Role of NGOs in NRLM
15th February 2011
Presented By:
Dr. Sudha Kothari and Kalpana Pant
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Chaitanya – Empowering Women and Youth
 One of the earliest institutions to promote poor
women’s 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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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)
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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.
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Strategies in NRLM
 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
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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
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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
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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
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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, women’s
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
Implications (Suggestive)
 Direct Implementation
 Training of trainers
 Expertise as resource
organisations
 Consultancy based
Need to see cost implications
and expertise experience
and availability
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Role of CBO
 Existing SHG federations, producer’s 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
NABARD’s SHG –Bank linkage programme have
experiences that need to be built upon.
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Reiterating the need to complement
the strengths
 Both NGOs and Government need each other
 NGOs cannot achieve the scale and impact that is
possible for the government
 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