In March of this year, the government of Tamil Nadu and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) signed an MoU for the implementation of the greening project for climate change response in the state. This month will see the start of an eight-year, 920.52 crore initiative to combat climate change.
The Greening Project
According to Supriya Sahu, additional chief secretary for the Department of the Environment, Climate Change, and Forests, the project’s goals are to better the ecosystem, adapt to climate change, and mitigate its effects. These efforts will support sustainable socioeconomic development in Tamil Nadu.
The emphasis will be on ecosystem-based climate change mitigation strategies, human-wildlife conflict mitigation strategies, supply chain development advocacy, livelihood improvement initiatives, and management capacity building.
The department is seeking professionals in the following areas: biodiversity and ecosystem management (international), marine, climate change, tree farming on private property, community development, and GIS/MIS specialists. A request for interest has been made, and the chosen company must offer all seven consulting services.
For all of the professionals combined, the consultant project will last 24 man-months, or 144 man-months. The task will take the team leader with international expertise about 13 man-months to complete.
By 2032, the project is anticipated to produce a number of significant results, including an increase in carbon storage of 4 lakh MT, the restoration of 3.6 ha of coral reefs, the restoration of 600 ha of sea grass and 300 ha of seaweed, an increase in mangrove cover over 1050 ha, an increase in the cover of trees outside of forests (TOF) by 60,000 ha, and the development of 5400 departmental staff’s capacity.
JICA in India
For 60 years, JICA has collaborated with the Indian government and several state governments to fight poverty, promote investment, and build infrastructure. JICA’s support extends beyond projects like the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) to others including the development of India’s NER, the bolstering of networks between academia and industry, and joint Japan-Indian projects in Africa under the “Free and Open Indo Pacific” initiative. All of these programmes support India’s growth while also fostering closer ties between Japan and India.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s detrimental effects on the nation’s economic activities, there is an increasing need for not only bolstering health and medical systems but also for assisting in the revival of the MSME sector and extending social protection to the population that has been severely impacted by the pandemic. Standard JICA support programmes such ODA loans and technical cooperation are already in place to address these needs. On order to increase the depth of the impact of JICA’s efforts in the nation, JICA is also working to improve collaboration with the business sector and NGOs in a variety of domains.
Since 1997, JICA has carried out afforestation initiatives in Tamil Nadu. In Tamil Nadu, JICA completed an impact evaluation on the earlier project in 2021. The new project has taken into account the major conclusions drawn from the investigation. With the agreement of the governments of Japan and India, the new project marks the first time that JICA specifically mentions “climate change” in the project name.
