Sambodhi Research And Communications Private Limited
Learning how evidence is built before policy decisions are made.
At Sambodhi, I worked with research teams on two large development programmes dealing with climate transition, rural livelihoods and agricultural systems.
The projects made some very broad development questions much more concrete for me: what happens to communities when industries and livelihoods change, why rural income opportunities remain uneven, and how climate change can make existing vulnerabilities harder to solve.
What interested me most was seeing how questions like these are broken down into something that can actually be researched, measured and tested, and how evidence is built before a programme or policy decision is made.
ClimateWorks Foundation
India Just Transition Landscape Study
The study looked at India’s transition from coal to clean energy and what that transition could mean for workers and communities whose livelihoods are closely tied to sectors undergoing change. It also examined how philanthropic investment could support local economic transitions, community infrastructure and more inclusive pathways through that change.
I supported the initial literature review, stakeholder mapping and research around the political economy of India’s transition from coal to clean energy. This included looking at funding gaps, policy frameworks and the risks faced by communities whose livelihoods are closely tied to sectors undergoing transition.
I also shadowed senior researchers as those findings were translated into stakeholder questionnaires and primary-research tools. It was my first close look at how background research eventually shapes the questions asked on the ground.
UP-AGREES
World Bank-backed agriculture programme in Uttar Pradesh
UP-AGREES is a large agriculture and rural-enterprise programme focused on improving productivity, sustainability and rural incomes in Eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bundelkhand. The wider programme is designed to benefit approximately 1 million farmers and 30,000 farmer producer groups.
I contributed to the literature review and baseline research design, working with academic studies, government reports, World Bank project documents and previous research.
My work informed the programme’s theory of change and results-based MEL framework, and supported the development of questionnaires and sampling for a baseline survey of approximately 5,800 households. I also worked on interview and focus-group guides for farmer collectives, women’s self-help groups and other stakeholders.
Working on the programme made questions around rural livelihoods much less abstract. Household income, dependence on agriculture, climate resilience and access to productive opportunities can look very different across communities, which makes the quality of the evidence behind a programme especially important.
