Role of NGOs in NRLM

15th February 2011

Presented By:
Dr. Sudha Kothari and Kalpana Pant

Chaitanya

Empowering Women

and Youth
One of the earliest institutions to promote

poor womens financial institution

Promoted
first
SHG
federation
in
Maharashtra in 1991 has been rated
by M-CRIL and received support from
NABARD, SIDBI and commercial Banks
Initiated Jankar programme community
resource persons for SHG, federations,
livelihood and legal counseling

Why NGOs?
To identify the needs,

opportunities/risks and perceptions of

the community
To monitor and evaluate the program
effectively
To innovate and institutionalize
community-based institutions
To develop ownership among the
community for continued involvement
3

Why NGOs?
To facilitate convergence of resources
To reduce cost, and ensure sustained

financial contribution to run the

programme
To increase effectiveness of the
programme by using local knowledge
and ensure culture sensitivity
To empower the community, facilitate
community involvement in decision
making
4

Role of NGOs in
Development
EXECUTION - Piloting, innovation
Designing need based programmes
Identification and reaching the
poorest of the poor
Identification of community leaders
Social mobilisation, awareness
building
Local institution building
5

Role of NGOs Contd

Research and Advocacy
Watchdog
Building pressure for policy changes

(RTI)
Research based advocacy

Capacity Building
Transfer of technology
Facilitating Convergence
Exposure
Creating learning platforms
6

Role of NGO vis a vis

Government agencies

Complementarity between government

and NGOs:
NGO researches and pilots, Govt
replicates (SHG)
Govt. plans, NGOs execute (Jal
Swarajya)
Government plans and executes, NGO
monitors or involved in capacity
building (NRHM)
NGO raises concerns, Government
amends policies/programs (Forest Bill)

Role of NGOs under NRLM

Role of NGOs in NRLM Initial remarks

Fluidity even at the national level

scope to determine/ evolve the role

Everyone to participate to generate

thoughts ideas to increase

complementarity and evolve
framework for useful partnership.
9

Community Mobilization to promote

community owned institutions

Capacity Building and training
Cadre Building through Community
Resource Persons ( CRPs)
Convergence public private
partnerships
Monitoring and Evaluation
Recruitment of trained staff from NGOs
10

Broader framework
NGOs are important stakeholders

both in planning, implementation as

well as monitoring of the programme

Need investment from the government

to facilitate better partnership

Develop good institutional mechanism

and right structure to work with NGOs

11

Challenges
Selection of NGOs not based on

merit or determined by transparent

criteria, often under political pressure
Lack of coordination resulting in
delayed implementation
Passing the buck shifting
responsibility
Flow of funds Small NGOs may not
have the capacity to deal with delay in
fund transfer
12

Challenges
Training has been not necessarily in

response to an assessment of the need

Many NGOs have come in just as a
contractor
Very few organisations with proven track
record
Good NGOs afraid of working with
government corruption, delay in flow of
funds
Lack of accountability and transparency
13

Selection of NGOs Under NRLM

Possible Options Centralised

Selection
Tejaswini programme - Identified 3

resource organisations for

implementation and consultancy across
the state.

CAIM Short-listing of RNGOs and a bid

process district level process recently

initiated

Jal Swarajya State level unit

responsible for bidding mixed results

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Decentralised
SGSY the experience of selection of

NGOs by district offices has not been

good

NABARD Recommendation by regional

offices and approval by head office up to

a limit (now entirely decentralised)

While centralised process results in

delays, decentralised process may

results in dilution of quality

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The process of selection Best

Practices
A partnership approach rather than

giving out a contract

NGO empanelled on some selection
criteria
It designs the project within the given
framework
Some initial cost for preparation of
project proposal helping NGOs
contextualise their experience
Flexibility and resources for innovation
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Role of NGOs in NRLM

Role of NGOs at different

levels

Theme based Agriculture/ Horticulture ,

financial literacy. State or national level resource

agencies could be identified as experts

Activity Based Training, marketing, womens

empowerment, community mobilisation, micro

finance. Organisations with good experience in
the region could be identified

Geography Based some districts/ regions

earmarked for NGOs small organisations at

district or block level with good track record can
be identified

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Implications for selection of

types of NGOS
NGO location

Within

district
Within region
Within state
Outside state

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Implications
(Suggestive)

Direct Implementation
Training of trainers
Expertise as resource

organisations
Consultancy based

Need to see cost

implications and
expertise experience
and availability

Role of CBO
Existing SHG federations, producers

company farmer club to have

option to be part of the programme.
NGO works with existing federations
to take this process further
Could also work with banks and
other partners
Could also be invited as resource
institutions
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Collaboration of NGOs with

Academic Institutions
TISS Chaitanya Collaboration

Micro Finance Development and

Management Course first all girls batch

with TISS convocation expected in March
2011.
NGO Management and Resource Mobilisation
the first course is to start in February
YCMOU Chalana

Certificate course for Animators

Explore more collaborations with academic

institutions to meet the demand for resource

persons
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Role of NGOs in Accreditation of

CRPs
Develop a mechanism to rate the

resource persons
Federations do the job of
identifying and placing them
In the convention 23rd-24th
February 1000 such resource
persons coming together
All are invited!
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Most importantly
NRLM builds on the knowledge and

resource base existing in the state.

Various programmes CAIM,

Tejaswini and NABARDs SHG Bank

linkage programme have
experiences that need to be built
upon.
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Both NGOs and Government need each

other

Reiterating
NGOs cannot achieve
the need
toand impact
the scale
that is possible for
the strengths
government
complement
the
Government machinery may not always

enjoy the sustained, intense resources and

the flexibility to use them which is
necessary for innovations and experiments

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Let us Work together to Create

a better Future!

Thanks