When the project was initiated, nearly one-fourth of the people in Nepal were living below the poverty line, and about one-quarter of the people were food insecure. The April 2015 earthquake further pushed about 2 million additional people below the poverty line. The hardship was more pronounced in the mid and high hill districts, especially around the mid and far western development regions, among the marginalized and disadvantaged people with poor access to land, financial resources, information, and government support and services. Mukta Kamaiya (freed bonded labour) living in Dang, Banke, Bardiya, Kailali, and Kanchanpur were among the most deprived and marginalized communities in the region. 

The project’s goal was to increase climate resilience and well-being of rural communities in Kailali, Bardiya, Humla, and Sindhupalchok districts of Nepal. LI-BIRD used a two-pronged approach to project implementation:  

1. direct implementation 
2. and implementation through small sub-awards management programs.  

The sub-awardees included three local NGOs and 9 Community-Based Organizations (CBOs). LI-BIRD provided capacity building and technical assistance support to sub-awardees, especially in technical, financial, institutional development, and fund utilization.   

The impact groups (target groups) of the project were resource-poor, marginalized, landless, and smallholder farming households primarily living below the poverty line. Among the selected households, 86% were disadvantaged groups, especially Mukta Kamaiyas (freed bonded labourers). In the western Terai districts, the project’s primary impact group comprised Mukta Kamaiya, landless Dalits, and resource-poor households. In Sindhupalchok District, Nepal, the households affected by the Nepal Earthquake 2015 were the top priority of this project for implementing food production and income generation activities. Similarly, in Humla, where still 56% people were poor, our priority was to work with the severely food-insecure households. More than 60% of the beneficiaries were women among individual beneficiaries. The project made extra efforts to identify and support resource-poor families with persons with disabilities (PwDs) across the identified sites. 

Some of the key project achievements were:  

1. Establishment of five locally managed ‘Community Seed Banks’ that have conserved 86 indigenous crop varieties, provided climate resilient crop variety seeds and planting materials to over 947 households, and created 110 part-time local jobs annually. 
2. Establishment of five ‘Climate Smart Villages’ in five municipalities of Bardia and Kailali districts that helped build resilience of 840 households. 
3. Enhanced entrepreneurship skills of 987 households (87% women participants) for income-generating activities that generated an average of EUR 319 per household per year.