Infrastructure project in India building resilience from the ground up

A new case study, produced by Acclimatise for The Resilience Shift, examines a technical assistance programme in India supported by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID).

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The ICRG project, which is currently active across 22 districts in three Indian states, is connected with India’s largest social security programme which pays locals to build infrastructure assets. So far, the wage-for-labour programme has deployed $25 billion as wage payments to rural households in over 13,000 villages. Under the project, infrastructure assets, are identified by local communities and designed, built and maintained by ‘barefoot engineers’, living in remote rural communities. The ICRG project has provided training to over 10,000 people to ensure the infrastructure delivers resilience benefits.

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In particular, the case study holds important lessons about participative approaches to infrastructure identification, design, construction, and maintenance by non-specialists. By focusing on the livelihood benefits, delivered both through the wages received for labour, but also thanks to the dividend from improved infrastructure, the ICRG project has been able to deliver a large and growing portfolio of assets in a short period of time.

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