Unpacking the Crisis: Household Indebtedness and Climate Change
12-13 April 2026
Centre for Financial Accountability (CFA) organised a two-day orientation workshop titled “Unpacking the Crisis: Household Indebtedness and Climate Change” for 26 members (21 women, 5 men) of Kangra district team of Jagori Rural on 12 and 13 April 2026 at the Jagori Campus in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh. The workshop was facilitated by Nancy Pathak, Joe Athialy, Anirban Bhattacharya, Amitanshu Verma, and Arjun Unnikrishnan from CFA.
The workshop was designed to familiarise participants with CFA’s ongoing work on household indebtedness and climate induced financial stress in Himachal Pradesh, to assess participants’ existing understanding, and to prepare the team for active engagement in this. It also aimed to build a clearer understanding of the participants regarding credit systems and indebtedness. We also heard about the mental anxiety and stress associated with the above from the participants.
Over two days, sessions were structured to move from grounding participants in the context and concepts to applying these to field realities. Day 1 focused on unpacking credit and indebtedness. This included an introduction to CFA’s work and the project, followed by exercises to capture participants’ lived experiences with credit and assess their current understanding. Sessions then built a broader understanding of credit systems, including the functioning of banks and NBFCs, and mapped the credit landscape in Himachal Pradesh, with attention to formal and informal lenders and borrowing patterns. The day closed with a detailed walkthrough of CFA’s proposed work in the state. Day 2 shifted to climate and its interaction with finance. Sessions surfaced participants’ experiences of climate variability, examined financial resilience in eco-sensitive regions through case discussions, and explored questions of accountability and institutional response. This was followed by an analysis of disaster incidence in Himachal Pradesh and its implications for household debt. The final sessions focused on connecting these insights to practice, including identifying pathways, remedies, and approaches for engaging with households and documenting the linkages between climate shocks and indebtedness.
Abha Bhaiya of Jagori Rural opened the day by welcoming the resource persons and participants, stressing the importance of the workshop for the communities Jagori works with. Joe Athialy then introduced CFA and its work, after which Nancy Pathak outlined the objectives of the workshop and provided an overview of household debt and climate change scenarios in Himachal Pradesh, setting the context for both days.
Read full report here.
