Empowerment and Social Sustainability
Reidar Kvam, Coordinator of Project Social Analysis for the Bank’s Social Development network, said the Rural Women Development and Empowerment Project in India works with 17,000 women in nine states. It is a partnership program between the central and state governments and NGOs. More than 700 NGOs are involved in the program. The project doesn’t focus exclusively on macro issues or community driven development approaches. It works with government institutions, service delivery agencies, banks to insure linkages with the capacity building that is conducted. Kvam called India unusually because money is available, though it is often not utilized well. This program attempts to make the system work more effectively. The focus for the day’s event will be on the state of Bihar with 80 million people. The theme of the discussion is the challenges and opportunities created by seeking to coordinate government, NGOs and communities on empowerment and making the benefits sustainable. Kvam then began a short film on the project.
Irina Sinha, Project Director for Swa-shakti in Bihar, was the first presenter. Since its launch in 1999, more than 450 groups have begun participating. She described the make up of the groups, and they are mostly living below the poverty line. Participants said they joined because they could get help for emergency situations without relying on exploitive money lenders. Lending up to 2000 rupiahs in the groups was available. Job training was also part of the program. Most of the training involves farming and food preparation. Group participants expressed a level of self-confidence in dealing with local banks that they had not had previously. The groups gave them collective strength in a state with a high illiteracy and low education rate for women.
The challenges for launching the project were numerous. At the community level, there was feudal and patriarchal mindset. Additionally, uneducated women had had their money stolen on other occasions. There were also issues of high caste lenders didn’t want the project to succeed with low caste borrowers. NGO credibility was also difficult to determine, so identifying partners was problematic. Significant capacity building with NGOs was necessary, but has been successfully accomplished, Sinha said. Frequent changes at the management level in government agencies also created problems. She also noted that government officials were apathetic about the project because they could not identify appropriate incentives. Lack of data was also an issue. The project, she suggested, is still not institutionalized, but rather moved forward on the basis of individual initiative. Creating a sense of project ownership among NGOs and stakeholders was also important.
Though difficult, good NGO partners were found. Project administrators insisted on locally rooted NGOs and emphasized transparency. Regular feedback of problems that arose was sought from the NGOs. Clear cut financial and administrative duties were defined. A central unit at the national level provided oversight, advice and coordination. The project benefited from a good mix of staff with professional and government experiences. Though it was a process oriented project, Sinha felt having specific time frames was helpful in getting results.
Kvam noted that the women feel a real sense of ownership with the project, and then opened the event to questions. The rest of the panel included Varalakshmi Vemuru, a Senior Social Development Specialist in the Bank’s South Asia region, B.K. Triphathi, Executive Director of the Swa-Shakti project at the Central Project Support Unit, and G.S. Kang, Commissioner and Secretary of Bihar’s Department of Welfare.
Following the question and answer period, Kvam said empowerment cannot be generated in a short time. Even if the Bank wants the project to be sustainable, often they are not, so ongoing support is needed. To be fully sustainable, it may take a couple of generations. The question becomes what comes next. Vemuru said it was important to understand what the transition mechanisms were, as well as key lessons learned. The project has a model-up approach. NGOs were selected that were highly motivated and committed to the project. Key questions include where future project comes from and what will be the lasting benefits to the women. Vemuru said the project could not succeed without the involvement of men, but the question was when to get men involved in the project. She admitted keeping livelihood’s sustainable has been very difficult. However, the convergence of different stakeholders has been quite successful. Debate continues on whether this is the type of project that should be scaled up.
|
Home
> Learning
& Knowledge > BSPAN
> Presentation
High Speed
Low Speed
Audio 
