Climate Change and Climate Variability are the emerging issues of concern for sustainable rural livelihoods. The potential impacts of climate change are very broad. Given the projected extent of climate change impacts, we need to prepare mechanisms that will help our society adapt. In the recent past there have been efforts to mitigate climate change around the world. But this alone will not suffice and therefore need to be complemented by adaptation measures, which address the vulnerability to current and future climatic changes and associated impacts.

"Vulnerability Assessment and Enhancing the Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change sain Semi-Arid Regions of India' ("V & A Programme”) is a 4-years programme (one year is for inception, two years for implementation and one year for policy dialogue, outreach and dissemination) based on the outcomes and experiences gained from earlier projects related to mitigation and adaptation to Climate Change in India and other countries funded by SDCs Global Environment Facility (GEF) Fund. This programme embraces an integrated and holistic as well as a participatory stakeholder-driven and pro-poor approach.

Eco-Club was the main grass roots level implementation partner in this programme, responsible for facilitation, monitoring and overall coordination. This programme is facilitated by a Multi-stakeholder International and National consortium. INFRAS and Inter Cooperation (IC) represent International consortium has a backstopping (advisory) role and will provide services on the basis of demands from SDC. M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) is the Lead Agency for this program along with the National level partners Action for Food Production (AFPRO), New Delhi and National Institute of Agricultural Extension and Management  (MANAGE) from Hyderabad. 

The focus areas are Agriculture (food security), Water (availability & quality), and Rural energy (biomass). The identified states to implement the program are Andhra Pradesh (Mahabubnagar District) and Rajasthan (Udaipur District).

The core objectives of this program is to secure the livelihoods of rural poor and vulnerable communities by building and enhancing their adaptive capacity to better cope with adverse impacts of climate change and improve their disaster preparedness. The expected outcomes are to enhance the Adaptive Capacity of the local communities, to improve the Delivery Systems and to promote a multi-level Policy Dialogues and general Awareness to climate related impacts.