India Programme
Report
Over the course of 2010/11 the India programme has supported 23 different social development initiatives with 18 different NGOs across the country.
These were spread across development sectors in keeping with our philosophy of being open to supporting different types of activity, with most projects falling within the broad headlines of governance, education, health, and working against violence against women. We are particularly pleased that we are supporting interesting projects in eastern India – its poorest region – where we expect our presence to grow in the future.
Our efforts to move beyond project support and work with our NGO partners in improving governance and financial systems have led to the articulation of a set of expected standards. We have followed this up with a system of financial and governance audits, and have tried to walk the line between being exacting and being intrusive. We have combined this with support specifically for building capacity within our NGO partners – including support to organisation heads to attend management courses and update themselves on current thinking on governance, transparency, and accountability.
Staff from our Delhi office frequently travel to grantee organisations, as do consultants covering the east and west of India. However a larger delegation, including trustees Jane Hamlyn and Tim Bunting, and Director Robert Dufton, visited Gujarat on 8–10 March 2011 and celebrated International Women’s Day with our NGO partner Anandi and over 1,200 tribal women from local districts. This provided a first-hand view of negotiations with the state to ensure that marginalised communities receive their statutory entitlements.
We are in the process of reviewing the India programme’s performance over the past five years and have appointed New Philanthropy Capital to help us do this. We will also be looking at social development opportunities in the India of the future and how we can best support Indian NGOs in addressing them.
Note from Ajit Chaudhuri, Director – India
I joined Paul Hamlyn Foundation in April 1999, and I move on in May 2011. In this time, India has changed considerably, as has PHF and the rest of the world. I am fortunate to have seen these changes – both physical change and change in development thinking – from many remote and underdeveloped backwaters within India and from the bright lights of New Delhi and London.
The most important change in thinking has been the realisation that NGOs are not the ultimate answer to the problems of the poor in India. It is only the state that has the resources, the mandate, and the reach and scale to bring about sustained social development. The India programme has tried to work to support activities that strengthen government development schemes, addressing gaps in them, and enabling poorer and more remote communities to access them. This has led to outcomes that are not directly attributable to our support, but are stronger and (we expect) will last longer. We have also invested in activities that build the capacity of NGOs to be a link between the state and its most impoverished citizens, and to link their aspirations to development policy. And, perhaps most importantly, we have built on opportunities afforded by the 73rd and 74th Constitution Amendments that devolve authority and responsibility for social development to local political institutions at village and municipal levels.
As a development-funding agency, are we right to support the process of democratic decentralisation in India? Or is this likely to leave the people we look to benefit, the very poorest, the most marginalised, worse off? I leave to study the link between devolution of power and social development in India, an interest that has developed over the past three years in my work with PHF.
And I would like to thank everyone for a wonderful 12 plus years.
Open Grants Scheme
The India Open Grants scheme works with non-governmental organisations that work to help the most vulnerable groups in India. Organisations supported within the India programme have to be local Indian NGOs with Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) registration.
Grants awarded in 2010/11
Kolkata Sanved
Rs. 1,294,049 (£17,254) for one year
Women rescued from prostitution, trafficking, violence and abuse are usually housed in government shelter homes until a court allows them to be ‘free’. The conditions in these homes are not conducive to effective rehabilitation – they are overcrowded, unhygienic, with freedoms curtailed and staff who see them as offenders.
This project looks to work with two government shelter homes for women, located in Murshidabad and Cooch Behar in the state of West Bengal, and introduce dance movement therapy as a means of enabling inmates to deal with trauma and work towards long-term rehabilitation.
Kolkata Sanved was set up in 2004 to enable the recovery and rehabilitation of victims of sexual violence and abuse using dance movement therapy. It has taken its work to NGOs, marginalised communities, mainstream schools and mental hospitals.
“Our experience is that dance movement therapy strengthens women and helps them to cope with and overcome trauma”, says Sohini Chakraborty, Kolkata Sanved’s chief functionary. “This is the first such project in a state-run institution, and we feel that much can be done.”
PHF has committed support for one year, and hopes that the project will convert into a long and fruitful relationship with Kolkata Sanved.
Association for Rural Advancement through Voluntary Action and Local Involvement (Aravali)
Rs. 13,493,400 (£179,912) over three years
The western Indian state of Rajasthan is among the country’s most developmentally backward, and no parts of the state better exemplify this than its south-eastern ‘Hadot’ region. A study undertaken by Aravali indicated that one of the reasons for this was the low quality of NGO activity. While there were many NGOs operating in the region, few had the skills or the scale to influence the development climate.
Aravali identified a role for itself in enabling NGOs to skill up, network more effectively with each other, link communities with development programmes, and advocate for better development services from the government. Towards this, it set up the Eastern Region Resource Centre (ERRC) for NGOs in 2009. Today, the ERRC is a nodal point for NGO activity, having made a space for itself in guiding and influencing the development discourse in the eight districts of eastern Rajasthan. It maintains contact with more than 100 NGOs in the region by providing a forum for meetings and discussion. It also maintains intense contact with 20 NGOs through fellowships and skills development programmes. According to Bharati Joshi, Aravali’s Progamme Director: “The results are beginning to show, with local governments gradually making space for NGOs in their plans.”
For Aravali, Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s ability to see the grant as one towards building an institution rather than implementing a project has been an important factor in the progress so far.
Aravali is now looking to include local elected representatives from Panchayats and municipal bodies in its programmes in the future, and to work with them to enable better development outcomes in the region.
Ongoing grant
Area Networking and Development Initiatives (Anandi)
Rs. 1,592,000 (£18,729) for three years from 2007, and Rs. 4,677,920 (£58,474) for three years from 2010
Anandi is a feminist organisation that works to strengthen democratic processes to favour women and to combat the forces of violence and injustice against women. Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s initial grant to Anandi was to enable the effective implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in six Gram Panchayats of Gujarat. This was implemented successfully, with Anandi using its skills and perspective to ensure basic facilities at NREGA worksites, to enable NREGA to reach particularly needy sections of the community such as pregnant women, the aged and the disabled, and to see that social audit processes were observed rigorously.
The Foundation is now supporting an effort to enable people to realise their entitlements from the state – such as housing, work, health, food and social security – and to access benefits from the state’s social development schemes.
The current project extends to 120 villages in the districts of Panchmahals and Dahod in the western Indian state of Gujarat.
“Anandi sees its role as bringing a woman’s perspective into large government programmes, and ensuring that they reach the most needy beneficiaries,” says Neeta Hardikar, one of Anandi’s founder directors.
A team from PHF visited Anandi in March 2011 and attended a women’s day meeting at Gogamba, where more than 1,200 tribal women interacted with political functionaries and government servants.
Completed grant
Central Himalayan Rural Action Group (Chirag)
Rs. 4,495,798 (£56,200) over two years
The Central Himalayan Rural Action Group, popularly known by the acronym Chirag, works on social development and livelihood issues in the mountainous Kumaon region of the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand. One of its activities was running a hospital that served the community’s health requirements in a remote area with little access to trained medical care.
With the advent of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), a flagship government programme that recognised India’s deplorable health indicators and aimed to make the public health system accessible, Chirag decided to enhance its role. With support from PHF, it took on the task of forming and training the community institutions formed under NRHM, such as Village Health and Sanitation Committees (VHSCs) and Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) in 20 villages. It also enabled effective community monitoring of the public health system.
A recent review of Chirag’s work, conducted three years after the project began, indicates significant progress. The community institutions formed are vibrant and effective, and the public health system’s accountability to the community has increased. The review suggests that the work should continue at a larger scale to make a difference to the ‘big picture’, and that advocacy efforts with the state health department are needed to ensure that health functionaries’ behaviour changes in places other than the project villages.
The Foundation is currently looking into the possibility of continued support.