Dhankuta, a hill district in Province 1, is currently putting into practice the concept of Climate Smart Village, which adopts an integrated approach to climate change, focusing on sustainable development. Just as the concept of green recovery is gaining traction after COVID-19, this model is raising hopes among local governments willing to adopt a more resilient model of generating local livelihoods for the COVID-impacted vulnerable populations. Climate smart agricultural approaches provide access to different technologies and practices that are simple and affordable for farmers to adopt. The programme supports agricultural practices that help farmers adapt to climate change and also increase employment opportunities for local people. The Government of Nepal has committed to create 170 climate villages by 2030, as part of its commitment under the Sustainable Development Goals.

UNDP sat down with the mayor of Dhankuta municipality, Mr. Chintan Tamang and Deputy Mayor Ms. Sakuntala Basnet to discuss how the concept of climate smart village is being materialized, what new hopes it has generated and the way forward. 

You have been building a climate smart village in Dhankuta. What does it actually mean and why did Dhankuta municipality initiate this?

Deputy Mayor Sakuntala Basnet:

In Dhankuta municipality, 65-70% of the residents are farmers. Many of them are involved in fruits and vegetable farming, dairy and livestock farming which have been helping them to fulfill their basic needs. To enhance their lifestyle, we came up with the concept of a climate smart village for which we have partnered with UNDP since 2019. A climate smart village is the one that promotes innovative farming tools and techniques that help farmers increase productivity under different climate conditions.

As the farmers have enough fertile land, the municipality supported them with plastic tunnels, improved animal sheds, biogas plants, plastic ponds, improved cooking stove, and beehives which helped them increase their productivity. These techniques and tools help farmers grow vegetables and fruits in all four seasons, irrespective of rain patterns. Those who used to sell five liters of milk per day are now selling 20 liters per day. So far, 2100 farmers have benefited from this initiative. 1100 of them are women, and over 50% are from the economically marginalized social groups. The municipality is also supporting the process to lease land for those who do not have land for farming. Now that many more farmers have shown their interests in this new technology, our challenge is to scale up and incorporate more farmers.

Since the initiative seems to be progressing well, what are your plans to sustain and expand this programme?

Mayor Chintan Tamang:

We have dreamt of Dhankuta municipality as one of the improved municipalities with best quality of life and therefore we came up with the concept of "climate smart village". Moving ahead, we proposed UNDP for a partnership and started implementing the project under a co-funding modality. Our dream is to change the lives of the people. For example, a farmer who has an improved cookstove, an improved cattle shed, a toilet, and 5-6 high-value fruit trees will not just increase his/her income but also help maintain greenery at the same time. We are pleased to see higher acceptability and spontaneous participation of the people in this initiative.

We also linked the programme with technology. We provided wifi facility at the village level and the farmers can check the daily market price using “Dhankuta Smart Krishi App”. We also established local collection centers, which have helped in the storage and transportation of fruits and vegetables to the markets. 

And this year again, UNDP partnered with us in the implementation, and we have topped up the fund to make it a NRs 20 million project. Ward number 10, 1, 3, 2 were provided support in the first phase. This year ward 6, 9, 8 will get our support. The main objective of this project is to support those proactive farmers who wish to upgrade their status. We are pleased to receive positive feedback from the farmers about this initiative. To make it financially sustainable, we have also earmarked some funds for this initiative in the new fiscal year budget. There are 10,000 households out of which half of them live in rural settlements and we are aiming to reach them in the coming years. And we want to expand this project in all our wards. This programme is accepted at the local level and by the farmers with much optimism - just the way they accepted the social security allowance to senior citizens. Promoting livelihoods and people's prosperity is our motto. Whoever will replace me after the next elections definitely has to continue this programme. 

Do you see the desired changes happening? How satisfied are you at the pace of implementation?

Mayor Chintan Tamang:

We are very much satisfied with the implementation as we could see the people who never produced tomatoes are now producing it professionally and making some money. There are several people engaged in vegetable production. We also saw that thousands of seed saplings are being grown at the hi-tech nursery. We have already constructed 2-3 vegetable collection centers and we could see the people sending their produce to the collection centers and to the market. We are pleased to get feedback from farmers and can see their improved status.

What is your message to other municipalities that want to replicate this concept?

Mayor Chintan Tamang:

The leadership and municipal staff both should have the capacity to motivate the people, make them understand the importance of the concept. We should be able to clearly show the exact path where you want others to walk. There should be strong ownership of the programme among the people/farmers and its implementers. After our successful implementation, some municipalities like Ilam and Mahalaxmi and the provincial governments have approached us. To help others replicate the concept, we have been trying to communicate about our own first-hand experience of implementing the concept of climate smart village. Our model has four basic elements, and they include:

i) Mechanization of traditional farming through the use of modern agriculture equipment, which reduces higher labour-intensive workdays of farmers;

ii) Orientation, and discussion among school children in their formal classes so that they could change their behaviour while they are still young; 

ii) Promotion of biogas will reduce the use of firewood, which will have higher impact in reducing the soil erosion and smokey houses. This will help promote a pollution-free/clean environment; and

iv) Institutional mechanism, which we have put in place and successfully operationalized, will be a good instrument to sustain the programme in the long run.

Finally, I thank UNDP and its provincial office of Janakpur for all their support.