Promoting Climate Resilient Agriculture in Nepal: Building Climate Change Resilient Communities through Private Sector Participation

Nepal is one of the world’s most climate vulnerable countries due to its harsh geography, largely poor and resource-dependent population, and weak institutional capacity to manage challenges. Its agriculture sector, which employs over two-thirds of the labor force and contributes to roughly one-third of the country’s GDP, is particularly vulnerable, affecting both farmers and agribusinesses. Nepal aims to expand agricultural adaptation measures to manage current climate change and prepare for future impacts, but significant barriers prevent private investment, including a lack of information, knowledge, and inputs (water, seeds, fertilizers, machinery, and finance) and weak commercialization (storage, processing and transportation). To address this and other climate change vulnerabilities, Nepal developed a Strategic Program for Climate Resilience (SPCR) under the Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (PPCR), a dedicated program of the Climate Investment Funds (CIF). Nepal’s strategic program features four key areas of intervention, including a three-pronged program on Building Climate Change Resilient Communities through Private Sector Participation. This case study focuses on one of those three projects: The Promoting Climate Resilient Agriculture Project. Originally conceived with an advisory and investment component, the project is being implemented by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) from September 2013 to June 2019 on the plains of Terai, a region south of the Himalayan foothills. The project focuses on three crops: sugarcane, maize, and rice.