Accelerating a Land Restoration-Based Economy in India for People, Nature and Climate
Harit Bharat Fund – Hindi for "Green India Fund – is a collaborative initiative that supports local organizations with capital and capacity-building assistance to scale landscape restoration initiatives in India for people, nature and climate. These 'Restoration Champions' can include registered startups, farmer producer companies (FPCs) and NGOs, whose innovative restoration solutions can help India mitigate its climate risks, improve livelihoods and boost food and nutrition security for its people, while strengthening ecosystem services such as biodiversity, soil health and water rejuvenation.
Spearheading a transformative land restoration movement, Harit Bharat Fund has been initiated in three Indian states – Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra – to demonstrate the economic viability and sustainability of restoration interventions such as agroforestry that draw from both local traditional knowledge and scientific expertise. Situated in Central India, these three geographies are characterized by a rich natural resource base but poor performance on several development indicators, highlighting deep socio-economic vulnerability among their inhabitants.
Landscape restoration offers an opportunity that can tackle the triple challenges of improving livelihoods and nutrition, assisting in the recovery of nature, and mitigating and adapting to climate change. The Harit Bharat Fund provides strategic capital to NGOs and for-profit enterprises seeking to build their work in this sector.
It is the first fund of its kind to focus exclusively on local Restoration Champions, including registered start-ups, farmer producer companies (FPCs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). With a people-centric, equitable and inclusive approach, Harit Bharat Fund envisions a future where healthy landscapes thrive across India. It purposefully targets champions led by women, first-generation entrepreneurs and people from other marginalized sections.
The Fund builds on TerraFund for AFR100, a WRI Africa-led program that has invested $15 million USD in Restoration Champions that operate across 27 African countries.
A Focus on Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra
In September 2024, the Fund is launching its first phase in the Central Indian states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. The states have a rich natural resource base but perform poorly on several development indicators. They are home to India’s most vulnerable and impoverished population groups, including women, landless people, and vulnerable sections like Adivasis and Dalits. And over 30% of the population of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, in addition to 15% in Maharashtra, are classified as “multidimensionally poor.”
These three states also feature an important potential for landscape restoration and forest protection. More than 30 million hectares could be restored across these three Indian states. Active government schemes are already providing public finance for restoration champions, and the Fund aims to converge that finance with private capital.
The Funding Opportunity
By submitting applications on the TerraMatch system from September 4 to September 27, eligible organizations can request funding between INR 20 lakhs and INR 2.5 crore, equivalent to between $25,000 USD and $300,000 USD. For-profit organizations will receive loans, and non-governmental organizations will receive grants.
- Instructions on how to submit an application on TerraMatch can be found here.
- Non-governmental organizations can explore the information that we require here.
- For-profit enterprises can discover the information that we expect here.
- High-quality applicants that pass the first round of screening will be invited to submit a full application for funding, which is expected to be disbursed in the first quarter of 2024.
- At least 20 organizations will receive funding through this initial call.
- The Fund will track the progress of each project for six years through the standard TerraMatch monitoring, reporting, and verification framework.
Funded projects also benefit from customized, one-on-one mentorship and capacity building opportunities, especially in monitoring, reporting, and verification techniques and financial management.
Champions will have access to a diverse network of restoration actors in Central India, including peer organizations, philanthropies, technical experts, government leaders, and investors.
Landscape Restoration in India: A Primer
More than 700 million people in India depend on forests and agriculture for their sustenance. 85% of these are small and marginal landholders, making it critical to protect and restore these forests and farmlands. Fortunately, over 100 million hectares of land in India offer potential for forest protection and landscape restoration, as identified in WRI India’s Restoration Opportunities Atlas. More than half of this potential – which could sequester 3 to 4.3 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2eq) by 2040 – is for restoration techniques like agroforestry that can boost crop yields by adding trees to productive farmland.
Landscape restoration is a win-win strategy for mitigating climate risks, increasing people’s resilience by creating better livelihoods and more jobs, improving their food and nutritional security and ensuring healthier ecosystems.
This can also contribute to achieving India’s international climate commitments. Harit Bharat Fund’s goal is to put India on a path to exceed its national climate commitment (NDC) by sequestering an additional 825 MtCO2eq by 2030 through landscape restoration.
Even though several policies and programs in India that support landscape restoration already exist, expanding them will require concerted investments from both public and private actors.
With people’s priorities at the center and a clear focus on equitable, inclusive development, Harit Bharat Fund envisions a resilient restoration-based economy for local communities, where they embrace viable business models that protect and restore their forests, farms, and common lands. Through a blend of financial support, capacity-building, and policy improvements, this initiative aims to inspire broader support from national, state, and district governments in Central India that can be replicated in other regions.
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