Policy Impact

The proposed project is directly relevant to, supportive of, and consistent with India's national priorities and policies related to global environmental issues and sustainable development. The project will foster synergies with government programmes and other initiatives through interaction on multi-stakeholder governance platforms, development of participatory landscape strategies, delivery of capacity building through learning-by-doing approaches and co-financing arrangements on community projects.

• Green India Mission (GIM): The Green India Mission (GIM) focuses on sustainable land management and restoration of areas degraded through deforestation, degradation, over-extraction of fuelwood and fodder and overgrazing. OP8's expected goal of bringing 30,000 hectares of landscape area under improved practices is consistent with the envisaged results of the GIM.
• National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA): Aims at enhancing food security and protection of resources such as land, water, biodiversity and genetics. The activities supported under the NMSA will support the OP8 project's objectives regarding strengthened conservation and sustainable use of agrobiodiversity resources and promoting energy efficiency (EE) and adoption of renewable energy (RE) technologies in the agricultural sector.
• National Water Mission (NWM): One of the key goals of the mission is to enhance water use efficiency by 20%, which is directly aligned with the energy efficiency interventions under the climate change mitigation focal area on the OP8 project.
• Solar Mission: Under Operational Phase 8 (OP8), the programme will support the installation of 1 MW of renewable energy capacity through a combination of Solar Photovoltaic (PV), Solar Thermal, Biomass, and Biogas technologies. In addition, OP8 will promote energy efficiency and energy conservation measures, thereby contributing to India's National Solar Mission and advancing the country's renewable energy and climate action goals under the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
• National Rural Livelihoods Mission: Aims to support rural communities through self-managed self-help groups and federated institutions to strengthen their livelihood. The direct beneficiaries of OP8 are 15,000 people, including 7,500 women. It aims to provide technical and strategic capacity building by providing microlending schemes with credit corporations and banks and thus enhancing financial stability among women.
• National Adaptation Fund for Climate Change (NAFCC): The NAFCC is a Central Sector Scheme set up in 2015–2016 to support concrete climate change adaptation projects. The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) is the national implementing entity. Approved NAFCC projects are under implementation in the states where the OP8 project intervention landscapes are located.
• National Afforestation Programme (NAP): The restoration interventions of the OP8 project are envisaged to link up with existing initiatives, such as the National Afforestation Programme.