Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Social capital

While we have a fair idea of social network, only few know about this is relatively new and multifaceted jargon: Social Capital. The simplest way to understand social capital is through the old adage, “it’s not what you know, but who you know”. There is variety of definitions of this word due to highly contextual nature. In words of wiki social capital is the expected collective or economic benefits derived from the preferential treatment and cooperation between individuals and groups.

I became aware of this term while studying Livelihood and Natural resource management. I recalled concept of social capital while working with producer groups. I started wondering about cohesive nature and community cooperation. Any person in society cooperate as well as compete. Still others may be in conflict. Hence, I saw there is a scope for micro to macro level analysis of social capital. Alas ! I am not an expert on this subject. There is also an absence of consensus on how to measure it due to nature and rigor of indicators. Even if we measure and evaluate, how it can contribute to nurturing of social capital.

While we can see result of good social capital means creation of civic culture and strong democracy inside society. We can see it as more utilitarian in disaster recovery and vulnerability reduction. It works as as ‘glue and grease' and can improve efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated action. So what makes social capital so useful ? As per Robert Putnam and Thomas Sander, it enable individuals to access valuable information, facilitates altruism, find partners for joint economic transactions and facilitate collective action.

As per Current Population Survey (CPS), administered by the U.S. Census Bureau, they measure social capital with these indicators:

•Voting in local elections (such as mayor or school board)
•Frequency of using the internet to express opinions about political or community issues
•Frequency of communicating with family and friends
•Trust of neighbors
•Confidence in institutions (corporations, the media and public schools)

Social capital is associated with a host of desirable outcomes:

• There is more trust and there are more blood donations in towns with lots of civic associations.
• Voter turnout is higher, and financial markets work better (Guiso, Sapienza, and Zingales 2008).

A growing literature has pointed out that social capital can also have a ‘dark side’ (Field 2003):

• The Ku Klux Klan, drug-dealers and the mafia rely on social cohesion to ensure co-operation.
• Also, important recent work shows that civic associations can lead to the entrenchment of existing leaders, undermining the quality of governance (Acemoglu, Reed, and Robinson 2013).

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Justice for Sneha

There is a common dialouge in bollywood films, “Kanoon andha hota hai” (Law is blind), this line stands cent percent true to every word in reality too. Sneha Singh was working as Young Professional in Bihar Rural Livelihoods Project (BRLP) was mysteriously found dead in a hotel room in Munger,Bihar. Police primarily suspected it to be suicide,but facts point otherwise. She was found hanging from ventilator's door and in half naked condition with her private parts bleeding and body in very bad shape. Police said that she killed herself after watching "Mohabbatein".

She was once Ranchi RJ who took a new path of development professional for the sake of nation building. There is need of Civil protest and use of social network. This is not about me or you; its about justice being delivered to atleast one person. More information can be gathered her - Justiceforsneha ; We all really want a proper crime investigation rather than burial of case under carpet.

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Decentralisation - Chronology of Attempts and Committee Reports

The details of the history of attempts to promote decentralized planning from the first plan onwards to the mid-eighties is summarized in the table below:


Why Decentralization?

The main problem of centralized governance is lack of knowledge about local circumstances due to the geographical distance. It also creates psychological distance of government officials from citizens of the remote part. Best case in favor of decentralizing government is that it creates the inclusive institutions. Autonomy for local population to have a voice in government for decision making enables development. But, Political decentralization has no meaning if there is no fiscal decentralization.

Taking from the blog post written long back - As Oates (1993) explained, "the basic economic case for fiscal decentralization is the enhancement of economic efficiency: the provision of local outputs that are differentiated according to local tastes and circumstances results in higher levels of social welfare than centrally determined and more uniform levels of outputs across all jurisdictions.Although this proposition has been developed mainly in a static context (see my treatment of the "Decentralization Theorem,' 1972), the thrust of the argument should also have some validity in a dynamic setting of economic growth." Fiscal Experts have also concluded that decentralized government poses a threat to the macroeconomic stability and is incompatible with prudent fiscal management. (See Prud’homme, 1995; Tanzi, 1996). Among the fiscal experts a broad consensus has been arrived in the context of Musgrave’s trilogy of public functions, namely, allocation, redistribution, and stabilization, that the function of allocation can be assigned to lower level of governments, the other two would be more appropriate for the national government. Therefore, the macroeconomic management, particularly stabilization policy largely consider as clearly a central function (Musgrave, 1983; Oates 1972). [OP Vohra : Fiscal decentralization and devolution of financial resource]

Saturday, July 20, 2013

SHG Model under TRIPTI Scheme - 2

SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS:- The social inclusion process will include two steps; first to identify the left out poor, those who are not a part of any SHG/ other CBOs, and second to ensure their participation in different community-based organizations [SHGs, GPLF, etc.] at the village/ Gram Panchayat level. In this process, the project also needs to identify the extremely poor and vulnerable groups (EPVG) in the community that typically suffer from severe economic and social impediments.

For this purpose, the project adopted a community-based participatory approach to identify and prioritize project beneficiaries, including ‘extreme poor and vulnerable groups, persons with disabilities, and the ‘left out poor’. The proposed methodology for the same is called situational Analysis in the project which will comprise of the following exercises:

1- Participatory identification of Poor(PIP):
o Social mapping/ collection of baseline of beneficiaries
o Well Being Grouping
2- SHG Grading
3- Institution Mapping
4- Livelihood mapping

FUNDS:- For operational sustainability of the GPLF, it needs different kinds of funds like the start-up fund, Institution Building (IB) fund, and Community Investment Fund (CIF). Start-up funds and IB funds are basically meant for office establishment and capacity-building activity. The Community Investment Fund (CIF) acts as a catalyst to help poor households meet their demand for improved access to credit for investment needs. The Community Investment Fund will be an infusion from the TRIPTI Project to the Gram Panchayat Level Federation (GPLF) down to the members and is expected to revolve among SHG members for taking loans and repay loans from this fund.

The SHG may provide loans for individual-based livelihoods preferably for reducing vulnerabilities and shocks, income-generating activities, meeting social needs, and supporting investments in housing, education, etc. based on the priorities fixed by the communities in their Micro Investment Plans (MIP). Member borrows from its SHG for implementing Household Investment Plan and repays the loan amount in full with agreed terms and conditions. The amount of loan received as CIF will be first available to the neediest and vulnerable. On repayment and accumulation of group funds, the other ranked members will avail funds from the group. The other sources of funding MIP are SHG’s own funds and bank finance.

Pro-Poor Inclusion Fund (PPIF) is a part of the Community Investment Fund (CIF) which will focus on activities aimed at identifying the extremely poor and vulnerable groups (EPVG) and enhancing their productive capacity. The fund size of PPIF is Rs 5000/- per eligible SHG.

Panchasutra- SHGs were well aware of the Panchasutra are the five principles of maintaining an SHG and includes: 
• Regular Meeting
• Regular Saving
• Bookkeeping
• Timely Repayment
• Internal Lending

Thursday, July 18, 2013

SHG Model under TRIPTI Scheme - 1

Targeted Rural Initiatives for Poverty Termination & Infrastructure (TRIPTI) aims at enhancing the socio-economic status of the poor, especially women and disadvantaged groups, in ten districts of Orissa over a period of five years, beginning 10 February 2009. The project is assisted by the International Development Agency of the World Bank and implemented by Orissa Poverty Reduction Mission, a society under the Panchayati Raj Department of Government of Orissa. TRIPTI project under World Bank Assistance is running in 38 blocks in 10 districts that will be treated as pilot blocks for NRLM.

The SHGs are at the first tier of the community institution structure. One SHG is formed constituting 10-20 women members (in case of disability or dispersed location the group size may be 5 to 20). The second tier of the structure is called Cluster Level Forum (CLF) which is an aggregation of 5 to 15 SHGs at the village/hamlet level. GPLF is the third tier of SHGs which is formed taking representation from all CLFs at the GP level.

I have the privilege of working closely with TRIPTI block level team and SHG Federation at Kharidpipal GP for 21 days in Balasore. Bhograi is one of the blocks in Balasore that falls under the TRIPTI project. It consists of 32 Gram Panchayats out of which I was placed at Kharidpipal. Kharidpipal GP consists of eight villages. The GPLF federation of SHG is constituted of 13 CLF and 152 SHG. The detail of the structure is given in the diagram. That gave me a decent understanding of the SHG model that will be implemented in NRLM scheme with a slight tweak. I will draw the conclusion that the creation of dedicated machinery (staff support) &  Universalisation of SHGs has made it more sustainable than SGSY.

Looking on the data of Annual Exp of Average Poor – Rs.40-60K; 35-55% Food; 10-30% Health; 15-20% Education; 10-20% C&E (MGNREGS 2011). Most of the schemes related to the poor fail because the poor spend their money on urgent needs such as health rather than asset building. It is not only economic poverty but lack of financial planning that also plays a crucial aspect. Hence, TRIPTI focuses on the Micro Investment Plan (MIP) which is a household investment plan prepared by individual households and their consolidation at the SHG level.

MIP has socio-economic information will include critical factors such as income, assets and liabilities, needs and problems, number of earners and dependents, single woman, physical/mental disability amongst the members in their family if any, health problems, livelihoods and opportunities, skills, saving capacity, social backwardness, literacy, etc. It will look for the income and expenditure statement of members. The SHG at the outset ranks its members according to their wealth. The Self Help Groups will then be facilitated to prepare a list of all SHG members along with their loan requests indicating both activity/purpose and loan amount. The group would appraise each loan request and determine the loan terms like the amount of loan, installment amount, repayment period, etc. Here, the group would take into consideration the potential for chosen activity in the local area and the competence of the members to carry out the same gainfully.