*Dr. Arvind Kumar, President, India Water Foundation, New Delhi. This is the revised and updated version of the paper presented by the author at the recently held conference in Shillong, Meghalaya.
Impact of climate change, which is already discernible, has signalled an urgent need for response measures that minimize current vulnerabilities. For the poor and other vulnerable communities, these measures should be based on their livelihoods. By understanding the dynamics of poor people’s livelihoods, one can begin to understand how they will be affected by climate change, how they might respond with the resources they have, and how these conditions can be reflected and built upon for successful adaptation strategies.
Given the reliance of the poor on environmental services for their livelihoods, a central element of their adaptation strategies should be ecosystem management and restoration (EM&R) activities. By protecting and enhancing the natural resources that support livelihoods, vulnerable communities can maintain local safety nets and expand the range of options for coping with disruptive shocks and trends.
The debate over climate change has now reached a stage where all but the most extreme contrarians accept that, whatever happens to future greenhouse gas emissions, the world is now locked into inevitable changes to climate patterns. Many, including the scientists working with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (IPCC), have concluded that these changes are already underway. The emergence of this consensus has led to increasing attention being paid to the issue of how to respond.
In the early years of the new millennium the idea of adaptation has caught the attention of policy makers and other elites, including many civil society organizations. The use of adaptation offers a chance to bring a fresh and more successful approach to some of the key problems of the global environment and the needs and problems faced by the world’s poorest people. The opportunity must be seized and promoted if any significant part of this promise is to be realized.
For too long the whole climate change debate has focused at the global level, both in terms of global climate and in relation to the global economic and political system. When considering adaptation, starting from this perspective misses the point. Adaptation is about—and must build from—the actions of people, especially the poorest people who are the most vulnerable and most likely to actively adapt.
There is a role for international development assistance in adaptation, but the fundamental drive must come from those who do the adapting. The appeal of adaptation is that it puts the responsibility in the hands of those who stand to gain the most, whether that be individuals, families, communities or nations. The role of development assistance and of global environmental agreements must be to facilitate adaptation, to help build capacity and to share in the removal of obstacles. Adaptation therefore requires partnerships; capacity building; the involvement of a wide range of stakeholders; motivation at all levels; and, above all, political will.
Viewed in a broad perspective, exposure to climate-related hazards such as the threat of floods, droughts, cyclones and mudslides, as well as the impacts of variable and unpredictable rainfall, declining access to resources from aquatic ecosystems and others, contribute to vulnerability, which in the face of climate hazards, is widespread. The impacts of ongoing climate hazards are already considerable, and they pose immediate and formidable challenges. These entail the likelihood of becoming even more prevalent as the climate changes. This sets tone and tenor of the context within which adaptation to climate change must be considered.
The widely-shared and adopted view is that poverty eradication and vulnerability reduction are the priority concerns. This requires the improved management and reduction of the risks to which all people, including the poorest, are exposed.
Over the years, adaptation has become an imperative, and in some places an urgent imperative.
The perceived role of adaptation has correspondingly increased along with the growth in understanding of the implications of climate change.
There are four core concepts which are required to be understood as to how poor and vulnerable communities are able to adapt to variable and changing climate patterns:
(i). Disaster Risk Reduction: people and institutions involved in preparedness, mitigation and prevention activities associated with extreme events. These include hazard forecasting and immediate relief efforts for major disasters resulting from floods, cyclones and, in some cases, pollution events.
(ii). Climate and Climate Change: initially this was constituted by the world’s meteorological community and has now expanded to include a wide range of biological and geophysical scientists, social scientists, economists and others.
(iii). Environmental Management: this community includes a wide-ranging set of people and institutions that deal with overall environmental issues and specific aspects of environmental management such as water resources and the conservation of forests.
(iv). Poverty Reduction: It engages a wide and diverse spectrum of specialists.
Each community has its own perspectives, its own processes and its own usage of many of the key concepts involved in any discussion of adaptation by poor communities to climate change.
Adaptation is the ability to respond and adjust to actual or potential impacts of changing climate conditions in ways that moderate harm or takes advantage of any positive opportunities that the climate may afford. It includes policies and measures to reduce exposure to climate variability and extremes, and the strengthening of adaptive capacity. Adaptation takes place at all levels, from changes to global systems through changes at national or regional levels to adaptations made by local communities and individuals.
Livelihhods and Climate Change
‘Livelihoods’ is an idea that has gained increasing currency in recent years. It is often viewed as fundamental to poverty reduction approaches around the globe. The emergence of livelihoods approaches has led to new understandings on how poverty, and the ability to move out of poverty, reflects the (lack of) capabilities and assets available to the poor. This includes material assets such as access to land, other natural resources, financial capital and credit, tools and inputs into productive activities and others. It also reflects human capabilities (the knowledge and skills of the family), social and political factors such as contact networks and the openness of government institutions and, critically for our purposes, the capability to withstand the effects of shocks such as natural disasters. For most households, and especially for poor people, these assets are deployed in a series of livelihood activities: the means through which a household gains an income and meets its basic needs.
This includes paid employment, but for poor people in particular it includes the ability to farm and to exploit common property resources for livestock, fishing, gathering fuelwood and many other things. Reliable and secure access to these resources, to land, water and biotic resources, is fundamental to the livelihoods of the poor.
Climate-induced changes to resource flows (whether temporary, reflecting variability or structural, reflecting change) can fundamentally affect the viability of the livelihoods of the poor. Indeed, in many ways this is what climate change impacts are all about: changes to resource flows critical for livelihood sustainability.
Vulnerability, Livelihoods and Climate
The key goals of adaptation strategies are to reduce vulnerability to climate-induced change and to sustain and enhance the livelihoods of poor people. These strategies consequently need to be rooted in an understanding of how the poor and vulnerable sustain their livelihoods, the role of natural resources in livelihood activities and the scope for adaptation actions that reduce vulnerabilities and increase the resilience of poor people. This is not as straightforward as it sounds, for the effects of climate change are just one of the many factors that influence people’s livelihoods.
‘Livelihoods’ is an increasingly widely-used concept that is open to different interpretations. One of the most widely accepted definitions of livelihoods is provided by Carney:
“A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (including both material and social resources) and activities required for a means of living. A livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks and maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets both now and in the future, while not undermining the natural resource base.”
Central to both this definition and determining the resilience of households to vulnerabilities is the idea of livelihood assets. These are the means of production available to a given individual, household or group that can be used in their livelihood activities. These assets are the basis on which livelihoods are built and, in general, the greater and more varied the asset base the higher and more durable the level of sustainability and security of their livelihoods. There are generally five forms of livelihood assets identified in most approaches:
(a). Natural capital: It is the natural resource stock from which resource flows useful to livelihoods are derived.
(b). Social-political capital: This includes the range of contact networks, membership of groups and organizations, relationships of trust and access to wider institutions of society that are important in the actual operation of livelihood activities and that can be determining in terms of access to markets, credit, government services and many other factors of production.
(c). Human capital: It includes the skills, knowledge, ability to labour and good health which are important to the ability to pursue livelihood activities.
(d). Physical capital: It includes the basic infrastructure for transport, buildings, water management, energy, and communications and productive capital (tools, machines, etc.) which enables people to pursue the livelihoods.
(e). Financial capital: The financial resources which are available to people (whether savings, supplies of credit, regular remittances and pensions, social security payments or insurance) and which provide them with different livelihood options.
Taken together, these livelihood assets determine much about how livelihoods work, and in particular are the basis for understanding how people will respond to climate-induced vulnerabilities. This in turn means they are or at least should be the basis for the development of adaptation strategies. All of these assets are important, but for the poorest and most vulnerable of the world, especially the rural poor, natural resources are of particular significance.
According to Rennie and Singh, this poverty-environment link has been recognized for some time: “predominantly the poor of the world depend directly on natural resources, through cultivation, herding, collecting or hunting for their livelihoods. Therefore, for the livelihoods to be sustainable, the natural resources must be sustained.”
According to broad estimates, about3/4 of the poor in developing countries living in rural areas derives much of their income from natural resources. With environmental resources playing such a critical role for a large proportion of the world’s population, threats to ecosystem functioning and integrity undermine livelihood security. Available evidence suggests that environmental vulnerabilities are going to significantly increase in the future, in part due to climate change but also because of other forms of resource and livelihoods pressures, unless effective and substantial measures are taken to ameliorate them through adaptation and other strategies.
On the basis of IPCC reports, a three-stage process, each with several steps, can form the basis for developing adaptation strategies:
- Understanding Vulnerability-Livelihood Interactions
> Identify the main climate-induced vulnerabilities that affect poor communities in different places and relate these to the wider vulnerabilities they face and to the dynamics of their livelihoods and their assets base, with particular attention paid to environmental resources.
> Assess the adaptation measures that poor people already take and relate this to their resilience to withstand climate-induced vulnerabilities.
> Identify prevailing forces and conditions that serve as barriers to action or enabling factors in the implementation of new policy measures.
> Determine, through participatory processes, the needs, priorities and capabilities of different stakeholder groups in relation to adaptation to climate-induced vulnerabilities.
- Establishing the Legal, Policy and Institutional Framework
* Diagnose existing laws, policies and regulatory systems in relation to their effects on climate-induced vulnerabilities, including agriculture, forestry, disaster management, water and all other relevant sectors.
* Define the institutional processes through which adaptation measures are implemented, including where decisionmaking authority lies at national, local and intermediary levels and the links between these levels.
- Develop a Climate Change Adaptation Strategy
* Identify potential reform measures and investment options to enhance the resilience and reduce the vulnerability of poor people to climate variability and change and enhance their access to ecosystem services. This should include both structural and non-structural measures, and the financial means and the institutional changes necessary to implement successful adaptation processes.
* Based on participatory processes, prioritize the potential reforms and investments taking into account the financial, knowledge, institutional and other resources available to implement them.
Livelihhods’ Scene in India
Apart from rapid growth in population, poverty is another aggregate which reflects the prevailing livelihoods scenario in the India. Incidence of poverty is estimated by the Planning Commission on the basis of quinquennial large sample surveys of household consumer expenditure conducted by NSSO. The Uniform Recall Period (URP) consumption data of NSS 61st Round yields a rural poverty ratio of 28.3 per cent, and 25.7 per cent in urban areas, and 27.5 per cent for the country as a whole in 2004-05. The corresponding poverty ratios from the Mixed Recall Period (MRP) consumption data are 21.8 per cent for rural areas, 21.7 per cent for urban areas and 21.8 per cent for the country as a whole. While the former consumption data uses 30-day recall/reference period for all items of consumption, the latter uses 365-day recall/reference period for five other items, namely, clothing, footwear, durable goods, education and institutional medical expenses and 30-day recall/reference period for remaining items.
A recent paper by Arjun Sengupta et al of the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS) used consumption expenditure data to show that around three quarters of India’s population are poor and vulnerable and their numbers were a staggering 836 million as of 2004-05.8 Of this, 21.8 per cent of the people can be regarded as poor or extremely poor.
When we compare this information with the estimates derived from the 55th round of 1999-2000 and 50th round of 1993-94, there seems to have been some decline in the percentage of poor – from 31 to 22 per cent – in the last 10 years of high economic growth. However, almost 41 per cent of people, consisting of the extremely poor, poor and marginal groups, survived on an average daily per capita expenditure (DPCE) of less than Rs 15 in 2004-05, which is meagre. The vulnerable group, whose average DPCE was Rs 20 could be described as people just above the poverty line. They are vulnerable because just one shock such as illness can drive them below the poverty line again. This category of the vulnerable constituted about 36 per cent of the population in 2004-05.
These four groups of people – extremely poor, poor, marginal and vulnerable – constituted about 77 per cent of the population in 2004-05. Most of them are living with below the international level of poverty of $2 per day – the ‘aam aadmi’ or common man, who has been bypassed by the high levels of growth.
Vulnerable Segments
There is a close association between poverty and vulnerability, and social identity. The two social groups who are at the bottom by this classification are the Scheduled Castes /Scheduled Tribes (SCs/STs), who constitute the bottom layer, and the Muslims, who are in the next layer. The next group is the OBCs. This does not mean that the other groups are far better off. Even for those who do not belong to any of these groups, the incidence of poverty is 55 per cent. The obverse of this is equally important – that in all communities there is a class of “better-off.”
The depth of poverty is not the same across social groups even within the category of poor. What
is striking is the evidence that this systemic and hierarchical segmentation along social groups is also reflected across economic groups represented by consumption expenditure classes, low education and informal work status. Within these economic groups, the only change in ranking is within the intermediate category of OBCs and Muslims in terms of per capita consumption. The latter has a marginally higher per capita consumption than the former among the poor and vulnerable but this edge is absent when all economic groups are combined.
The SCs who account for over 16 per cent of the population, remain backward in economic and social development and vulnerable to various forms of discrimination. Mostly landless and asset-less with little access to basic amenities, the incidence of poverty, illiteracy and ill health among them is significantly higher compared to the rest of the population.
The STs account for about 8 per cent of the population of the country but comprise a significant proportion of the poor and illiterate in the country. The STs are concentrated in the central and northeastern parts of the country. While landlessness is not a major problem for the STs, most of the land owned by them is of inferior quality. Moreover, their isolation from the mainstream on account of geographical location often renders them victims of the development process. This is especially trueof the north-east where STs are in a majority in several small states. Mining and other developmental activities like power and irrigation projects in tribal belts often lead to large-scale displacement from traditional habitats and they are not properly rehabilitated economically, socially or culturally.
Livelihood Assistance Programme
The Government of India recognizes IFAD as an innovative institution that develops replicable models and plays a catalytic role in the development arena. IFAD’s programmes are driven by three elements:
(i) Grass-roots institution building and the institutional strengthening of support agencies;
(ii) Promoting and securing the access of marginalized groups to resources; and
(iii) Promoting the diversification of livelihood opportunities within the on-farm and off-farm sectors.
Over the years, the low level equilibrium attained by the mountain communities in balancing needs has been seriously disrupted and the largely self-sufficient systems have broken down. There are mainly two reasons for the breakdown; firstly, increasing population has led to increased cultivation of marginal and forest lands, making food crop-based farming system unsustainable; and secondly, improved communication has brought awareness of vastly different lifestyles and thus aspirations have risen. The net result of this process has been a weakening of the sustainability of past survival systems and an accentuation of poverty conditions in mountain areas. Moreover, Himalayan people are increasingly recognizing that out migration is not a viable solution to economic insecurity and that opportunities for improved well being must be found closer to home, in the mountains themselves.
The objectives of the programme are the development of services that will link household based livelihood activities with the larger economy. The project would enhance the capabilities of local people to select appropriate livelihood opportunities, access required financial resources, and manage new technologies and institutions at the village level. The project would also aim to increase incomes through more sustainable income generating cultivation systems and the establishment of non-farm enterprises at the micro and small-scale level; and establish effective and appropriate delivery systems for inputs and for the maintenance of assets and resources, with emphasis on micro finance, savings and thrift, and microinsurance products, along with access to business.
In Meghalaya
There is a great potential in Meghalaya for creation of jobs in the rural areas in the fields of post harvest management, agro processing and tourism. There is a need to increase employment in non-agricultural sector and rural non-farm sector with development of clusters round towns/ market centres. The State Government has set up the Meghalaya Rural Development Society (MRDS) under the Livelihood Improvement Project for the Himalayas, funded by IFAD, since 31st October, 2005 with the following objectives – (i) enhancing the capabilities of the local people to select appropriate livelihood opportunities; (ii) increase incomes through more sustainable farm and non-farm income generating activities; (iii) establish effective and appropriate delivery systems for technical, technological and financial Business Development Services (BDS) inputs and services including maintenance of assets and resources; (v) enhance the delivery of government services and capabilities of eligible local people to access them. The Project covers 5 districts, 15 blocks and approximately 610 villages. It envisages mobilizing about 1955 SHGs. The total project cost is Rs. 172.14 crore, of which 48 percent is funded by IFAD, 14 percent by the State Government, 27 percent from Institutional Finance and 11 percent in the form of beneficiary contribution.
Learning from the experiences gained from the implementation of the watershed based and Self Help Group (SHG) based approach on livelihoods under North Eastern Region Community Resource Management Programme and Livelihoods Improvement Programme assisted by International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), the State Government is proposing coverage of all areas of the State under livelihood improvement programme of the Ministry of DoNER under the World Bank aided North Eastern Region Livelihood Programme (NERLP).
Regarding Skill Development & Human Resource Development, the State Government recognizes that there is an urgent need to upgrade skills of the youth to enable them to stand on their own feet and become employable. Human resource development and capacity building of existing manpower in government and non-government sector would be encouraged. Assistance would be sought for the introduction of Human Resource Development programmes through provision of vocational education avenues including diversified training for skill development and generation of employment opportunities, especially in the rural areas. Further, the 11th Plan document of the Planning Commission indicates that the Government of India is keen on the use of Information Technology including Information & Communication Technology (ICT) tools in the delivery of education and other social services and, in particular, the finishing schools to impart IT and other skills. The State Government will be approaching the Central Government for assistance in establishing of an Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) at Shillong. Further, the Skill Development Programme and funds available from the Government of India would be leveraged.
In Uttarakhand
The Livelihood Project in Uttarakhand involves a total cost of about $ 84.29 million of which $ 39.92 million is loan from the IFAD and Uttarakhand’s share is $ 6.27 million and rest will be provided by the Government of India. The duration of the project is 2004-2013. As on March 2008, approximately 40% of the households of the project blocks had been targeted by the project. In the first phase the project has focused on institutional, transactional and financial capacity building of target households and linking it with Social Venture Capital Company, (SVCC) a Section 25 Company also known as UPASaC.
The immediate outcomes of the initiatives taken so far by project are built capacities of 1727 SHGs, effective adoption of improved fodder, improved agriculture tools and better agricultural practices to address drudgery reduction of women. Adoption rate of 9-28% have been observed in improved fodder in year1 villages and 4-17% observed in year 2 villages. Adoption rate of vermi compost as a livelihood activity is 20%. Under convergence with Social welfare department, 1464 applications were submitted, out of which 655 certificates were issued and 454
(159 men, 285 female and 10 children) are actually getting pension.
Support has been drawn from eminent national/international research and training institution for capacity building of SVCC staff in sub-sector business development services approach to livelihoods enhancement. Innovations under the project include:
- Establishment of a Social Venture Capital Company (SVCC) a Section 25 Company also known as UPASaC;
- Mainstreaming the vulnerable: The vision of this project is to cover 100% of the socially disabled under the pension scheme; and
- mainstream them in the economic process of the project. So far 537 persons started receiving pension benefits from government schemes out of identified 2133 persons;
- Drudgery reduction interventions: Project’s drudgery reduction initiative has paid off by rapid replication on cost (107% in nutritious grasses, 57% in agri implements, 41% in composting techniques, 100% in water pitcher) by women. From 2008 onwards the same would be taken up in a business mode by the SHGs;
- Convergence initiatives: Project has drawn two projects from IFAD and GTZ worth 8.55 million USD. Both projects would complement the interventions of Aajeevika and leverage the multiplier effect of new concept of Business Development Services approach to Livelihood enhancement;
- AWPB formulated by Project as per IFAD guidelines during 2007-08.
Conclusion
There exist ample opportunities to utilize the concept of adaptation as a means to bring together, harmonize and reinvigorate the experts, the programs and the stakeholders in the diverse fields of disaster management, climate and climate change, environment and natural resources management, and poverty reduction. If a strong convergence of these interests can be brought together and marshaled into a new initiative, there is a prospect of significant payoff, and an important contribution to the intractable problems of sustainable development. There is need to focus on livelihhod programmes, especially in respect of vulnerable segments of the population in hilly and mountainous regions in India.
Article published in FGR | Jan | 2011
