Sustainability, Impact & Future

Background

Manavodaya has been a partner organisation of the Development Fund (DF) since 1987-88. By the early 1990s Manavodaya started to organise Self Help Groups (SHG) for promoting savings and credit, and as a basis for promoting economic, social and political empowerment of the village poor, especially women and men belonging to the "scheduled" castes. Parallel MANAVODAYA has become a centre in training in participatory methods, self-help and empowerment. DF is phasing out its support to MANAVODAYA by the end of 2005. An external programme evaluation was carried out of the MANAVODAYA project, as well as an institutional assessment related to the plans for phasing out support.

Purpose/objective

• To provide DF with an insight into the project in terms of its relevance, impact and sustainability.
• To provide MANAVODAYA with a tool to plan and to sustain/strengthen the project, given the scenario of DF phasing out its support to the project.

Methodology

- Review of relevant documents (project documents, publications, minutes of PMC meetings).
- Travel to MANAVODAYA and visit to project sites.
- Conduct of interviews/discussions (semi-structured and open-ended) with stakeholders within the programme, including target groups/beneficiaries in the field.
- Conduct of interviews/discussions with key people/organisations outside Manavodaya to the extent possible: civil society organisations, donor agencies with presence in Uttar Pradesh, NABARD, etc.

Key findings

Manavodaya's approach of motivating the poor as well as the other stakeholders such as government officials, bank officials etc. through attitudinal change in the self-help development concept, is quite unique. Manavodaya has facilitated the promotion of nearly 500 self-help groups (SHGs). About 40% function very well; about 30% modest and about remaining 30% weak.
- In the context of extreme poverty and deprivation as well as the poorest getting into the trap of money lenders, the micro-finance programme is very relevant and useful. Strengthening the credit absorption capacity through diversified income generation strategies and scaling up the income is essential.
- One very noteworthy aspect is that the interest earned and accumulated by many SHGs are very high and comparable to the savings; the savings rate is also quite high despite poverty. The approach adds to self sustaining capacity since it would strengthen the capacity of the groups to address the needs of its members.
- Manavodaya's position that "the people know the best" is appreciable, but may not be strategically appropriate in the context of globalisation, aggressive consumerism, rapid urbanisation and competitive free market economy. It is therefore recommended to Manavodaya that diversified income-generating projects and business support services are evolved to support the efforts of the poor.
- The women self-help groups (SHGs) perform much better than men SHGs. The social mobility of women has been enhanced. Self-confidence, public recognition and economic strength have impacted many family lives. However, the gender dimension in the programme was not significantly visible.
- The documentations regarding training of participants and feedback is extensive and impressive. But there is a lack in Management Information Systems [MIS] and monitoring based on base line data, goal oriented results, achievements and impact.
- The issue of NGOs promoting separate Micro Finance Institutions are being hotly debated. Given more than 14,000 branches of nationalised Banks and thousands of branches Local Co-operative Banks competing for credit-linkage with the SHGs; is there a need for separate MFIs as parallel institutions?

The institutional assessment identified the following:
- The major strength of Manavodaya lies in the clearly articulated, and deeply owned, vision of development, as well as the Centre's clearly defined objective of developing Development Facilitators.
- The major weakness of Manavodaya is to do with an absence of core and committed faculty apart from the founders. There are questions as to how competent would Manavodaya be in attracting, and subsequently motivating faculty & other professionals to do quality work with Manavodaya on a long term basis. Manavodaya does not seem to possess adequate systems of recruitment, appraisals and rewards, of job definition and delegation.
- There are big opportunities in the training centre as many people want training and education in development. Moreover, recruiting and selecting appropriate personnel is much easier now than what it was, say, five years back.
- The biggest threat lies in the emergence of a large number of institutions offering, on the face of it, similar kinds of programs. Donors, who would have a highly critical role in financing would compare and contrast what Manavodaya is offering with what these competitors are offering.

Recommendations

- In the communally surcharged Indian context the secular credentials need to be made sharper. In India the overall situation is conflicting based on communalism, casteism and religion. In such a situation one should not draw a line to project Manavodaya as non secular. The evaluator felt that Manavodaya does not teach or preach any religion based spiritualism. Giving more visibility to its approach will be useful.
- Stronger emphasise on diversified Income Generating Programmes, evolving on-farm, off-farm and non-farm and business support services.
- Gender sensitisation, mainstreaming of gender concept & practice and evolving a gender policy is strongly recommended.
- Improved documentation of achievements (like trainings, strengthened social cohesion in villages etc).
- Frequent refreshing trainings of trainers, in order to enable the trainers to upgrade their capacities, knowledge, skills and information base.
- Keeping up to date information as a part of professional management information system.
- A standardised strategy on motivating and training the munnems [voluntary accountants] is recommended.
- It is suggested to evolve a strategy based on best practices to strengthen the SHGs.
- It is necessary and essential for the donor partners to develop an institutional memory and learning practice, and to maintain a strategic relationship with good partners even after the programme/project funding relations are phased out.

Comments from the organisation

Any evaluation is produced within a very limited framework with regards to the composition of the evaluation team, its time available, its access to information and how it analyses the information received. Furthermore, any social reality can be analysed and presented in many different ways, among which an evaluation represents only one. This evaluation report hence, while being useful as a tool for general learning, has limited value as a source of information about the particular projects and partners in question. We urge any reader do consult the partners involved or Development Fund before applying this information in a way that may affect the partners and the project.