After spending decades in the development sector, Ashwini Kulkarni came to a key realisation that most civil society organisations like hers typically receive funding from external sources and then implement developmental programmes in specific villages. However, she notes the inherent limitation of such models, as they are ultimately constrained by the availability of funds.
Recognising that development, in essence, is the government’s mandate, she and some of her friends establish Pragati Abhiyan with the objective of enabling government programmes to reach the people they are meant for. She describes this as the basic mantra behind their work.
Pragati Abhiyan’s work got support from ClimateRISE at a crucial moment. While they have already been engaged in work on finger millet, soil and water conservation, and natural resource management, they begin to feel the need to understand these efforts within the context of climate-related challenges such as weather variability, heatwaves, and extreme rainfall.
According to her, ClimateRISE facilitated meaningful dialogue with other like-minded organisations, not only in Maharashtra but across India. It helped them articulate and amplify their work. She considers this support to be very valuable.
Kulkarni believes it is important to recognise all players in the ecosystem. This includes public and private research institutions, as well as organisations like hers that are piloting innovative models. However, she asserts that scaling these up rests with the government and its bureaucratic machinery—not only in terms of policy but also the delivery system.
She stresses the significance of engaging students, even those still in graduation, as important stakeholders. Yet, in her view, the most crucial role lies with policymakers—both legislators and bureaucrats—who must come together, consult organisations that have worked extensively and intensively across India, and use the rich farmer-level data that many such groups have. She suggests that pooling this knowledge could help create strong policy frameworks to support resource-poor farmers and address climate change.
Kulkarni places watershed development at the top of her wish list—village by village, farm by farm, irrespective of typology. She emphasises that there is no alternative and that required investments must be made.
Next, she calls for increased water storage capacities across regions and development of infrastructure such as protective irrigation. She points out that while schemes exist for agriculture and allied activities like livestock, they need to be made more flexible.
Finally, she urges a shift away from viewing agriculture and allied activities in isolation. Instead of focusing solely on a crop or a plot of land, she advocates for a landscape-level approach. According to her, this allows a better understanding of how different elements such as livestock, agroforestry, and non-timber forest products are interconnected. She concludes that a landscape view not only promotes efficiency but also leads to more relevant research questions that could help build resource resilience.
