Vijay Chaturvedi from Development Alternatives discusses TARAgram YATRA: Towards Green Economies Scalable solutions for people and our planet

1. GEC National Dialogues
- a Global Multi-Stakeholder Consultation Process
on the Green Economy
TARAgram YATRA
Towards Green Economies
Scalable solutions for people and our planet
Development Alternatives
India
Global Transition Dialogue
New York
17th -18th March 2012

2. Development Alternatives….
• A new kind of not - for - profit corporation that
combines social objectives with business like
methods and revenue streams
• Designs and fosters new relationship
between technology - nature and people to
attain the goal of Sustainable Development.
• Established in 1983

3. Development Alternatives Group - Mission
social
equity
SL
environmental economic
quality efficiency
The Development Alternatives Group believes that the key to achieve sustainable development is the creation
of sustainable livelihoods in large numbers

4. Thematic Focus
facilitate multi-stakeholder action for
Empowering Communities through
q Institution Development (with a focus on women and marginalised groups)
q Basic Needs fulfilment activities (more specifically habitat, water, energy,
information, literacy, where the organisation already has proven strengths)
effectively promote and support the
large scale Creation of Green Jobs through
q Employment Skills (Green Jobs)
q Enterprise Creation (Social Enterprises)
design and demonstrate
Low Carbon pathways for Development through
q Natural Resource Management Models
q Clean Technology Solutions (waste to wealth especially for micro, small and
medium enterprises)

5. The Sustainability Imperative
… more urgent than ever before

6. People and Nature
are silent victims
of the way our economies have grown

7. Inclusive Growth
the people driven approach….
… is measured in livelihood security
Jobs and Basic Needs

8. Green Economies
imply
Green and Inclusive Growth
through
Social (Green) Enterprises
and Green Jobs

9. Green Economies
Streams of Activities (DA)

10.  Watershed planning and management
 Wasteland rejuvenation
 Enhanced productivity from farmlands
Rejuvenating
the Natural
Resource
Base

11.  Farm based enterprises
 Off farm enterprises and services
 Hierarchy of support systems
Promoting
Livelihood
Enterprises

12.  Drinking water and sanitation  Health
 Rural energy  Education
 Rural roads  ICT
Upgrading
Village
Infrastructure

13.  Formal and informal community institutional systems
 Linkages with district, state and national institutional mechanisms
 Seamless synergies to accelerate rural development
Building /
Strengthening
Institutional
Systems

14. Social (Green) Enterprises
– drivers of change
 Innovation – technology and processes
 Implementation – on scale
 Influence – policy makers
With required Capacity Building – of stake holders

15. Compressed Earth Blocks

16. Micro Concrete Roofing

17. Ferrocement Roofing Channels

18. Vertical Shaft Brick Kiln

19. Renewable Energy Enterprises

20. Handloom Textiles Technology

21. Recycled Handmade Paper

22. Achievements and Impact
Economic: over one million livelihoods
Technology enterprises have marketed 100 million tiles;
100 million bricks; 50,000 houses and continue to grow.
Environment:
Over 48,000 environment conservation initiatives with a
network of 1.25 million schools children.
Social:
60,000 rural women made literate
Empowered over 1.3 million poor to claim their rights and
entitlements through a network of 25,000 community
based organizations.

23. Practice
to
Policy
Connect
GEC - India Dialogue
TARAgram YATRA – 2010, India

24. GEC - India Dialogue
TARAgram YATRA – 2010, India
Focus 2010
Towards Green Economies
– scalable solutions for people and our planet

25. India Dialogue
TARAgram YATRA – 2010, India
.
The TARAgram Yatra dialogue a milestone in a series of global multi-
stakeholder consultation processes leading up to Rio+20.
The Yatra :
•aimed to build consensus amongst key stakeholders on prioritised and
sequenced issues in the transition to sustainability.
•to communicate strategies and solutions that address sustainability
challenges to policy audiences on national and global platform.
Yatra means a journey or pilgrimage that one takes with friends and colleagues to attain higher
goals

26. Structure
TARAgram YATRA 2010 took place at the Nehru Memorial Museum
and Library, New Delhi and at the DA Group Resource Centre at
TARAgram, Bundelkhand in Central India over five days, consisting
of:
•Inaugural session in New Delhi - half day
•Working sessions at TARAgram and field visits - three days
•Plenary and Valedictory sessions in New Delhi - one day
The sessions at TARAgram concentrated on “Field visits, discussion
and design” of path breaking approaches; those at New Delhi
focused more on wider “consultation and communication” with a
national and global audience.

27. TARAgram YATRA
Declaration
Declaration was aimed to draw attention of policy makers and key
stakeholders to consider that:
•Growing awareness of climate change has brought the concepts
of “low carbon” and “climate resilient” growth into focus
•There is an unique opportunity to re-orient the economic compass
to initiate change at scale
•Concerns over sustainability remain a long way over from being
integrated fully into policy making that is closely linked with ethics

28. TARAgram YATRA
Declaration
Declaration further:
•Enumerated factors that can contribute
to green growth
•Called for action by policy makers
•Pledged our commitment to share and
induce transformative processes aimed
at green growth

29. TARAgram YATRA
Outcome and lessons learnt
Rationale for shifting towards green economy:
• The recent global economic crisis: an eye-opener
• Persistent poverty and ecological degradation
• Increasing risk to livelihood associated with climate variability (e.g. crop
failure)
Factors locking the country/region into its current paradigm:
• Policy - practice disconnect
• Behavioral aspects; lack of awareness and education
• High dependence on natural resources - particularly in rural India
context

30. TARAgram YATRA
Outcome and lessons learnt
Foundation for shifting to a green economy:
•Multi-stake holder consultative/interactive approach in policy formulation
•Building business models in “Scoial Enterprise” that can operate and invest at a
large scale with appropriate pro-poor technology, natural resources conservation,
renewable energy and clean transport
•Ensuring waste reduction, through – resource efficiency with community
participation in resource (e.g. water) management and administration, strengthening
regulations, treating ‘waste’ as useful raw-materials (e.g. fly ash-brick)
•Human capital: preparing a trained labour force that can take up jobs in the green
economy, creation of green jobs – sustainable livelihoods
•Sensitizing the youth, changing their lifestyle/employment aspirations and making
them more environment sensitive
•Enabling environment for green investments and market access

31. TARAgram YATRA
Outcome and lessons learnt
Opportunities/way forward to act:
•Greening of the existing ‘brown’ economy/jobs/value chains
•Building up base for “low carbon” and “carbon resilient”
communities and their capacity building
•Tapping green social investment in the areas of ecosystem
services, sustainable agriculture, small and medium enterprises
(SMEs), green construction, and urban infrastructure, etc.
•Introduction of financial products for incubation of green
enterprise and business models
•Sharing of learning's and good practices for replication at scale
into various economies
•Capacity building of stakeholders

32. TARAgram YATRA continues . . .
Towards Green Economies
for scalable solutions for people and our planet

33. Thank you