Who we are
Leveraging the Commons to address linked crises of climate, equity, and livelihood through a system-wide collaborative action framework for resilient forest-dependent, agrarian, and livestock-rearing communities
What is the Common Ground Initiative?
Common Ground is a collaborative initiative to shift how change happens in the governance of India’s natural resources. The initiative brings together civil society, governments, market actors, and technology communities to address structural barriers from exclusion and ecological degradation to fragmented systems. At its core, Common Ground invests its efforts in responsive social infrastructure, open public goods, and plural, self-governed networks to tackle the interlinked crises of climate, livelihoods, and equity.
We are a growing network of civil society, market, government, and technology partners committed to decentralised, inclusive governance of India’s Commons.
Through the Collaborative, partners co-create strategies, lead Working Groups, and share accountability for outcomes. A broader Alliance supports ecosystem-wide shifts through learning, co-creation, and collective influence. This structure allows for distributed leadership and diverse approaches while keeping trust, agility, and shared purpose at the centre.
Where we work
We began exploring geographies and identified two broad categories with a predominance of Commons:
1
Forest and tribal dominated landscapes in central India
2
Pastures and mixed farming systems in the dry peninsular central India/p>
We are exploring expanding into mountainous regions and geographies with a high concentration of inland waterbodies.
We are working with partner organisations in Jharkhand, Odisha, and Tamil Nadu to strengthen landscape-level strategies by
integrating commons-based approaches into existing agricultural, livelihoods, and natural resource programmes.
This includes expanding tenure rights recognition under the Forest Rights Act and co-designing next-generation interventions to support ecological restoration, improved local self-governance, and increased rural incomes.
Alongside partners such as the Centre for Research in Schemes and Policies (CRISP), we are beginning to explore possibilities in Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana, guided by partner interest and the potential for landscape-level collaboration.
Our presence
Click on the states to see where we work, and our partners’ presence.
Ladakh
Jammu & Kashmir
Punjab
Himachal Pradesh
Uttarakhand
Delhi
Rajasthan
Haryana
Madhya Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh
Gujarat
Maharashtra
Jharkhand
Chattisgarh
Tripura
Mizoram
Manipur
Nagaland
Meghalaya
Arunachal Pradesh
Assam
Sikkim
Andaman Nicobar Island
Tamil Nadu
Kerala
Andhra Pradesh
Telengana
Goa
Karnataka
Odisha
West Bengal
Bihar
Lakshadweep Islands
The Collaborative
Abhivyakti Foundation
Self dependent civil society having full realization of and complete access to basic human needs, rights and entitlements without any discrimination of caste, creed, sex, faith, religion.
Badlao Foundation
Realize aspirations and entitlements of deprived communities (tribals and forest dwellers, women and children) through appropriate social and infrastructure development for a better quality of life.
CYSD
Create an equitable society where people can fulfill their rights and responsibilities Create a society where people can live with dignity and self-respect.
Gramya Vikas Sangathan
GVS visualizes a healthy and self-reliant society, where marginalized and excluded community will enjoy equal opportunity of rights with dignity having without any neglect and discrimination.
Harsha Trust
To be a professional based institution of excellence for promoting technology led and market driven interventions primarily through community based organizations.
Kalamandir
A hunger-free society with empowered, community-based, democratic institutions at the root level that safeguard, nurture, promote and disseminate traditional and ethnic art, culture and heritage of the people and its values.
PRAGATI KORAPUT
To build a self-reliant society, free from hunger and exploitation, where everyone irrespective of caste, creed, sex or language have right to dignified means of livelihood and through collective action ensure socio-economic justice and ecological balance.
4S India
4S India is to make socially, environmentally, and economically sustainable society with improved life of rural poor and vulnerable community, especially women, of unreached area.
Seba Jagat
Establishing a just, participatory and sustainable society where each individual will live with dignity and self-respect leading a harmonious life with having equitable sharing over all natural resources & development.
SEWAK
"SEWAK visualizes a just society fostering social innovation to achieve social ecological well-being through economic opportunities, climate action, governability and access to healthcare & nutrition facilities".
SUPPORT
Establishment of an educated, egalitarian, and socially just society based on the values of equality, fraternity and mutual help.
Tagore Society for Rural Development
“to bring back life in all its completeness making the villagers self-reliant and self-respectful, acquainted with the tradition of their own country and competent to make an efficient use of modern resources for the fullest development of their physical, social, economic and intellectual conditions”
SPREAD
A region / society without any exploitation and discrimination with access to basic necessities of life and ability to assert their rights for dignified living.
MSSRF
MSSRF follows a pro-poor, pro-women and pro-nature approach and applies appropriate science and technology options to address practical problems faced by vulnerable populations in agriculture, food and nutrition.
WOSCA
WOSCA visualizes a society full of peace, joy and happiness where there will be no poverty, ignorance, diseases, suffering, hunger, exploitation, injustice and which will be saturated with solidarity, integrity, fraternity, nationality, non-discrimination, brotherhood and prosperity.
Strengthening Grassroots Networks
Assisting Policy Practice Finance Flows
Creating Equitable Market Opportunities
Catalysing Collaborative Action
Dasra
ClimateRISE Alliance is bringing together over 100 civil society organisations, think tanks, intermediary groups and funding organisations. The collaborative platform aims to shape an India view, a common vocabulary, and enable a multi-stakeholder engagement approach on intersectional climate action in India for the most vulnerable communities.
Dalberg Catalyst
Our vision is to bring about a just, inclusive and regenerative society by advancing collectively owned (CO) strategies. Programmatically, we act as a haven and strategic base for coalitions and networks to elevate and empower their orchestrators; and we engage transformative capital holders to join as participants in transformative change.
EcoAgriculture Partners
A world of resilient landscapes that support healthy people and nature.
Alliance for Conserving Freshwater Ecosystems
Establish a unified network of stakeholders, better information, databases, research programmes and monitoring networks and reform the policy environment such that urgent, collective, holistic, science-based, inclusive planning and action can be taken to arrest further decline, and aid conservation, and sustainable management of a diversity of freshwater ecosystems, related services and livelihoods to people.
XISS
We envision a centre of academic excellence towards creating a sustainable society with peace, justice and reconciliation.
Our funders
Enabling a shared imagination of what
we can do together
Common Ground is supported by a diverse group of funders who share a commitment to inclusive governance, ecological restoration, and strengthening rural livelihoods through collaborative action.
Quick updates
EVENTS
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28/29 July 2025
Living Landscapes
Common Ground focuses on restoring the value of the Commons in public thinking, rural development, and governance systems. This includes:
Living Landscapes, a lean backbone organisation, anchors the Common Ground initiative by providing leadership, direction, and strategic coherence. It nurtures relationships with networks of partners, governments, philanthropy, and other ecosystem actors, and ensures regulatory compliance, while helping establish trust, agility, and diversity across the initiative. It works alongside partners to develop the capabilities that enable Common Ground to thrive.
