Guwahati, July 5:The Meghalaya Community-Led Landscape Management Project is a unique project that seeks to leverage the community’s strength to develop a sustainable Natural Resource Management system that will lead to the restoration of the degraded landscape of the state, build climate resilience and generate opportunities for livelihoods.

The project was supported by the Government of Meghalaya and the World Bank. The Meghalaya Basin Development Authority implemented it through its project implementation arm, the Meghalaya Basin Management Agency. The project kicked off in 2018 and ended on June 30, 2024. The total project cost was $60 million of which the Bank gave $ 40 million.

The World Bank in its implementation report said the project is one of the most successful projects in the Environment Natural Resources and Forest sector. “It has successfully achieved key development objectives of strengthening community-led landscape management in Meghalaya and almost disbursed fully satisfactorily. The project is regarded as a lighthouse project that can be emulated as a model of Forests and Natural Resource Development in Northeast India” the Bank says.

It has brought 31,000 hectares of land under enhanced conservation and sustainable management in 400 villages. Through the Government of Meghalaya, the project has successfully gone on to facilitate community-level planning at the village level and the convergence of funding streams at the district level.

The Village Natural Resource Management Committees (VNRMCs) constituted in all 400 project villages have brought almost 100% of the targeted area [consisting of 400 villages] under sustainable landscape management, benefiting more than 221,042 beneficiaries and 150,187 households as per the project development objectives.

“The project has completed 8530 activities related to forest and soil conservation and has created 66 lakh litres of additional water capacity in the state. The project has benefitted youth and women through training on geospatial applications and participating in project monitoring and implantation” the Bank said.

“The overall perception level of the beneficiaries was satisfactory and 96% of the respondents were satisfied with the overall implementation of the project. The community is positive about the changes that have taken place due to project intervention. More than one-third (38 per cent) of the beneficiaries were extremely satisfied with the project intervention and 44 per cent were just satisfied” a beneficiary satisfaction survey said.

The Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) and Management Information Systems (MIS) systems are also in place and have enhanced the State Project Management Unit’s (SPMU) capacity to monitor the progress of project activities closely. “This geospatial data has enhanced the capabilities of the state in terms of its usage for the wider benefit of assessment of heat effects due to climate change and water security in addition to forest management,” the Bank said.

It said the project has emerged as a model of natural resource management (NRM) development in villages with an effective convergence with flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) initiatives, wherein 60% of the allocated budget is mandatory to be spent on NRM activities.

“The project is a pioneering example of what government interventions coupled with local engagement can do within the forestry and eco-system sector. Its inclusive and integrated approach to forest and eco-system management is poised to be replicated across the state and other operations in the region. With a landscape and people-focused approach, climate mitigation and adaptation goals can be achieved. This can eventually drive progress through poverty reduction and ultimately create shared prosperity on a liveable planet” Christopher Crepin and Pyush Dogra of the World Bank said in a blog on Bringing Prosperity by transforming the Forests Landscape of Meghalaya.

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