Exposure Visit to North East India for Enhanced Knowledge on Transformations in Shifting Cultivation

Through component 3, ‘Enhancing capacities and integrated knowledge management’ within Improving Livelihoods and Enhancing Resilience of the Rural Poor in the Hindu Kush Himalayas to Environmental and Socio-Economic Changes (AdaptHimal), the programme focuses on activities to enhance capacities of project partners – IFAD loan projects, their partner NGOs, and where relevant, project Community Based Organisations (CBO), as well as the concerned government agencies – to become better equipped for designing and/or tailoring development interventions for the benefit of the rural poor, especially women. Capacity enhancement includes where possible, capacity building of CBO members as required, tailored to their needs, cross infusion of knowledge and experiences between different projects, between members of community organisations as well as with relevant government agencies through peer assisted learning mechanisms.

Scoping missions carried out in Khagrachari, Bangladesh  and Northern Chin, Myanmar in January 2015 under AdaptHimal, suggested the need for focused intervention in institutional capacity building in the areas of on-farm and landscape level natural resource management, non-conventional energy and value chain development in order to strengthen the management of transformations in shifting cultivation landscapes. AdaptHimal’s core focus with partners in Bangladesh and Myanmar is in understanding of partner institutions and capacity building on the aforementioned themes.

To support management of transformation in shifting cultivation, the activities developed strongly draw on peer-assisted learnings as well as exposure visits focussed on identifying best practices in facilitating transformations in shifting cultivation and understanding the possible challenges. To achieve this, an exposure trip to North East India is being organised this year for partners from Bangladesh and Myanmar to learn from the experiences of project partners in Meghalaya and Manipur in India. The exposure visit will be supported by North Eastern Region Community Resource Management Project (NERCORMP) in India.

AdaptHimal is implemented in four countries including Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, and Nepal. The goal of the programme is to reduce rural poverty in the Hindu Kush Himalayas and enhance the resilience of the poor, especially women, to social, economic and environmental changes. The programme aims to build a reliable basis for targeting development interventions and measure their impacts; support and strengthen development interventions (and livelihood options) in the mountains focused on the value chain approach; and facilitate a ‘hands-on’ capacity building approach for partners through pilots and effective knowledge management.