New risks of climate change - building capacity to protect the most vulnerable

the rural poor in developing countries can be made less vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change through judicious natural resource management policies and access to risk transfer mechanisms. However, this requires capacity building of policymakers and practitioners not directly dealing with climate change issues. These include finance or agriculture or water ministry officials, insurance regulators, and microfinance institutions. Hence, the project proposes to develop a web-based learning package to build the capacity of policymakers and practitioners who can play a critical role in reducing risk and vulnerability by developing appropriate policies and risk transfer mechanisms. The learning package will be developed by TERI in consultation with national and international experts. It will share scientific knowledge based on available information on climate change model scenarios for South Asia and vulnerability and impact assessments carried out for countries of this region. The source will be existing literature - most importantly the IPCC Reports, National Communications, and National Adaptation Programmes of Action. It will use case studies/success stories from developing countries to explain the strategies that need to be adopted by both public and private players. Separate modules will be developed for (i) researchers (ii) practitioners (iii) policymakers.