Development Sector

Salary is one of the most critical components of a human resources strategy even in development sector. It is unreal, and perhaps even unfair, to expect that a development professional is going to do good to society at a loss to himself. This path has produced few rare exceptional people, but its not a sustainable way of growth. I think job anywhere is very simple; to work with the best of our ability, and inspire younger generation to excel given standards. Compensation, Experience , Commitment and Skill set creates the Job Profile. But there is always huge gap between supply and demand in development sector. The reason is below:

World Toilet Day

“Civilisation is the distance we put between ourselves and our own excreta.” - Brian Aldiss, The Dark Light Years

Indians are strange creatures as when we think of skills we are obsessed with IITs; when we think of health care we can scarcely think beyond doctors. At present, generally, the Indian has cleaning to the household level but is apathetic to the community where he lives. Even governments typically overspend on very high on expensive machines used in healthcare, at the expense of public goods such as community toilets, sewer pipes, low cost sanitary napkins etc. Despite of bad image of World bank among left in India, they will also agree with their suggestion of increased spendings of government on sanitation issue. India has already popular PPP model of community toilets and washroom in Sulabh Shauchalya.

November 19th is celebrated as the World Toilet Day to raise awareness on the use of toilet, sanitation and clean water. I was invited to a primary school with Block Development Officer (BDO) on this day a year before. I learn a lot on five ways for washing hands; waterborne disease & clean water for safe drinking. Ganjam district is ill-famous for open defecation in the whole Odisha. This was directed towards giving children information on area of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH).

Knowledge alone though is not enough; it has to be complemented by actions to implement the most basic rules for prevention. Using evidence to guide massive social investment is crucial to ensuring the efficient use of limited resources. As per research of  JPAL in Kenya , there is little evidence on whether existing water quality, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions lead to lasting improvements in children’s health, growth and development and whether nutrition programs are more effective when combined with WASH interventions.

Government machinery has funds under Individual Household Latrine(ihhl) for construction of toilets at household level. It requires 10% fund by the household while 90% are given by government in three phases. And, sanitation is seen only as seen as construction of new toilets without thinking about water facilities and waste management. Power builds consensus like nothing else. There is no democratic discussion in government meetings. Even infeasible orders are taken without looking either on the quality of construction work or utility to end user to achieve targets. Unless government at municipal doesn't think on the line of Reduce-Reuse-Recycle, there will be huge waste dumped without proper process.

There is quite little thinking on policy level on solid and liquid waste management, awareness regarding toilet usage, water storage, hand washing practices and acceptability of the total idea of sanitation. India really need a large social campaign to make people aware, working with them and explaining things of private hygiene to them. The reason is that sanitation is primarily a behavioural issue, to be undertaken by community and household for their own good. The role of government is only to facilitate this positive change by providing incentives and solution oriented approach in assisting people.  Government is trying to work with children in schools and mothers through health clinics to educate them about hygiene behaviour. Such education initiative can help change behaviour and hygiene practices, it is a super slow process. The sanitation problem is so drastic and urgent that policies need to be set in place to drive behavioural change. There is need to have social norms regarding sanitation. Government need to listen the wise words of Samuel Johnson: "People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.”

2014 - Year of Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs)

I always remember the words of Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping - "It doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice." So, now NGOs and the government are finally coming to the phase of acceptance of market forces in the development sector. The cooperative movement is already a failure except for a few notable examples. The government has never managed to manage any scheme efficiently. The government is partnering with various professional organizations for setting up a new institution in the country - Farmers Producer Company (FPC) / Farmer Producer Organizations (FPO). The legal framework is ready under the Companies Act. According to this new law, only farmer–producers can be members of the FPC and the farmer members themselves will manage this company. It takes care of the flaws in the cooperative societies but has also borrowed the strengths of the corporate companies.

FPO/FPC will be dominating future debates on livelihood and its success depends on the implementation and design of the program. Pieces of evidence will come for pros and cons of such initiative, no matter how reliable, have to be interpreted. Interpretations can differ and do differ, and such differences account for an explanation. That is a future full of possibilities. I will be updating this space related to FPO. The chart will give an overview of the FPO structure and purpose. It is a bit late to post here but the Calendar year 2014 is declared as the “Year of Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs)”.

Annual General Meeting of UAPCL

Udaipur Agro Producer Company Limited, UAPCL, is a social-enterprise company focused on strengthening the livelihoods of the community. The organization was registered on June 29, 2010. The company’s main concentration is building the surrounding community through direct collaboration. The company is comprised of 1635 members. Each member is a local farmer mostly small and marginal who owns a share of the company.

UAPCL Annual General Meeting

Share Certificate Distribution

ACCESS Team with UAPCL Board of Directors

ACCESS Development Services is working in the area of livelihood with FPOs (Farmer Producer Orgainzation). Here is a glimpse of Annual General Meeting organized by one such - UAPCL attended by 700 members. Here we see smallholder farmers not as marginal recipients of charity instead as customer entrepreneurs. I will be updating more on FPOs in this space.

Consultant Job

Let me start with a joke: I have a MBA degree and wanna be consultant in future! Does any development organization need consultant ? Yes, they do. Analyst and Consultant form a core area of jobs created in the knowledge economy. Whereas a leader can win people over in an instant due to oration and vision, an analyst can do same with the technical wizardry. But the most over-hyped and over-mocked job belongs to consultant.  Consultants are not brought on to be unbiased. They are hired to confirm a particular bias. There is a popular one line gag on consultant - "If you are not a part of the solution, there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem."

There is always a lot of conferences and consultations on ‘labour rights’ that continue to be held at five star hotels — which for one are known to underpay their employees — without a hint of irony. It may seem wrong, pragmatic, or indecisive and confused? Take your pick. A consultant must focus on collecting data and analyzing the results but always look to field for the ground movements.

Complete package of Engineering and MBA is gradually becoming a shortcut route of becoming a consultant in India. The advantages of a MBA degree isn't really only classroom learning – a degree is easily achievable and online courses available if one wants, it's hidden in network effects and networking opportunities: government, private companies, civil society, and donor agencies. Our classmates are going to form major career networks moving forward. One may say the same for most fields.  I always take words of Henry Mintzberg with bitter pill - "The trouble with ‘management’ education is that it is business education, and leaves a distorted impression of management” & “Not much will to manage, but plenty of zest for business”. ( Managers Not MBAs: A hard look at the soft practice of managing and management development)

I haven't taken MBA degree for fast tracking progress of salary, but to seek a clear relation on public policy and rural India. I want to live as decent human being who engage himself and others substantially in an inclusive development. I don't want to be limited in a AC room as consultant, waiting to speak to field staff who would have nothing but contempt in seeing a waste of financial resource as sunk cost in me. Someone once told me a mantra- "What is difficult in field training will make life easy in a consultant job." I do hope to become a better consultant one day myself.