Document of
The World Bank
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Report No: ICR00005091
IMPLEMENTATION COMPLETION AND RESULTS REPORT
TF-018700
ON A
GRANT
IN THE AMOUNT OF US$8 MILLION
TO THE
REPUBLIC OF INDIA
FOR THE
SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS AND
ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE PROJECT
June 15, 2020
Agriculture and Food Global Practice
Sustainable Development
South Asia Region
This document has a restricted distribution and may be used by recipients only in the performance of
their official duties. Its contents may not otherwise be disclosed without World Bank authorization.
CURRENCY EQUIVALENTS
(Exchange Rate Effective {Dec 31, 2019})
Currency Unit = INR
INR 71.24 = US$1
US$ = SDR 1
FISCAL YEAR
April 1 – March 31
Regional Vice President: Hartwig Schafer
Country Director: Junaid Kamal Ahmed
Regional Director: John A. Roome
Practice Manager: Mary Kathryn Hollifield
Task Team Leader(s): Priti Kumar
ICR Main Contributor: Karuna Krishnaswamy
ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS
AM Aide Memoire
BRLPS Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society
CCA Climate Change Adaptation
CCAP Climate Change Adaptation Plan
CEO Chief Executive Oficer
CHC Custom Hiring Center
CPF Country Partnership Framework
CPS Country Partnership Strategy
CRPs Community Resource Persons
DEA Department of Economic Affairs
EFA Economic and Financial Analysis
GEF Global Environment Facility
GoI Government of India
ICAR Indian Council of Agricultural Research
ICRR Implementation Completion and Results Reporting
IDA International Development Association
ISM Implementation Support Mission
ISR Implementation Status Report
IUFR Interim Unaudited Financial Report
KVK Krishi Vigyan Kendra
LTSA Lead Technical Support Agency
MGNREGA/S Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act/Scheme
MoRD Ministry of Rural Development
MoEFCC Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Climate Change
MPSRLM Madhya Pradesh State Rural Livelihoods Mission
M&E Monitoring and Evaluation
NAPCC National Action Plan on Climate Change
NGO Non-Government Organization
NICRA National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture
NIRD&PR National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj
NMMU National Mission Management Unit
NMSA National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture
NRLM National Rural Livelihoods Mission
NRLP National Rural Livelihoods Project
PAD Project Appraisal Document
PCR Project Completion Report
PDO Project Development Objective
PMIS Project Management Information System
RF Results Framework
SCCF Special Climate Change Fund
SHG Self-Help Group
SLACC Sustainable Livelihoods and Adaptation to Climate Change (“the project”)
SMMU State Mission Management Unit
SRLM State Rural Livelihoods Mission
UC Utilization Certificate
VO Village Organization
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DATA SHEET .....................................................................................................................................1
I. PROJECT CONTEXT AND DEVELOPMENT OBJECTIVES ....................................................... 5
A. CONTEXT AT APPRAISAL .........................................................................................................5
B. SIGNIFICANT CHANGES DURING IMPLEMENTATION (IF APPLICABLE) .......................................8
II. OUTCOME............................................................................................................................... 11
A. RELEVANCE OF PDOs ............................................................................................................ 11
B. ACHIEVEMENT OF PDOs (EFFICACY) ...................................................................................... 12
C. EFFICIENCY ........................................................................................................................... 17
D. JUSTIFICATION OF OVERALL OUTCOME RATING .................................................................... 19
E. OTHER OUTCOMES AND IMPACTS (IF ANY) ............................................................................ 19
III. KEY FACTORS THAT AFFECTED IMPLEMENTATION AND OUTCOME ................................... 20
A. KEY FACTORS DURING PREPARATION ................................................................................... 20
B. KEY FACTORS DURING IMPLEMENTATION ............................................................................. 21
IV. BANK PERFORMANCE, COMPLIANCE ISSUES, AND RISK TO DEVELOPMENT OUTCOME ... 22
A. QUALITY OF MONITORING AND EVALUATION (M&E) ............................................................ 22
B. ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL, AND FIDUCIARY COMPLIANCE ..................................................... 23
C. BANK PERFORMANCE ........................................................................................................... 24
D. RISK TO DEVELOPMENT OUTCOME ....................................................................................... 26
V. LESSONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS .................................................................................... 27
ANNEX 1. RESULTS FRAMEWORK AND KEY OUTPUTS ................................................................ 30
ANNEX 2. BANK LENDING AND IMPLEMENTATION SUPPORT/SUPERVISION ............................ 48
ANNEX 3. PROJECT COST BY COMPONENT .................................................................................. 50
ANNEX 4. EFFICIENCY ANALYSIS ................................................................................................... 51
ANNEX 5. BORROWER, CO-FINANCIER AND OTHER PARTNER/STAKEHOLDER COMMENTS .... 57
ANNEX 6. IMPACT CHAIN FOR CLIMATE RESILIENT LIVELIHOODS (AS IN PAD).........................60
ANNEX 7. SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS (IF ANY)........................................................................61
ANNEX 8. GEF RESULTS INDICATORS.......................................................................................63
ANNEX 9. MAPS......................................................................................................................67
The World Bank
Sustainable Livelihoods and Adaptation to Climate Change (P132623)
DATA SHEET
BASIC INFORMATION
Product Information
Project ID Project Name
P132623 Sustainable Livelihoods and Adaptation to Climate Change
Country Financing Instrument
India Investment Project Financing
Original EA Category Revised EA Category
Partial Assessment (B) Partial Assessment (B)
Organizations
Borrower Implementing Agency
Republic of India Ministry of Rural Development
Project Development Objective (PDO)
Original PDO
The Project Development Objective (PDO) is to improve adaptive capacity of the rural poor engaged in farm-based
livelihoods to cope with climate variability and change.
PDO as stated in the legal agreement
The Project Developmental Objective (PDO) is to improve adaptive capacity of the rural poor engaged in farm
livelihoods to cope with climate variability and change
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Sustainable Livelihoods and Adaptation to Climate Change (P132623)
FINANCING
Original Amount (US$) Revised Amount (US$) Actual Disbursed (US$)
World Bank Financing
8,000,000 7,181,722 7,181,722
TF-18700
Total 8,000,000 7,181,722 7,181,722
Non-World Bank Financing
0 0 0
Borrower/Recipient 2,170,000 4,670,000 4,190,000
Total 2,170,000 4,670,000 4,190,000
Total Project Cost 10,170,000 11,851,722 11,371,722
KEY DATES
Approval Effectiveness MTR Review Original Closing Actual Closing
09-Dec-2014 13-Feb-2015 17-Oct-2016 30-Jun-2018 31-Dec-2019
RESTRUCTURING AND/OR ADDITIONAL FINANCING
Date(s) Amount Disbursed (US$M) Key Revisions
14-Jun-2018 4.75 Change in Loan Closing Date(s)
Reallocation between Disbursement Categories
KEY RATINGS
Outcome Bank Performance M&E Quality
Moderately Satisfactory Moderately Satisfactory Modest
RATINGS OF PROJECT PERFORMANCE IN ISRs
Actual
No. Date ISR Archived DO Rating IP Rating Disbursements
(US$M)
01 17-Jun-2015 Satisfactory Satisfactory 0
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Sustainable Livelihoods and Adaptation to Climate Change (P132623)
02 09-Sep-2015 Satisfactory Satisfactory 0
03 23-Mar-2016 Satisfactory Moderately Satisfactory 0
04 08-Oct-2016 Satisfactory Moderately Satisfactory 1.04
05 26-Apr-2017 Satisfactory Moderately Satisfactory 1.88
Moderately
06 14-Nov-2017 Moderately Satisfactory 1.98
Unsatisfactory
07 01-Jun-2018 Moderately Satisfactory Moderately Satisfactory 4.75
08 29-Oct-2018 Moderately Satisfactory Moderately Satisfactory 4.75
09 29-May-2019 Moderately Satisfactory Moderately Satisfactory 4.89
SECTORS AND THEMES
Sectors
Major Sector/Sector (%)
Agriculture, Fishing and Forestry 100
Fisheries 2
Livestock 46
Other Agriculture, Fishing and Forestry 52
Themes
Major Theme/ Theme (Level 2)/ Theme (Level 3) (%)
Private Sector Development 100
Jobs 100
Finance 25
Finance for Development 25
Disaster Risk Finance 25
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Sustainable Livelihoods and Adaptation to Climate Change (P132623)
Urban and Rural Development 75
Disaster Risk Management 75
Disaster Response and Recovery 25
Disaster Risk Reduction 25
Disaster Preparedness 25
ADM STAFF
Role At Approval At ICR
Vice President: Philippe H. Le Houerou Hartwig Schafer
Country Director: Onno Ruhl Junaid Kamal Ahmad
Director: Martien Van Nieuwkoop John A. Roome
Practice Manager/Manager: Shobha Shetty Mary Kathryn Hollifield
Project Team Leader: Priti Kumar Priti Kumar
ICR Co Author: Priti Kumar
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Sustainable Livelihoods and Adaptation to Climate Change (P132623)
I. PROJECT CONTEXT AND DEVELOPMENT OBJECTIVES
A. CONTEXT AT APPRAISAL
Context
Country context
1. At appraisal (in March 2014), India had a large population of rural poor who were dependent on farming for their
livelihood. The rural poverty rate was 25.7 percent and agriculture accounted for 72 percent of India’s rural workforce.
As these farmers relied on natural resources (such as rainfall, fodder and water bodies), any climatic hazards that
affected the availability of these natural resources, adversely affected their livelihoods1.
2. Climate change projections for 2100, estimated a 2–4°C increase in temperature, and concomitant worsening of
variability of monsoons, frequency of extreme precipitation events and drought periods. Over the next three decades,
a 1.25°C temperature increase could lead to a 6–11 percent decline in per capita consumption among rural households
due to a 17–37 percent reduction in land productivity. By 2040, the rural poverty rate in India would increase by 3–4
percent due to climate change2. Given this scenario, climate change adaptation (CCA) practices could reduce the risks
due to climate change by up to half3, and improved adaptive capacity4 of the rural poor engaged in farm livelihoods
could help them cope with climate variability and change. However, the adoption rates of these practices were low5.
National priorities
3. The Government of India (GoI), recognizing the urgent need to enable farmers to withstand the effects of climate
change6, included adaptation to climate change (especially of the poor and the vulnerable) as a priority in India’s
National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) and its component missions leading to the launch of CCA initiatives.
For farm-based livelihoods, the GoI constituted the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA) within the
Ministry of Agriculture. The NMSA inter alia focused on research and development, technologies, practices and
capacity building in climate resilient agriculture. GoI’s Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) launched the
National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) in 2011 – a network of institutions working to enhance
farmers’ climate resilience – that is focused on research, technology demonstration and capacity building.
4. However, these initiatives had limitations, as both NMSA and NICRA implemented innovative pilots on farmers’
fields with no specific focus on scale-up. They sought to address adaptation gap7 issues over those of adaptation
deficit8. It is well-established that the extent of vulnerability to climate change often stems from the extent of
underlying poverty, which is a result of adaptation deficit (refer to Figure A6.1 in Annex 6).
1 Rural Development Statistics 2011-12. National Institute of Rural Development, Government of India.
2 Press Note on Poverty Estimates, 2011-12. Planning Commission, Government of India. July 2013.
3 Jacoby H., M. Rabassa, and E. Skoufias. Distributional Implications of Climate Change in India. 2011. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper
5623.
4 Adaptive capacity refers to “the whole of capabilities, resources and institutions to implement effective adaptation measures”.
5 Climate Change Impacts in Drought and Flood Affected Areas: Case Studies in India. 2008. The World Bank. Report #43946-IN.
6 Approach Paper to India’s Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012–17).
7 Adaptation gap is where the difference between the beneficiaries’ status and the status appropriate to a changing climate is due solely to a
failure to specifically address the effects of climate change. Source: Making Adaptation Count – Concepts and Options for Monitoring and
Evaluation of Climate Change Adaptation. GIZ, World Resources Institute. 2011.
8 Adaptation deficit is where the difference between the beneficiaries’ status and the status appropriate to a changing climate is due to broader
unmet development needs, and not only to a failure to address climate change. Source: Making Adaptation Count – Concepts and Options for
Monitoring and Evaluation of Climate Change Adaptation. GIZ, World Resources Institute. 2011.
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Sustainable Livelihoods and Adaptation to Climate Change (P132623)
Context of rural livelihoods
5. GoI’s National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) implemented by the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) was
(and is) a large-scale9 rural development program for poverty reduction and livelihoods enhancement. In convergence
with other programs, NRLM provides integrated livelihoods support (such as institution building, farm livelihoods,
provision of credit) through a large network of women-run community-based institutions (self-help groups (SHGs) and
village organizations10 (VOs)). World Bank’s financing to NRLM of US$1 billion through the National Rural Livelihoods
Project (NRLP11) became effective in 2011, and included the states of Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. NRLM sought to
address adaptation deficit issues but did not have a systematic approach to assess and address climate change risks
(the adaptation gap) or build long-term resilience. In this context, the GoI sought the Special Climate Change Funds
(SCCFs) through the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to implement the Sustainable Livelihoods and Adaptation to
Climate Change (SLACC) project to deal with adaptation gap and deficit issues.
Rationale for bank assistance
6. The SLACC project sought to complement and supplement national priorities by: (i) supporting the implementation
of adaptation priorities of the NAPCC by integrating CCAs with farm livelihood activities of the NRLM and focusing on
both adaptation gap and deficit issues; (ii) including technology and capacity building of community resources persons
(CRPs) and project staff in CCA; and (iii) contributing to the CCA policy dialogue.
7. The project sought to leverage the NRLM’s large network of community-run institutions for outreach to farmers. It
sought to pilot-test a proof-of-concept of adding a climate resilience12 layer to livelihoods support activities of the
NRLM in two well performing states (Bihar and Madhya Pradesh), gather learnings and develop operational guidelines
for future scale-up.
8. The project sought to contribute to the objectives of the Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) for India (2013–17)
including that of reducing poverty, increasing shared prosperity as well as increasing productivity through climate-
resilient agriculture, which is an operational business line under Outcome 2.4. Specific areas in the latter are: (i)
inclusive agricultural and rural growth; (ii) technology development and climate-resilient agriculture; and (iii) water
and natural resources management. The project sought to contribute to Millennium Development Goal 7 on
environmental sustainability. The project was also aligned with state action plans of Bihar and Madhya Pradesh on
climate change and with the District Agriculture Contingency Plans (refer to Relevance section for details).
Theory of Change (Results Chain)
9. The project appraisal document (PAD) did not have a Theory of Change as it was not mandated at appraisal. The
following Theory of Change diagram (see next page) presents the project’s underlying logic (also refer to Figure A6.1 in
Annex 6).
Project Development Objectives
10. As per the legal agreement, “The Project Development Objective (PDO) is to improve adaptive capacity of the
rural poor engaged in farm livelihoods to cope with climate variability and change.” There was no material difference
between this version and the version in the PAD.
9 NRLM has an objective to support the livelihoods of 70 million rural poor households, across 600 districts, 6,000 blocks, 2.5 lakh gram
panchayats and 6 lakh villages over 8 to 10 years.
10 VO is the village level apex body for SHGs. SHGs are small collectives of women through which NRLM interventions are provided.
11 NRLP IDA - Credit# 49780.
12 The ability of a system and its component parts to anticipate, absorb and accommodate or recover from the effects of a hazardous event in
a timely and efficient manner including through the preservation, restoration and improvement of its essential basis structures and functions.
Source: IPCC 2012.
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Sustainable Livelihoods and Adaptation to Climate Change (P132623)
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Sustainable Livelihoods and Adaptation to Climate Change (P132623)
Key Expected Outcomes and Outcome Indicators
Key outcomes and associated PDO indicators
• Poor farmer households have improved adaptive capacity to cope with climate variability and change.
o At least 50 percent of the targeted households demonstrate strengthened awareness and ownership of
adaptation and climate change risk reduction processes/measures.
• Poor farmer households adopted adaptation measures to cope with climate variability and change.
o At least 50 percent of the targeted households adopt livelihoods with enhanced climate resilience.
11. The primary beneficiaries were women farmers (original target of 8,000; after restructuring 32,120 farmers were
reached) and their household members who were existing members of SHGs promoted by the NRLM in 200 villages
(793 villages were reached by the end of the project) in eight blocks in four drought- or flood-prone districts in Bihar
and Madhya Pradesh. All NRLM SHG members belonging to the low income category, were eligible to participate in the
project. CRPs and staff of State Rural Livelihoods Missions (SRLMs) benefited through training and improved
knowledge of CCA.
Components
12. Component 1: Planning, service provision and implementation of CCA (budget at appraisal: US$8.27 million; cost
at completion: US$5.61 million). Support community-based planning, service provision, implementation and
monitoring of CCA interventions through inter alia: (i) community-led risk assessment, participatory planning of CCA
interventions and preparation of CCA plans; (ii) provision of technical support for strategic CCA services; and (iii)
community-based implementation of CCA interventions. The key outcomes are: (i) strengthened awareness and
understanding of climate change risks and adaptation interventions leading to improved adaptive capacities; and (ii)
climate adaptation measures adopted by community institutions for enhancing resilience and coping with current
climate variability, as well as ongoing climate change.
13. Component 2: Scaling and mainstreaming community-based CCA (budget at appraisal: US$1.48 million; cost at
completion: US$1.32 million). Building capacity of NRLM staff and CRPs for the implementation of CCA interventions
and developing a strategy for scaling up, through inter alia (i) training on CCA and creation of a cadre of persons skilled
in community-based CCA planning; (ii) building a knowledge support system for scaling up CCA including: (a) the
development of knowledge products; (b) the establishment of a consortium of resource organizations on CCA; (c)
developing a cadre of trained climate smart CRPs; and (d) the development of policy inputs for scaling up the
community-based CCA approach within the recipient's national program on rural livelihoods. Key outcomes are: (i)
strengthened operational capacity of national and state staff for integrating climate adaptation into livelihood support
activities; and (ii) mainstreaming CCA into national and state livelihood programs.
14. Component 3: Project management and impact evaluation (budget at appraisal: US$0.42 million; cost at
completion: US$0.25 million). Strengthening management units in existing or new national and state level institutional
structures for project management, implementation support and coordination including: (i) establishment of CCA units
within the National Mission Management Unit (NMMU) and the State Mission Management Units (SMMUs) of the
participating states; (ii) support to fiduciary and safeguards management; and (iii) establishment of a monitoring
system and evaluation arrangements. The outcome is efficient and effective management of other components.
B. SIGNIFICANT CHANGES DURING IMPLEMENTATION (IF APPLICABLE)
15. The project underwent one Level II restructuring on 14 June 2018 which involved an 18-month extension of the
closing date from 30 June 2018 to 31 December 2019, reallocation across disbursement categories and amendments to
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Sustainable Livelihoods and Adaptation to Climate Change (P132623)
the Results Framework (RF)13.
Revised PDO and PDO Indicators Outcome Targets
16. The PDO and PDO indicators were not altered. The overall outreach was increased due to an increase in the
number of project villages. A major goal of the restructuring was to scale up promising interventions in new
villages14 within the original blocks and districts15. Moreover, minor changes were made to the intermediate
indicators (Table 1).
Table 1: Amendments to the intermediate indicators
Original Amended version
Component 1 Indicator 1: At least 8,000 farmers New target: 12,300.
demonstrate climate resilient farming practices.
Component 2 Indicator 1: At least 800 VOs/SHGs and CRPs At least 6,00016 SHG members are trained in adaptation-
are trained in adaptation-related technologies. related technologies.
Note: This indicator actually refers to members not groups,
since the project did not reach out to that many groups.
Training of CRPs is covered under another indicator.
– A Project Management Information System (PMIS) is
functional and used to review the extent of adoption of
various interventions by farmers.
Component 1: Indicator 2: At least 30 percent of the At least 30 percent of the community institutions in
community institutions access technical and/or financial resource villages17 access financial support for climate
support for climate adaptation plans through convergence adaptation plans through convergence with government
with government programs. programs.
Note: This indicator was amended to specifically refer to
200 original villages since the project did not plan for
convergence in the scale-up villages. Further, the scope of
convergence was limited to financial support from
government programs.
Component 2: Indicator 2: State level resource agencies New target: 8 (details in Annex 1).
and/or technical services providers for providing field level
technical support, appointed and operational.
A climate resilience index was to be used to measure PDO The index was defined to be a minimum set of practices
indicator 1. (detailed in the efficacy section) a farmer had to adopt to
be termed climate resilient.
13 Changes to Project Monitoring Indicators did not get captured in the ICRR datasheet but these are documented in the amendment to the
project legal agreementcommunicated to GoI.
14 As per the Minutes of SLACC Review meeting held on 22 December 2017, issued by the MoRD and attended by SRLMs, scale-up villages were:
337 additional villages in Bihar and 150 in Madhya Pradesh in the original 8 blocks. New villages in Bihar were to launch the Community
Investment Fund, set up Custom Hiring Centers and conduct demonstration of climate smart agricultural practices.
15 The PAD refers to 100 resource plus 100 expansion villages. These 200 will henceforth be referred to as “original” villages; villages
subsequently added at restructuring will be called “scale-up” villages.
16 6,000 SHG members were estimated across 200 original villages and 487 scale-up villages assuming an average of about 10 members per VO
and rounding off.
17 Each state had 100 resource villages for a total of 200 originally. At restructuring scale-up villages were added.
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Revised Components
17. A primary change, reflected in the amended legal agreement, was the scale-up of successful interventions to 487
additional “scale-up” villages18 in Component 1.
Changes to components
18. N/A
Other Changes
19. While the project’s grant amount in US Dollar terms was not changed19, outlay to the MoRD was reduced by
US$0.4820 million and the outlay to the states increased by the same amount. This implied a reallocation to the two
disbursement categories in the legal agreement. The state governments’ contributions increased by US$2.5 million for
reasons explained below.
20. Changes to cost allocations of components during restructuring are given in Table 2.
Table 2: Changes to component-wise cost allocations at restructuring (US$ million)
Component name Original Cost at Change in Final
cost restructuring allocation costs
Planning, service provision and implementation of climate change 6.20 6.68 Revised 5.61
adaptation
Scaling and mainstreaming community-based climate adaptation 1.48 1.00 Revised 1.32
Project management and impact evaluation 0.32 0.32 No change 0.25
Total (Special Climate Change Fund 8.0 8.0 7.18
(SCCF)/Global Environment Facility
(GEF), does not include borrower contribution)
Rationale for Changes and their Implications on the Original Theory of Change
21. Rationale for restructuring: As per the original Grant Agreement, the total grant amount to the center was US$8
million, of which US$1.5 million was for use by the NMMU, and US$6.5 million was to be transferred by the MoRD to
the two SMMUs. At appraisal, each state’s own mandatory contribution was 25 percent of the transfer amount.
Subsequently, a GoI policy change increased the mandatory state contribution to 40 percent21 of the transfer amount,
which combined with the US Dollar appreciating from an exchange rate of INR 60 to INR 62, led to US$2.5 million extra
funds becoming available. The MoRD requested an extension of 18 months to use the extra funds to strengthen the
work in the original villages, to scale up to newer villages, allow for better convergence, prepare training materials for
future scale-up, and to assess the results and learning for dissemination22. The SRLMs also sought to expand their
geographical coverage due to promising results achieved at the time23. These interventions did not alter the Theory of
Change.
18 Ibid., 9.
19 Restructuring paper #RES32185 explains details.
20 Minor rounding off deviations is possible.
21 MoRD restructuring request letter to DEA.
22 Ibid.
23 Minutes of SLACC Review meeting held on 22 December 2017, issued by the MoRD and attended by SRLMs.
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Table 3: Amendments to the project financing plan24
Budget at appraisal (US$ million) Budget at restructuring (US$ million)
To MoRD 1.5 1
Center to states transfer 6.5 7
State contributions 2.17 4.67
Total budget 10.17 12.67
II. OUTCOME
A. RELEVANCE OF PDOs
Assessment of Relevance of PDOs and Rating
22. The project was closely aligned with the World Bank’s Country Partnership Framework (CPF) for 2018–22
(Report 126667-IN). Table 4 below lists all the intervention areas in the CPF related to climate-resilient farming and the
interventions and outreach achieved by this project.25
Table 4: Intervention areas in the CPF related to climate-resilient farming
Reference in CPF SLACC project achievement
Focus area 1: Resource Efficient Growth’s Objective 1.1: Deepen support Infrastructure: 113 micro-irrigation
for climate resilience and improved natural resource management through schemes, 605 Custom Hiring Centers
investments in infrastructure, facilitating changes in agricultural (CHCs), and 10 soil testing laboratories)
approaches, crop diversification and minimizing agriculture risks through Agricultural approaches: 32,120 farmers
insurance Crop diversification: 14,796 farmers
Cattle insurance: 1,161 farmers
Prioritize operations that contribute to CCA and adopt climate resilient The main objective of the project
agricultural practices
Support GoI and states inter alia in capacity building to promote climate Capacity building of 8,218 farmers, CRPs
smart agriculture and project staff
List of states include Bihar and Madhya Pradesh The two project states
Support irrigation and drainage services and efficiency in water to improve 4,880 farmers
the sustainability of agricultural growth and climate change resilience
Milestone 1.1.1: Number of water users provided with new/improved 4,880 farmers
irrigation and drainage services
Milestone 1.1.3: Number of farmers adopting improved agricultural 19,202 farmers
technology
Milestone 1.1.4: Number of farmers reached with additional productive 32,120 farmers
assets or services
23. Alignment with several GoI priorities: The project continues to be relevant to the GoI policy on climate change (i.e.
NAPCC) and aligned with its specific initiatives – NICRA and NMSA – with the objective to make agriculture productive
and resilient, conserve national resources and adopt soil health management practices. The project is aligned with the
24 MoRD restructuring request to DEA, seeking extension of project for 18 months, 19 March 2018.
25 Refer to the RF in Annex 1 for sources and details of these figures. Additional source, SRLM progress reports.
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Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana program26 to increase the farm area under irrigation, to improve water use
efficiency and to use GoI’s National Soil Health Card scheme27 for testing soil nutrient deficiencies and recommending
remedial actions. The project CHCs are aligned with the Ministry of Agriculture’s sub-mission on agricultural
mechanization28.
24. Alignment with state government priorities: The project is aligned with state action plans of Bihar and Madhya
Pradesh on climate change29 with their focus on agriculture, water resources and rural development. The project is also
aligned with the District Agriculture Contingency Plans30 led by the agriculture departments in both the states that
inform farming communities about technological interventions to manage the impact of weather aberrations on
agriculture.
Rating and justification
Rating: High
25. Justification: Complete alignment with climate resilient farm interventions as per the CPF and high alignment with
national and state policies and programs on climate resilient agriculture and allied programs.
B. ACHIEVEMENT OF PDOs (EFFICACY)
Assessment of Achievement of Each Objective/Outcome
26. PDO: To improve the adaptive capacity of the rural poor engaged in farm livelihoods to cope with climate variability
and change.
Outcomes
• Improved adaptive capacity of poor rural farmers engaged in farm livelihoods.
• Poor rural farmer households took measures to cope with climate variability and change.
Methodology for assessment
27. Beneficiaries. The project had an outreach of 32,12031 farmer households (as per the restructuring) in 793 villages
(compared to 687 villages planned). This included 8,650 from the 200 original villages and 23,470 farmer households in
the 593 scale-up villages. The key outcome indicators and supporting data are based on the findings of the program-end
performance evaluation32. Outcomes are measured at the “middle outcomes” level in the Theory of Change33. The
evaluation included a representative survey (in late 2019) of 1,583 participating farmer households in the original
villages and 120 households in the scale-up villages for a total of 1,703 farmer respondents. PDO indicators 1 and 2
below are weighted for the population outreach figures in original and scale-up villages. The source of the supporting
outcome indicators is the Program Evaluation Report and author’s calculations using that data, unless otherwise
mentioned (see Annex 1).
26 https://pmksy.gov.in/
27 https://www.india.gov.in/spotlight/soil-health-card
28 http://agricoop.nic.in/divisiontype/mechanization-and-technology
29 http://forest.bih.nic.in/Docs/SAPCC%20Final%20Draft%2011-09-2015%20(Part%20A,%20B%20and%20C).pdf and
http://www.climatechange.mp.gov.in/sites/default/files/resources/Jogesh%20%26%20Dubash_mainstreaming%20climate%20in%20state%20pl
anning_MP%20Climate%20Plan_FEB%202014.pdf
30 http://www.crida.in/DACP%20brochure%202016.pdf
31 The total outreach figure is from the Program Evaluation Report. Minor discrepancies in outreach figures are observed in the project data as
per the SRLM progress reports.
32 Refers to 593 villages added after restructuring to scale up selected interventions ..
33 Refer to Annex 4, methodology section for elaboration of technical challenges.
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28. The project achieved high inclusivity of the rural poor : Of the total farmer households, 57 percent belonged to the
scheduled caste or scheduled tribe communities; 82 percent were small to marginal landholders (with less than two
hectares of land); 35 percent were landless; 66 percent had a Below Poverty Line card; and 18 percent belonged to
Primitive Vulnerable Tribe Groups. All of the above are indicators of being poor. Ninety-seven percent of the project
farmers belonged to at least one of the above categories, thereby supporting the objective as per the PDO to reach out
to the “rural poor”.
Achievement of the project development objectives
29. PDO 1: Improved adaptive capacity of the rural poor engaged in farm livelihoods to cope with climate variability
and change (Rating: Substantial). The definition of improved adaptive capacity was that a farmer should (i) have
demonstrated knowledge of climatic risks, their impacts on livelihoods and the interventions that would help in
adaptation (measured through a test in the end-term survey); (ii) be trained in adaptation interventions and/or
participated in Climate Change Adaptation Plan (CCAP) meetings; and (iii) have adopted and/or be willing to adopt at
least two interventions in the future. Against the RF target of 50 percent, the project achieved 50.7 percent (which
translates to 16,282 of the total outreach to 32,120 farmers).
30. Sensitivity analysis on PDO 1: The sample size of respondents in the scale-up villages was only 120 and hence there
is a margin of error of around 13 percent34 in the estimate of the percentage of farmers that achieved PDO 1 in the
scale-up villages. However, even if the estimated value is subtracted by half this margin of error35 of achievements in
the scale-up villages (i.e. subtracting 6.5 percent), the overall achievement is 45.9 percent against the target of 50
percent (refer to section on Risks to Development Outcomes for further discussion on future adoption plans).
31. The project outputs that contributed to the achievement of PDO 1 are elaborated in the following paragraphs.
Taken together, they enabled farmers to understand climate risks to their livelihoods, how the project’s interventions
could help address them and provided the capability, resources and community-based institutions to adopt adaptation
measures during the project period and in the future.
32. CCAPs were prepared: CRPs, staff and experts conducted CCAPs in all 793 villages jointly with the community to
educate, identify and prioritize climatic risks to livelihoods. The MoRD recognized CCAP as an important climate change
planning tool and expressed intent to mainstream it in the planning efforts of farm-based livelihoods in the NRLM. The
CCAP informed the design of the CCA interventions and further supported their adoption by farmers through the CCA
grants provided to VOs to lend to farmers to adopt CCA practices.
33. CRPs and SRLM staff were trained to enable farmers to adopt climate resilient practices: A total of 1,736 –
comprising 1,247 CRPs and 489 SRLM staff in 793 project villages in two states36 – were given continuous training on the
various interventions (listed in the achievement of PDO 2 below) during the course of the project to in turn train and
provide support to the farmers. The training — classified into inputs and production practices, knowledge and
technology, ecological system support and financial services — was conducted by individual experts, resource
institutions and agriculture universities. The training locations were residential, in classrooms, in the field, and included
demonstrations and exposure visits. The knowledge levels of those trained were tested and found to be adequate for
supporting farmers’ interventions37. In addition, the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj
(NIRD&PR) conducted a comprehensive certificate course for 200 staff and 400 CRPs on CCAs in 2019 in project and
non-project areas of the two SRLMs. This achievement was considerably higher (579 percent) than the RF target of 300.
34 Author’s estimates based on sample standard deviation computed from sample mean of 44.4 percent in scale-up villages, intra-cluster
correlation of 0.08, 95 percent confidence interval, with 15 respondents each in 8 sample villages.
35 Since the probability of the true population value being at least 6 percent less than the sample estimate is low, at about 25 percent.
36 Program evaluation report based on data provided by the SRLMs.
37 Program evaluation report.
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It was substantially higher (177 percent) than the actual higher envisaged target for the trained cadre of 980 detailed in
the PAD38. In addition, 32,642 SHG members (including 522 non-project farmers) were given some form of training in
climate resilient farming. Of these, 6,842 SHG members were given a complete set of training in adaptation-related
technologies against a target of 6,000. Finally, 19,376 CRPs and project farmers were taken on exposure visits.
34. Communities were partnered with technical support agencies to obtain climate adaptation solutions: Against a
target of eight, 25 resource agencies were engaged by the MoRD and the two SRLMs in addition to individual experts.
This enabled transfer of climate-resilient practices, advisories, training and inputs from technical institutes, non-
government organizations (NGOs) and agriculture universities to farmers who had little formal training on these
practices prior to the project39. Selected agencies included: Cropin Technologies and Skymet Weather for providing
weather forecast-based crop advisories through a first-of-a-kind public–private partnership; Borlaug Institute for South
Asia for heat tolerant seeds; International Water Management Institute for irrigation systems; ICAR and state
agriculture universities for training. It is expected that knowledge transfer from some of these institutions to farmers
will continue beyond the project period40 to enable them to cope with new climate risks.
35. Financial support was provided and convergence with government programs was facilitated for farmers to have
financial capacity to implement CCA measures: (i) CCA grants were provided to all 793 VOs at the rate of INR 0.41
million (US$5,764) per VO. VOs provided loans (of INR 0.20 million value) out of these grants to their members to
implement CCA measures on the farm; (ii) Convergence support was for seeds procurement, input subsidies, setting up
CHCs (for renting farm machinery and tools, plant protection tools), tree planting, pest surveillance training, soil testing,
solar irrigation, crop insurance and livestock health management. Converging departments included that of agriculture,
horticulture, animal husbandry, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), fishery,
irrigation, forestry, tribal development, among others. The total value of the financial support through convergence was
INR 463.6 million covering 175,776 farmer households. Thus, against a target of 30 percent of VOs leveraging financial
support from convergence, achievement was 76 percent among the 200 original villages.
Table 5: Financial support41
Output Total Bihar Madhya Pradesh
CCA plans and support
Number of VOs that developed CCAPs and were provided CCAP grants 793 383 410
Average amount of CCA grant provided per VO (INR) 410,652 NA NA
Average amount of loans (for agriculture activities) per VO (INR) 203,297 NA NA
Convergence support
Number of households who received technical or financial benefits 175,776 163,883 11,893
through convergence or non-government sources
Amount of convergence funding obtained (INR million) 466.13 196.34 269.79
Number of schemes/agencies with which convergence was undertaken 30 18 12
Number (and %) of VOs that benefitted from convergence funding 647 (82%) 317 330
36. Infrastructure run by community institutions was set up to provide technological and ecological services to enable
adoption by farmers: The project installed field instruments to enable provisioning of weather forecast based advisories;
set up community-run soil testing laboratories to test and recommend soil nutrient improvements; and set up
community managed micro-irrigation schemes and CHCs to rent out farm implements (refer to Annex 2 for a detailed
38 PAD pages 54-55 plans training of 80 staff and 200 CRPs in original and 300 plus 400 in scale-up villages for a total of 980.
39 SLACC mid-term performance evaluation report. 2018. Taru Leading Edge.
40 Interview with Madhya Pradesh SRLM.
41 Bihar Progress Report, Madhya Pradesh Consolidated Report, Project Completion Report and project convergence data.
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list of project outputs).
Table 6: Community infrastructure and farmer interventions
Community infrastructure and farmer outreach outputs
200 Automated weather stations and automated rain gauges installed to serve 8,704 farmers with weather forecast
based advisories
605 CHCs used by 13,884 farmers for hiring farm implements
10 Soil testing laboratories set up to provide soil testing services to 8,119 farmers
113 Micro-irrigation schemes set up to support 4,880 farmers with improved irrigation facilities
37. Successful interventions were mainstreamed into the NRLM to support adaptive capacity of existing and new
farmers to cope with ongoing climate change: SRLM officials provided strong positive feedback, during interviews, of
learning new or improved climate adaptation measures (soil testing, non-pesticide management, zero tillage, weather
advisories). The Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society (BRLPS) intends to scale up selected climate resilient crop
production interventions, and has been given the responsibility to set up 27 community-run soil test laboratories42 by
the Department of Agriculture based on its learnings from this project. The project’s community-managed CHCs43 are
among the first to be promoted by the Bihar SRLM which has received a mandate from the Department of Agriculture,
Government of Bihar, to expand CHCs in the state. This implicitly has the buy-in of the community who will manage
these services. The MoRD intends44 to use the project’s training materials in future farm livelihood training programs for
CRPs in climate stressed areas. The MoRD is considering introducing weather forecast-based crop advisories into the
NRLM, the Climate Change Adaptation Planning tool into its Village Livelihood Planning tool, and community-managed
CCA funds. The NIRD&PR, the project’s Lead Technical Support Agency (LTSA), is expanding its CCA training to another
six states. It started a 12-week online course on CCA for CRPs, NRLM staff and NGOs through its e-learning portal45. The
NIRD&PR has developed the curriculum for an elective SLACC course for its two-year Post Graduate Diploma in Rural
Management. The MoRD and SRLMs organized three seminars and 16 knowledge products for knowledge sharing and
to encourage collaboration among government departments and other stakeholders.
38. PDO 2: Poor rural farmers adopted measures to cope with climate variability and change (Rating: Substantial).
The project defined “coping with climate variability and change” as a farmer adopting46 any three of the following CCA
practices (specific selected interventions were launched based on the location and the context of the farmer): (i)
implemented soil management improvements; (ii) used weather forecast-based advisories to improve scheduling of
production practices; (iii) used climate resilient seeds; (iv) used improved water conservation, harvesting and allied
practices; (v) undertook new livelihood or crop diversification; (vi) used tools from the project’s CHCs, (vii) borrowed
loans from the Climate Change Adaptation Fund; (viii) used better livestock management, inputs and market linkages. In
the absence of standardized and commonly accepted definitions of farmer’s climate resilience the project’s definition
was used. Unfortunately one-third of the sample included landless project farmers who chose not to lease-in land
during the recall period (2018-19) of the survey and hence did not cultivate traditional crops. The only recommended
resilience intervention they were able to practice was diversification such as livestock or mushroom cultivation. About
42 Which are part of GoI’s National Soil Health Card scheme.
43 CHCs rent out farm implement and tools to farmers.
44 Interview with Joint Secretary, MoRD.
45 http://gramswaraj.nirdpr.in/
46 The baseline value of PDO indicators were set to zero by construction. The pre-project value of this indicator (adoption of any 3 indicators) is
not known. However, based on discussion with SRLM staff and the low pre-project levels of adoption of project interventions measured
through recall based questions in the mid-term survey, the value of this indicator is expected to be very low. No claims are being made about
what the adoption rates would have been in the absence of the project.
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Sustainable Livelihoods and Adaptation to Climate Change (P132623)
32.6 percent of the landless farmers diversified their livelihoods. Altering the definition of enhanced resilience for
landless farmers to include only livelihood diversification (our preferred measure of this indicator), showed achievement
of 54.6 percent of the farmers (which can be extrapolated to 17,533 out of the 32,120 farmers reached out to). Applying
the project’s full definition showed enhanced livelihood resilience among 50.1 percent of the farmers against the target
of 50 percent. Finally, counting project participants who only cultivated in at least one plot in the reference period of
the survey, the achievement was 63.9 percent.
Table 7: PDO 2 achievements
Method of measurement Percentage achievement
All sample farmers (landless and those who cultivated) using applicable 54.6%
definition of climate resilience for landless farmers
All sample farmers (landless and those who cultivated) based on the full 50.1%
definition of climate resilience
Only farmers who cultivated (the landed) based on full definition of climate 63.9%
resilience
39. Sensitivity analysis on PDO 2: The sample size of respondents in the scale-up villages was only 120 and hence there
is a margin of error of around 12 percent47 in the estimate of the percentage of farmers that achieved this indicator in
the scale-up villages. However, even if the estimated value is subtracted by half this margin of error of achievements in
scale-up villages (i.e. subtracting 6 percent), the overall achievement is 50.3 percent.
40. The following project outputs contributed to achievement of PDO 2: (i) The improved adaptive capacity as
described in detail along with PDO 1; (ii) The project helped in introducing coping measures to substantially more
farmer households than originally planned: against the RF target of 12,300, 19,202 farmer households in 793 original
and scale-up villages, adopted a core set of climate resilient agricultural practices out of the total project outreach of
32,120 farmer households. The core set was the adoption of any three of the following. In Bihar: Attended CCAP
meetings and any two of the following: (i) undertook non-pesticide management; (ii) undertook livelihood
diversification; (iii) used climate-resilient seeds; (iv) used weather forecast based advisories to schedule farm
operations. In Madhya Pradesh: (i) undertook soil health improvement; (ii) used climate-resilient seeds; (iii) undertook
one new livelihood source and/or strengthened existing livelihood; (iv) increased usage of livestock management; (v)
adopted recommended production; (vi) utilized moisture conservation water harvesting, improved irrigation or
drainage; (vii) cultivated Poshan Vatika (nurseries/kitchen garden); (viii) used weather forecast based advisories to
schedule farm operations. Table 8 (see next page) presents the adoption rates of various interventions. The highest
adoptions were in soil health management practices, livelihood diversification, irrigation and drainage facilities as well
as weather forecast based advisories to schedule farm operations.
Justification of Overall Efficacy Rating
Rating: Substantial
41. Justification: The project achieved the target values of its two PDO outcomes which are rated Substantial, and
individually exceeded targets in several intermediate indicators.
47Author’s estimates based on sample standard deviation computed from sample mean of 72 percent in scale-up villages, intra-cluster
correlation of 0.08, 95 percent confidence interval, with 15 respondents each in 8 sample villages.
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Table 8: Detailed achievements in farmers’ adoption of climate resilient practices
Madhya Pradesh Bihar
Criteria Achievement (%) Criteria Achievement (%)
Any three of the following: Original Scale-up Attended CCAP meeting plus any Original Scale-up
villages villages one of the following: villages villages
Undertook soil health improvement 57.8 30.0 Attended CCAP meeting 100 100
Used climate resilient seeds 46.3 83.3 Undertook non-pesticide 35.6 35.0
management
Undertook one new livelihood 58.6 28.3 Undertook livelihood diversification 55.0 55.0
source and/or strengthened existing
livelihood
Increased usage of livestock 3.9 1.7 Used climate-resilient seeds 68.4 53.3
management
Adopted recommended production 5.3 0.0 Used weather forecast based 41.8 36.7
advisories to schedule farm
operations
Utilized moisture conservation water 61.1 55.0
harvesting, improved irrigation or
drainage
Cultivated Poshan Vatika 0.4 0.0
(nurseries/kitchen garden)
Used weather forecast based 48.3 13.3
advisories to schedule farm
operations
Overall achievement (%) 56.2 36.7 Overall achievement (%) 86.2 76.7
Total project participants (number) 4,650 12,150 Total project participants (number) 4,000 1,132
0
Overall achievement for Madhya 2,613 4,459 Overall achievement for Bihar 3,448 8,682
Pradesh (number) (number)
Overall achievement 7,072 farmers in Madhya Pradesh and 12,130 in Bihar for a total of 19,202
farmers who adopted CCA practices.
C. EFFICIENCY
42. This section describes the results of the cost-effectiveness and operational/administrative efficiency analysis.
Cost-effectiveness analysis
43. In the absence of an ex-ante cost–benefit analysis for the project and due to the technical difficulties related to
conducting an ex-post cost–benefit analysis of climate resilience projects, an ex-post cost-effectiveness analysis was
conducted for the project. The cost per beneficiary at completion (US$354) was substantially lower than expected at
appraisal (US$1,271) and at restructuring (US$1,030) because much higher outreach was achieved compared to the
target. The cost per beneficiary of this project ranked in the middle of five similar completed Bank projects whose
combined average was US$626. More importantly, the cost per beneficiary was better than the comparison project in
Yemen (US$471) where efficiency was rated modest by the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG, P103922) due to low
cost per beneficiary (see Annex 4 for details).
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Operational efficiency
44. Inefficiencies
• Project preparation took 2.75 years from Project Identification Form clearance by the Bank and GEF in April
2012 to Board approval in December 201448.
• Trained non-project staff did not have an opportunity to apply their knowledge since a systematic scale-up
plan was not in place.
• At project completion, the project had fully achieved or exceeded most PDO and intermediate indicators,
despite the actual project cost (US$11.37 million) representing only 89.7 percent of amount estimated at
restructuring (US$12.67 million). The project was unable to spend the full grant funding but rather relied on
counterpart funding and convergence leveraged for its activities. The project spent only 89.8 percent (US$
7.18 million) of the US$8 million grant. This was primarily due to slow expenditure of the grant at the center,
where only 31.7 percent of the grant portion was utilized as compared to appraisal estimates. A key reason for
the under-utilization of funds was that fund programming at the center was delayed and these expenditures
were over-estimated.
45. Efficiencies
• The project was extended by 1.5 years for scaling up selected interventions in new villages. This was primarily
because of the exchange rate savings and a change in procurement and financing rules of the GoI, which
increased the overall project budget by 24.6 percent to US$12.7 million. The project extension helped the
project increase its outreach substantially more than what could have been expected proportionately from
the 1.5 years of extension.
• All compliance protocols and guidelines were taken from the NRLP, thereby avoiding costs of new preparation.
• Actual administrative cost (Component 3) at completion was 3.48 percent of the grant amount spent; lower
than the 4.13 percent estimated at appraisal.
• Efficient procurement practices were used whereby the Bihar SRLM procured the LTSA, the weather forecast
and the advisory providers on behalf of both SRLMs.
• The project leveraged convergence funds worth INR 463.6 million. Thus, against a target of 30 percent of VOs
leveraging financial support from convergence, the achievement was 76 percent among the 200 original
villages.
• The project contributed to the experiential learning of the Bihar SRLM, which enabled it to further scale up
selected interventions. Potential future use of NIRD&PR and MoRD training materials is anticipated.
Assessment of Efficiency and Rating
Rating: Modest
46. Justification: Cost-effectiveness of the project was better than the sectoral average. The administrative costs
fared better than planned, and the project was highly successful in leveraging convergence funds and future scale-
ups of selected interventions have been planned. The 1.5-year extension led to a more than commensurate increase
in outreach and hence was not a source of inefficiency. However, the rating was reduced since the complete trust
fund was not used, due to the extended preparation period and early delays in implementation.
D. JUSTIFICATION OF OVERALL OUTCOME RATING
47. The overall rating is Moderately Satisfactory based on the rating of the three categories: Relevance – High,
Efficacy – Substantial, and Efficiency – Modest.
48The estimated Board delivery date was March 2014 at Concept Note approval stage. Project preparation was completed in 25.5 staff weeks
using SCCF Bank-executed trust fund of US$113,512.58 No Bank budget was used.
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E. OTHER OUTCOMES AND IMPACTS (IF ANY)
Gender
48. The project worked solely through women-run community institutions of the NRLM. These institutions
managed CCA grants, soil testing laboratories, CHCs as well as some irrigation schemes, and took management
decisions such as of hiring CRPs. A total of 6,482 women farmers were the primary targets and points of interface
to the households for all interventions. They received extensive training on climate-resilient production
practices49, many for the first time in their lives50 which they adopted in their farms after51, convincing the men
farmers in the household about the benefits. They were given access to loans from the CCA grant for adopting
interventions. They also directly hired and used tools and implements from the CHCs. These tools were partly
selected to make tasks performed by women in the farm easier. A total of 630 VOs had ownership rights over
community assets (such as 113 micro-irrigation schemes, 605 CHCs and 10 soil testing laboratories) and had
established or were on their way to establish management options for them. Per the Program Evaluation Report, a
large number of CRPs were women – 67 percent in Bihar and 15 percent in Madhya Pradesh52. They attended
certificate courses for up to 20 days at a residential facility. CRP support played a critical role in enabling women
farmers with low education levels to successfully understand and adopt weather forecast-based crop advisories
delivered to them by SMS53.
Institutional Strengthening
49. The SRLMs, during interviews, acknowledged that their staff had learned new interventions and how to
implement several ones better (community-run soil testing laboratories, CHCs and production practices), enabling
them to scale them up beyond the project. The MoRD reported improved capacities for training on CCAs and other
project interventions. These were significant contributions of the project. The NIRD&PR54 has improved capacities
to deliver courses on CCA that it has planned for the future55. The NRLM’s VOs56 took on added responsibilities of
CRP selection, on-lending CCA grants to SHG members, managing soil test laboratories and some CHCs, and in
some cases worked directly with agricultural universities to receive technical advisory. Going forward, the Bihar
SRLM has taken on the expansion of CHCs and community soil testing laboratories through financial convergence
with state agriculture department programs.
Mobilizing Private Sector Financing
50. None
Poverty Reduction and Shared Prosperity
51. Inclusivity was designed as follows: (i) the project targeted SHG members of the NRLM who were recognized
to belong to the poorer section of the villages; (ii) per the Program Evaluation Report, 97 percent of the project
49 See Annex 2 for details.
50 Mid-term evaluation report found very low levels of prior training received by project farmers.
51 Program evaluation report.
52 Program evaluation report.
53 Weather-Based Agro-Advisory Services In The NRLM. A Case Study. 2019. K Krishnaswamy and SC Rajshekar.
54 NIRD&PR, an autonomous organization under the MoRD, is the National Centre of Excellence in Rural Development and Panchayati
Raj. it has the mandate to train department staff, NGOs and other stakeholders by training, research and consultancy.
55 Refer to the efficacy section for details.
56 Village-level apex body for the SHGs, responsible for lending from the Community Investment Fund to the SHGs in village.
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beneficiaries belonged to disadvantaged groups; and (iii) the project’s Social Management Framework57 set in
place measures for the inclusion of vulnerable groups (such as tribals, scheduled castes, smallholders) in
stakeholder consultations, project planning and receipt of interventions. However, while there is no evidence of
improved prosperity, the interventions were largely no-regret interventions that are expected to be beneficial.
Other Unintended Outcomes and Impacts
52. The project's final achievement of 19,202 farmers who adopted a core set of climate resilience interventions
was substantially more than the target of 12,300 set during restructuring. This was due to scaling up of selected
interventions to more villages than planned in the post-restructuring phase.
III. KEY FACTORS THAT AFFECTED IMPLEMENTATION AND OUTCOME
A. KEY FACTORS DURING PREPARATION
53. Slow preparation: The preparation process took just under three years. MoRD’s constraints included: lower
engagement due to the small size of the project, competing project priorities of restructuring the US$1 billion NRLP
and lack of prior experience with GEF projects. Constraints at the Bank included the added complexity of complying
with GEF and World Bank guidelines and added coordination with MoRD, SRLMs, Ministry of Environment, Forestry
and Climate Change (MoEFCC) and DEA, and between the Bank teams (NRLP and SLACC)58. Moreover, time was lost
because the original plan to embed the SLACC project through additional financing into the IDA-financed NRLP
during its restructuring at mid-term was operationally difficult and did not materialize.
54. Project design: Project interventions were carefully thought out and benefitted from the Bank’s large number
of missions, learning visits by facilitating wide consultations and technical workshops with MoRD, SRLMs, technical
experts, resource agencies and NGOs to learn from other initiatives and to design collaboratively. Thorough
procedural clearances with multiple stakeholders and sound risk assessments were done. The overall risk at
appraisal was moderate. Key risks of weak ownership and capacities in the national and state agencies and expected
delays due to the new and innovative nature of the project were recognized. These risks were mitigated with
extensive handholding support by the Bank in the initial years and also building upon successful climate adaptation
models in the two best SRLMs in India and keeping the geographical scope limited so as to not spread resources thin.
However, due to the technical complexity and exploratory nature of the project at appraisal, the definition of
success of the PDO indicators or the precise scope of the operational guidelines and concomitant plans for the
desired scale-up beyond the project period were not clearly defined (refer to the M&E section for further details).
55. Government commitment: The MoRD demonstrated commitment by successfully making the case to situate
the project within the MoRD rather than the Ministry of Agriculture as it was keen to bring a climate lens into the
NRLM. However, while the SRLMs were keen to embed climate resilience interventions into their livelihoods
promotion activities, there were concerns about MoRD’s attention to project management due to the small project
size, insufficient mandate on climate resilience, exploratory nature of the project and competing attention of the
larger NRLP.
56. Readiness for implementation: The project was ready for implementation as it had strong senior management,
and a good governance mechanism at the MoRD and states from the parent NRLP. The National Lead Farm
57 Socialassessment and social management framework (Including Gender, Tribal and Vulnerable Community Development Strategy), 30
May 2014 (Report # IPP702 V2).
58 Written report by World Bank Task Team member based on email communications.
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Livelihoods Coordinator was designated as the National CCA Coordinator. However, a LTSA to design and support the
interventions was not procured by the MoRD at preparation, even though “procurement at the earliest” was
recommended by the World Bank in its Aide Memoire. This was not pressed further since the MoRD was focused on
the delayed implementation of the NRLP. However, this had been identified as an operational risk59 at appraisal.
Further, the project did not have an implementation plan which is likely to have affected implementation.
B. KEY FACTORS DURING IMPLEMENTATION
57. Factors within the government’s control: (i) The project made little progress in the first two years:
Disbursements were at zero percent as of January 2016 and 25 percent as of August 2017 as compared to a
projection of 56.25 percent by June 2017. The reasons cited for poor progress were delays in hiring state project
teams and the LTSA, delays in fund releases to the states, and added efforts to educate the community about
climate risks and the project’s objectives before entrusting them with the grants. The LTSA was hired 1.5 years after
the project effectiveness date in August 2016, a factor which prevented the CCAPs from being completed early to
feed into the design of the interventions. (ii) Human resource challenges: Hiring good district staff such as the Young
Professionals took longer than planned. This led to dedicated manpower being available only for 60 percent of the
total ideal project-person-months. But once hired, staff performance especially that of Young Professionals was a
success factor for effective implementation. In the absence of a dedicated coordinator for the project (which would
have been preferable) by the MoRD, it was led by the Lead Farm Livelihoods Coordinator at the NMMU who had
competing priorities. The first LTSA hired did not perform satisfactorily in Bihar and its performance in Madhya
Pradesh picked up after over one year of engagement, which contributed to slow progress in the early stages. (iii)
Government commitment: There was a perception60 of low MoRD commitment at preparation and at early
implementation stages (as explained earlier). However, by the end of the second year of implementation,
government commitment at the national and state levels had improved considerably. The project was regularly
reviewed by the Joint Secretary, MoRD and Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of both SRLMs. (iv) Fiduciary issues61:
There were delays in the collation and submission of Financial Management reports from the states as well as delays
in fund releases to the state during the initial period, resulting in delayed start of implementation. (v)
Disbursements: The final disbursement rate was 90 percent. The undisbursed amount was shared between the
MoRD and the states. This was in part due to delayed fund programming at the center and over-estimation of these
expenditures.
58. Factors subject to the World Bank’s control: (i) Reporting: The World Bank consistently raised the issue of slow
progress, and the need to hire a LTSA and other staff. The slow progress was reflected initially as “Moderately
Unsatisfactory” in the fifth Implementation Status & Results Report (April 2018). (ii) Support: The World Bank
provided extensive technical support through technical experts and facilitated technical consultations and
workshops for implementation as well as monitoring and evaluation (M&E). Since the procurement of private sector
agencies for agro-advisory was particularly challenging for the SRLMs, the Bank provided technical assistance in the
preparation of the Terms of Reference and on procurement methods. (iii) Mid-term and endline evaluations were
conducted in early 2018 and late 2019, respectively. (iv) Dialogue on restructuring was initiated by the Bank in a
timely manner. However, it was delayed due to the DEA rules to restructure only after 60 percent of the funds had
been spent.
59 PAD Annex 4.
60 Based on discussions with the Bank task team.
61 World Bank Financial Management specialist.
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IV. BANK PERFORMANCE, COMPLIANCE ISSUES, AND RISK TO DEVELOPMENT OUTCOME
A. QUALITY OF MONITORING AND EVALUATION
M&E Design
59. M&E design had scope for improvement. The definitions of PDO 1 and PDO 2 were made late in August 2018;
hence there was a lack of clarity regarding the objectives on the part of the SRLMs. At appraisal, from a larger list,
specific localized interventions were to be launched based on the context of specific farmers and villages. These
interventions and hence the measurable definition of resilience were to be identified early in the project. Efforts to
define a climate resilience index by engaging a mid-term evaluation agency in 2018 were not successful due to
methodological complexity. The Bank finally facilitated the SRLMs in arriving at a definition, while the program-end
evaluation agency arrived at an alternative definition, implying a lack of standardized methods to measure climate
resilience. Moreover, the precise scope of the operational guidelines to be prepared for scale-up was not clearly
defined. A baseline survey was not conducted since the SRLM teams were not fully staffed. However, retrospective
pre-project values were collected through the mid-term survey62. The project had no digital Project Management
Information System (PMIS), although it was mentioned in the PAD and explicitly added as an intermediate indicator
during restructuring to monitor farmer level adoption of core climate resilience practices63. A qualified agency was
hired for the program-end evaluation as planned. However, it was reported that several convergence-led project
interventions were introduced by line departments (spill-over effects) in the control villages. Hence a with–without
comparison64 was not used in the evaluation. However, since the PDO indicators were about adoption and knowledge,
the absolute values of achievements related to project recommended interventions were measured using the endline
survey. This does not say anything about what the levels of achievements would have been in the absence of the
project. The sample of farmers in scale-up villages in the end-term evaluation was only 120, leading to higher margins
of error in measuring the three RF indicator achievements.
M&E Implementation
60. (i) Online PMIS: An agency was contracted to design and implement the PMIS in the second half of 2018. The PMIS
was designed with support from the Bank, but was not implemented by the procured agency. Instead, the two SRLMs
collected data aggregated at the village level, of the total number of farmers, as well as various interventions and
trainings that were recorded by CRPs on paper registers. These were sent periodically to the block offices for entry
into Excel and for further aggregation at the block, district and state levels. However, farmer level adoption data were
difficult to collect. Additionally, monthly farmer surveys were conducted through CropIn’s mobile app by CRPs in the
last nine months of the project to monitor adoption of weather advisories by farmers. (ii) Reporting: PDO indicator
achievements reported in some ISRs (October 2018 and May 2019), were not accurate in comparison to the project-
end evaluation findings, since the project data were not accurate. (iii) Mid-term evaluation: The agency recruited to
conduct the mid-term evaluation was provided considerable support by the Bank but did a mediocre job65. However,
since the grant closing date was extended, the mid-term evaluation became less relevant, while the project-end
evaluation became credible. (iv) Social audit: Madhya Pradesh SLRM conducted community-led social audits of the
62 This was a program evaluation conducted prior to project extension.
63 This is however easier said than done. The author is not aware of successful examples of PMIS of livelihoods projects in India that digitally
collect data on farmer level adoption of practices in a timely and reliable manner.
64 While a with-without approach is not strictly required to measure the PDO, two control groups – non-SLACC and non-NRLM – were
envisaged in the PAD.
65 It is worth noting that there is a severe shortage of qualified quantitative impact evaluation specialists in India that commonly leads to poor
quality of reports.
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project.
M&E Utilization
61. The implemented PMIS was used only for monitoring by the SRLMs, and not for learning and course correction.
However, RF achievements which can be verified only through project data were expected to be accurate since they
are not transactionally intensive to collect and are tied to financial progress which comes under scrutiny. The
mediocre quality of the mid-term evaluation partly contributed to the results not being used for informing the
implementation. However, the Bank was proactive in presenting appropriate learning from the report to SRLMs and
NMMU.
Justification of Overall Rating of Quality of M&E
Rating: Modest
62. Justification: The positives were that a credible program-end evaluation by a reputed agency was conducted, and
the states eventually had a clear focus on the key performance indicators in the last two years and became result-
oriented. The Bank brought in an expert for considerable technical support and added the availability of a PMIS as an
intermediate indicator at restructuring. The areas of improvement listed above were considerable though some were
ultimately addressed.
B. ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL, AND FIDUCIARY COMPLIANCE
Environmental66
63. The project was classified rightly as “Category B” with safeguard policies of Environmental Assessment (OP/BP
4.01), Natural Habitats (OP/BP 4.04), Forests (OP/BP 4.36), and Pest Management (OP/BP 4.09) being triggered. The
project adopted and customized the Environmental Management Framework67 of the NRLP. The Environmental
Management Framework guidelines/mitigations for agriculture, livestock, non-timber forest produce and fisheries,
farmer trainings and field demonstrations were followed; and these were verified during Implementation Support
Missions (ISMs) and reported in progress reports. The project complied satisfactorily with all the triggered safeguard
policies, and subsumed: (i) chemical pesticides being excluded from crop advisories; (ii) no activities being done in
forests or critical natural habitats; (iii) community undertaking regulatory approvals for drilling bore wells and tube
wells for irrigation; (iv) CCAPs68 being largely environmentally benign and supporting the improvement of the local
environment (such as reduction of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, organic farming, water harvesting and
conservation, use of solar pumps rather than diesel, enhancing biodiversity and green cover); and (v) environmental
safeguards performance remaining satisfactory with no significant adverse impacts on the environment. Compliance
was verified by (i) desk reviews of all the CCAPs by the SRLM managers and on a sample basis by the Bank team; and
(ii) sample field verifications done by the Bank.
Social
64. OP 4.10 on Indigenous Peoples was triggered to hold informed consultations, community support, culturally
appropriate information and benefit sharing. The project adopted and customized NRLP’s Indigenous People’s
Framework that emphasized inclusion and alignment with the Bank’s guidelines on assets creation and equity. The
project complied satisfactorily with all the triggered safeguard policies.
66 Based on written inputs from the World Bank environmental safeguards consultant.
67 Environment Assessment and Environment Management Framework 30 April 2014 (Report# E4470 REV).
68 Which provide the basis for the interventions to be launched.
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Table 9: Social safeguard measures taken
Inclusion strategy Implementation Source of verification
Consultations Consultations were held with women and men farmers from Minutes book of VOs
scheduled caste, scheduled tribe, smallholders and other Project Reports
disadvantaged groups and their community leaders at all stages
Targeting 97 percent of women farmers identified participatorily were from Field observations, VO
disadvantaged groups members, PMIS data
Inclusive CCA CCA Committee in the VO included women farmers from Project reports
Committee disadvantaged groups PMIS data
Capacity building Training on social inclusion, tribal development and gender done Project reports
for staff, CRPs, VO members and farmers Field observations
Grievance Redressal 1. GRM system of NRLP was used Field observations
Mechanism (GRM) 2. Local issues were addressed in VO meetings and minuted
Fiduciary
65. Financial Management: The Financial Management Manual and Community Operations Manual developed for
NRLP applied to SLACC. Financial management policies were embedded within the parent NRLP structures at the
NMMU and SMMUs. Accounts were maintained using accounting software in the states and at the NMMU based on
which acceptable Interim Unaudited Financial Reports (IUFRs) were sent to the Bank. Regarding financial controls at
VOs69, there were initial challenges in setting up an uniform system for submission and monitoring of Utilization
Certificates (UCs) for the VO funds. Following requests from the Bank, extra efforts at the district and state levels led to
collection of UCs in 2019. This led to compliance with the fiduciary requirements at project-end. External audit at the
NMMU was done by the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India and at SRLMs by private chartered
accountants. Though submission of audit reports to the Bank was delayed by a few months, the audited and claimed
expenditures were similar, indicating a satisfactory basis for IUFR preparation for claims. All the audited reports were
unqualified and financial management complied satisfactorily with Bank policies and guidelines.
66. Procurement: The procurement staff of the parent NRLP project and the NRLM procurement manuals were
leveraged. Despite delays in hiring of state teams and the LTSA, procurement performance was rated as “Satisfactory”
and the Project Procurement Risk was “Moderate”. All procurements complied satisfactorily with Bank policies and
guidelines.
C. BANK PERFORMANCE
Quality at Entry
67. Preparation: Since the MoRD was focused on the larger NRLP, its engagement with the project was limited and
specific experience in climate resilience was low. Hence, the Bank took the lead in organizing a series of workshops
and exposure visits for the project team to learn from other technical resource agencies. The Bank also conducted
several preparatory missions with technical, safeguards and fiduciary staff and coordinated carefully with the NRLP
team at the MoRD and with the GEF, MoEFCC and with the SRLMs. The Bank completed the required formalities,
despite this being the first GEF project in India with the MoRD (as the implementing agency) with added procedural
complexities. The Bank coordinated internally with the NRLP team to present a single team front which was welcomed
by the client. However, despite three years of preparation, GoI readiness was still low (the LTSA was not hired and
69 Grants were given to the community-based organizations to on-lend for farmers wanting to invest in CCA interventions.
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dedicated staff were not available at the MoRD70). The project was appropriate in terms of strategic relevance. It was
focused on the rural poor and sound social development, environmental and fiduciary safeguard arrangements were
made. Institutional and implementation arrangements were planned adequately. M&E arrangements were made for a
project MIS and for midline and endline surveys to be conducted. A sound risk assessment was conducted. An EFA was
not conducted since the project would not know the specific interventions that would be launched; instead cost–
benefit ratios of specific interventions were drawn from the literature. The project was prepared using SCCF trust
funds provided for preparation with nominal inputs of 25.5 staff weeks and US$113,512.
68. Risk assessment: The Bank assessed the risks comprehensively and tried to address them by: (i) using NRLM staff
to run the project; (ii) highlighting the need for early hiring of the LTSA to bring dedicated project human resources,
which had proved to be a source of delay; (iii) selecting two of the better performing SRLMs rather than a larger
number of states to reduce performance risks; (iv) keeping ready procurement plans at preparation stage and
safeguards and fiduciary arrangements (same as NRLP) to promote efficiency; and (v) identifying the risk of low
management attention for this smaller project within the larger NRLP.
Quality of Supervision
69. Response to the slow initial progress: As an interim support in the absence of the LTSA and then further due to
their unsatisfactory performance and the absence of a full-time coordinator at NMMU, the Bank provided hands-on
assistance in the initial years by hiring technical experts to guide the SRLMs in the design of interventions. The Bank
organized support on CCA through technical inputs, organizing workshops and consultations with experts, and
organizing training for district staff. In particular, the Bank provided considerable technical support in developing the
framework for the CCAPs and in facilitating agro-advisory services, both of which were project innovations. Discussions
with the MoRD leadership and SRLMs revealed their perception of the Bank playing a larger than preferred role of
driving the project directly with the SRLMs leading to reduced technical participation by the NMMU.
70. However, from the Bank’s perspective, it took on the initiative due to large delays in onboarding the LTSA in a
short 3.5 year project and slow progress in the first two years. Based on feedback from the MoRD (ISM, August 2018),
the Bank reduced its hands-on role subsequently. The Bank supervised the project (including ICRR preparation) with
Bank-executed SCCF trust funds (50 weeks; US$462,322) staying within the financial envelope provided by the GEF71.
The Bank undertook 10 ISMs including field visits, in addition to a larger number of technical missions. ISRs of all the
ISMs were documented and filed in a timely manner except for the last mission that happened close to the project
closing date72. The team had sound representation from procurement (in 8 post effectiveness ISMs), financial
management (7 ISMs), environmental and social safeguards management (6 ISMs), M&E (4 ISMs) and technical
experts (7 ISMs). The initial slow disbursement of funds to the states, was partly addressed by advising the SRLMs to
draw loans from NRLP funds. The Bank was pro-active in making the case for, and completing the procedures for
restructuring in time to utilize the additional funds available (see restructuring section for details). The Bank supported
the MoRD in procurement by training its staff on the World Bank’s procurement portal and providing technical
assistance to prepare good Terms of Reference.
71. Transitioning and scale-up: The Bank emphasized the completion of the operational guidelines for scale-up73 and
framing sound exit strategies including sustainability, equitable usage of project assets such as CHCs, and guidelines
70 MoRD had institutional constraints in hiring dedicated human resources for SLACC at the central level as there was a cap on the maximum
number of staff that could be hired by MoRD which was reached as part of the recruitment for the larger NRLP. Therefore, the National Farm
Lead Livelihoods Coordinator of NRLP was designated as the National CCA Coordinator for SLACC.
71 No Bank budget (BB) was used for preparation or supervision of this project
72 ISR of the Final ISM held from December 12-13 2019 was not approved in the system as the project closed and thus does not show in the
Datasheet.
73 AM of the Final ISM, December 2019.
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for continued control and ownership of the VOs over the assets beyond the project74. These transitioning strategies
were by and large implemented.
72. Recognitions: The SLACC project received high acclaim and numerous mentions in various publications, including
reputed newspapers and magazines in India, such as The Hindu newspaper, Times of India newspaper, India Today
magazine, to name a few (for details refer to Annex 7). The Bihar SRLM bagged the third prize in the Sitaram Rao
Livelihoods India Case Study Competition 2019 under the theme of “Climate Smart Agriculture”. Both the SRLMs
appreciated the Bank’s technical assistance.
Justification of Overall Rating of Bank Performance
Rating: Moderately Satisfactory
73. Justification: There was a tremendous amount of sincerity, hard work, technical support and pro-activeness
from the Bank. The ratings got pulled back because the Bank took three years to prepare and recognize the risks, but
was unable to improve readiness resulting in delayed progress in the first two years after the project’s effectiveness
date. While recognizing the technical difficulty of the project, the Bank could have done better at improving clarity of
PDO indicators, scale-up plans, M&E, and working more collaboratively with the NMMU in guiding the SRLMs.
D. RISK TO DEVELOPMENT OUTCOME
74. Potential risks and mitigants to the maintenance of development outcomes are described in Table 10. The project
took a number of measures to support farmers to continue the practices that they wish to. The project continues to be
part of the NRLM and has been handed over to the states’ SRLM management for institutional continuity as per typical
practices. The CRPs will continue and staff have been allocated to manage the project’s beneficiaries. Towards the end
of the project, CRPs and staff were given comprehensive training and farmers were given a CCAP review and guidelines
for running institutions. Funds for adopting CCA interventions have been set up to help them to continue practices that
they wish to. It was observed that 26–55 percent of the respondents who adopted an intervention during the project,
reported they would continue that specific practice beyond the project period. This is because there was high interest in
adopting only a subset of the interventions offered and low interest in others. There is no contradiction with PDO
indicator 2, which reported that close to 50 percent would adopt at least two interventions after project closure.
Table 10: Potential risks and mitigants to the maintenance of development outcomes
Risk factor Probability of Mitigants Impact on
occurrence outcomes if risk
materializes75
Farmers forget climate Low • CRPs were given a comprehensive certificate High
resilient production course in 201976. They scored well in the
practices, or need further endline survey’s knowledge test77.
support • CRPs will be continued in the SRLMs78.
• Farmers received a review of CCAPs to
reiterate climate risks to livelihoods and
benefits of adaptation measures. Their
74 AM of the 7th ISM, February 2019.
75 Author’s assessments based on discussions with SRLMs, progress reports and program evaluation reports.
76 Project Completion Report.
77 Program Evaluation report.
78 Interview with Bihar RLPS CEO – CRPs will continue supporting SLACC farmers.
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knowledge levels were rated well. Some are
expected to continue to receive advisories
from their resource agencies.
Farmers are unwilling to Low to Moderate. • Continued project support through CRPs. Moderate
continue with the 26–55 percent78 of • While the percentage of continued adoption
recommended production the adoptees of may seem high, this is across a large number
practices the various project of interventions. Farmers’ intention to
interventions said continue two interventions after the project is
they would higher as reflected in PDO indicator 2.
continue that
practice after the
project ended
Farmers are unable to Low, although • CCA funds at the VOs are deemed adequate Moderate
continue the two-thirds are for members to borrow for certain
recommended practices landless78 and interventions but not for ongoing
most are poor demonstration sites.
• Some diversification interventions for landless
farmers were taken-up.
Services stop High for weather • CHCs, soil test laboratories, irrigation Moderate
advisories whose structures and nutrient and pest management
subscription shops are run and monitored by VOs with
period from a some revenue set aside and added funds for
private firm is operations and maintenance. They have
over. operational guidelines.
• Advisory from agricultural universities will
Low for other continue to be supported by the project in
interventions. Bihar.
• CRPs and irrigation will proceed using a fee
based model (in Bihar SRLM) which is likely to
promote sustainability.
• It is to be decided if another weather forecast
provider will be hired.
Overall lack of support and Medium • SLACC villages and CRPs have been brought High
monitoring by staff and under the SRLM management which will
CRPs stop practices from continue engaging CRPs; but staff focus is
continuing likely to be limited since core NRLM
interventions may be prioritized.
V. LESSONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
75. Measuring agricultural climate resilience is not easy: Despite efforts by the Bank, it has not been easy to arrive
at an appropriate methodology to define and measure a farmer’s extent of climate resilience and the ideal target value
for a project to aspire for. The methodologies to define resilience in terms of adoption of key practices or to measure
the extent of resilience or recovery after an adverse weather event are not evident. Research efforts to define resilience
and measure it in a standardized manner would help future projects in design, monitoring and project-end evaluation.
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76. Strong and timely human resources are critical to successful implementation: While obvious, these points are
often-times not adequately addressed. The project would have benefitted considerably from the early onboarding of
a qualified LTSA. Given the difficulties in finding good LTSAs and experts, empanelment of experts and agencies
would help new projects. Strong CRPs are viewed as critical to foster farmers’ adoption of practices, especially
innovative ones such as digital weather forecast based advisories. The hiring of well-educated, driven and motivated
Young Professionals and state coordinators from the open market, exclusively dedicated to the project, has been a
key success factor in the implementation of this challenging project which channeled energies to drive the project
and form strong relationships with farmers. However, hiring the above takes time, which should be done at
preparation or implementation delays should be anticipated.
77. Knowing where to embed small learning pilots: There is consensus that the NRLM with its platform of
community institutions and experience in farm livelihood activities was well suited to embed a climate resilience
layer as a pilot. However, future pilots may consider a larger scale to attract more senior management attention and
facilitate scale-up and enhanced convergence with the Ministry of Agriculture to leverage its existing climate
resilience initiatives.
78. Sustainability: Despite intensive and focused efforts in this pilot, farmers reported unwillingness to continue
some practices beyond the project period. Further research is required to understand the reasons and to provide
support in the future. Around a third of the farmers in this project were landless and able to practice only
diversification as a resilience measure since they had not leased-in farm lands. Future climate resilience projects may
consider including non-farm livelihoods, in particular to support landless farmers better and to provide more holistic
resilience. Table 11 showing outreach of the core project interventions as per the sample survey and Figure 1
presenting respondents who reported willingness to continue practices beyond the project period would help inform
future projects.
79. Bringing technology to the doorstep of communities triggered behavior change towards adoption of climate
resilient practices: Community-based irrigation introduced for establishing water use efficiency, and farm
mechanization helped to reduce the cost of production as well as drudgery of the farmers, among others. Agriculture
research systems and local research stations were further leveraged to disseminate technical solutions (climate
resilient seeds and crop baskets) in farmer-friendly ways. Technical support and handholding of CRPs and lead
farmers contributed significantly to building confidence and trust among the wider village community for behavior
change.
Table 11: Sustainability
Intervention Madhya Pradesh Bihar
Achievement (%) Achievement (%)
Original Scale-up Original Scale-up
villages villages villages villages
Implemented soil health improvements 66.8 34 60.1 62.5
Used weather forecast based advisories to improve production 11.4 0 3.1 0
practices
Used climate resilient seeds 100 100 100 100
Used improved water conservation, harvesting and allied practices 77.7 64 81.1 90.6
Borrowed from the Climate Change Adaptation Fund 12.2 0 NA NA
Undertook new livelihood or crop diversification 63.6 26 58 59.4
Used better livestock management, inputs and market linkages 8.5 2 NA NA
Hired tools from the project’s CHCs 12.8 0 6.5 3.1
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Figure 1: Willingness of farmers to continue selected interventions
Crop and livestock insurance
Crop diversification
Zero/ low tillage
Bio-fertilizers
Tree-based farming MP
Bio-pesticides Bihar
Green manure
Livelihood diversification
Water conservation
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
80. Weather forecast based agro-advisory: Digital applications that provided periodic alerts and advisories on
mobile phones of farmers about package of practices and weather-adjusted farming schedules made the women
farmers feel greatly empowered and confident of improving and sustaining their livelihoods by replacing archaic
practices with climate resilient farming technologies. There was consistent feedback from the project staff and
farmers that the weather forecast based agro-advisory service was a beneficial intervention. Cost per farmer would
become cheaper and likely to be cost-beneficial if the service were to be launched at scale and with high adoption
rates. The World Bank is planning on efforts to support state government officials working on other climate smart
agriculture projects to provide this intervention to farmers. However, attention is needed to measure and ensure
sufficient accuracy of the advisories and promote high access to and adoption of the advisories by farmers.
.
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ANNEX 1. RESULTS FRAMEWORK AND KEY OUTPUTS
A. RESULTS INDICATORS
A.1 PDO Indicators
Objective/Outcome: Improve adaptive capacity of the rural poor engaged in farm-based livelihoods
Formally Revised Actual Achieved at
Indicator Name Unit of Measure Baseline Original Target
Target Completion
Indicator One: At least 50% of Percentage 0.00 50.00 50.00 54.60
the targeted households
adopt livelihoods with 10-Dec-2014 10-Dec-2014 10-Dec-2014 31-Dec-2019
enhanced clime resilience
Comments (achievements against targets):
ACHIEVED (109%).
The achievement was 54.6 percent which translates to 17,533 out of 32,120 farmers reached out to in the original and scale-up villages. The uses a
simplified definition of climate resilience among landless farmers. This was the preferred measure of this indicator and is reported.
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Adopting livelihoods with enhanced climate resilience is defined as the farmer adopting at least three of the following: (i) implemented soil improvements,
(ii) used weather forecast-based advisories to improve production practices, (iii) used climate resilient seeds, (iv) used improved water conservation,
harvesting and allied practices, (v) undertook new livelihood or crop diversification, (vi) used tools from the project’s CHCs, (vii) borrowed from the Climate
Change Adaptation Fund (CCAF), (viii) used better livestock management, inputs and market linkages.
The achievement in Madhya Pradesh was: Original villages: 73.7%, and scale-up villages: 42%; In Bihar it was Original villages: 70.4%, and scale-up villages:
84.4% among landed farmers who cultivated.
The sample for this indicator includes landless farmers in original villages who did not lease-in land and hence did not cultivate in the recall period of the
endline survey and thus their only applicable resilience practice was diversification such as to livestock and mushrooms. The achievement among landless
was — in Madhya Pradesh: Original villages: 32.4%, and scale-up villages: 30%; In Bihar: Original villages: 32.2%, and scale-up villages: 39.3%.
Applying the full project definition, the project enhanced resilience in the livelihoods of 50.1 percent of the farmers. Ifonly project participants who
cultivated in at least one plot in the reference period of the survey are considered, the achievement is 63.9 percent.
Source: This indicator was measured through the program-end evaluation survey in November 2019.
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Formally Revised Actual Achieved at
Indicator Name Unit of Measure Baseline Original Target
Target Completion
Indicator Two: At least 50% Percentage 0.00 50.00 50.00 50.70
of the targeted households
demonstrate strengthened 10-Dec-2014 10-Dec-2014 10-Dec-2014 31-Dec-2019
awareness and owership of
adaptation and climate
change risk reduction
processes/measures.
Comments (achievements against targets):
ACHIEVED (101%).
Against the RF target of 50 percent, the project achieved 50.7 percent (which translates to 16,282 of the total outreach to 32,120 farmers). The
achievement in Madhya Pradesh was: Original villages: 62.3%, and scale-up villages: 18.3%; In Bihar it was Original villages: 74.2%, and scale-up villages:
70%
The indicator was defined by the project as the percentage of farmers who satisfy the following conditions. In Madhya Pradesh, the farmer should have
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satisfied all three of the following: (i) Was aware of the risks due to climate variability and change, their impacts on farm livelihoods and knew the
interventions to reduce these risks; (ii) Was trained in at least one adaptation-related intervention; (iii) Adopted and/or was willing to continue at least two
recommended CCA interventions after project closure.
In Bihar, the farmer should have satisfied the following: (i) Was aware of the risks due to climate variability and change, their impacts on farm livelihoods
and knew the interventions to reduce these risks; (ii) Participated in one CCAP and post-season CCAP review meeting; (iii) Was willing to continue at least
two recommended CCA interventions after project closure.
The awareness levels were measured using a set of test questions on: (i) climate stressors and their impacts on livelihoods and (ii) benefits of adopting
project interventions in ecology, finances, weather advisory and production technologies on their livelihoods.
Source: This indicator was measured through the program-end evaluation survey in November 2019.
A.2 Intermediate Results Indicators
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Component: Component 1 – Community-based Climate Change Adaptation
Formally Revised Actual Achieved at
Indicator Name Unit of Measure Baseline Original Target
Target Completion
At least 12000 farmers Number 0.00 8000.00 12300.00 19202.00
demonstrate climate resilient
agricultural practices 10-Dec-2014 10-Dec-2014 14-Jun-2018 31-Dec-2019
Comments (achievements against targets):
ACHIEVED (156%): The achievement is 19,202 of the total reported outreach of 32,120 farmers in all project villages. This is based on extrapolating from
the sample survey results to the total reported project outreach. The achievement in Madhya Pradesh was: Original villages: 3,389, and scale-up villages:
5,103; In Bihar it was Original villages: 4000%, and scale-up villages: 11320%
A farmer household is defined as demonstrating climate resilient practices if they adopted any three of the following. In Bihar: Attended CCAP meetings
and any two of the following: (i) undertook non-pesticide management, (ii) undertook livelihood diversification, (iii) used climate-resilient seeds, (iv) used
weather forecast based advisories to schedule farm operations. In Madhya Pradesh: (i) undertook soil health improvement, (ii) used climate-resilient seeds,
(iii) undertook one new livelihood source and/or strengthened existing livelihood, (iv) increased usage of livestock management, (v) adopted
recommended production, (vi) utilized moisture conservation water harvesting, improved irrigation or drainage, (vii) cultivated Poshan Vatika
(nurseries/kitchen garden), (viii) used weather forecast based advisories to schedule farm operations.
This indicator was modified in the June 2018 restructuring.
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Source: This indicator was measured through the program-end evaluation survey in November 2019. The sample percentage of farmers who practiced
climate resilient practices was multiplied by the official total number of project farmers to arrive at this value. This achievement includes original and scale-
up villages.
Formally Revised Actual Achieved at
Indicator Name Unit of Measure Baseline Original Target
Target Completion
Indicator Two: At least 30% Percentage 0.00 30.00 30.00 76.00
of the community
institutions access technical 10-Dec-2014 10-Dec-2014 10-Dec-2014 31-Dec-2019
and/or financial support for
climate adaptation plans
thorugh convergence with
Government programs.
Comments (achievements against targets):
ACHIEVED (253%): Of the 200 Village Organizations in the original 200 project villages, 152 received financial support from at least one other government
program through convergence.
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The total value of the financial support was INR 463.6 million. Convergence support was for seeds procurement and input subsidies, setting up Custom
Hiring Centers (for renting farm machinery and tools, plant protection tools), tree plantation, pest surveillance training, soil testing, solar irrigation, crop
insurance, and livestock health management. Converging departments include that of agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, MGNREGS, fishery,
irrigation, forestry, tribal development, among others.
Source: This indicator was reported in the program-end evaluation report based on data provided by the SRLMs and Village Organizations (VOs). This
achievement is applicable to the original villages only.
Component: Component 2 – Scaling and Mainstreaming Community Based Climate Adaptation
Formally Revised Actual Achieved at
Indicator Name Unit of Measure Baseline Original Target
Target Completion
Indicator One: At least 6000 Number 0.00 800.00 6000.00 6482.00
self-help groups are trained
in adaptation-related 10-Dec-2014 10-Dec-2014 14-Jun-2018 31-Dec-2019
technologies.
Comments (achievements against targets):
ACHIEVED (108%): Against the target of 6,000 self-help group members in the original 200 and subsequent 593 scale-up villages, 6,482 were trained in
adaptation related technologies. This includes 3,968 in Bihar and 2,514 in Madhya Pradesh. The definition of success of this indicator is as follows: (i) The
farmer should have participated in the CCAP meeting. (ii) The farmer should have received at least one exposure visit to demonstration or other relevant
sites. (iii) The farmer should have attended at least two training programs.
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This indicator was modified in the June 2018 restructuring.
Source: This indicator was measured through the program-end evaluation survey in November 2019. Note that the target refers to the number of self-help
group members and not groups as inadvertently specified.
Formally Revised Actual Achieved at
Indicator Name Unit of Measure Baseline Original Target
Target Completion
Indicator Two: At least 300 Number 0.00 300.00 300.00 1736.00
staff of state, district and
block staff are trained in 10-Dec-2014 10-Dec-2014 10-Dec-2014 31-Dec-2019
technical adaptation themes.
Comments (achievements against targets):
ACHIEVED (579%). Against the RF target of 300, 1,736 persons were trained on project interventions, including 489 staff and 1,247 CRPs in 793 total
villages in 8 blocks. However, another section of the PAD sets a target of 980 staff and CRPs (80 project staff in original villages and 300 in scale-up villages
and 200 CRPs in the original villages and 400 in scale-up villages). Using this target, the achivement is 177 percent.
The staff and CRPs received continuous training on: (i) Impacts of climate variability and change. (ii) Soil health management, organic farming, climate
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resilient production practices. (iii) Farm mechanization and micro-irrigation systems. (iv) Livestock management. (v) Weather forecast-based crop
advisories. (vi) Crop insurance and credit, and various department schemes. In addition, the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj
(NIRD&PR) conducted a comprehensive certificate course for 200 staff and 400 CRPs on climate change adaption in 2019.
The training was conducted by technical experts, NGOs, resources institutions and agriculture universities. The trainings were either residential, in
classrooms, in the field, or were exposure visits. The knowledge level of trained staff measured through the endline survey was found to be adequate for
supporting the interventions.
Source: The indicator was measured through the program-end evaluation survey in November 2019.
Formally Revised Actual Achieved at
Indicator Name Unit of Measure Baseline Original Target
Target Completion
Indicator Three: Climate Number 0.00 1.00 1.00 1.00
change adaptation guidelines
developed for NRLM 10-Dec-2014 10-Dec-2014 10-Dec-2014 31-Dec-2019
implementation Framework
and disseminated to all
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SRLMs
Comments (achievements against targets):
PARTIALLY ACHIEVED. A circular titled “Operational guidelines for Community Climate Adaptation Grant (CCAG)” developed by the MoRD was circulated to
the Chief Executive Officers/State Managing Directors of all the SRLMs on 30 December 2019.
The guideline specifies modalities for Village Organizations to access climate adaptation funds through SRLMs. The funds could be used for: (i) Increasing
resilience of farm-based livelihoods. (ii) Capacity building of Village Organization members on climate change adaptation. Some guidelines for the types of
interventions that qualify for the grant are provided. It is intended for SRLMs who wish to launch CCA initiatives.
The guidelines do not reflect any intention to mainstream CCA interventions in the NRLM. It does not allocate any budget for the Climate Change Advisory
Group. It does not list any of the interventions actually implemented in the project or provide implementation guidelines for any specific CCA interventions.
It does not endorse, recommend or provide incentives for SRLMs to launch any CCA interventions.
However, it should be noted that it is a tall order to expect implementation guidelines to be issued to mainstream project interventions within the project
period. Hence the enhanced capacity and plans of Bihar SRLM and MoRD to leverage project learning to upscale selected interventions is an impressive
achievement in this context.
Source: This indicator was assessed by the ICR team based on a review of the issued guidelines provided by MoRD.
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Component: Component 3 – Project Management and Impact Evaluation
Formally Revised Actual Achieved at
Indicator Name Unit of Measure Baseline Original Target
Target Completion
Indicator One: Established Number 0.00 3.00 3.00 3.00
Climate Adaptation Units
staffed with full-time 10-Dec-2014 10-Dec-2014 10-Dec-2014 31-Dec-2019
professionals within the
NMMU and the SRLMs of the
participating states
Comments (achievements against targets):
ACHIEVED. The National Mission Management Unit at MoRD had designated a team of four officials to support the project. The national coordinator of
Agricultural Livelihoods in NRLPS also led the coordination of SLACC. Additionally, two experts were placed by the Lead Technical Support Agency (LTSA) in
the National Mission Management Unit (NMMU). (Source: Project Completion Report).
The SRLMs each had a dedicated State Climate Change Adaptation Coordinator, Young professionals and Block Coordinators at the Block Offices and one to
two technical experts from the LTSA. (Source: State progress reports)
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Formally Revised Actual Achieved at
Indicator Name Unit of Measure Baseline Original Target
Target Completion
Indicator Two: State Level Number 0.00 2.00 8.00 25.00
resource agencies and /or
technical services providers 10-Dec-2014 10-Dec-2014 14-Jun-2018 31-Dec-2019
for providing field level
technical support appointed
and operational
Comments (achievements against targets):
ACHIEVED (313%). Against a target of eight, 25 resource agencies were engaged by the MoRD and the two SRLMs in addition to other individual experts.
The project hired a common (to the two states) LTSA named Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR) initially. WOTR was subsequently replaced in 2019 by
the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj.
Madhya Pradesh SRLM engaged Skymet Weather, CropIn Technologies (two private firms for weather advisories), Borlaug Institute of South Asia, Jabalpur,
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Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute, Jhansi, JNKVV Jabalpur, MP, NDVSU Jabalpur, MP, CIAE Bhopal, MP, IGKVV Raipur, Chhattisgarh, NDRI
Karnal, Haryana, KVK Mandla, MP, KVK Datia, MP, NRCSS Ajmer, Rajasthan, Bhungroo Site, Lalitpur, Uttar Pradesh, SRDS, Hubli, Karnataka. The latter
agencies largely assisted in intervention design and training of CRPs, staff and farmers.
Bihar SRLM engaged PRAN Development Service Trust, CropIn Technology, Skymet weather services, Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University,
Pusa, Borlaug Institute for South Asia, Bihar Agriculture University, IFFCO, IWMI-AKRSP(I), KVK Birouli, Samastipur and KVK Manpur Gaya, Makhana
research station, Darbhanga, Bihar, IIVR, Varanasi, Central Potato Research station, Patna, ICAR RCER Patna, National Seed Corporation, MPUAT Udaipur,
Rajasthan, Baran, Rajasthan, Laporiya, Rajasthan.
This indicator’s target was modified from two to eight in the June 2018 restructuring.
Source: This indicator was reported in the program-end evaluation report based on data provided by the SRLMs and Village Organizations. See Appendix
for details of the services provided by these agencies.
Formally Revised Actual Achieved at
Indicator Name Unit of Measure Baseline Original Target
Target Completion
A P-MIS is functional and Number 0.00 0.00 1.00 0.00
used to review extent of
adoption of various 10-Dec-2014 10-Dec-2014 14-Jun-2018 31-Dec-2019
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interventions by farmers
Comments (achievements against targets):
PARTIALLY ACHIEVED. An agency was contracted to design and implement a digital project management information system. The Project Management
Information System (PMIS) was to collect and generate reports on farmer-level extent of adoption of recommended project interventions. The agency
completed the design but failed to implement the PMIS. However, the following was done by the two SRLMs. Aggregated, village-level, total number of
farmers by type of output (total number of farmers offered various interventions and training) was recorded by CRPs on paper registers. These were sent
periodically to the block offices for entry into Excel and for further aggregation at the block, district and state levels. It was used to an extent for project
monitoring by the SRLMs.
This indicator was added in the June 2018 restructuring.
Source: Discussions with the two state SRLM CCA Coordinators.
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B. KEY OUTPUTS BY COMPONENT
Objective/Outcome 1: Poor farmers have the adaptive capacity to cope with future climate variability and change by understanding the risks of
climate variability/change to livelihoods, how interventions help and intend to continue the practices in the future.
1. At least 50% of the targeted households demonstrate strengthened awareness and ownership of
Outcome Indicators
adaptation and climate change risk reduction process/measures.
1. At least 300 staff of state, district and block staff are trained in technical adaptation themes.
Intermediate Results Indicators
2. At least 6,000 self-help groups are trained in adaptation-related technologies.
The following are Component 1 and Component 2 combined. Individual figures not available
Number of SHG members trained in adaptation related technologies: 32,642 (Bihar 15,754, Madhya
Pradesh 16,888)
Number of community cadre/CRPs trained in adaptation related technologies: 1,660 (Bihar 810, Madhya
Pradesh 850)
Number of staff members trained in adaptation related technologies: 974 (Bihar 360, Madhya Pradesh
Key Outputs by Component
614)
(linked to the achievement of the
Number of community members and community cadre taken on exposure visits: 19,376 (Bihar 9,958,
Objective/Outcome 2)
Madhya Pradesh 9,418)
Number of CRPs and project staff who received certified training in CCA: 298 (Bihar 148, Madhya Pradesh
150)
Number of seminars organized for sharing insights/lessons for policy making with government, donors,
NGOs: 3 (Bihar 1, Madhya Pradesh 1)79
Number of knowledge products for dissemination of knowledge and experience generated by SLACC: 16
Objective/Outcome 2: Poor farmer households adopt climate resilience measures in their livelihoods to cope with climate variability and change.80
Outcome Indicators 1. At least 50% of the targeted households adopt livelihoods with enhanced climate resilience.
79 One seminar was organised in Hyderabad by NIRD&PR.
80 Bihar Progress Report and Madhya Pradesh Consolidated Report and Program Evaluation Report.
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1. At least 12,300 farmers demonstrate climate resilient agricultural practices.
Intermediate Results Indicators 2. At least 30% of the community institutions access technical and/or financial support for climate
adaptation plans through convergence with government programs.
The following are Component 1 and Component 2 combined. Individual figures not available
Percent of the project farmers belonging to a poor or disadvantaged community: 97%
Number of villages covered: 793 (Bihar 383, Madhya Pradesh 410)
Number of blocks covered: 8 (Bihar 4, Madhya Pradesh 4)
Number of districts covered: 4 (Bihar 2, Madhya Pradesh 2)
Number of SHGs covered: 8,706 (Bihar 4,861, Madhya Pradesh 3,845)
Number of farmers covered: 32,120 (Bihar 15,320, Madhya Pradesh 16,800)
Number of farmers covered by soil testing services: 8,119 (Bihar 5,034, Madhya Pradesh 3,085)
Number of automated weather stations and automated rain gauges established: 200 (Bihar 100, Madhya
Pradesh 100)
Number of farmers covered through weather based agro advisory services: 8,704 (Bihar 4,216, Madhya
Pradesh 4,488)
Number of CHCs established: 605 (Bihar 361, Madhya Pradesh 244)
Key Outputs by Component
Number of farmers who accessed a CHC or Village Tool Bank: 13,884 (Bihar 5,884, Madhya Pradesh 8,000)
(linked to the achievement of the
Number of solar irrigation systems installed: 113 (Bihar 73, Madhya Pradesh 40)
Objective/Outcome 1)
Number of VOs that developed CCAPs and were provided CCAP grants: 793 (Bihar 383, Madhya Pradesh
410)
Average amount of CCAP grant provided per VO: INR 410,652
Average amount of loans provided (for agriculture activities) per VO: INR 203,297
Number of households who received technical or financial benefits through convergence from other
government or non-government sources: 175,776 (Bihar 163,883, Madhya Pradesh 11,893)
Amount of convergence funding obtained: INR 466,125,575 (Bihar INR 196,336,393, Madhya Pradesh INR
269,789,182)
Number of schemes/agencies with which convergence was undertaken: 30 (Bihar 18, Madhya Pradesh 12)
Number of beneficiaries of convergence funding: 175,776 (Bihar 163,883, Madhya Pradesh 11,893)
Number (and %) of VOs that benefitted from convergence funding: 647 (82%) (Bihar 317, Madhya Pradesh
330)
Average amount of convergence funds received per VO: INR 720,441 (Bihar INR 619,358, Madhya Pradesh
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INR 817,543)
Objective/Outcome 3: Efficient and effective management of SLACC components.
Outcome Indicators Not applicable. Contributes to other components
Established climate adaptation units staffed with full time professional within the NMMU and SRLM of
participating states.
Intermediate Results Indicators State level implementation teams/resource agencies for providing field level implementation support
appointed and operational.
A PMIS is functional and used to review the extent of adoption of interventions by farmers.
Number of full-time professionals in Climate Adaptation Units of SRLMs: 23 (Bihar 11 , Madhya Pradesh
12)
Key Outputs by Component
Number of community cadre/CRPs on climate adaptation in SRLMs: 726 (Bihar 376 , Madhya Pradesh 350 )
(linked to the achievement of the
Percentage of women CRPs involved in SLACC interventions: Bihar 67%, Madhya Pradesh 15%
Objective/Outcome 2)
Number of resource agencies and/or technical support partners: 16 unique partners (Bihar 15, Madhya
Pradesh 4) (3 NGOs, 4 firms, 9 research agencies)
C. DETAILS ON SELECTED OUTCOMES81
Outcomes Total Bihar
Madhya Pradesh
Number of farmers who adopted at least one recommendation on 29,872 15,320 14,552
soil health improvement made on the basis of soil test results (8,352 from core villages,
6,200 from scale-up villages)
Number of farmers who adopted Azolla cultivation (for fodder and 6,086 3,234 2,852
manure)
Number of farmers with access to protective irrigation in at least 4,648 2,560 2,088
one third of the farmland in at least one season (2,080 from core villages, 480 from (1,388 from core villages, 700
scale-up villages) from scale-up villages)
Number of farmers who adopted climate resilient seed varieties in at 29,086 16,800 12,286
81 Sources: Bihar Results Framework February 2020, Madhya Pradesh Results Framework November 2019.
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least one third of the farmland at least once per year (4,650 from core villages, 12,150 (10,286 from core villages,
from scale-up villages) 2,000 from scale-up villages)
Number of farmers who adopted Direct Seeding of Rice 201 101 100
Number of farmers who practiced non-chemical pest management 26,338 12,550 13,788
(NPM) in at least one season for at least one-third of the farm (3925 from core villages, 8625 from (4488 from core villages,
acreage scale-up villages) 9300 from scale-up villages)
Number of farmers who demonstrated improved scheduling of farm 8,714 4,226 4,488
operations on the basis of weather forecast (All from core villages) (All from core villages)
Number of farmers who diversified to other crops and non-crop 19,618 11,945 7,673
livelihoods (4150 from core villages, 7795 from (All from core villages)
scale-up villages)
Number of farmers who understand how adverse weather events 29,283 15,495 13,788
harm yield and how interventions recommended help them to adapt (4,175 from core villages, 11,320 (4,488 from core villages,
from scale-up villages) 9,300 from scale-up villages)
Number of farmers who intend to continue any two interventions 21,459 15,420 6,039
suggested under SLACC after closure (4,100 from core villages, 11,320 (4,039 from core villages,
from scale-up villages) 2,000 from scale-up villages)
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ANNEX 2. BANK LENDING AND IMPLEMENTATION SUPPORT/SUPERVISION
A. TASK TEAM MEMBERS
Name Role
Preparation
Priti Kumar Task Team Leader(s)
Balagopal Senapati Procurement Specialist(s)
Manvinder Mamak Financial Management Specialist
Ruma Tavorath Environment Specialist
Varun Singh Social Specialist
Supervision/ICR
Priti Kumar Task Team Leader(s)
Balagopal Senapati Procurement Specialist(s)
Tanya Gupta Financial Management Specialist
Radha Narayan Procurement Team
Payal Malik Madan Procurement Team
Lalita Srinivas Team Member
Anupam Joshi Environmental Specialist
Pamela Patrick Procurement Team
Varun Singh Social Specialist
Sivaramakrishnan Kumar Procurement Team
Francis Addeah Darko Young Professional
Extended Team
Shantanu Kumar M&E Specialist Consultant
Karuna Krishnaswamy Impact Evaluation Specialist Consultant
Kundan Singh; Manu Sinha Economist; Livelihoods Consultant, FAO
Madhushree Banerjee Social Specialist Consultant
S.C.Rajsekhar Agricuture and Technology Specialist Consultant
Kalyani Kandula Natural Resources Management Specialist
Consultant
Vanitha Kommu Environment Specialist Consultant
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B. STAFF TIME AND COST
Staff Time and Cost
Stage of Project Cycle
No. of staff weeks US$ (including travel and consultant costs)
Preparation
FY13 6.630 44,304.01
FY14 18.867 69,208.57
FY15 0 0.00
Total 25.50 113,512.58
Supervision/ICR
FY15 6.400 51,587.75
FY16 8.102 86,666.01
FY17 16.150 111,493.67
FY18 3.175 48,281.94
FY19 4.475 44,328.52
FY20 11.833 123,480.40
Total 50.14 465,838.29
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ANNEX 3. PROJECT COST BY COMPONENT
World Bank Contribution
Percentage of Approval
Amount at Approval Actual at Project
Components (US$ million) (estimated
(US$ million) Closing (US$ million)
by prorating adjustments)
Component 1 – Community-
based Climate Change 6.20 5.61 90%
Adaptation
Component 2 – Scaling and
Mainstreaming Community 1.48 1.32 89%
Based Climate Adaptation
Component 3 – Project
Management and Impact 0.32 0.25 78%
Evaluation
Total 8.0 7.18 90%
Total Project Costs including government contribution
Original amount (US$ Revised amount (US$ Actual disbursed (US$
million) million) million)
World Bank financing
SCCF/GEF 8.0 8.0 7.18
Sub-Total
Non-World Bank financing
Borrower/recipient 2.17 4.67 4.19
Sub-Total
Total project cost 10.17 12.67 11.37
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ANNEX 4. EFFICIENCY ANALYSIS82
1. This annex quantifies the cost effectiveness of the project and is organized as follows: (i) summary of the
efficiency analysis conducted at appraisal; (ii) project financials and key project outputs; (iii) project cost efficiency
analysis at completion; and (iii) cost-effectiveness analysis done by comparing the total project cost per beneficiary
household at completion with that at appraisal, and of other similar projects.
Efficiency analysis at appraisal
2. An ex-ante cost–benefit analysis at preparation was not conducted because: (i) the locale-specific interventions
to be launched were to be discovered during the project and were not known at preparation, and (ii) methodological
difficulties associated with estimating benefits from climate resilience. The economic analysis of a CCA project would
ideally compare the productivity and incomes of farmers who adopt adaptation interventions with those who do not
adopt adaptations despite normal weather and adverse weather events over the years, during and beyond the
project. However, this involves availability of local time series data on adverse weather events and farmer outcomes
during the project and projections beyond the project period. This assumes that there were sufficient adverse events
in actuality in the project locations. Moreover, the margins of error of predictions of future climate scenarios is
difficult to ascertain. Hence, quantifying potential benefits is technically difficult. The analysis instead made a case
for efficiency based on the following: (i) It presented the cost–benefit ratios (CBRs) of potential interventions
measured in past projects. These CBRs were almost all less than one or negative suggesting high benefits compared
to costs. (ii) In 22 previous Bank projects in the areas of watershed management and sustainable land and water
management, the median economic rate of return was 20 percent and yields increased in the range of 20–70
percent. (iii) The linkages with MGNREGS and MKSP were expected to substantially increase land-related
investments by farmers.
Project cost and duration
3. The total project cost at appraisal was US$10.17 million which was revised to US$12.67 million at restructuring
due to changes in counterpart financing rules on the ratio of center to state contributions from 75:25 to 60:4083. This
change increased the project cost by 24.6 percent in US Dollar terms. At project closure, the total amount spent by
the project was US$11.37 million, which was 111.8 percent of the appraisal estimates. In Rupee terms, the project
spent INR 757.59 million, which was 121.3 percent of the appraisal estimates. The increased spending in INR can be
attributed partly to the exchange rate gains of 8.5 percent over the project’s life, which is much lower than the
average local inflation rate of 1.5 percent over the same period84.
Table A4.1: Project funds by source
% spent out of % spent out of
At appraisal At restructuring At closure budget at budget at
appraisal restructuring
Million US$ 8.00 8.0 7.18 89.8% 89.8%
Grant
Million INR 491.2885 544.4 478.41 97.4% 87.9%
82 This annex was written by Manu Sinha, Kundan Singh and Francis Addeah Darko.
83 Report No. RES32185: Disclosable Restructuring Paper for SLACC Project.
84 Wholesale Price Index, Office of the Economic Adviser, GoI, from 2014 to 2019. Other data from the final IUFR and project expenditure
statements.
85 Calculated based on the exchange rate at appraisal.
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Million US$ 2.17 4.7 4.19 193.1% 89.7%
Borrower
Million INR 133.26 317.8 279.18 209.5% 87.9%
Million US$ 10.17 12.7 11.37 111.8% 89.7%
Total
Million INR 624.54 862.2 757.59 121.3% 87.9%
4. Although the project spent more than the appraisal estimates, it was not able to utilize the grant fully as per
Table A4.2 below. This was because of less expenditure at the center level. At the state level, the project spent 103.1
percent of the estimate at appraisal (111.9 percent in INR terms) but at the center the expenditure was only 31.7
percent of appraisal estimates (34.4 percent in INR terms). The reasons that contributed were the center completing
its activities using less resources than anticipated and due to initial delays in programming.
Table A4.2: Project budget and expenditure
% spent out of % spent out of
At appraisal At restructuring At closure budget at budget at
appraisal restructuring
Center Million US$ 1.50 1.00 0.48 31.7% 47.6%
(MoRD) Million INR 92.1 68.1 31.7 34.4% 46.6%
Million US$ 6.50 7.00 6.70 103.1% 95.8%
State
Million INR 399.2 476.4 446.6 111.9% 93.8%
Million US$ 8.00 8.00 7.18 89.8% 89.7%
Total
Million INR 491.3 544.4 478.4 97.4% 87.9%
Key Project Outputs
5. The project aimed to implement climate adaptation interventions in agriculture by community institutions (i.e.
self-help groups, federations and common interest/producer groups/producer companies) utilizing the community
CCA grants as a top-up to the Climate Investment Fund (CIF), upon approval of the community adaptation plan. The
below table highlights some of the key outputs of the project.
Table A4.3: Outputs linked to Component 1
Key Outputs linked to Component 1 Madhya Bihar End of
Pradesh Project
Villages No. 410 383 793
SHGs No. 3,845 4,861 8,706
Households under SHGs No. 15,400 15,320 30,720
Households covered by soil testing services No. 3,085 5,034 8,119
Automated weather stations and automated rain gauges established No. 100 100 200
Farmers covered through weather based agro advisory services No. 4,488 4,216 8,704
Custom hiring center (CHC) No. 244 361 605
Farmers accessed CHCs No. 8,000 5,884 13,884
Solar irrigation systems Installed No. 40 73 113
Farmers participated in CCAP preparation and review No. 10,100 4,500 14,600
Households that received financial or technical benefits through No. 11,893 163,883 175,776
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convergence
VOs that received financial or technical benefits through convergence 330 100 430
Key Outputs linked to Component 2
Community members and cadres taken on exposure visit No. 9,418 9,958 19,376
SHG members trained in adaptation related technologies No. 16,888 15,754 32,642
Community cadre/CRPs trained in adaptation related technologies No. 850 810 1,660
Staff members trained in adaptation related technologies No. 614 360 974
Village resource persons and project staff who received certified No. 150 148 298
training in CCA (from NIRD&PR)
Convergence
6. The project has been very successful in linking with a host of agencies covering primarily the government
departments at district and state level, agriculture universities etc. Given the actual disbursement of INR 757.59
million, the project has been successful in mobilizing INR 463.61 million which is 61.02 percent of the project cost. Of
this, the project in Madhya Pradesh mobilized INR 267.28 million (35.28 percent of project cost) and INR 196.33
million was mobilized in Bihar (25.92 percent of project cost). Tables A4.4 and A4.5 below present funds mobilized
through convergence under the project for each state respectively.
Table A4.4: Activity-wise convergence for the state of Madhya Pradesh
Government Amount (in
Convergence activities
departments/programs million INR)
Agriculture department, horticulture
Farm machinery/ equipment, drums, sprayers, pump, pipes 30.62
department
Agriculture department, horticulture
department, forest department, KVK, Crop inputs: seed, fertilizers, seedlings, orchard 7.11
Borlaug Institute for South Asia
Rural development department,
MGNREGA, agriculture department,
Infrastructure: irrigation facilities, solar pumps, organic manure,
electricity department, tribal 56.80
electricity, nursery, cattle shed
development department, Fal Ful Sag
Bhaji Samiti, NRLM
Rural development department,
Soil moisture conservation 16.22
MGNREGA, community contribution
Animal husbandry department, Livestock-cattle, poultry, other, health camps, pasture
4.42
NGOs development, fodder
Rural development department,
Community resources development: new source, repair and
Gram Panchayat, MGNREGA, Fishery
maintenance of water bodies, such as pond, canal, well, bore 60.59
department, Irrigation department,
well, fishery pond, Bori Bandhan
community contribution
Agriculture inputs, irrigation equipment’s, water resource
NRLM development like well, bore well, hath bore, cattle induction, 91.50
poultry, goatry, fishery, NTFP etc.
Grand Total 267.28
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Table A4.5: Activity-wise convergence for the state of Bihar
Government Amount
Convergence activities
departments/programs (in million INR)
Availing seed and technical input, exposure visit, papaya
Agriculture universities sapling and technical guidance for plantation 9.04
Agriculture department Custom Hiring Centre, Krishi Input Subsidy Scheme 11.10
Horticulture department Mushroom kit, Tree planting-Van Poshak scheme 1.06
Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) Pest surveillance training at KVK 0.32
Block agriculture department Vermicompost 1.00
The Energy Resources Institute Solar stove 1.12
Bihar Renewable Energy Agency Solar irrigation set (2HP) 8.81
Block agriculture department Contingency crops, zero tillage, crop insurance 3.33
MGNREGA Animal sheds 0.85
NRLM Community institution building support 151.74
Others, specify 7.87
Total 196.33
Methodology for efficiency analysis as completion
6. Background: Three reasons made the efficiency analysis difficult. (i) It was methodologically difficult to compute
the economic rate of return as discussed above. (ii) This was a small, exploratory, pilot project for learning that
sought to test CCA interventions for potential scale-up in the NRLM. Its success lay in discovering beneficial
interventions and models that would be scaled up. Not all interventions were expected to be successful. Being a
novel project, there was a substantial learning curve for the implementing teams and hence efficiency expectations
were modest.
7. Relevant benefits/objectives of the project: The primary objective was that the target number (4,000) of farmer
households would adopt climate resilient livelihoods and take ownership of the services for the future. The
secondary objectives were to train CRPs and staff, as well as to foster learning for SRLMs and MoRD to scale up
interventions in the future.
Table A4.6: Project outreach
Target at appraisal Target at restructuring Actuals
Number of farmers reached out to (primary beneficiaries) 8,000 12,300 32,120
Number of farmers who adopted livelihoods with 4,000 6,150 16,098
enhanced climate resilience
Number of farmers reached out to plus staff and CRPs 8,980 13,280 33,856
trained (Primary plus secondary beneficiaries)
8. Methodology: The project’s cost-effectiveness was quantified by computing the total project cost per
beneficiary household (with and without convergence funds) and comparing it to the value at appraisal and with
past projects of similar budget and scale.
9. Comparison projects: The following comparator projects were selected from among other World Bank projects.
Eleven climate resilience projects from different countries were considered. These projects were assessed for
similarity to SLACC and four were shortlisted: (i) Climate change adaptation project in Philippines; (ii) Kenya
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adaptation to climate change in arid and semi-arid lands project; (iii) Building climate disaster resilience along the
Dili-Ainaro and Linked road corridors in Timor-Leste; and (iv) Agro-diversity and climate change adaptation project
and the associated piloting coping strategies for rainfed farmers project in Yemen. The common features were:
• Capacity building of personnel at national and state levels on climate change adaptation.
• Context-specific agriculture interventions at the core of climate change adaptation.
• Climate change adaptation planning at community level.
• Weather based advisory system/early warning system.
• Demonstration of climate change adaptation for scale-up.
10. The limitations of this approach were: (i) The projects were not exactly similar to each other though close
enough. (ii) Costs were converted to US Dollars using nominal exchange rates rather than in terms of Purchasing
Power Parity. (iii) Only the total outreach of the project was known and not the percentage of beneficiaries in the
comparison projects who actually became climate resilient. (iv) The projects in Kenya and Timor-Leste defined
project beneficiaries as direct plus indirect beneficiaries without mentioning specific criteria of adaptation leading to
a high number of beneficiaries and hence low cost per beneficiary. Hence, their true value of cost per direct
beneficiary could be inflated.
Table A4.7: Comparison projects
Project Description of components Duration
Philippines86: Support integration of CCA into agriculture and natural resources sectors, 2010-16
Climate Change strengthen capabilities of government agencies, include field level adaptation
Adaptation Project demo pilots.
Improve access of end users in the agriculture and natural resources sectors to
more reliable scientific information, to enable more rapid and accurate decision-
making for climate risk management.
Kenya87: Strengthen capacity and institutional coordination among relevant agencies to 2010-17
Adaptation of better assess and respond to climate risks.
Climate Change in Provide capacity building and integrate climate risk management into county
Arid and Semi-Arid planning processes and programs through.
Lands Support investments to implement climate smart public and private sector
interventions.
Help beneficiaries adopt CCA strategies and investments to reduce climate related
vulnerabilities and strengthen climate resilience by adopting adaptation
technologies.
Timor-Leste88: Build capacity at the central, sub-district and community levels to: (i) improve 2014-18
Building community-based disaster risk management (CBDRM); (ii) identify small scale
Climate/Disaster CBDRM activities; (iii) prepare comprehensive community level CBDRM plans.
Resilience Along
The Dili-Ainaro and Prepare comprehensive DRM plans for local governments. This included: (i)
Linked Road support to identify small scale risk reduction measures; and (ii) support for local
Corridors in Timor- governments to implement up to three prioritized risk reduction/adaptation
Leste activities.
86 ICRR Report No: ICR00004164
87 ICRR Report No: ICR00004143
88 ICRR Report No: ICR00004828
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Yemen89: Agro- Develop inventory of local agro-biodiversity, and identify and test selected 2010-15
biodiversity and landraces for climate resilience.
Adaptation Project Raise awareness on climatic changes and develop localized predictive capacity of
weather patterns and long-term climate change scenarios.
Integrate climate resilience into rainfed agriculture by capacity building of Ministry
of Agriculture and Irrigation, develop a climate-resilience strategy, and develop
and pilot coping strategies with the communities.
Results
11. The cost per beneficiary at completion was US$354 (Table A4.8) without convergence funds. This compared
favourably with the cost per beneficiary estimated at restructuring of US$1,030 at appraisal. The lower costs were
due to the higher outreach achieved (32,120 farmers) compared to planned (12,300 farmers). It was also lower than
the average cost per beneficiary of comparison projects of US$626 (Table A4.9). In particular, it was higher than that
of the Yemen project whose efficiency was rated Substantial at ICR based on cost per beneficiary.
Table A4.8: Cost per project beneficiary
Indicator Planned at Planned at Actual at Actual at
appraisal restructuring closure w/o closure w/
convergence convergence
Total project costs (US$ million) 10.17 12.67 11.37 18.39
Cost per beneficiary reached out to (US$) 1,271 1,030 354 573
Cost per farmer who adopted livelihoods with enhanced 2,543 2,060 706 1,142
climate resilience (US$)
Table A4.9: Cost per beneficiary of comparison projects
Project cost No of beneficiary Nominal cost per beneficiary
Project details
(US$ million) households household (US$)
Project in the Philippines 3.88 2,104 1,844
Project in Kenya 5.5 37,977 145
Project in Yemen 5.24 11,123 471
Project in Timor-Leste 2.67 59,730 45
Average 626
Conclusion
12. The cost per beneficiary at completion was substantially lower than at appraisal. The project ranked in the
middle of other similar projects, but more importantly was lower than that of Yemen where the efficiency was rated
Modest by IEG due to low cost per beneficiary. While cost-effectiveness has been good, the overall efficiency was
assessed based on operational efficiency and future scale-up opportunities attributable to the project.
89 ICRR Report No: ICR00003420
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ANNEX 5. BORROWER, CO-FINANCIER AND OTHER PARTNER/STAKEHOLDER COMMENTS
This Ministry has gone through the ICRR and found some issues that are described below90:
Para No. Statement of MoRD’s Comments
in ICRR ICRR
5,6,7,37,4 Experience of With reference to this statement of ICRR, this is to state that the farm
7, 65 MoRD: In livelihoods interventions started in DAY-NRLM since 2011 through MKSP and
various para in since then it has been promoting Agro Ecological Practices with women farmers
the ICRR, it is and all thepractices are climate change resilient. Moreover, when SLACC was
expressed that, being implemented the framework below was referred to for clarity by World
DAY-NRLM has Bank which is self-explanatory.
low experience
in the climate
resilience
interventions.
SLACC only
brought the
climate
resilience in the
DAY-NRLM.
This is also to state that at the time of inception of SLACC, DAY-NRLM had
already implemented agro-ecological practices in 700 blocks of 115 districts and
reached out to 33.54 lakh women farmers with 19,599 CRPs.
51, 53,55, Low Firstly, there was no dedicated staff provisioned in SLACC budget at the
65 Government Ministry. It was envisaged that the LTSA would do the programme management
90The paragraph numbers mentioned in the table may not exactly match those in the ICRR, as the ICRR was edited after the advanced
draft document was shared with the client.
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engagement/ and provide technical assistance and MoRD’s role would be to oversee the
commitment: In financial and administrative matters of the project implementation.
various
paragraphs of Secondly, there is no such evidence of low Government commitment. All the
ICRR it has been due diligence for fund release to SRLM, LTSA and evaluation agency was done
stated that, by the Ministry on time. Moreover, Joint Secretary -RL reviewed the progress of
there was a low SLACC on a monthly basis.
Govt.
engagement Thirdly, it is mentioned several times that due to NRLP implementation, SLACC
and also did not get sufficient focus from MoRD. If this was the actual case, the project
dedicated staff could not have been completed with more than 100% achievement in each PDO
was not placed indicator (please refer to page no 28 to 43 of ICRR).
at MoRD.
51, 54, Delay in The process of hiring LTSA was initiated at Ministry level as soon as the project
55,65 process/longer got approved. The fund to the states were also released on time and
preparatory preparatory phase was not three years as mentioned in ICCR.
phase: In
various It has been mentioned several time that till three years the progress of the
paragraphs it is project was very low. Referring to the 2nd steering committee minutes, it can
stated that clearly be seen that till March, 2018, the SRLM has not only achieved the
MoRD made an targets, but also finished the preparatory works for scaling up of the project.
inordinate delay Therefore, it is evident that there was no delay either in process initiation or in
in SLACC roll the achievement of the targets. So the inordinate delay as mentioned is not
out, hiring of tenable.
LTSA etc. so the
process and
progress
delayed. Till
three years it
has made no or
very little
progress.
55 . Low utilization “At project closure, the total amount spent by the project was US$11.37
of funds: the million, which was 111.8 percent of the appraisal estimates. In Rupee terms,
project results the project spent INR 757.59 million, which was 121.3 percent of the appraisal
were compared estimates. The fund utilization is not the ultimate scale to measure the
with the achievement of the targets.”(please refer to “Annexure 4” at page No. 47 of
utilization of ICCR).
funds.
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ANNEX 6. IMPACT CHAIN FOR CLIMATE RESILIENT LIVELIHOODS (as in PAD)
Figure A6.1: Impact chain as per PAD
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ANNEX 7. SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS (IF ANY)
• Aide Memoire, October 2016.
• Aide memoire, April 2018
• Aide Memoire of the 7th ISM, February 2019.
• Aide Memoire of the Final ISM, December 2019.
• Approach Paper to India’s Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012–17).
• Bihar Progress Report, 2019.
• Bihar Results Framework, February 2020.
• Climate Change Impacts in Drought and Flood Affected Areas: Case Studies in India. 2008. The World Bank.
Report #43946-IN.
• Country Partnership Framework for India for the Period FY18–FY22. Report No. 126667-IN.
• ICRR Report No: ICR00003420.
• ICRR Report No: ICR00004143.
• ICRR Report No: ICR00004164.
• ICRR Report No: ICR00004828.
• Independent Evaluation of Sustainable Livelihoods and Adaptation to Climate Change, Institute of Rural
Management Anand, December 2019.
• Inter-Ministerial Steering Committee meeting, 2015.
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2012.
• Jacoby H, M. Rabassa, and E. Skoufias. Distributional Implications of Climate Change in India. 2011. World
Bank Policy Research Working Paper 5623.
• Krishnaswamy K, SC Rajshekar. Weather-Based Agro-Advisory Services In The NRLM. A Case Study. 2019.
• Madhya Pradesh Consolidated Report (page 47) 2019.
• Madhya Pradesh Results Framework November 2019, Bihar Results Framework February 2020.
• Making Adaptation Count – Concepts and Options for Monitoring and Evaluation of Climate Change
Adaptation. GIZ, World Resources Institute. 2011.
• Minutes of SLACC Review meeting held on 22 December 2017 issued by MoRD
• MoRD Letter to SRLMs Jan 2018.
• MoRD restructuring request letter to DEA.
• Project Appraisal Document. Annex 4.
• Performance Evaluation Report, Assessment and Evaluation of the Sustainable Livelihoods and Adaptation to
Climate Change Pilot, Taru Leading Edge, August 2018.
• Press Note on Poverty Estimates, 2011-12. Planning Commission, Government of India. July 2013.
• Program Evaluation Report. Institute of Rural Management, Anand.
• Report No. RES32185: Disclosable Restructuring Paper for SLACC Project.
• Rural Development Statistics 2011-12. National Institute of Rural Development, Government of India.
• SLACC mid-term performance evaluation report. Taru Leading Edge. 2018.
• Sunderesan CS, KV Raju. Project Completion Report. National Rural Livelihoods Mission, Ministry of Rural
Development, Government of India, 2020.
• Wholesale Price Index, Office of the Economic Adviser, GoI, from 2014 to 2019.
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Dissemination of the SLACC project in print and visual media
News articles
• Cropin. Smart Agriculture to Enhance Rural Livelihoods and Adapt Climate Resilience Practices. Sitaram Rao
Livelihoods India Case Study: Compendium 2019. New Delhi: Access Development Services; 2019
(https://www.livelihoods-india.org/uploads-livelihoodsasia/subsection_data/sustainable-livelihoods-
climate-smart-agriculture-to-enhance-rural-livelihoods-and-adapt-climate-resilience-practices-by-
cropin.pdf, accessed 11 June 2020).
• How the smartphone is changing faring in Bihar. Pankaj Sharma. February 12, 2020. Time of India website
(https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-times/how-smartphone-is-changing-farming-in-
bihar/articleshow/68951960.cms, accessed 11 June 2020).
• NIRDPR spearheads 25 'Climate Smart agricultural' techniques in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. India Today
website. November 25, 2019 (https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/news/story/nirdpr-spearheads-
25-climate-smart-agricultural-techniques-divd-1622399-2019-11-25, accessed 11 June 2020).
• NIRDPR launches initiative to improve adaptive capacity of rural poor engaged in farm-based livelihoods.
Business Standard, June 12, 2019 (https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/nirdpr-launches-
initiative-to-help-rural-poor-farm-holds-cope-with-climate-change-119061200077_1.html, accessed 11 June
2020).
• Climate warriors’ being trained to help rural farmers adapt. The Hindu business line June 13,
2019 (https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/agri-business/climate-warriors-being-trained-to-
help-rural-farmers-adapt/article27890451.ece, accessed 11 June 2020).
• Creating new soldiers for climate change, NIRDPR launches initiative to mitigate climate change impact.
News Bharati, June 14, 2019 (https://www.newsbharati.com/Encyc/2019/6/14/NIRDPR-launches-initiative-
to-mitigate-climate-change-impact.html, accessed 11 June 2020).
• Climate change: Initiative for sustainable livelihoods launched. Manorama, June 12, 2019
(https://english.manoramaonline.com/lifestyle/news/2019/06/12/climate-change-initiative-sustainable-
livelihoods.html, accessed 11 June 2020).
• Sustainable Livelihoods and Adaptation to Climate Change (SLACC) 6 March 2020
(https://www.jatinverma.org/sustainable-livelihoods-and-adaptation-to-climate-change-slacc, accessed 11
June 2020).
• Jeevika’s Newsletter. Issue 20, February 2019. Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society. Rural
Development Department, Bihar
(http://brlp.in/UplodFiles/Files/JEEVIKA_NEWSLETTER_FEBRUARY_2019.pdf, accessed 11 June 2020).
• World Bank, CropIn Partnership: 20,000 Farmers in MP and Bihar Adopt Climate-Smart Agricultural
Practices. Baishali Mukherjee. Scrabbl.com News website (https://www.scrabbl.com/world-bank-cropin-
partnership-20-000-farmers-in-mp-and-bihar-adopt-climate-smart-agriculture-practices, accessed June 11,
2020).
• Agritech to Drive Resilient Agriculture and Empower Smallholder Farmers. Cropin website
(https://www.cropin.com/blogs/agritech-to-drive-resilient-agriculture-and-empower-smallholder-farmers/,
accessed June 11, 2020).
• Training program. National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj. June 15, 2019
(https://vajiramias.com/current-affairs/sustainable-livelihoods-and-adaptation-to-climate-change-
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slacc/5d0483e91d5def0e1250d507/, accessed 11 June 2020).
• Adapting farm-based livelihoods to climate change – The Hindu. June 12, 2019
(https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/adapting-farm-based-livelihoods-to-climate-
change/article27820583.ece, accessed 11 June 2020).
• Impact Farmer Profitability With Adaptation To Climate Change Through CropIn’s AgTech Platform. Pratima
Devi. Cropin Technology (https://www.cropin.com/casestudy/jeevika/, accessed 11 June 2020).
• CropIn Technology to expand digitisation drive. Virendra Pandit.The Hindu. Business Line website. October
29, 2018 (https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/agri-business/cropin-technology-to-expand-
digitisation-drive/article25363277.ece, accessed 11 June 2020).
• This institute launched a course to help rural farm holds adapt to climate change. India Today website. July
8, 2019 (https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/news/story/this-institute-launched-a-course-to-help-
rural-farm-holds-adapt-to-climate-change-1564458-2019-07-08, accessed 11 June 2020).
• Sitaram Rao Livelihoods India Case Study: Compendium 2018. Technology Solutions for Agricultural
Advancement. New Delhi: Access Development Services; 2018 (https://www.livelihoods-india.org/uploads-
livelihoodsasia/subsection_data/sitaram-case-study-compendium-2018.pdf, accessed 11 June 2020).
• India signs $8 million loan agreement with World Bank for SLACC Project. Economic Times, February 13,
2015 (https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/finance/india-signs-8-million-loan-
agreement-with-world-bank/articleshow/46237523.cms?from=mdr, accessed 11 June 2020).
• India: Sustainable Livelihoods and Adaptation to Climate Change. Global Environment Facility website
(https://www.thegef.org/project/india-sustainable-livelihoods-and-adaptation-climate-change-slacc,
accessed 11 June 2020).
Blog
• Bringing technology to the doorsteps of India’s smallholder farmers for climate resilience. Priti Kumar. 9 July
2017. World Bank website (https://web.worldbank.org/archive/website01603/WEB/BRINGING.HTM,
accessed 11 june 2020).
Videos
• Project JEEViKA - A SLACC Initiative. Cropin Technologies. October 6, 2019
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLVU0TdXGEA, accessed 11 June 2020).
• Sustainable Livelihoods and Adaptation to Climate Change. BRLPS – JEEVIKA Official. 2019 (https://tr-
cam.com/video/5qaDDSV5V-Q/sustainable-livelihoods-and-adaptation-to-climate-change.html, accessed 11
June 2020).
• SLACC Project Gurua (Gaya, Bihar). SLACC VRP interview on Smartfarm Application work (Jeevika).
December 12, 2018. Prabhat Maurya (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gmsk7riHaP4, accessed 11 June
2020).
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ANNEX 8. GEF RESULTS INDICATORS
GEF Indicators91
The indicators in this section are abridged from the Program Evaluation Report. They are based on data
collected of project farmers in a representative survey from the original and scale-up villages which were added
after restructuring.
GEF Indicator 1.3.1.1
Indicator Unit of Achievement at Completion
Measurement Madhya Pradesh Bihar Overall
Percentage of targeted households Percentage Original villages: Original 54.6%
that have adopted resilient 73.7% villages: 70.4%
livelihoods under existing and Scale-up villages: Scale-up
projected climate change 42% villages: 84.4%
Comments:
i) Project participants were on the path to achieving resilience to climate variability and change.
ii) Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM)-based simulations suggest that a bare minimum adaptation intervention for
providing resilience to the livelihoods of the poor community in drought-prone areas should include (a) soil
health improvement measures, (b) water conservation measures, (c) climate-resilient varietal replacement,
and (d) crop and livelihood diversification.
iii) Similarly for drought-prone areas, it should include: (a) soil health improvement measures, (b) tree cover
enhancing measures, (c) climate-resilient varietal replacement, and (d) crop and livelihood diversification.
iv) All adaptation measures currently implemented under SLACC need to be adopted for resilience in the
context of projected climate change.
v) Enabling conditions, such as climate information and advisory services, financial services, and the capacity
building of the community and institutional effectiveness, are vital for facilitating the adoption of resilience
measures in the context of projected climate change.
Source: Based on the program-end household survey.
GEF Indicator 2.3.1
Indicator Unit of Achievement at Completion
Measurement
Madhya Bihar Overall
Pradesh
Percentage of targeted population Percentage Original Original 50.7%
awareness of predicted adverse villages: villages:
impacts of climate change and 62.3% 74.2%
appropriate responses Scale-up Scale-up
91 Program Evaluation Report by Institute of Rural Management (IRMA).
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villages: villages:
18.3% 70%
Comments:
i) The project participants in Bihar were more aware of climate stressors and their impacts compared to
project participants in Madhya Pradesh.
ii) The main climate stressors were variability of temperature and precipitation, as well as extreme climatic
and weather events, such as droughts, floods and heatwaves. The main direct impacts on livelihoods
included impacts on water availability, soil moisture, land degradation, crop loss, agriculture and livestock
productivity, and health and quality of life.
iii) Project participants in Bihar were more aware of the adaptation measures being implemented compared to
project participants in Madhya Pradesh.
Source: Based on the program-end household survey.
GEF Indicator 2.2.2
Perception Index Achievement at Completion (Percentage of project participants)
Madhya Pradesh Bihar Overall
1 100 100 100
2 90.8 96.3 93.5
3 94.1 82.7 88.3
4 67.4 77.7 72.4
5 39.2 44.9 41.9
Comments:
Capacity Perception Index measures the farmers’ ability to become resilient to climate change risks. It is
calculated based on the following perception indicators:
o Awareness of climatic risks, and their impacts on livelihoods.
o Awareness of the interventions which may help them adapt to the climatic risks
o Participated in CCAP and post-season review.
o Adopted or willing to adopt at least two interventions in the future.
o Undertook training or exposure visits on adaptation practices.
Each perception indicator above was given equal weight for computing.
The perception index is a simple average of the above five perception indicators.
Source: Based on the program-end household survey.
GEF Indicator 1.2.1.3
Indicator Unit of Measurement Achievement at Completion
Climate-resilient Yes/No Yes. Practices such as climate-resilient varietal
agricultural practices replacement, crop and livelihood diversification, inter-
introduced to promote cropping, are likely to address food security needs.
food security needs
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Source: Based on household survey data and Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping-based modeling (FCM).
GEF Indicator 2.3.1.1
Indicator Unit of Measurement Achievement at Completion
Madhya Bihar Overall
Pradesh
Risk reduction and awareness % of awareness among sample 74.1 92.3 83.2
activities introduced at the local farmers
level.
Source: Based on household surveys.
GEF Indicator 2.2.1
Indicator Unit of Achievement at Completion
Measurement Madhya Pradesh Bihar Overall
Original Scale-up Original Scale-up
villages villages villages villages
Number and type of SHGs trained 1,005 2,840 1,472 3,389 8,706
targeted
institutions with
increased adaptive
VOs trained 100 310 100 283 793
capacity to reduce
risks of and
response to climate
variability
Source: Based on data provided by SRLMs
GEF Indicator 2.3.1.2
Indicator Unit of Measurement Achievement at Completion
Madhya Bihar Overall
Pradesh
Number and type of community Number of SHGs 850 360 1210
groups trained in climate change risk
reduction
Source: Based on data provided by SRLMs
GEF Indicator 2.2.1.1
Indicator Type of Achievement at Completion
staff Madhya Pradesh Bihar Overall
Original villages Scale- Original Scale-
up villages up
villages villages
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Number of staff State and 112 17 35 325 489
trained on technical district
adaptation themes offices
Comments:
i) NIRD&PR trained 200 district and sub-district staff of SLACC on climate adaptation.
ii) NIRD&PR trained 400 CRPs and state functionaries on a certified course on climate change adaption, of
which 398 CRPs were certified by the National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management.
iii) Network partners also trained the staff on various technical adaptation themes.
Source: Based on data provided by SRLMs and NIRD&PR.
GEF Indicator 1.1.1
Indicator Unit of Measurement Actual Achievement at Completion
Adaptation actions implemented in Adaptation Guidelines Advisory guidelines for CCAP developed by
national/sub-regional development document MoRD and disseminated to all the SRLMs
frameworks.
Ministry of Rural Development issued guidelines to all SRLMs which specifies modalities for accessing climate
adaptation funds by various VOs through SRLMs for its effective utilization. Climate adaptation funds are aimed
at meeting end-to-end requirements of vulnerable communities and for their sustainability and economic
viability.
Source: Guidelines shared by the NMMU.
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ANNEX 9. MAPS
Bihar
Madhya Pradesh
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