International Fund For Agriculture Development (IFAD)

Integrated Livelihood Support Project (ILSP), is a joint initiative of Government of Uttarakhand and International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) and being implemented in Uttarakhand in 44 blocks of 11 hill districts under the Rural Development department.

The overall goal of ILSP is to reduce poverty which would be achieved via the more immediate development objective to “enable rural households to take up sustainable livelihood opportunities integrated with the wider economy”.

Food security and livelihood enhancement to be implemented by UGVS, will support crop and livestock production for food security, and develop high value cash crops and other products (such as rural tourism, etc.) to provide cash incomes. Crop and livestock production will be developed via support to Producer Groups (PG) and their higher level organizations (Livelihood Collectives- LC) formed by federating number of PGs (about 60 to 80).

To up-scale enterprises generating cash incomes, and to introduce new income sources, ILSP will also improve access to markets through value chain approach, provision of technical services and physical infrastructures for market access. The value chain approach involves market/sub-sector studies, introduction of new technologies, market linkage, skill development, product development & promotion and physical infrastructure for market access.

These activities will cover approximately 99,000 households in selected 37 blocks of the nine districts:

Almora (10), Bageshwar (3), Chamoli (6), Tehri (5), Uttarkashi (5), Rudraprayag (2), Pithoragarh (3), Pauri (1) and Dehradun (2).

Participatory Watershed Development implemented by the Watershed Management Directorate (WMD), will use processes that have been established through a series of watershed development projects in the state, but with an increased focus on food security, livelihoods and market linkages.

It will protect and improve the productive potential of the natural resources in selected watersheds, alongside the promotion of sustainable agriculture with formation of PGs and LCs, and with improved access to markets.

Livelihood financing implemented by UPASaC. The activities under this component include:

• Banking support – capacity building,
• Risk management – piloting and scaling up of insurance services,
• Financial inclusion initiatives – training to LC to be bank agents, product literacy training,
• Provision of development finance.

Project coordination and management, Each executing agency including UGVS, will have their own project management units headed by a Project Director or Chief Executive.

To provide overall coordination, the state nodal agency, RDD, will set up a Central Project Coordination Unit (CPCU) within RDD, headed by Chief Project Director (CPD)/ Project Coordinator (PC).