New advisory unit aims to help organisations design stronger CSR and sustainability programmes grounded in field experience

The Watershed Organisation Trust has created a new consulting unit, the WOTR Consulting Forum, to help organisations plan and run development projects with clearer outcomes and stronger field results. The move builds on the trust’s long experience in watershed management, climate adaptation and rural livelihood work.

WOTR has worked across India for more than thirty years, using community participation and ecosystem-based methods to restore land, strengthen local resilience and support income generation. The new Forum will take this experience into the advisory space and offer support to companies, non-profits, government bodies and farmer producer companies seeking to design or expand their sustainability or CSR programmes.

The Forum’s work will cover six broad areas. These include strategy and applied research, programme design, project execution, systems improvement, monitoring and evaluation, capacity building and institutional support, and market linkages with access to technology. It will also assist farmer producer companies in improving governance, raising efficiency and developing better market reach. The unit is preparing carbon-credit and social-enterprise models that can help farmers and organisations adopt regenerative practices with financial and environmental gains.

Sandip Jadhav, Director of the WOTR Consulting Forum, said the new arm would be useful for organisations that want to deepen their social investments. He said the Forum brings together WOTR’s long field experience with advisory skills that can help clients plan programmes with a clearer focus on impact.

WOTR said that all profits from the consulting unit will be used to support community projects.

The Forum has already completed several assignments. These include GIS and ESG training for a company in the cotton sector in Pune, developing a monitoring and evaluation framework for organic farming for farmer groups with support from a central government body, and creating certification systems to help organic farmers receive higher prices.

WOTR said the Forum is intended to offer a model where commercial discipline supports social aims, rather than working against them.