1. Needs Assessment Study for UN Women’s flagship programme on “Women’s Entrepreneurship for Sustainable Energy” with UNEP and MNRE (2017)

IIEC has worked with UN Women Office for India, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka in collaboration with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and UNEP in developing and implementing a National Programme on “Women’s Entrepreneurship for Sustainable Energy” in MNRE’s priority states of Madhya Pradesh, Nagaland, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan that hold high potential for promoting energy access through renewable energy technologies in rural areas. The primary objective of the project was to conduct a gender needs assessment study to understand the needs of rural/semi-rural women for entrepreneurship and leadership opportunities in the renewable energy sector in these selected states. The study had adopted a cluster approach, including supply side provisioning of renewable energy.

2. Climate Proofing of Watersheds and Spring Sheds to Improve Community Resilience in West Bengal, Oxford Policy Management (2017 – 2018)

IIEC was engaged by OPM for designing a program for West Bengal Government to ensure that adaptation is supporting the effective implementation of development programs. The overall goal of this program was “to improve climate resilience and build adaptive capacities of the communities to climate change in spring shed and water shed areas of West Bengal”. The program helped in improving the climate resilience through promotion of climate resilient infrastructure and climate resilient agriculture in spring shed and watershed areas of P&RD Department. Built the capacity of P&RD Department in using the scientific data for effective implementation of ongoing and future spring shed and watershed development programs. Improved the capacity of state through integration of risk mitigation tools for weather advisory and early warning information system. The program has created knowledge management system on climate change adaptation in spring shed and watershed areas of the state. IIEC was engaged to write the proposal for the current programme for funding under National Adaptation Fund (NAF) for Government of West Bengal.

3. Supporting Farmer Producer Companies for Value Chain Development in Maharashtra, Oxford Policy Management (2017 – 2018)

IIEC was engaged by OPM for designing a program for supporting the Government of Maharashtra (GoM) in conceiving agricultural vulnerability reduction strategies by prioritizing climate resilient crops that are techno-economically viable and agronomically sustainable for crop diversification. Further to this, the crops that ranked highest on a multiple criteria of climate resilience and economic benefits were taken up for value chain analysis to expand the market potential and removal of barriers to benefit small farmers. IIEC assisted in applying the framework and analyzed the gaps for 20 FPCs from 4 districts of Maharashtra.

4. Scoping Clean Air in India, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) (2017 – Ongoing)

IIEC was assigned the project of the scoping study for the design of the environmental quality enhancement and climate change mitigation project in India initiated by Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) to assist SDC to develop a project with a long term intervention strategy on corrective and preventive actions for improving the air quality and combating impacts of climate change in an affected region in India. The project undertook the review of trends in the source apportioned air pollution levels in the various regions in India. Through this established a clear link between climate change and air pollution. Characterized and identified potential sector specific interventions for emissions reductions in the affected areas of India. Mapped the Government of India’s policies and sector specific programmes/schemes for air pollution abatement in India, approaches/technologies in use and the results achieved. Reviewed the interventions being supported by national and international agencies/foundations to address air pollution in India. Identified the gaps and possible policy, technological, capacity building and business model based integrated climate change and air pollution strategy/interventions areas for SDC to support with potential for high impact and visibility. The project tapped on international experience in air pollution management, particularly of Switzerland to design SDC’s interventions and complement on-going efforts in India.