Islamabad: (Parliament Times) An exposure visit to the Climate Smart Training and Learning site at Soroba Chakri, established under the Himalayan Adaptation Water and Resilience Research (HI-AWARE) project was organized by Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, (PARC). The Himalayan (HI-AWARE) Consortium conducts research and pilot interventions, capacity building and policy engagement to enhance the climate resilience and adaptive capacity of poor and vulnerable communities living in the mountains, hills and flood plains of the Indus, Upper Ganga, Gandaki and Teesta river basins in Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bangladesh.
The visit was arranged by PARC to provide an exposure of the pilot site to members of print and electronic media, parliamentarians, high level policy makers, members of academia and professionals. The pilot site has been established to developing climate change adaptation capacity and sustainable technologies for farming community in response to climate change in midstream area of Indus basin, HI-AWARE.
PARC has developed training and learning pilot site at Chakri union council of district Rawalpindi. The main purpose for establishment of this site is to increase awareness in farming communities, demonstrate and train in climate smart interventions to cope with climate challenge affectively which is severely impacting their livelihoods. This site is acting as demonstration, training and learning site for farmers, practitioners and professionals. The main purpose of the exposure visit of the policy makers, practitioners, donors & development agencies and national media is to provide a holistic image of adaptation practices and technologies in response to climate change and its impact on water & agriculture sector. As well as to enhance the scientific and applied knowledge for appropriate adaptation measures at institutional level which are required to minimize the impact of climate change in order to enhance the adaptive capacities of vulnerable communities. It would be interested to notice that how this site is prompting and persuading farmers and practitioners for adopting these technologies, enhancing farm productivity and livelihood.
This visit mainly targets to engage with policy makers, donors, development agencies, practitioners and professionals working in water and agricultural sectors for onsite learning how vulnerable farmers are adapting to climate change and improving their livelihood so that same model can be replicated and up-scaled in other part of the country. The main objective is to make understand and influence these agencies to develop supportive projects, programs and initiatives for farmer’s adoption and up-scaling of climate smart interventions for rural transformation.
On this occasion, the members of the HI-AWARE team briefed the participants about different interventions installed at the pilot site. D.G NARC Dr. G.M Ali welcomed the distinguished guests, he explained that climate change is a global issue and its effects have no boundaries. As such, we need collective efforts to tackle with its adverse effects. Unfortunately, the least-developed countries, whose contribution to global warming is negligible, are the worst affected by the effects of climate change. He expressed his joy upon explaining this to the participants that PARC has planned to work across the target stakeholders ranging from rural communities to consumers, sister departments of the governments and civil societies. He was glad that PARC is closely working with farmers and establishing the training and learning site throughout the country like this one. This success story is open to all sister departments of the governments, civil societies and development partners to prepare projects for its up scaling and media partners for its dissemination.