Climate Gains
CSTEP proposes a framework for quantifying the climate co-benefits of the world’s largest public works programme, MGNREGS
Besides providing rural employment, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) generates substantial climate co-benefits that are currently not quantified, monitored, and reported systematically, according to a new study. The study puts forth a monitoring and evaluation framework to guide states in quantifying and reporting the resilience, adaptation, and mitigation co-benefits arising from MGNREGS works (which refer to the 260-plus activities carried out under the scheme).
The framework largely emanates from the findings of a field-based rapid assessment conducted by CSTEP to evaluate the climate co-benefits from Usharmukti — a massive river rejuvenation programme launched by the Government of West Bengal that is implemented through MGNREGS. While the jobs and assets created under Usharmukti are recorded and reported through the MGNREGS’s management information system (MIS), the many climate co-benefits also generated by the programme are not. Under the assessment, 541 land- and water-based works under the Usharmukti programme were sampled in four districts of West Bengal (Jhargram, Bankura, Purulia, and Paschim Bardhaman) for their potential to deliver climate resilience, adaptation, and mitigation co-benefits.
The assessment found that the programme delivered substantial climate co-benefits for the Usharmukti beneficiary households in the sampled districts.
These include enabling former rainfed farmers to irrigate their lands, bringing barren and fallow lands under cultivation, and providing additional earnings from livestock and fisheries (worth ₹ 14,321 and ₹ 22,963 per annum per beneficiary, respectively) through the construction of farm ponds and irrigation canals; and a total sequestration of 9,367 tonnes of carbon across all the plantation works under social forestry and horticulture. All the above outcomes have increased crop yields and farm incomes, offering a buffer against climate hazards such as droughts, and have also led to income diversification, which in turn has improved the resilience of farmers with respect to climate hazards.
MGNREGS is a large programme aimed at poverty alleviation. It incorporates land- and water-based asset creation, rejuvenation, and conservation, and thus by virtue of its design, delivers substantial climate co-benefits. It is therefore crucial that these co-benefits be monitored, quantified, and reported, especially in light of India’s Nationally Determined Contributions, the Sustainable Development Goals, and the reporting requirements for Adaptation Communications to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) from 2024.
