The Community-based Biodiversity Management-South Asia (CBMSA) programme, financially supported by NORAD through the Development Fund, Norway, was a regional initiative of LI-BIRD for promoting conservation and sustainable utilization of agricultural biodiversity, and enhancing livelihoods of resource-poor farming communities in South Asia and making them more resilient to the impacts of climate change. This programme was implemented in 63 communities in Bangladesh, India, Nepal (20 communities in 10 districts), and Sri Lanka, aiming for four outcomes: 

1. On-farm/in-situ conservation of genetic diversity increased.  
2. Increased biodiversity-based income. 
3. Empowered communities to manage agro-biodiversity; and 
4. Policies’ contribution/influence concerning the sustainable use and conservation of genetic resources increased. 

Community-based biodiversity management (CBM) is defined as a community-led participatory approach to strengthen the capacity of the local communities to identify, conserve, manage, add value, and exchange biodiversity through collective actions. 

The project goal was to enhance biodiversity-based livelihood security of local communities in South Asia. The specific objectives of the project were: 

1. To increase the productivity of biodiversity-based production systems of poor farmers for improved livelihoods and their resilience to climate change; and 
2. To strengthen the capacity of farming communities to conserve, utilize, and benefit from agricultural biodiversity and protect their rights on genetic resources. 

The CBMSA programme was regionally coordinated by LI-BIRD and implemented by national partners, namely UBINIG in Bangladesh, ANTHRA and GREEN Foundation in India, and Green Movement of Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka. In addition to coordinating the regional programme, LI-BIRD’s role was to build the capacity of country partners, facilitate the process for mainstreaming promising results into the national system, and implement activities in Nepal. Each country partner collaborated with the extension and education system of the respective countries for mainstreaming the findings of the CBMSA programme. In Nepal, as a result of the collaboration with district extension offices, District Agriculture Development Offices (DADOs) implemented a community biodiversity register, diversity fair, home garden improvement, diversity block, and diversity kit distribution of promising local varieties. Most of these practices have been incorporated into the revised National Agrobiodiversity Policy 2014. 

The key achievements of the project were as follows: 

• Community seed bank, participatory plant breeding, and community biodiversity management fund disseminated from Nepal to Sri-Lanka. 
• UBINIG in Bangladesh incorporated ‘agrobiodiversity management’ course in the curriculum of the graduate programme in the Department of Sociology, University of Dhaka; the agrobiodiversity management course in BSc was incorporated in Nepal. 
• 17 Community Seed Bank (CSB) covering 7,457 HHs established for the conservation of valuable plant genetic resources. 
• More than 345 Resource Home Gardens promoted as a source of family nutrition and income. 
• Management and yield of small livestock (Decani sheep in India and Khari goat, Hurrah pig, and Shakini poultry in Nepal) improved. 
• More than 25 small entrepreneurs benefited from linking diversity to the market through the value addition of local landraces.  
• Community seed banks in Nepal are conserving 1027 accessions of 65 crop species, and all these accessions have been sent to the National Genebank for ex-situ conservation. 
• Production of more than 150 tons of seeds every year by the community seed banks, which are accessed by nearly 10,000 households annually, and the annual turnover of these community seed banks through the transaction of seed is more than NPR 6.3 million. 
• Engaged in evidence-based policy advocacy, especially on farmers’ rights and farmers’ seed system/seed laws.