Her Majesty the Queen Mother Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck launched the Bhutanese Knowledge for Indigenous Development (B-KIND) programme today. The programme will focus on transdisciplinary action-oriented research in the areas of adaptation to climate change, sustainable organic agriculture, holistic food systems, gender transformative change and wellbeing.
The Tarayana Centre for Social Research and Development, a think tank and research arm of the Tarayana Foundation will implement the programme. The Canadian government through International Development Research Centre (IDRC) provided a grant of 1.2 M Canadian dollars for the programme.
“The B-KIND project is about trying to document the experiences but it’s action-oriented, so it’s not just research but also trying to figure out ways to adapt. So, there’s an organic agricultural aspect to it. There’s a holistic food system aspect to it. We know climate change is going to be impacting our food systems and that impacts everybody. Therefore, the research we are going to do under B-KIND is trying to go to help us to see how we can help people to adapt to the impacts on our food systems,” said Ritu Verma (PhD), the Programme Coordinator.
The B-KIND programme aims to enhance adaptive capacities and resilience of economically vulnerable rural women, men and youth, by developing rigorous evidence-based scientific and citizen-research that informs gender transformative climate adaptation practices and policies for improving sustainable rural livelihoods, integrated organic agricultural-food systems and gross national happiness. It will be implemented in Gasa, Punakha, and Wangdue Phodrang for four years.
Besides, the B-KIND programme will also support eight PhD scholarships at the College of Natural Resources and the College of Language and Cultural Studies. They will also provide two Maters’ scholarships.
Simultaneously, the Tarayana Centre for Social Research and Development office was also launched. The centre will implement the project through the IDRC’s regional office in Delhi, and in partnership with the two colleges under the Royal University of Bhutan, as well as its strategic partner, Out of the Box Research and Action.
Kelzang Choden
Edited by Tandin Phuntsho
