From 22 to 27 March 2022, a mission for the coordination of the AVACLIM project took place in India. Jérôme Enjalbert, Sara Moyret's successor as project coordinator, went to the offices of the Indian partner Gram Bharati Samiti (GBS) to meet with its team and work with them on the preparation and implementation of two national events.

The first event was the annual Community of Practice meeting (25 March). The objective of this workshop, which brought together some thirty actors involved in agroecology in India, was to create a moment of exchange in order to study ways to perpetuate the Indian community of practice. The day was marked by concrete presentations of agroecological initiatives, a panel discussion on the challenges of agroecology in India and a working group to discuss the relevance of agroecological solutions to national challenges. During this meeting, a time of presentation and exchange was also organised from remote with Noel Oettle, leader of Component 1 on communities of practice.

The second day of the meeting (26 March) focused on the preparation of Desertif'Action's national advocacy message, with drought as the central topic. This topic was chosen because India (and especially the region of Rajasthan where GBS is based) is facing increasing problems of drought. In this half-day workshop, participants were asked to take part in working groups to help build the national advocacy message. These discussion groups ended with the presentation of the results and a lively exchange of ideas to complement the work of each group.

The Desertif'Action workshop was followed by a field visit to the Gandhivan project, which has been supported by GBS for more than 30 years, notably to inaugurate a library for local communities. This emblematic project of the Indian partner has notably allowed the reforestation of a large area of degraded and abandoned land by the communities, through innovative techniques and agroecological practices.

In addition to participating in these workshops, this coordination mission was an opportunity to forge closer links between CARI and GBS, in order to ensure the fluidity of our joint missions for this last year of the AVACLIM project, as well as to imagine avenues for future collaboration.

This mission was made possible thanks to the unfailing support of the entire GBS team, and in particular of its director Kusum Jain and its coordinator Dharmender Nadimetla, to whom CARI is very grateful.

Credits photo: GBS