GEAG Policy Brief: Towards risk resilient villages

In India, State Action Plans on Climate Change (SAPCC) are the primary drivers of adaptation action at state level that aligns with national priorities as defined in Nationally Determined Contribution. However, its implementation requires newer capacities, enhanced coordination between multiple actors, institutions and processes and further localisation at district and village level.

At the local level, Gram anchayat is a basic governing institution in Indian villages. The guidelines on Gram Panchayat Development Plans (GPDP) developed by the Government of India and State Governments, emphasise Gram Panchayats as being the basic unit for localisation of development schemes and thus provides opportunity for integrating disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate resilience planning.

The GPDP process also has ample scope to appropriately utilise the available financial resources, according to local needs and priorities, that can help in addressing climate change adaptation (CCA) and DRR concerns in the planning and resilient development of villages.

Integrating disaster risk reduction and climate resilience planning

The present paper is based on experiences from an initiative on integration of CCA-DRR in GPDP process undertaken in the state of Uttar Pradesh by the Governement of Uttar Pradesh in technical cooperation with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) India jointly with ARA Member Gorakhpur Environmental Action Group (GEAG).

The two worked collaboratively under the bilateral Climate Adaptation and Finance in Rural India (CAFRI) programme funded by German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

Based on their collective learnings, this policy brief puts forth issues which need to be considered to enable Panchayats to play an important role in effective and efficient implementation of flagship schemes and for transformative actions in rural India.