Sudurpashchim is the most vulnerable province to climate change and other socio-economic changes in Nepal. This is the least developed province in terms of development indicators and have critical gaps on knowledge, evidence, capacity, financing and institutional mechanisms to design and promote adaptation and resilience building practices. LI-BIRD is implementing a Building Resilience in Agro-ecosystem and Community Empowerment (BRACE) project developed by ICIMOD under the component 2: Action Research of Green Resilient Agricultural Production Ecosystem (GRAPE) project jointly funded by European Union (EU), German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland (MFA) and implemented in Nepal by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). The project is implemented at 10 municipalities of four districts of Sudurpaschim Province viz. Kailali (Dhangadhi UM, Godawari M, Chure RM), Doti (Badikedar RM, Jorayal RM), Dadeldhura (Amargadhi M, Alital RM) and Bajura (Budinanda M, Himali RM, Swamikartik Khapar RM).

The BRACE project aims at improving climate resilience and sustainability of agro-ecosystems in Sudurpashchim province of Nepal through promotion of various climate-resilient agricultural practices. The project has three major outputs: i) climate resilient agricultural solutions identified, packaged and demonstrated at community level; ii) evidence-based knowledge co-created, and knowledge products made available for building resilience of agro-ecosystem; and iii)climate resilient solutions are scaled up at municipal level and contributions made for scaling up at provincial level. The project focuses on promoting climate smart agriculture (CSA) technologies and practices through action research and demonstrations. The project is also intended to generate knowledge products to foster climate-resilient food production (utilizing and promoting crop diversity, improving soil health, conserving and sustainably utilizing water and other natural resources, maximizing optimum utilization of local resources etc) and enhance digital access (mainly to agro-advisory, weather forecast and market information) for farmers by establishing pilots and demonstration sites at local levels.

The main target of the project is to identify and demonstrate the locally adapted, already tested/proven and innovative climate smart solutions at the farmer’s level and scale up the successful and appropriate innovative solutions by disseminating knowledge and integrating them within the regular plan and program of the local, provincial and national governments for climate-resilient and sustainable green economic growth. The project is targeted to reach out 1,250 households (300 HHs in demonstration communities and 950 at peripheral impact communities), of which, 60% will be women-led households. Project is implemented in three tiers as core demonstration site, impact site and scaling up/extension site. The suitable climate resilient agricultural technologies and practices tested at demonstration sites are disseminated at large area within the project municipality and is then further disseminated outside of the project areas through development of knowledge products.