opportunity costs with Payments from Environmental Services (PES), the project has reduced inequity and endorsed reciprocal rights of the commons on nature’s services.


REDUCED INEQUALITIES

Floodplain villages in India and coastal villages of Bangladesh are geographically remote and distinctly alienated from the mainstream economy, especially in monsoon owing to a lack of livelihood opportunities and disaster vulnerability that gets escalated with ENSO-like climate hazards. Present intervention, wherein LNOB (Leaving No One Behind) principle is a core component, has abridged this spatio-temporal inequality by enabling alternative livelihoods and food security with flood-resilient float-farming, thereby stopping the migration of youth as casual laborers or internal displacement of families by a food crisis. The economic inequality in the community owing to land disadvantages and fiscal inabilities are addressed by creating more floating arable areas on inundated farmlands and promoting collective community farming, whereas fiscal risk reduction is ensured by forming joint liability groups for credit linkages and group insurances. Socio-anthropogenic inequalities of different indigenous communities, mostly owing to policy discrimination are addressed through technological cooperation and by building capacities, wherein shared values of knowledge and delivery value chains in services have assured sustainability and inclusive growth. By reinstating the environmental services of the habitat and thereby compensating for the opportunity costs with Payments from Environmental Services (PES), the project has reduced inequity and endorsed reciprocal rights of the commons on nature’s services.


GENDER EQUALITY

The intervention has adeptly addressed gender equity and financial inclusion to empower women-folk who have been distressed by economic insecurity, circumstantial uncertainty and social abuse. Essentially, women farmers and fishers have been equally trained in new technology to lead the practice from the front. To ensure that they are not forced to work as agricultural laborers, they receive trade-specific capacity building training in nursery management, pest management, nutrient management, etc., in hydroponic float-farming. Even a women-friendly tool bank is created for them to reduce drudgery. Economic empowerment is brought through financial inclusion and the formation of women’s Joint Liability Groups (JLGs) which are linked to bank and group insurance schemes. Herein, the women leaders can directly participate in decision-making system and participatory planning. While planning for alternative livelihood opportunities, supplementary provisions for livestock rearing and seedling nursery for cereals have been exclusively marked for women in order to facilitate their societal comforts and agro-habits in compensation for the opportunity costs incurred on them by household chores. Women groups are directly linked with the market and are adequately equipped with marketing tools and strategies for fiscal empowerment and are supported with a mobile helpline for any emergency situations. There have been drastic reductions in social abuse, violence, and harassment aimed at women, thanks to this strategy.


SOCIAL INCLUSION

Sociometric studies in the intervention areas on livelihood and vulnerability showed 57% of indigenous inhabitants work as agricultural laborers as they do not have land rights and 33.5% of them are youth who usually migrate as casual laborers in days of distress. This intervention has socio-economically included such marginal farmers who are registered in cooperatives practicing float-farming, thereby negating the land issues and strengthening local institutions. Linking market dynamics with local production value chains has included non-agrarian communities in developmental courses through service sector engagements. The rich socio-cultural landscape of the intervention areas both in India and Bangladesh has immense anthropogenic diversity, especially in Majuli River Island, which includes nine indigenous agrarian communities, all of whom are equitably engaged in this intervention, depending on their socio-economic need and abilities, through integrated farming activities and appropriate capacity building. Women, have been included as entrepreneurs in Joint Liability Groups (JLGs), manage the finances and participate in the decision support system with unbiased opinions. Outreach and extension programs have sewed up socio-political gaps to ensure equity and reciprocity between the ethnic groups. The commonness of float-farming and integrated agriculture has been a panacea in inclusive growth and collective action to mitigate climate impacts and adapt alternatives for livelihood security.