Upscaling Climate-smart Villages, Supported by government programmes and with a strong gender focus (Supported by the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) Programme of CGIAR)
Since adaptation depends on local skills and local actions, the role of panchayats is critical in planning and implementing adaptive interventions. With this in mind, the Ministry of Panchayati Raj was successfully approached to help scale out the CCAFS-CGIAR model of climate-smart villages (http://ccafs.cgiar.org/). The CSV model brings together local institutions and climate-relevant local knowledge with state-of-the-art climate information, services and technologies through appropriate village-level development plans.
The Ministry has acknowledged the ‘significant impact of climate on life at local level’ and advised all States and Union Territories to consider adoption of climate-smart villages, based on the CCAFS-CGIAR model, as part of piloting Integrated District Planning in their States. The Ministry of Panchayti Raj believes that climate-smart villages will ensure ‘resilient local level development.’
In a parallel move to further institutionalize the climate-smart village model, the Ministry has accepted a training module on climate-smart villages being prepared by AF and CCAFS as part of the larger Natural Resource Management manual being prepared by the Ministry. The manual will be used by all State Institutes of Rural Development (SIRDs) for training panchayat leaders across India.