GRASSROOTS-LEVEL INSTITUTION STRENGTHENING AND TRANSFORMATION FOR CLIMATE ACTION (GIST)
Empowering Communities Through Sustainable Development
The challenges posed by climate change reflected through extreme weather conditions devastate the livelihoods in the rural areas. The disappearance of common areas, which acted as a mainstay for the rural livelihoods, fast depleting groundwater, deforestation, and toxification of the air/water/soil due to chemical fertilisers – are destroying livelihoods and causing impoverishment.
The main actors for rescue from this problem are the grassroots level institutions: Gram Panchayats (the Constitutional Bodies), the Self-Help Groups (the people’s bodies), and the institutions for delivery of nutrition, education and health.
Achieving convergence between these institutions and spurring them for joint action is the only way to rescue the situation from an imminent disaster.