Madhya Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Project

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Madhya Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Project

• Targeting and Inclusion of poor
• An Experience

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Madhya Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Project

• Poverty is multidimensional and Many times not in
  the form we try to visualise.
• It is a relative phenomena with respect to -
• Assets Finance
• Geography
• Gender
• Social discrimination
• Access
• Risk Vulnerability
• Compositely, it is more a deprivation from a
  dignified life.
• The real challenge for development projects is
  to ensure inclusion poor and deserving households
  in the development process.

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A framework
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Knowing the situation

• Information collection on
• who is vulnerable
• Where
• Who is at risk
• Why
• How
• Baseline Two levels
• Depth (41 villages)
• Width (822 villages)
• WBR
• Extensive consultation with communities for
  selection of beneficiaries

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Targeting and inclusion in practice..

• Geographical
• Project participant selection
• Pro-poor intervention
• Inclusion thru institutional sensitisation
• Capacity building
• Participatory ME
• Voice and response systems

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Geographical

• Selection of districts / villages
• Identifying the districts with poor human
  development indices
• Worst connectivity and remoteness
• Poor natural resource endowments
• Predominance of tribes
• Higher percentage of ST/SC
• Low percentage of Female literacy

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Project participant selection (and transparency)

• Criteria defined by communities at local level
  no rigid definitions by the project
• Participative relative well being ranking of the
  households
• Wellbeing ranking repeated regularly at hamlet
  level
• Validation of Well being category at Gram Sabha
• Display of HH well being category at a common
  place in village

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Pro-poor interventions

• Project focuses on taking up works which mainly
  poor benefit from
• E.g. goatery, basket making, NTFP
• Convergence with entitlement programmes for basic
  needs
• PDS, Mid day meal, NREGA

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Inclusion thru institutional sensitisation

• Gram Sabha ownership on the process of
  identification of poor
• Project Facilitation team to facilitate the
  process at Gram Sabha
• Flexible Project operational Guidelines.
• Empowering GS to accommodate the needs of the
  poor and marginalised
• Facilitation to include the poor men and women in
  village level institutions.
• System for revision of the Well-being class by
  Gram Sabha
• Participatory monitoring of width depth
  coverage by the project

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Capacity building

• Sensitisation (mentioned earlier)
• Leadership programme with existing and new
  institutions
• Promoting community institutions to take up
  collective voice
• Less class room training exposure and learning
  from each other

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Participatory ME

• Participation Index tool used for tracking
  inclusion and exclusion
• Gram Sabha self assessment (which include
  pro-poor assessment)
• Social audit
• Transparency boards (e.g. display of well being
  ranking)

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Voice and response systems

• Strengthening gram sabha to raise the issues
  critical to poor
• Sensitising leaders to be pro-poor
• SHGs strengthened to take up social issues
• Leading by example implementing processes and
  costs
• which set local standards and benchmark for
  raising transparency and accountability issues

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Struggles

• Existing social and power structures
• Illiteracy
• Local contexts and realities
• group dynamics, historical problems
• Heterogeneous populations and caste politics
• Geographical factors
• remoteness of the villages, nearness to markets /
  roads
• Performance pressures (physical and financial
  progress approach) push us away from working with
  poor
• Easier to work with rich and much faster spend
  monies
• Local leaders (specifically Sachivs) who the
  project is unable to work with or influence

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