Unlike the countries around the world, in Nepal, the COVID-19 pandemic is having far-reaching impacts, beyond the health sector, with the most severe impacts on vulnerable and marginalized communities. At the current stage of the COVID-19 outbreak, along with the health sector, the employment sector is facing critical challenges disproportionally impacting the working groups, especially young people, marginalized groups, and communities at risk. On the other hand, vulnerable and marginalized communities are already hard hit by humanitarian crises such as climate crisis and disaster. Despite having a negligible contribution to greenhouse gas emission, according to Climate Change Risk Atlas 2012. 

This project focuses on working with young people and empowering them and providing them a platform to aid towards the post-COVID recovery and development process, making it highly relevant. The project is planned for 48 months covering Province 2, Karnali, and Sudurpaschim. Furthermore, the activities planned under Climate Fellowship, Climate Smart Entrepreneurship, Mentee-mentorship, Digital Advocacy, and Youth Sounding Board work towards empowering youth, providing them employment opportunities, generating innovative ideas to address climate and environmental issues, and advocating for policy changes to promote environmental protection. 

Nepali Yuwa in Climate Action and Green Growth (NYCAGG) project is supported by the European Union to promote the involvement of young Nepali people in green growth, environmental protection, and combatting climate change. NYCAGG is a four-year-long project that will be implemented in Province 2, Karnali Province, and Sudurpaschim Province through the consortium partners Youth Innovation Lab (YI-LAB), Restless Development Nepal, CREASION, and CDMS leading the activities of Climate Fellowship, Climate Smart Entrepreneurship, Mentee-mentorship, Digital Advocacy, and Youth Sounding Board. 

The target groups of this project are young people between the age of 15-29, 37 local governments, and three provincial governments. Under different clusters, the project aims to reach directly 574 young people, 400 government representatives, and 35 professional experts as mentors. The final beneficiaries include young people, project municipalities and their inhabitants, provincial governments, women’s groups, disadvantaged groups, climate risk communities, marginalized communities, most vulnerable people, and people from different geographical regions and economic belts. 

Under this project, all activities are designed in such a way that promotes replication and sharing. In year one, Climate Fellowship, Climate-smart entrepreneurship, and Data-driven advocacy will be launched in Province 2. In year two, the learnings and experiences will be replicated in Karnali Provinces and in year three to Sudurpaschim Province. Selected climate-smart enterprises will be provided with seed funding to give life to their ideas and put it into action. They will also be connected with financial and banking institutions to ensure financial sustainability. In addition, throughout the action period, entrepreneurs will be guided through mentorship to explore ways to sustain their venture. The sustainable approach applies to all other activities under Climate Fellowship, Digital Advocacy, and Youth Sounding Board.