The National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRDPR) has developed a training manual for a certificate course on Sustainable Livelihoods and Adaptation to climate change (SLACC).
It was reported in June 2019 that the course is being provided by the Centre for National Resource Management of NIRDPR, which is also the Lead Technical Support Agency for the SLACC project. The various constituents of the course include climate change, variability, interventions that can help improve agricultural productivity, information on weather advisory services, and alternate activities for climate resilience.
The SLACC aims to create 200 certified ‘climate smart’ community resource persons and more than 100 young professionals in villages. This community so created will help rural population to cope with the impact of climate change on agriculture, and secure their livelihood through climate-proof planning and adaptations, and other aspects of community life, by spreading information related to sustainable livelihoods. This will help disseminate the climate-resilient technologies to the farming communities in the villages. A total of 23 technology interventions have been prioritised for farm-level activities to promote climate resilience by reducing cultivation cost, improving yields and profitability, and generating employment.
The project is a joint initiative of the Union Ministry of Rural Development and the World Bank and is funded by the Special Climate Change Fund set up under the United Nations Framework Convention on climate change (UNFCCC). Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana (MKSP), Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), and other centrally sponsored schemes are jointly undertaking the implementation of the project.
It is being implemented in 638 villages in Mandla and sheopur districts of Madhya Pradesh, and Gaya and Madhubani districts of Bihar under the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM). These districts are either prone to drought or flood. Eventually, the project will be implemented throughout the country.