2^nd March, 2023 | Vasudha Foundation Office, New Delhi

Vasudha Foundation and Gorakhpur Environmental Action Group (GEAG) hosted a Workshop on Developing Action Plans for Climate Smart Gram Panchayats in UP, on March 02, 2023 at Vasudha Foundation, New Delhi. The workshop was organized as a part of the initiative by the Department of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, GoUP, to develop Climate Smart Gram Panchayat Action Plans for 39 Gram Panchayats across the state. In January, 2023, another such workshop was undertaken to orient NGO partners working in 27 of the 39 selected Gram Panchayats. This workshop was conducted to orient the NGO partners who will be working in the remaining 12 Gram Panchayats about their role and responsibilities in the development of Climate Smart Gram Panchayat Action Plans.

There were around 25 participants, including representatives from NGO partners, and team members from Vasudha Foundation and GEAG. The participants were oriented about the project background, the impacts of climate change and the need for integrating Gram Panchayat development planning and climate action. The discussions were facilitated by the GEAG (Gorakhpur Environmental Action Group) and Vasudha Foundation to strengthen the understanding of key concepts of climate change and on the modality of data collection that included sharing of guiding documents for conducting focus group discussions, questionnaire for data collection, and output documents.

The participants were given an overview of the development of the Climate Smart Action Plans, the various components of the plan and examples from the ground to establish an understanding of the process as a whole. They were also acquainted with the questionnaire that was prepared to analyse ground situations and get collective responses through FGDs. Each section of the questionnaire was explained in an exhaustive manner by both the GEAG and Vasudha team. The NGO partners who had already collected inputs from their respective Gram Panchayat also participated in the discussions and gave valuable suggestions that could help the participants at the time of data collection. One of the NGO partners shared their on-ground experience and provided valuable insights for the successful implementation of the assessment and planning  process in their respective GP. The workshop closed with the discussion on detailed field logistics plans, timelines and reporting mechanisms.