Resource Efficient Growth in the Rural Sector

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• Maharashtra Project on Climate Resilient Agriculture

  The development objective of Maharashtra Project on Climate Resilient Agriculture Project for India is to enhance climate-resilience and profitability of smallholder farming systems in selected districts of Maharashtra. This project has four components. 1) The first component, Promoting Climate-resilient Agricultural Systems, aims to strengthen the adaptive capacity of smallholder farmers to adjust and modify their production systems to moderate potential future impacts from climate events. 2) The second component, Post-harvest Management and Value Chain Promotion, aims to support the participation of smallholder farmers in Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) and integration of these FPOs in value chains for crops relevant to the climate agenda, and to strengthen the supply chain for climate-resilient crop varieties in the project area. 3) The third component, Institutional Development, Knowledge and Policies for a Climate resilient Agriculture, aims to enhance the transformative capacity of institutions and stakeholders to promote and pursue a more climate resilient agriculture, with sector strategies and policies based on strong analytical underpinnings and cutting-edge climate, water and crop modelling. 4) The fourth component, Project Management, covers the activities of the Project Management Unit (PMU) set up by the GoM during the project preparation phase.

• AP Integrated Irrigation & Agriculture Transformation Project

  The development objective of Andhra Pradesh Integrated Irrigation and Agriculture Transformation Project for India is to enhance agricultural productivity, profitability and climate resilience of smallholder farmers in selected districts of Andhra Pradesh. This project has four components. 1) The first component, Improving Irrigated Agriculture Efficiency, aims to enhance the water security of individual farms so as to reduce the risks associated with climate variability. It has the following three subcomponents: (i) Institutional Strengthening and Capacity Building of Water User Associations (WUAs); (ii) Rehabilitation and Modernization of the Small-Scale Community-Based Irrigation (SSCBI) Systems; and (iii) Improving Water Productivity and Efficiency. 2) The second component, Promoting Climate-Smart Agricultural Practices, aims to increase on-farm productivity and strengthen farmers’ resilience to climate change. It has the following two subcomponents: (i) Support to Climate-Smart Crop Production and Diversification; and (ii) Support to Climate-Smart Aquaculture. 3) The third component, Post-harvest Management, Market and Agribusiness Promotion, aims to enhance the profitability of farmers, both men and women, by improving access to markets and capacity to add value to what they produce. 4) The fourth component, Project Management and Capacity Building, aims to support incremental operational costs, monitoring and evaluation (M and E) and impact assessments, financial management, communication, customized Technical assistance (TA), and any special thematic studies identified in the course of the project.

• Odisha Integrated Irrigation Project for Climate Resilient Agriculture

• State of Maharashtra's Agribusiness and Rural Transformation Project

• IN National Ganga River Basin Project

  The objectives of the National Ganga River Basin Project for India are to support the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) in: (a) building capacity of its nascent operational-level institutions, so that they can manage the long-term Ganga clean-up and conservation program; and (b) implementing a diverse set of demonstrative investments for reducing point-source pollution loads in a sustainable manner, at priority locations on the Ganga. There are two components to the project, the first component being institutional development. The objectives of this component are to build functional capacity of the NGRBA's operational institutions at both the central and state levels, and to provide support to associated institutions for implementing the NGRBA program. Its sub-components include: (i) NGRBA operationalization and program management, (ii) technical assistance for Urban Local Body (ULB) service providers, and (iii) technical assistance for environmental regulators. The second component is the priority infrastructure investments. The objective of this component is to finance demonstrative infrastructure investments to reduce pollution loads in priority locations on the river. The four main sectors of investments are: municipal wastewater management, industrial pollution control, solid waste management and river front management. The investments are intended to exemplify, among other attributes, the high standards of technical preparation and implementation, sustainability of operations, and public participation envisaged in the NGRBA framework. This component will also support innovative pilots, for new and transformative technologies or implementation arrangements.

• IN Uttar Pradesh Water Sector Restructuring Project Phase 2

  The objective of the Second Phase of the Uttar Pradesh Water Sector Restructuring Project for India is to: (a) strengthen the institutional and policy framework for integrated water resources management for the entire state; and (b) increase agricultural productivity and water productivity by supporting farmers in targeted irrigation areas. There are six components to the project, the first component being strengthening of state-level water institutions and inter-sector coordination. This component aims to provide support to the institutions in the state responsible for overall integrated water resources management and implementation of the state water policy. The second component is the modernization and rehabilitation of irrigation and drainage systems. The third component is the consolidation and enhancement of irrigation institutional reforms. This component will enhance the efficiency of the Uttar Pradesh Irrigation Department (UPID) and strengthen the Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM) approach both in the department as well as in the community. The fourth component is the enhancing agriculture productivity and on-farm water management. This component (to be implemented directly by the Department of Agriculture) aims to improve the overall agriculture productivity and water-use efficiency at the field level. The fifth component is the feasibility studies and preparation activities for the next phase. This component is to prepare detailed surveys and designs for future third phase areas. These new areas will be identified by the Government of Uttar Pradesh and will make use of similar design principles (and the lessons learned) adopted under this second phase operation. Finally, the sixth component is the project coordination and monitoring.

• Rajasthan Agricultural Competitiveness Project

  The development objective of the Rajasthan Agricultural Competitiveness Project for India is to establish the feasibility of sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and farmer incomes through a distinct agricultural development approach by integrating agriculture water management and agricultural technology, farmer organizations and market innovations in selected locations across the ten agro ecological zones of Rajasthan. There are four components to the project. The first component is climate resilient agriculture. This component will support climate-resilient approaches that allows for the sustainable use of the natural resource base through agricultural and livestock production systems aiming to increase long term productivity and farm incomes in an environment marked by increased climate and, in particular, rainfall variability. Agrarian households in rural Rajasthan face tremendous challenges even with the existing levels of climate variability, let alone those that may come with future changes in climate. This is often referred to as an adaptation deficit. Thus the package of options in this component is based on a strategy that is robust under any future climate scenario and focuses on ways of overcoming this existing adaptation deficit as a necessary step towards longer term climate resilience. The second component is markets and value chains. The objective of this component is to enable farmers to engage in profitable market oriented production, that is sustainable, and to promote partnerships and market linkages with other value chain participants and agribusinesses. The component will help producer groups, agro enterprises, and commodity associations, to actively engage in the development of commodity value chains by partially financing demand-driven investment proposals to producer organization through a matching grant. The third component is far

• IN Dam Rehabilitation and Improvement Project

  The objective of the Dam Rehabilitation and Improvement Project for India is to improve the safety and operational performance of selected existing dams in the territory of the participating states. The project development objective (PDO) will be achieved through rehabilitation and improvement of dams and improvement in central and state-level institutional capacity to sustainably manage dam safety administration and operation and maintenance. In order to guarantee that the project objective and scope can be achieved, the closing date extension will ensure that the project has a sufficiently long implementation period to complete the rehabilitation and modernization works on the 223 dams and to carry out the necessary capacity building of staff of the Central Water Commission (CWC) and the Water Resources Departments (WRD) in the four participating states. The development of capacity will not only benefit the project dams but will ensure better management, operation, and maintenance of all the dams in the four stats. A workshop was conducted on December 7, 2011, with participation of management and senior staff of CWC and all four WRDs. The workshop validated that the project objective, scope, and implementation arrangements are all still very important and relevant and all implementing agencies are ready to start project implementation immediately after effectiveness of the project. This will be the first extension of the project.

• National Rural Livelihoods Project

  The objective of the National Rural Livelihood Project for India is to establish efficient and effective institutional platforms of the rural poor that enables them to increase household income through sustainable livelihood enhancements and improved access to financial and selected public services. There is also no change in the components within the project. While there is no change in the indicators, result values have changed in the Result Framework due to the proposed scaling down of the project. Results framework has been revised to incorporate for extension of the project by a year. It is now proposed to shift the focus of the project implementation to the state level with all project components and eligible expenditures/investments within them, being available for financing at the state level. Consequently, the investments at the GoI level are being reduced. The role of the GoI will therefore be more in the nature of project coordination, limited technical assistance, disbursement and monitoring. As the total financing is reduced, funds have been reallocated between the components. More rigorous criteria for fund allocation to the participating States will be followed and a fully operational SRLM will be a precondition for a participating state to receive project funds. The disbursement schedule over the balance period of the project has also been modified. The Financing Agreement of the project will be modified to accommodate all the above changes and will form the basis for the implementation of the restructured project.

• Uttarakhand Decentralized Watershed Development II Project

  The development objective of the Second Phase of Uttarakhand Decentralized Watershed Development Project for India is to increase the efficiency of natural resource use and productivity of rain fed agriculture by participating communities in selected micro watersheds of the state of Uttarakhand. The project has four components. The first component, social mobilization and participatory watershed planning will finance goods, works, and services to support: (a) mobilization of gram panchayats (GPs) in order to prepare integrated and coordinated GP watershed development plans (WDPs) including the identification of specific interventions to increase effective land use and water resource management and develop agriculture and income-generation activities; and development of watershed treatment plans to guide the preparation and implementation of GPWDPs. The second component, watershed treatment and rain fed area development will finance subprojects and associated goods, works, and services to support the implementation of the GPWDPs. It has following two sub-components: (a) watershed treatment and water source sustainability; and (b) rain fed agriculture development. The third component, enhancing livelihood opportunities will finance subprojects and associated goods, works, and services to farmer federations (FFs) to develop agribusinesses in high-value crops. It has following three sub-components: (a) agribusiness support; (b) support for vulnerable groups; and (c) consolidation of Gramya I activities. The fourth component, knowledge management and project coordination will finance goods, works, services, and incremental operating costs to support the strengthening of the institutional capacity and knowledge management of the project implementing entity, GPs and FFs for the implementation and management of the project. It comprises of following two sub-components: (a) kn

• India Ecosystems Service Improvement Project

  The development objective of the Ecosystem Services Improvement Project for India is to improve forest quality, land management and non-timber forest produce (NTFP) benefits for forest dependent communities in selected landscapes in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. The proposed Global Environment Facility (GEF) project will be implemented in close coordination with Green India Mission (GIM) on three components: (1) capacity building (training and technical assistance); (2) enhancement of forest carbon stocks through forest quality improvement approaches and improved livelihoods for forest dependent communities (interventions); and (3) reversal of land degradation on private land holdings and common property resource lands through development of models and capacity for scaling up of sustainable land management practices (interventions). Forest and private land holdings and Common Property Resources (CPR) lands for project support and intervention will be identified within a defined landscape planning approach to facilitate ecological connectivity between ecologically important habitats and biologically richareas. A fourth component will provide project management coordination. 1) The objective of the first component is to enhance the capacity and skills of the State Forest Departments, the Forest Development Agencies, and local communities for improving management of forest and land resources and ensuring the delivery of sustainable benefits to local communities that depend on these resources. 2) The objective of the second component is to improve the quality and productivity of the existing forests so as to ensure sustained flows of ecosystem services and carbon sequestration, and to ensure the sustainable harvesting and value addition of NTFP to provide economic benefits to forest dependent communities that promote conservation and improve ecological connectivity be

• Madhya Pradesh Citizen Access to Responsive Services Project

  The development objective of the Citizen Access to Responsive Services Project for India is to improve access to public services guarantee act (PSGA) services by citizens of Madhya Pradesh, and in particular by under-represented groups. The project comprises of two components. The first component, results-based financing aims to support the implementation of critical public management reforms needed to reach the results. It consists of following three sub-components: (i) access to services and citizen outreach; (ii) simplification of government services; and (iii) performance management. The second component, technical assistance will provide specialized technical assistance to support implementation of the government program and achievement of project results. It consists of following three sub-components: (i) supporting government process reengineering; (ii) enhancing information and communication technologies (ICT) infrastructure and strengthening ICT capacity; and (iii) strengthening project management.

• Assam Citizen-Centric Service Delivery Project

  The development objective of the Assam Citizen-Centric Service Delivery Project for India is to improve access in the delivery of selected public services in Assam. The project comprises of two components. The first component, technical assistance will provide specialized technical assistance to support implementation of the government program and the achievement of the project development objective (PDO). It consists of following sub-components: (i) strengthening right to public services (RTPS) implementation; (ii) supporting process re-engineering in selected services; (iii) setting up public facilitation centers; and (iv) promoting citizen engagement. The second component, results-based financing aims to support the Government of Assam to implement critical public management reforms related to delivery of public services.

• National Agricultural Higher Education Project

  The objective of the National Agricultural Higher Education Project for India is to support participating agricultural universities and ICAR in providing more relevant and higher quality education to Agricultural University students. There are three components to the project, the first component being support to agricultural universities. This component will finance investments by participating AUs to improve the qualityand relevance of agricultural education and research toward agricultural transformation. The component will competitively award significant additional resources to participating AUs and will finance goods, works, non-consulting services, training and consultant’s services. this component includes three subcomponents: support to AUs, centers for advanced agricultural science and technology, and ICAR innovation grants to AUs. The second component is the investment in ICAR leadership in agricultural higher education. This component will finance the carrying out of institutional reforms within ICAR in order to enhance ICAR’s effectiveness in coordinating, guiding and managing agricultural higher education and its interactions with AUs and key stakeholders nationwide through interventions that increase the quality and relevance of agricultural higher education. Finally, the third component is the project management and learning. The component will strengthen ICAR’s management capacity for project implementation, including: (a) the establishment/maintenance of a Project Implementation Unit (PIU), a Steering Committee, a Technical Committee and a Monitoring and Evaluation Cell to ensure compliance with the Project’s procurement, financial management, safeguards and reporting requirements, and the carrying out of the administration, supervision, monitoring and evaluation of IDP Grants, CAAST grants and innovation grants and/or proposals therefor; (b) the provi

• Himachal Pradesh Horticulture Development Project

  The development objective of the Himachal Pradesh Horticulture Development Project for India is to support small farmers and agro-entrepreneurs in Himachal Pradesh, to increase the productivity, quality, and market access of selected horticulture commodities. This project has four components. 1) The first component, Horticulture Production and Diversification, aims to enhance horticultural competitiveness at the farm level by supporting access to knowledge, technology and finance in order to increase long term productivity and farm incomes in an environment marked by changing market patterns and increased climate variability.2) The second component, Value Addition and Agro-enterprise Development, aims to improve value realization at the farm level, promote investments in agribusiness, fostering backward and forward linkages in the value chains for horticulture products, support supply chain infrastructure that prevents wastage and value erosion; and enable secondary and tertiary processing that create higher value for the produce. 3) The third component, Market Development, aims to provide an improved platform for market-related information and intelligence, expand market access through alternative marketing channels, enhance transparency in the price discovery process, and improve market infrastructure. 4) The fourth component, Project Management, Monitoring and Learning, will ensure the effective implementation of the project activities and monitor and evaluate project implementation progress, outputs and outcomes, building on implementation experience.

• India: Andhra Pradesh Rural Inclusive Growth Project

  The objective of the Andhra Pradesh Rural Inclusive Growth Project for India is to enable selected poor households to enhance agricultural incomes and secure increased access to human development services and social entitlements. There are five components to the project, the first component being value chain development. The objective of this component is to increase the income of 250,000 small and marginal farmers by at least 50 percent through productivity enhancement and improved market access. This component will work with those small and marginal producers who have built up productive assets, have previously participated in productivity improvement, and have the potential to exploit growth opportunities for high value commodities such as red gram, milk, poultry, small ruminants, fisheries, turmeric, cashew, and coffee. The second component is the human development. This project takes a very innovative approach towards human development, which is very different from the work previously done by SERP in this area and focuses on convergence with the line departments. The third component is the access to social protection services and entitlements. As a complement to the Government of Andhra Pradesh program to strengthen technology enabled services, this component aims to improve the coverage and service delivery of social protection entitlements to 500,000 of the poorest households. This component will be in alignment with the roll out strategies of the respective line departments that are responsible for those entitlements. The fourth component is the mission support, ICT and partnerships. This component will support the missions recently launched by the government to ensure real time analytics, open data systems and feedback-based policy development at the state level. Finally, the fifth component is the project implementation support. The objective of this compone

• National Hydrology Project

  The development objective of the National Hydrology Project for India is to improve the extent, quality, and accessibility of water resources information and to strengthen the capacity of targeted water resources management institutions in India. The project comprises of four components. The first component, water resources monitoring systems will finance the establishment and modernization of new and existing hydromet monitoring systems including meteorology, streamflow, groundwater, and water storage measurements, and construction of hydro-informatics centers that capture both water resources and uses. It consists of three sub-components: (i) hydromet observation networks; (ii) supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems for water infrastructure; and (iii) establishment of hydro-informatics centers. The second component, water resources information systems will support the strengthening of national and subnational water information centers with web-enabled water resources information systems (WRISs) through standardization of databases and products from various data sources and departments and make comprehensive, timely, and integrated water resources information available to decision makers for effective planning, decision making, and operations. It consists of two sub-components: (i) national WRIS; and (ii) regional and sub national WRIS. The third component, water resources operations and planning systems will support the development of interactive analytical tools and decision support platform that will integrate database, models, and scenario management for hydrological flood forecasting, integrated reservoir operations, and water resources accounting for improved operation, planning, and management of both surface water and groundwater. It consists of three sub-components: (i) development of analytical tools and decision-support platforms; (ii) pu

• Assam Agribusiness and Rural Transformation Project

  The objective of the Assam Agribusiness and Rural Transformation Project for India is to ‘add value and improve resilience of selected agriculture value chains, focusing on smallholder farmers and agro-entrepreneurs in targeted districts of Assam’. There are four components to the project, the first component being enabling agri-enterprise development. The objective of this component is to enable investments in agri-enterprises, improve investment environment and promote investment, reduce business and transaction costs, facilitate access to finance for agribusiness MSMEs, and, where appropriate, facilitate process and regulatory changes. The second component is the facilitating agro cluster development. The objective of this component is to enhance competitiveness of agri-enterprises in specific geographic clusters, and upgrade infrastructure for agricultural trade, in these clusters to enable producers and other value chain participants to access new markets. This will be achieved by: mobilizing proximate agri-enterprises, in identified geographic clusters, into Industry Associations (IAs), and building their capacity to undertake joint actions; supporting development of and financing for Agro Industrial Development Plans (AIDPs) laying out joint actions that can be undertaken by IAs to enhance competitiveness; providing a range of Business Development Services to scale up agri-enterprises in the selected clusters; and upgrading and modernizing warehouses, agricultural wholesale markets and rural periodic markets in the cluster, including link roads. The third component is the fostering market-led production and resilience enhancement. The objective of this component is to enable producers of the priority value chains, in the targeted clusters, to take advantage of the rapidly changing market demand, and enhance resilience of agriculture production systems for incre

• Tamil Nadu Rural Transformation Project (TNRTP)

  The development objective of Tamil Nadu Rural Transformation Project for India is to promote rural enterprises, access to finance, and employment opportunities in selected blocks of Tamil Nadu. This project has four components. 1) The first component, Rural Enterprise Ecosystem Development, seeks to create an enabling environment for promoting and strengthening enterprises and jobs in the target areas through identifying market and value-chain strengthening opportunities, supporting the development of favorable business conditions, and informing pathways to effective and efficient business enterprise development. It has the following three subcomponents: (i) Inclusive Strategic Investment Analytics and Planning; (ii) Enterprise Development Support Services; and (iiii) Enterprise Promotion, Value Chain Strengthening and Partnerships. 2) The second component, Enterprise Business Plans Financing, aims to promote economic activities of PCs and enterprises linked to value-chain opportunities. It has the following two subcomponents: (i) Facilitating Business Plan Financing; and (ii) Innovation Promotion. 3) The third component, Skills and Job Opportunities, aims to (a) sustainable wage and self-employment opportunities; (b) promote relevant skills for higher value agriculture and allied activities; and nonfarm activities; and (c) enable entrepreneurship through market responsive skills and entrepreneurship development. It has the following three subcomponents: (i) Pre and Post Training Services to Enhance Employment Outcomes; (ii) Community Based Training and Skilling Provision; and (iii) Entrepreneurship Development. 4) The fourth component, Project Management, Results Monitoring, and Implementation Support Systems, aims to provide support services, develop management and monitoring systems, create delivery processes, and enhance staff capacity for effective and efficie

• Meghalaya Community-led Landscapes Management Project

  The development objective of the Meghalaya Community-Led Landscapes Management Project for India is to strengthen community-led landscapes management in selected landscapes in the state of Meghalaya. There are three components. First component, Strengthening Knowledge and Capacity for Natural Resource Management (NRM) objective of this component is to enable the development, assimilation, analysis, and dissemination of knowledge and skills to improve landscape management within the state. This component will comprise the following subcomponents. a) promotion of traditional knowledge, grass-root innovations, and communication; b) training and capacity building; c) preparation of strategies, research, and development; and d) monitoring, learning, and reporting (IBRD Financing; Second component, Community-led landscape planning and implementation will support both planning and implementation of the landscape plans by communities in the selected very high/high priority areas. It has three sub-component, a) preparation of community landscape plans; b) implementation of community landscape plans and implementation support; and c) implementation Support to community landscape planning and implementation; Third component, project management and governance will support the strengthening of the institutional capacity and knowledge management of the project implementing entity, Meghalaya Basin Management Agency (MBMA), for the implementation and management of the project including, among others, (a) establishment of the State Project Management Unit (SPMU) within the MBMA and support to seven District Project Management Unit (DPMUs), including technical staff and consultants; (b) the incremental costs associated with implementation; (c) administrative support to 20 Block Project Management Unit (BPMUs); and (d) technical fiduciary and safeguards oversight and supervision of proj

• Atal Bhujal Yojana (Abhy)-National Groundwater Management Improvement

  The development objective of Atal Bhujal Yojana (ABHY) - National Groundwater Management Improvement Program for India is to improve the management of groundwater resources in selected states. The activities under the program are mapped to the two results areas. Activities under Results Area 1 will focus on : (a) introducing bottom-up planning of groundwater interventions through community-led Water Security Plan (WSPs); (b) improving government spending through the planning process; and (c) implementing participatory groundwater management, including both supply and demand side measures. Results Area 2 focuses on building institutional capacity at all levels, including improving groundwater information and making it publicly accessible. Results Area 2 also focuses on strengthening the results-based culture for groundwater management within the Government of India (GoI) by improving output and outcome Monitoring and Evaluation (M and E).

• Tamil Nadu Irrigated Agriculture Modernization Project

  The objective of the Tamil Nadu Irrigated Agriculture Modernization Project for India is to enhance productivity and climate resilience of irrigated agriculture, improve water management, and increase market opportunities for farmers and agro-entrepreneurs in selected sub-basin areas of Tamil Nadu. There are four components to the project, the first component being irrigation and water management. This component will address irrigation and water management in a holistic manner by covering both supply and demand simultaneously. It consists of four subcomponents: institutional strengthening and capacity building for water management; irrigation systems modernization; participatory irrigation management; and convergence for improved service delivery. The second component is the agriculture productivity enhancement, diversification, improved livelihoods, marketing, and value addition. The component consists of three subcomponents: agriculture intensification and diversification; improved alternative livelihood sources through livestock and inland fisheries; and agriculture marketing, value addition and postharvest management. The third component is the project management support. The project will finance: (a) the establishment and operations of the MDPU; and (b) setting up of an M&E system for the project and contracting of an external M&E agency to monitor the project activities and impact. This component will also finance dedicated staffing for the project activities, consultancies, training and related material, office equipment, and incremental operational costs. Finally, the fourth component is the contingency response. This zero-cost component will finance eligible expenditures under the Contingent Emergency Response (CER) to provide immediate response to an eligible crisis or emergency as needed in Tamil Nadu. This contingency facility can be triggered through form

• Jharkhand Opportunities for Harnessing Rural Growth Project

  The development objective of the Jharkhand Opportunities for Harnessing Rural Growth (JOHAR) Project for India is to enhance and diversify household income in select farm and non-farm sectors for targeted beneficiaries in project areas. The project comprises of three components. The first component, diversified and resilient production and value addition will support collectives of small producers and interventions for diversification, intensification, and value-addition in the selected sub-sectors of high-value agriculture (HVA), livestock, non-timber forest produce (NTFP), fisheries, and irrigation. It consists of following sub-components: (i) rural producer collectives; (ii) high-value agriculture development; (iii) livestock development; (iv) fishery development; (v) non-timber forest produce development; and (vi) irrigation system development. The second component will involve support for promoting market access and private sector participation, fostering skill development relevant to the focus value chains, and facilitating the development of pro-poor agricultural finance systems. It consists of following sub-components: (i) market access and private sector participation; (ii) skill, jobs, and enterprise development; and (iii) pro-poor agricultural finance systems. The third component, project and knowledge management objective is to establish effective project management and facilitate strong knowledge management.

• West Bengal Institutional Strengthening of Gram Panchayats Program II

  The development objective of Second Phase of West Bengal Support to Institutional Strengthening of the Gram Panchayat Program aims to strengthen the institutional and financial capacities of Gram Panchayats (GPs) across West Bengal. The program includes a series of measures to enhance the voice of people both as citizens and consumers—of public services, such as: (i) the development and roll out of a Grievance Redressal Mechanism (GRM) that offers several avenues to provide feedback; (ii) the continuation of a comprehensive Information, Education and Communication (IEC) campaign seeking to improve local self-governance and service delivery as well as program communication; (iii) the enhancement of Vulnerability Group Development Index (VGDI) for enabling inclusive development; and (iv) very prominently, an Annual Performance Assessments (APA) tool with two out of its four modules (Planning and Budgeting; and Participation, Transparency, and Accountability) directly rewarding GPs performance on the basis of access to Voice mechanisms. This PforR operation (Program-for-Results) is identical to the government program. The Program will support the achievement of the four Key Results Areas (KRAs) through the ten core activities.

• Bihar Transformative Development Project

  The development objective of the Bihar Transformative Development Project for India is to diversify and enhance household-level incomes and improve access to and use of nutrition and sanitation services among targeted households. The project comprises of five components. The first component, community institutional development aims to develop strong and sustainable women-only self-help groups (SHGs) and their federations, and producer organizations (POs) and to systematically build the capacity of these organizations. It consists of two sub-components: (i) development of self-help groups and their federations; and (ii) development of producer organizations. The second component, community investment funds aims to diversify and enhance household income by: (a) providing community-based organizations (CBOs) with financing on a demand driven basis, which in turn, allows them to access larger investments for activities outlined in their micro investment plans from commercial banks and other financial institutions; (b) providing producer organizations (POs) financing for value chain interventions (including input services, value-addition, and market linkages) in the farm and nonfarm sector outlined in their business plans; and (c) providing eligible youth with skills training, job placements and post-placement support, and entrepreneurship opportunities. This component has three sub-components: (i) community investment; (ii) value chain development; and (iii) skills training and entrepreneurship development. The third component, access to nutrition and sanitation services aims to improve SHG women and SHG households’ nutrition, hygiene, and sanitation practices and increase their access to and use of nutrition and sanitation services - made available through the integrated child development services (ICDS) and swachh bharat mission (SBM) programs of Government of India (Go

• West Bengal Major Irrigation and Flood Management Project

Pipeline

• Agriculture Risk Resilience and Insurance Access Program

• Ganga Basin water balances - data extraction and analysis using available hydrological model outputs : Major Ganga sub basins water balance analysis report

  While hydrologic modeling of the Ganges Basin has been undertaken using the SWAT model as part of the World Bank lead Ganges Strategic Basin Assessment (SBA) and subsequent work on the Gangs River Basin Management Plan undertaken by the consortium of IITs for the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, there remain a considerable gap in making this spatial and temporal information available at a spatial and temporal scale conducive to general as well as specific consumption at various levels. Therefore, the main objective of this project is to construct and visualize water balance for the Ganga basin at different temporal and spatial scales.

• Ganga Basin water balances - data extraction and analysis using available hydrological model outputs (Vol. 2) : State water balance analysis report

  While hydrologic modeling of the Ganges Basin has been undertaken using the SWAT model as part of the World Bank lead Ganges Strategic Basin Assessment (SBA) and subsequent work on the Gangs River Basin Management Plan undertaken by the consortium of IITs for the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, there remain a considerable gap in making this spatial and temporal information available at a spatial and temporal scale conducive to general as well as specific consumption at various levels. Therefore, the main objective of this project is to construct and visualize water balance for the Ganga basin at different temporal and spatial scales.

• Jeevika in rural Bihar : social mobilization and cultural transformation

  The project in question is the Bihar Rural Livelihoods Project, locally known as Jeevika, translated variously as livelihoods or livelihoods expansion. Jeevika is a very large-scale, community-based poverty reduction operation which began in six districts in 2006 and which will cover all 38 districts in the state by 2022. It is implemented by the state government of Bihar with a concessional loan and technical assistance from the World Bank. The Project’s principal intended targets have been very poor women whose participation entailed organizing into self-help groups of between 10 and 15 members. The settings in which the Project is carried out is all-important for examining how a development intervention can have an impact on culture and cultural identity. Bihar is one of the poorest states in the country, and its rural areas are characterized by severe caste hierarchies, patriarchy, and inequality. It is an exceptionally “hard context” in which to introduce a project that purposefully targets women’s empowerment, both individually within their households and publicly within their communities.

• A targeted rural livelihoods program in Orissa

  The Targeted Rural Initiatives for Poverty Termination and Infrastructure (TRIPTI) project began in Orissa in 2009.It is a participatory livelihoods project based on community mobilization and institution building through self-help groups (SHG) and village level organizations. TRIPTI was designed in part to redress some of the shortcomings of Orissa’s earlier Mission Sakthi program, which accomplished limited outreach by including very poor scheduled castes and tribes in the process of forming self-help groups that serve as the foundation of participatory livelihoods programs throughout much of India. The new project focused heavily on identifying the least advantaged and the most likely to have been passed over by the earlier program. This involved conducting a census and situational analysis within each village, and a subsequent participatory process of villagers classifying households according to their well-being - on a spectrum between very poor and vulnerable and well-off. The evaluation of TRIPTI’s success in improving livelihoods would measure its impacts on households’ indebtedness, savings, access to credit, and consumer spending. The formation of new SHGs and gram panchayat village level federations and the restructuring of several existing ones enables the project to target these groups and federations with community investment funds. The assessment did find evidence of reduced indebtedness to costly informal creditors like moneylenders among the treatment households compared to the control households, as well as a greater likelihood they would borrow from formal credit sources like banks.

• A picture is worth a thousand words

  Development interventions like projects supported by the World Bank all intend to have impacts that outlast the life of the projects themselves. Establishing a useful source of information that project participants and their neighbors can continue to use is one of the most effective ways to achieve this. This is not information about them that is collected and analyzed by outsiders; it is information that comes from them. They are the agents who actively collect and use it. One of the challenges that emerges right away however is how to present that information in a way that is readily accessible and straightforward, including to those who may lack literacy or numeracy, as is the case in so many rural settings. Information graphics is a means of making complex quantitative information readily understandable and relatable in a way that enables people to draw comparisons and to track changes over time. The Pudhu Vaazhvu Project (PVP) in Tamil Nadu is making purposeful use of information graphics through participatory data visualization and tracking, or “P-tracking” as it is more often abbreviated. The PVP is a community-driven development, poverty reduction operation being carried out by the state government through its Department of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj with technical and financial assistance by the World Bank. The P-tracking system developed in collaboration with project participants is used to periodically monitor a number of important indicators relating to livelihoods, health, nutrition, food security, and household well-being.

• India - Accelerating agricultural productivity growth (Vol. 2) : Overview

  In the past 50 years, Indian agriculture has undergone a major transformation, from dependence on food aid to becoming a consistent net food exporter. The gradual reforms in the agricultural sector (following the broader macro-reforms of the early 1990s) spurred some unprecedented innovations and changes in the food sector driven by private investment. These impressive achievements must now be viewed in light of the policy and investment imperatives that lie ahead. Agricultural growth has improved in recent years (averaging about 3.5 percent since 2004-05), but at a long-term trend rate of growth of 3 percent, agriculture has underperformed relative to its potential. The pockets of post-reform dynamism that have emerged evidently have not reached a sufficiently large scale to influence the sector's performance. For the vast population that still derives a living directly or indirectly from agriculture, achieving "faster, more inclusive, and sustainable growth', the objectives at the heart of the Twelfth five year plan, depends critically on simultaneous efforts to improve agriculture's performance and develop new sources of employment for the disproportionately large share of the labor force still on the farm. The scope of this study is broad in the sense that it marshals considerable empirical evidence and analyses to address those issues. Yet the scope is restricted in the sense that the study does not address all of the issues. A wealth of knowledge exists (and continuing analytical work proceeds) on other major strategic issues, water and irrigation management, food grain management, and public expenditures on agriculture, for example, and the findings of this study must be seen in that context. The lack of sufficient quality data, and often the lack of access to such data, also prevents some issues from being explored in greater depth. Finally, some important issues require more focused and dedicated analysis, such as food safety and quality standards, agricultural trade, and food price increases. This relationship between longer-term strategic issues and contemporary concerns, such as water resource management and food prices, are highlighted in this study through the prism of productivity, but they too require further analysis to fully address the underlying issues.

• Forests and Fire : Strengthening Prevention and Management in India : Forests and fire : strengthening prevention and management in India

  Fire has been a part of India’s landscape since time immemorial and can play a vital role in healthy forests, recycling nutrients, helping tree species regenerate, removing invasive weeds and pathogens, and maintaining habitat for some wildlife. Occasional fires can also keep down fuel loads that feed larger, more destructive conflagrations, but as populations and demands on forest resources have grown, the cycle of fire has spun out of balance. Large areas of degraded forest are now subject to burning on an annual or semi-annual basis. As these fires are no longer beneficial to forest health, India is increasingly wrestling with how to improve the prevention and management of unwanted forest fires. India is not alone in facing this challenge. Forest fires have become an issue of global concern. In many other countries, wildfires are burning larger areas, and fire seasons are growing longer due to a warming climate (Jolly et al 2015). With growing populations in and around the edges of forests, more lives and property is now at risk from fire. About 670,000 km2 of forest land are burned each year on average (about 2 percent of the world’s forested areas (van Lierop et al 2015)), releasing billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere,1 while hundreds of thousands of people are believed to die due to illnesses caused by exposure to smoke from forest fires and other landscape fires (Johnston et al 2012). Tackling forest fires is even more imperative in India as the country has set ambitious policy goals for improving the sustainability of its forests. As part of the National Mission for Green India under India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change, the government has committed to increase forest and tree cover by 5 million hectares and to improve the quality of forest on another 5 million hectares. Relatedly, under its NDC, India has committed to bringing 33 percent of its geographical area under forest cover and to create additional sinks of 2.5 billion to 3 billion tons worth of CO2 stored in its forests by 2030. Yet, it is unclear whether India can achieve these goals if the prevention and management of forest fires is not improved. Field-verified data on the extent and severity of fires are lacking, and understanding of the longer-term impacts of forest fires on the health of India’s forests remains weak. The objective of this assessment is to strengthen knowledge on forest fires by documenting current management systems, identifying gaps in implementation, and making recommendations how these systems can be improved.

• India - Unlocking Agribusiness for Inclusive Growth, Jobs, and More : Policy and Investment Priorities

  Major changes are occurring in the Indian economy that should inform public policy and investments in the food sector. The main drivers of changes occurring in the Indian economy include rising per capita incomes and urbanization. These patterns have led to increased demand for food and food services, including postharvest management activities, food retailing, and restaurants. Aggregate demand for food has increased, and consumption patterns are shifting toward fresh fruits and vegetables, processed foods, and ready-to-eat foods and meals. To meet the emerging demand, farmers need to respond by not only diversifying production toward foods with increasing demand but also with postharvest management. The objective of this report is to identify policy and investment priorities in agribusiness to stimulate inclusive growth and jobs. The study ultimately seeks to inform strategic dialogue between the government of India and the World Bank Group toward investments in postharvest management and other segments of agribusiness. The report provides building blocks to identify priorities for policy and investment. After a brief introduction (chapter 1), chapter 2 presents a framework to understand the role of agribusiness in development. Chapter 3 provides estimates of productivity and capital investment gaps in various subsectors of agribusiness and simulates the effects of bridging those gaps on macroeconomic indicators, sectoral growth, and jobs. Chapter 4 provides lessons on using agribusiness to improve nutrition. Chapter 5 provides lessons on promoting cold chain development. Chapter 6 provides lessons on promoting agroprocessing. Chapter 7 provides lessons on promoting inclusive value chains for modern food retailing. Finally, chapter 8 provides policy and investment priorities in agribusiness based on the main findings of the report.

• Recasting Culture to Undo Gender : A Sociological Analysis of Jeevika in Rural Bihar, India : Recasting culture to undo gender : a sociological analysis of Jeevika in rural Bihar, India

  This paper brings together sociological theories of culture and gender to answer the question – how do large-scale development interventions induce cultural change? Through three years of ethnographic work in rural Bihar, the authors examine this question in the context of Jeevika, a World Bank-assisted poverty alleviation project targeted at women, and find support for an integrative view of culture. The paper argues that Jeevika created new “cultural configurations” by giving economically and socially disadvantaged women access to a well-defined network of people and new systems of knowledge, which changed women’s habitus and broke down normative restrictions constitutive of the symbolic boundary of gender.

• Lighthouse India on Women Economic Empowerment : Stock-take, Lessons and the Plan Ahead - Part A : Stock-take of Activities between FY 2017-2019

  Under the Lighthouse India initiative, the knowledge sharing pillar on ‘Women Economic Empowerment’ has completed two years. The main objective has been to systematically enhance knowledge flows and implementation know-how on women economic empowerment to inform development policy and help to scale up good practices and innovations across states in India and systematically institutionalize the process of knowledge sharing and sharing India’s experience with other countries in the region. In the last two years activities under Women Economic Empowerment (WEE) pillar of Lighthouse India has generated lot of interest among wide-ranging groups of stakeholders, government, multi-lateral, bi-lateral development agencies, think tanks, NGOs, and academic and research institutions- to collaborate for knowledge sharing and pushing the envelope for policy dialogue and advocacy. This initiative has been able to strengthen organizational learning on WEE and helped enhance World Bank’s role and commitment on the subject externally amongst diverse stakeholders.

• Women Farmers Producer Companies : Expanding Women’s Economic Space in the Rural Economy - Lessons from the Jeevika Project, Bihar

  Strong Self-help Groups have helped pave the way for women’s entry into higher-level organizations around agriculture production and marketing. For Jeevika, this has meant investing in efforts around mobilizing women into producer organizations such as Farmer Producer Companies which are able to compete in the rural markets, traditionally the domain of men only. The intervention thus had to be steeped in strong empowerment approaches while ensuring an equal focus on strong technical support to develop women led producer organizations that have the necessary business acumen to be profitable while delivering higher returns for farmer members.

• Roundtable : Knowledge Exchange for Women Economic Empowerment - Summary of Discussions

  Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience’ and ‘Social Protection and Labor’ GPs of the World Bank jointly organized a Roundtable: Knowledge Exchange on Women Economic Empowerment on 17 May 2018 at the World Bank Office in New Delhi. In India, there are significant number of innovative models in women’s economic empowerment, however one of the major barriers in replicating these successful models is lack of systematic and impactful knowledge exchange. With this backdrop, under Lighthouse India (theme - Women Economic Empowerment), first stakeholder interaction was organized. During this roundtable, the discussions were facilitated towards: mapping existing knowledge exchange strategies deployed by various actors and reflect on gaps and challenges faced in knowledge exchange; providing peer to peer learning platform to practitioners in WEE for sharing best practices that have potential to scale up and replicate; and inviting suggestions from participants in developing a roadmap for future interventions (collaborative) in ‘Lighthouse India’. The primary goal of this roundtable was to bring together different actors and deliberate on strategies adopted by these institutions for sharing knowledge and some good WEE models. The day was divided into two sessions: knowledge exchange on women economic empowerment; and best practices women economic empowerment.

• Policy Influencing for Greater Impact on Women’s Economic Empowerment : Discussion in First Meeting of the Consultative Group on Women’s Economic Empowerment

  Lighthouse India focuses on Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) as a theme for sharing knowledge and experiences among stakeholders, both internal and external to the World Bank Group and promoting peer to peer learning. The overall objective of this initiative is to enhance knowledge, implementation know-how and sharing of good practices and innovative solutions for women’s economic empowerment across states in India. Lighthouse India on WEE is in its second year and is geared to build on the preparedness work in 2018 to more strategic activities with internal and external stakeholders. In 2018, some of the main activities were a stock taking exercise that helped identify key issues, key stakeholders and key challenges to WEE and a Roundtable on Knowledge Exchange that acted as an excellent opportunity to interact with over 45 relevant stakeholders from the Government, multilateral organizations, bilateral organizations, civil society and the private sector who are engaged in WEE related work. As a follow-up to the above recommendations the idea to constitute a Consultative Group meeting on Women’s Economic Empowerment was shared with select organizations and after an encouraging response from the invitees, the first Consultative Group meeting was held on January 31, 2019. Representatives from around 15 organizations participated in the meeting and it proved to be an important start to exploring newer and more collaborative ways of knowledge exchange.

• Promoting Women’s Economic Empowerment through Enterprise Development : Lessons from the Kudumbashree Project, Kerala

  Promoting women-run enterprises is increasingly being recognized as one of the important interventions to advance women’s economic empowerment. Women-run enterprises put women in the center of the market; which is a traditionally a male domain. However, for women to be able to run strong, viable and sustainable enterprises, policy support, credit access, training and market linkage are required. The Kudumbashree project demonstrates what it takes to promote, and take to scale, women’s enterprises.

• Socio-economic Empowerment of Adolescent Girls and Young Women through Market-Driven Skill Development and Secondary Education

  Adolescent girls and young women are a critical group for India and the state of Jharkhand; a group with unmet aspirations and tremendous potential to contribute to the growth and development of the state. Their stark vulnerabilities point to an urgent need for comprehensive empowering interventions, focused on education and employment. Their access to services and programs remains limited and it is in this context that the Government of Jharkhand with the support from the Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice of the World Bank designed the Tejaswini – Socioeconomic Empowerment of Adolescent Girls and Young Women Project. The project serves as a best practice example of how to leverage context-specific diagnostics and global evidence to design a holistic package of services to improve outcomes for girls and young women in a low capacity environment. This note highlights the preparation process, the resulting project design, and the status. The note will be updated to include results as implementation progresses.

• Women’s Land Rights and Economic Empowerment : Policy and Practice

  Land is a limited, and typically the most important asset for people living in the developing countries, the majority of whom depend on agriculture and related work for their livelihood. Women have a constant and deep interface with land, and their contribution in terms of agriculture and other related work is high, yet women are unable to own land, are uninvolved and not seen as important stakeholders, when it comes to conversations and decisions related to land ownership. Women contribute substantially in developing and nurturing land, and many studies across the world indicate that land ownership by women leads to reduction of domestic violence, increased mobility, increased access to credit and loan, improved decision-making and bargaining power, more dignity and sense of self-worth leading to the welfare of themselves and their families – the results that help to enhance social and economic empowerment of women.

• Impact Evaluation Framework and Results : Odisha Rural Livelihoods Project - Executive Summary

  Participatory livelihoods projects are a popular model for anti-poverty projects in India. Such projects are implemented in several states of India through various partners - that include the national government, state governments, and donor funded programs. Taken together, these self-help group (SHG) centered interventions - that always include household targeted programs that involve credit, livelihoods support, investments in institution building, and at times seek to improve access to public services - define a multi- dimensional approach to improving household welfare and reducing poverty. The empirical evidence on whether these projects did in fact create better livelihoods and employment and improve the economic and social welfare of households was however largely unclear, despite the investment of significant public resources in the latter for over two decades. Designing rigorous impact evaluations for such demand driven and multi- dimensional projects is also often challenging, as the core intervention of creating networks of SHGs often has a long implementation history. The Odisha Rural Livelihoods Project (TRIPTI) program, which is implemented by the state government of Orissa with assistance from the World Bank, was launched in 2009 and provided the opportunity to design a rigorous evaluation. This evaluation of TRIPTI therefore assesses the impacts of this project on the economic and social welfare of targeted households as measured by access to credit, savings, indebtedness, livelihoods, consumption expenditures, and asset portfolios over a three-year period from 2011-2014.

• Recasting Culture to Undo Gender : A Sociological Analysis of Jeevika in Rural Bihar, India

  This paper brings together sociological theories of culture and gender to answer the question – how do large-scale development interventions induce cultural change? Through three years of ethnographic work in rural Bihar, the authors examine this question in the context of Jeevika, a World Bank-assisted poverty alleviation project targeted at women, and find support for an integrative view of culture. The paper argues that Jeevika created new “cultural configurations” by giving economically and socially disadvantaged women access to a well-defined network of people and new systems of knowledge, which changed women’s habitus and broke down normative restrictions constitutive of the symbolic boundary of gender.