The ICRG Programme was a 43-month Technical Assistance (TA) initiative commissioned by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) (formerly DFID) to support the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD), Government of India. The programme was embedded within the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), India’s flagship rural livelihoods scheme.
Implemented across 103 blocks selected from over 2,500 special-focus blocks, the programme targeted the most climate-vulnerable geographies in the states of Bihar, Odisha, and Chhattisgarh. Its core objective was to climate-proof rural infrastructure while building community-level resilience to extreme events such as floods, droughts, and heatwaves.
ICRG promoted climate-smart design principles, enhanced frontline capacities, and supported long-term risk reduction through convergence with other rural development and environmental schemes.
Our Role
As part of the consortium delivering ICRG, we were responsible for implementing the programme across several key geographies. Our contributions included:
- Training 35,000+ community members and over 18,000 government functionaries from MGNREGA and allied line departments on climate-resilient infrastructure design and planning.
- Developing 27 training modules and guidebooks on climate risk assessment, resilient rural asset creation, and community-based planning.
- Integrating climate data and local knowledge into the preparation of durable and adaptive MGNREGA asset designs.
- Facilitating field-level capacity building and technical backstopping through trained Climate Resource Persons and Panchayat-level planning.
Through ICRG, we directly contributed to mainstreaming climate resilience into MGNREGA implementation, ensuring more robust infrastructure and improved livelihoods for climate-sensitive rural populations.
