Rural livelihoods today are increasingly shaped by climate variability, degrading natural resources, market uncertainties, and limited livelihood opportunities. For small and marginal farmers, women, tribal communities, and vulnerable households, these interconnected challenges often affect not only income but also food security, nutrition, and overall well-being.
NYDHEE works with small and marginal farmers, women, tribal and marginalized communities, self-help groups, producer groups, and community institutions to build locally viable farm, off-farm, and non-farm livelihood systems. Rooted in local knowledge and collective action, our approach combines agroecological farming, stronger producer institutions, and improved market access to diversify livelihood opportunities, reduce vulnerabilities, and strengthen household resilience. By enabling communities to steward their natural resources while expanding economic opportunities, we create pathways where people, institutions, livelihoods, and ecosystems become resilient together.
Livestock-Based Livelihoods
NYDHEE recognizes livestock rearing as a critical livelihood pathway for households with limited access to land and productive assets, particularly single-headed women, landless, and ultra-poor families seeking more reliable and diversified sources of income. We work closely with them to develop livestock-based livelihood systems that generate regular income, diversify livelihood opportunities, and reduce economic vulnerability.
Our interventions promote improved animal husbandry practices, community-based veterinary systems through Para-vet cadres, fodder and forage development, and batter shelter management. By organizing livestock producers into collectives and strengthening linkages with local markets and value chains, we help households improve productivity, increase returns, and build more secure livelihood systems. Beyond economic gains, these processes strengthen women’s confidence, social capital, and participation in community institutions.
Climate Resilient Agriculture
NYDHEE promotes climate-resilient agriculture to help farming households adapt to increasing climate variability while strengthening the ecological foundations on which their livelihoods depend. Through agroecological approaches, we support communities to adopt locally suitable and environmentally responsible farming practices that improve productivity without compromising soil health, water resources, air quality, or biodiversity.
Farmers are supported to prepare and use organic manures, botanical extracts, and locally available natural inputs, while adopting climate-resilient local seeds, diversified cropping systems, nutrition gardens, multilayer farming, and improved crop management practices. These practices enable farming households to better anticipate climatic variability, stabilize production, and make agriculture more adaptive and resource-efficient.
Micro-Enterprise & Small Business Promotion
NYDHEE promotes micro-enterprises and small businesses to expand locally viable non-farm livelihood opportunities and enable women and young entrepreneurs to diversify household income beyond agriculture.
Our approach combines skill development, entrepreneurship training, mentoring, and business planning support followed by seed capital to help individuals convert locally available skills, ideas, and resources into enterprises that respond to local market opportunities. We facilitate access to finance through self-help groups, microfinance institutions, and formal banking systems, while supporting market expansion through branding, packaging, and digital market engagement supported by Smart Shakhis—community-based digital cadres equipped with mobile-based PoP applications.
By promoting collective entrepreneurship through micro-enterprise groups and producer organizations, we strengthen collective capacities, improve market participation, and enhance bargaining power. These efforts enable women and young entrepreneurs to establish enterprises that are economically viable, locally rooted, and better positioned to generate reliable incomes, withstand economic uncertainties, and create sustainable livelihood opportunities.
Women & Youth, Community Institutions & Collective Action
NYDHEE believes that resilient livelihoods are sustained not by individual efforts alone but through strong community institutions and collective action. Self-help groups, producer groups, farmer collectives, and village-level institutions play a central role in planning, implementation, learning, knowledge exchange, and stewardship of local resources.
Women and youth are at the heart of these processes. Strong community institutions, youth and women’s leadership enable communities to organize collectively, steward local resources, and sustain agroecological transitions over time. By investing in their leadership and strengthening community institutions, NYDHEE ensures that the transitions contribute not only to farm resilience, but also to social equity, economic agency, and community ownership of development processes.
Towards Diversified and Resilient Futures
We envision rural communities where livelihoods are not constrained by vulnerability or limited opportunities, but are strengthened through diversified income pathways, collective institutions, and equitable access to resources, finance, and markets. By enabling women, youth, and marginalized households to participate more effectively in local economies, we seek to build livelihood systems that are locally rooted, economically viable, and resilient to changing realities.