Climate change and rural poverty are the prime challenges facing India's resource protection sector. While the state allots considerable funds to rural areas, these rarely reach right through to disadvantaged people and are not always put to sustainable use. Upscaling approaches that have proven their worth in the past is one way of raising the sustainabability of natural resources in India's rural areas - particularly approaches based on popular rural participation which, by means of erosion protection, reafforestation and irrigation, not only enhance the productivity of rural natural resources, but also reduce rural people's vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. 

 
Nand Kishor Agrawal
KfW Development Bank New Delhi, India
Nandkishor.Agrawal@kfw.de
 
Dr. Marcus Stewen
KfW Development Bank Frankfurt, Germany
Marcus.Stewen@kfw.de