The project has focused to strengthen CSO/CBOs’ capacities and their engagement in climate change mitigation and adaptation measures in DRR, forestry and agricultural sectors within the framework of Nepal’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), under the Paris Agreement. The project actions aim to strengthen the voices and meaningful participation of CSOs/CBOs representing women, youth, people with disabilities (PwDs), Dalit women, human rights defenders and particularly vulnerable groups in the upstream and downstream communities in an enhanced system of climate governance. The project has recognized and envisioned CBOs and CSOs as a key driver of changes and focuses on strengthening their roles as a key developmental partner and has reinforced them on creating enabling environment working together with local government through the advocacy initiatives. The project has contributed on three interconnected dimensions: Improving knowledge of climate change risks and policies; creating functional multi-stakeholders’ platforms to strengthen networks and discuss, contribute to and influence decisions and improve the accountability of decision-makers to communities; and enhancing the capacities of CSOs/CBOs to influence decisions and policy, raise funds for action and effectively respond to climate change  by increasing their technical knowledge of DRR and adaptive forestry and agriculture.

The main objective of the project that population in target province and catchment areas benefit from improved climate governance by strengthening Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), ensuring the accountability of local government, and enabling partnership for inclusive and climate-sensitive actions.

The project was developed based on the gaps identified through series of consultation with local CBOs, CSOs, National Planning Commission (NPC) and President Chure-Terai Madhesh Conservation Board in Rautahat and Saptari districts. 

i) Poor understanding of climate change impacts and policy among CSOs/CBOs and newly elected leaders

ii) Poor or no integration between CSOs/CBOs working in different sectors, local governments authorities, and upstream-downstream communities

iii) Lack of climate-smart livelihood activities, risk financing and micro-finance options to help absorb the impact of climate change at the local level

iv) the impacts of climate change on key sectors (forest/water/agriculture/disaster risk) are not addressed in an integrated way at the local level.

Real problem:

Projects related to the enhancing knowledge and practices to adopt on the impacts caused by the Climate Change were missing in the current project area and therefore, locals were unaware about the climate change issues they were confronting with. The local CBOs and CSOs were functioning but were focused only to access the government funds from the respective thematic sectors. Further, the local government had almost no plans to deal with the issues related to the climate change and its impacts on the livelihood of the people. There was no existence of legitimate body (LDMC) at local levels to deal with the local climate change and disaster problems and issues. The climate governance on the project area was almost a ground zero level. The local government barely follow up the local level annual planning process which has been jeopardized on last couple of years due to the COVID 19 pandemic outbreak and local level election. As a result, the local levels were not able to formulate any concrete plans and policy to address the issues related with climate change adaptation and disaster management..

Expectations/promise (what would happen if? What if?):

It was evident that to uplift the capacity of the local level as well as the CSOs/CBOs, there was an urgent need to create an conducive environment for CBOs and CSOs through a multi-stakeholder platform to raise their voice and be a part of decision making process. It was deemed that if a conducive environment is made for the development of CSOs, in particular, those representing women, youth, people with disabilities (PWD) and marginalized groups through enhancing CSOs and local government meaningful collaboration and access to quality knowledge of climate change impacts, and associated policy framework through a functional multi-stakeholder platform to  promote meaningful and structured participation of CSOs in decision making, climate financing, resource collaboration, resource allocation for local climate actions, a visible impact can be made in the community. It was also observed that to reach the marginalized groups, CSOs/CBOs representing women, youth, PWDs and marginalized groups needed to have the capacity to participate in and engage effectively with relevant stakeholders to adapt/mitigate the impacts of climate change in sectors of disaster risk reduction, agriculture, and forestry.

Solution:

The only solution to uplift the existing gap was to make responsive and accountable local government with improved governance system parallelly improving capacity of the local CBOs and CSOs. This is deemed to be possible by creating conducive environment for CSOs, CBOs representing marginalized groups, women, youths, PWDs through a common platform where their local issues and voices are heard and are involved in the decision-making process. Side by side, it is also important to build the capacity of the local government on improved climate governance. This is in line with the promise the project made.