The impact of climate change is visible everywhere, but its impact is worse in south-Asian countries. We need to learn climate-adaptive approaches and practices from each other to build our resilience.

Knowledge and best practice sharing between developing countries is critical for South Asian countries, which are vulnerable to climate change. All can learn from the knowledge, practises, and solutions that have been tested and proven in different geographies.

This was the priority of the recent excursion visit of the Caritas Sri Lanka team at Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, India, which brought 39 participants, including the National Director of Caritas Sri Lanka along with the Directors of the regional Caritas centres, National and Regional Coordinators, and the field workers of the project team, to study the operation of Village Resource Centres set up by MSSRF in Pudukkottai and Thanjavur.

The capacity-building excursion on the Village Knowledge Centres and Village Resource Centres of M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) was organised by Caritas India on June 16–21, 2023, for the Caritas Sri Lanka–SEDEC team of the Addressing Causes for Poverty and Ensuring Food Security for Farming Communities project under the Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security unit.

Dr. R. Rajkumar, Principal scientist of MSSRF, explained the community-involved practices in the Village Knowledge Centres and Village Resource Centres. The Caritas Sri Lanka team studies the process of setting up and operations of the Village Knowledge Centres and the results achieved in terms of learning skills on various entrepreneurship for improving livelihoods, gathering information on various Government schemes, and supporting agricultural operations through integrated crop management and Integrated Pest Management through timely identification of the problems and intervening through plant clinics.

Plant clinic is an interesting initiative that magnifies pest problems and crop diseases to suggest appropriate and timely interventions to help the farmers increase their crop yield, thereby increasing their income.

During the exposure visit, the team learned about the sustainability aspects of these centres achieved through the constant accompaniment of the MSSRF team, training on the resources within the villages, mapping and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), need assessment, plant clinic, identification of crop diseases, etc., which improves the confidence and competency of the community members, especially the women.

Dr. Haridas V. R., the team leader of the Climate Justice division of Caritas India, coordinated the exposure visit of the Sri Lanka team. He also undertook a special session on practical solutions to Climate Adaptive Approaches and practices (CAAP) on June 20, 2023.

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing the community. Mitigating global warming and adapting to its consequences will require major interventions, investment, and constant technical support. Dr. Haridas said, “With a challenge of this magnitude, multilateral cooperation is crucial, and a successful conclusion to the ongoing global negotiations on climate change would be the first step towards achieving sustainable development for future generations.”

He added, “Climate change is not a problem that can afford to wait. It is a threat to future development, peace, and prosperity that must be tackled with the greatest sense of urgency by the entire community of nations, and hence Caritas Sri Lanka can play a major role in climate adaptive practises.”

Sea level rise, more intense hurricanes, changes in rainfall patterns, diminishing water availability, new health-related hazards, and other impacts are negatively affecting the livelihoods of the most vulnerable people. Dr. Haridas insisted that “It is imperative to strengthen community resilience and local adaptive capacity. Social workers are in a unique position to help encourage this conversation at the micro, meso, and macro levels. It is time that social workers take on this challenge and meet their ethical obligation to engage in environmentally just social work.”

The Sri Lanka team gained a lot of insights from this excursion, particularly on village resource centres and climate adaptive approaches and practises, which will help them implement their learning into practice. Such knowledge sharing provides opportunities for countries to learn from one another and build their resilience to climate impacts.