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The Context

Mountains cover 24% of the land area, and are home to 12 % of the world population providing a number of vital ecosystem services. But accelerated anthropogenic interventions coupled with global macro processes such as climate change and globalization in mountains have not been just adversely affecting the effectiveness of these eco-system services, but the livelihoods of mountain communities too have got severely jeopardized. To illustrate, in the context of the Himalayas, poverty incidence is one-third compared to one-fourth of the national average. This situation calls for a mountain-specific poverty reduction programme that will be able to ensure sustainable livelihoods for economically, socially, and politically marginalized people including millions of indigenous people living at remote inaccessible locations, depending on natural resources, amidst rigid socioeconomic inequities, conflicts, gender inequities and caste/ethnicity-based discrimination.

On the other hand, a convergence among policy, practice, and research has been found essential for livelihood promotion for communities but it has largely been found absent  Researchers have been accused of largely being interested in building their academic profile and boosting their careers and not so much in providing customized solutions. As a result, most of their works are random, contingency-based, piecemeal, and non-programmatic.  On the other hand, livelihood promotion policies are rarely based on evidence and are largely being made hurriedly typically in response to short-term pressures from one or more stakeholders or exigencies engendered by national or supranational agencies. At the same time, researchers and livelihood practitioners rarely communicate with each other. Collaborative research agenda is rarely formulated, and participatory approaches are rarely adopted. There is the apathy of researchers towards application. Practitioners perceive researchers as people who sit in the ivory tower completely cut off from the grassroots realities. Therefore, it is important to create a platform or mechanism where practitioners, researchers, and policymakers come together and understand each other’s needs and requirements, share observations and findings and plan participatory research designs, frameworks and strategies. 

The proposed event attempts to: bring stakeholders on a common platform, give them a space to voice their concerns and priorities; to facilitate the forging of a working relationship ultimately leading to a productive collaboration. 

Objectives

• To document livelihood status of people in the North-Western Himalayas

• To identify key challenges in promoting livelihoods in the North -Western Himalayas

• To critique existing livelihood promotion initiatives

• To brainstorm possible domains and pockets for livelihood promotion

• To identify research and policy gaps in the livelihood sector

• To bring researchers, livelihood practitioners and policy makers on a common platform

• To list out possible research themes in consultation with practitioners and policy makers

• To devise strategies for inclusive and sustainable livelihood promotion in the Region.

Proposed sub-themes

Understanding community livelihoods in the North-Western Himalayas

• Status of mountain livelihoods in terms of availability, adequacy, quality

• Livelihoods for specific groups: Dalits, Women, Tribals, Persons with special needs

• The political economy of livelihoods

• Socio-cultural dimensions of livelihoods

 

Dynamics of livelihood transformation in the North-Western Himalayas

• Climate change and livelihoods

• Neoliberal policies and livelihoods

• Technological innovations and livelihood

• Digital Transformation and livelihood

• Livelihoods in the context of natural disasters and extreme weather events

 

Critiquing Current Initiatives for livelihood promotion

• Government initiatives such as NRLM

• Initiatives led by community-based organizations

• Initiatives supported by private entities and corporates

• Initiatives supported by multilateral agencies such as UNDP

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Livelihood sector in focus I: Tourism

• Implications for mass tourism in the mountains

• Case Studies of responsible tourism initiatives

• Community-based rural tourism

• Wellness and herbal tourism

 

Livelihood sector in focus II: Medicinal and Aromatic Plant

• Issues pertaining to sustainable collection and cultivation practices

• Best practices in convergence

• Supply chain management in MAP sector

• Benefit sharing mechanism

• Quality concerns in MAP sector

 

Other key sectors of mountain livelihoods

• Horticulture-based livelihood opportunities

• Livestock-based opportunities

• Forest-based opportunities

• Urban livelihoods

• Art and Crafts

 

Culture and livelihood interface

• Role of culture in livelihood promotion in Mountains

• Cultural economy in Himalayas: Prospects and Challenges

• Leveraging cultural tools and expressions for livelihoods

• Mountain Livelihoods in folk and contemporary literary expressions

 

Promoting livelihoods for special populations

Dalits, Adivasis, Women, Minorities, Persons with Disability, Migrants, Forest dwellers, People in resource-deficient regions (e.g., Changar)

• Status

• Challenges

• Way forward

 

Livelihood Research in the mountain context

• Current status of livelihood research

• Key research gaps in the livelihood sector

• Challenges of doing research in the mountain context

• Methodological innovations 

 

Public Policies for livelihood promotion

• Dynamics of policy making for mountain livelihoods

• Evidence-based policy making: key challenges 

• Legislative frameworks for livelihood promotion such as Forest Rights Act

• Framework for scaling up livelihood initiatives

 

Role of Technology for livelihood promotion

• Digital transformation

• Best practices

• Challenges

• Way forward