Project Dawn

Community Infrastructure and Indigenous Knowledge for Climate Adaptation and Resilience

Indigenous communities have long developed place-based knowledge and social systems that enable them to adapt to climate variability, environmental shocks, and resource constraints. Yet much of this knowledge remains undocumented, under-tested, or excluded from formal climate adaptation strategies. At the same time, many Indigenous and rural communities face growing challenges related to food insecurity, climate risk, and limited access to shared services or collective infrastructure.

This project responds to both gaps by piloting an integrated approach that combines (i) a basic community hub and (ii) systematic acquisition and testing of Indigenous climate adaptation knowledge. Rather than prioritizing one over the other, the project treats community infrastructure and Indigenous knowledge as complementary and equally important components of resilience-building.

Project Objectives

The overarching goal of the project is to generate rigorous evidence on community-level climate resilience by simultaneously testing:

  • Whether a basic community hub can improve outcomes such as food security, access to shared resources, and collective problem-solving.
  • Whether Indigenous climate adaptation knowledge, identified, documented, and tested through community engagement, can demonstrably improve climate-related outcomes.


The pilot phase will be implemented in the Chepang (an indigenous) community in Chitwan, Nepal, with flexibility to implement in another Asian or African country if needed. During the pilot phase, the hub will provide a limited set of core services, including food storage, seed and tool sharing, collective crop planning, and access to information. At the same time, the project will identify and test one to two Indigenous climate adaptation practices using simple but rigorous evaluation methods.

Women Leading Resilience in Chepang Communities, Nepal

This study examines the long-term impacts of a women’s empowerment program implemented in 2015–2016 among Indigenous Chepang communities in Chitwan, Nepal. It explores how strengthening women’s leadership and governance participation influences community resilience, adaptive capacity, and inclusive local governance nearly a decade later.

By comparing communities that received empowerment training with those that did not, the project uncovers how sustained women’s leadership can drive social transformation, improve climate adaptation, and shift gender norms. The findings aim to inform future gender-responsive, equity-driven adaptation strategies grounded in Indigenous knowledge and lived experience.

Community-Led Climate Justice and Carbon Credits in Kenya

This participatory action research project centers Indigenous peoples, pastoralists, and smallholder farmers affected by carbon credit initiatives in Kenya. It documents how these projects impact community land rights, livelihoods, and cultural practices, while addressing gaps between promised benefits and lived realities.

By combining community-driven mapping, surveys, and storytelling, the project aims to build transparency, accountability, and equitable benefit-sharing in Kenya’s rapidly growing carbon markets. Phase 1 establishes a foundation of evidence and priorities to co-create solutions that protect rights and advance climate justice. Future phases will expand spatial analysis, financial tracking, and policy advocacy led by the communities themselves.

Evaluating Socioeconomic Impact of Community-Based Social Enterprises in Indonesia

This study assesses the long-term effects of Bina Swadaya’s community-based social enterprises on rural households in Indonesia. It examines how programs focused on microfinance, agribusiness, eco-tourism, and skills training contribute to income stability, livelihood diversification, social cohesion, gender empowerment, and local governance participation.

Using rigorous mixed methods, including comparative surveys and qualitative research, the project generates actionable evidence to guide policy and program design. The goal is to inform scalable, inclusive models that empower marginalized rural communities and promote sustainable development in Indonesia and beyond.

Project Ascend

Fiscal Policy Uncertainty and Financial Frictions

The project examines how volatility in fiscal policy, such as unpredictable changes in government spending or taxation, affects macroeconomic performance and financial stability. The project is grounded in a modern theoretical framework that incorporates frictions in money and credit markets, allowing it to capture how fiscal uncertainty distorts liquidity, credit flows, and real economic activity. By modeling fiscal volatility as time-varying and persistent, the project provides new insight into how uncertainty itself, not just policy direction, can shape expectations, amplify downturns, and interact with financial intermediaries to propagate shocks throughout the economy.

The project combines theoretical modeling with empirical analysis. The first component develops a dynamic economic model that integrates fiscal uncertainty into a New Monetarist setting with a financial sector, enabling exploration of how credit conditions and monetary transmission are affected. The second component uses data from the U.S. and international economies to quantify the macro-financial consequences of fiscal uncertainty shocks. Together, these efforts aim to inform policy debates on fiscal discipline, debt management, and macroeconomic stabilization by shedding light on the often-overlooked costs of unpredictable government behavior.

Project Echo

Quantifying the Economic Impacts of Decentralized Finance

The research project investigates how decentralized finance (DeFi) is reshaping the structure and function of modern financial systems, particularly in economies with limited access to traditional banking. Using a New Monetarist framework, the project builds a theoretical model in which DeFi tokens, digital assets used in peer-to-peer financial transactions, emerge as alternatives or complements to fiat money. The model captures key features of DeFi, including decentralized exchanges, smart contracts, and matching frictions in decentralized markets. By integrating DeFi into a rigorous monetary theory framework, the project aims to better understand how these technologies affect liquidity, market efficiency, financial inclusion, and the transmission of monetary policy.

The research agenda includes both theoretical and empirical components. The theoretical work focuses on the conditions under which DeFi can improve welfare, increase market participation, or create new forms of systemic risk. Empirical studies examine real-world patterns of DeFi adoption, the stability and use of stablecoins, the performance of DeFi during liquidity shocks, and the spillover effects on traditional financial markets and policy effectiveness. Together, these components provide a clearer picture of how decentralized technologies are altering the financial landscape and what this means for economic policy, regulation, and development strategies in both advanced and emerging economies.

Project Tembo

Community Conservation Programs in Kenya: Impacts on Human–Wildlife Conflict, Livelihoods, and Governance

Community-based conservation has become a central strategy in Kenya, where wildlife habitats overlap closely with local communities. Conservancies across Laikipia, the Maasai Mara buffer zones, and Northern Rangelands Trust areas were established to protect biodiversity while also improving the well-being of nearby households. These initiatives promise to reduce human–wildlife conflict, create economic opportunities, and strengthen community governance. Yet, despite their importance, there is still limited rigorous evidence on how well these programs are meeting those goals.

Navara Institute is leading a research project to fill this gap. Through household surveys, conservancy records, and advanced causal analysis, we are examining three key dimensions: (1) whether conservancies reduce crop-raiding, livestock predation, and other forms of human–wildlife conflict; (2) how participation influences household livelihoods, income, and access to services; and (3) whether conservancy governance is inclusive and equitable, especially for women, marginalized groups, and pastoralists.

Our work will provide actionable insights for policymakers, NGOs, and local communities. By synthesizing evidence across ecological, economic, and governance outcomes, this project will generate clear recommendations on how to strengthen community conservation models. The results will not only inform conservation practice in Kenya but also contribute to global debates on how to align biodiversity protection with human development.

Transferring Conservation Systems: Adapting Bhutan’s Model for Global South Resilience

Bhutan is widely recognized as a pioneer in conservation, with more than 70% of its land under forest cover and strong constitutional protections for the environment. The country has developed governance structures that embed community participation and cultural values into environmental management, ensuring that conservation is not viewed as a trade-off with development but as part of a holistic vision of well-being. This integration of policy, culture, and livelihoods has allowed Bhutan to maintain biodiversity and ecological resilience while supporting sustainable growth.

At the heart of this model is the way people’s connections to place, through cultural identity, traditional practices, and everyday livelihoods—are treated as assets for conservation. By aligning environmental stewardship with social and economic priorities, Bhutan offers a powerful demonstration of how communities can thrive while protecting ecosystems. This balance provides valuable lessons for other biodiversity-rich nations navigating pressures from globalization, climate change, and economic development.

This project seeks to study and translate Bhutan’s experience into broader, actionable insights. Using systems mapping, comparative case studies, and cross-country dialogue, we will design a Conservation Capacity Transfer Toolkit that adapts Bhutan’s lessons for diverse contexts. The toolkit will include governance frameworks, participatory approaches, and policy instruments that build on local traditions while addressing global challenges. By bridging ecological knowledge with practical tools, the project aims to promote conservation models that are equitable, resilient, and deeply rooted in culture.