Support Voluntary Organisation

As one of the seven SVOs set up by Government of India for its watershed program, SPS has provided 44,132 person-days of training for 5,845 persons in 254 programs. Trainings have focused on watershed works implemented thourgh MGNREGA, but the mix of classroom and field sessions educate attendees on the micro-finance models and other livelihood activities that complement watershed works.

Since inception, SPS has continuously been engaged with the question of scaling up the impact of its work. The challenge is to work at scale, without compromising on quality. Rather than directly expanding the scale of our own operations (and risk bureaucratisation), we have opted to remain a lean, learning organisation that builds on partnerships. In this way, we are able to retain quality while achieving scale, thus overcoming the oasis syndrome that most NGO work suffers from. Our experience has taught us that the most difficult part of our work is the task of mobilising local communities and empowering them, leading to formation of local leadership in the long-term. It is our conviction, fortified by our experience over the last decade, that the most powerful way in which we can upscale the impact of our work is to build partnerships with those grass-roots NGOs, PRIs, governments, Civil Society, Organisations, and other stakeholders as a Support Voluntary Organisation (SVO). It is this vision that led to the formation of the Baba Amte Centre for People’s Empowerment (the first institution to be named after Baba Amte anywhere in the world) in 1998 at the Adivasi village Neemkheda in Bagli Tehsil of Dewas District, Madhya Pradesh. The center serves as a training facility, a living classroom, in which we provide tailored modules that focus on sharing technical expertise with the partners.

As one of the seven SVOs set up by the Government of India for its watershed program, SPS has provided 44,132 person-days of training for 5,845 persons in 254 programs. Trainings have focused on watershed works implemented through MGNREGA, but the mix of classroom and field sessions educate attendees on the micro-finance models and other livelihood activities that complement watershed works. These programs strengthen the effectiveness of various kinds of partnerships:

1. With grass-roots NGOs, who implement the program in their own areas by mobilising local communities and working with panchayat raj institutions (PRIs), the institutions of local self-government in India. The SVO builds the capacities of these partner NGOs and develops them into a network. Over the last decade, we have worked on 2 million acres of land with 122 such partners in 72 of India’s most backward districts across 12 states. It is through their work at the grassroots that SPS interventions attain a greater scale.

MGNREGA Consortium

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) promises the largest ever employment programme in human history. Entitlements under MGNREGA are demand-driven and constitutionally protected. Even so there is a real danger that lack of awareness among intended beneficiaries and absence of implementation capability among Gram Panchayats (GPs, the chief implementing agency), will mean that the full potential of MGNREGA is not realised. To meet this challenge, SPS set up the National Consortium of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) for NREGA in 2007. The Consortium includes 72 CSO partners in 85 blocks of 58 most backward districts across 11 states of India, working with about 125,000 families to make MGNREGA a success. The Consortium seeks to move beyond the more traditional civil society watchdog role to improving NREGA implementation in all its various dimensions by an integrated approach to planning, implementation and social audit of NREGA works. Consortium partners have helped GPs develop action plans worth Rs.1.25 billion. The Annual Reports of the Consortium helped shape several initiatives in the policy space for NREGA reform. The recommendations of the Consortium focused on addressing the lack of human resources among GPs in implementing NREGA works. In 2013, the central government passed the NREGA 2.0 incorporating the recommendations of the Consortium. A part of the National Rural Livelihood Mission of 2011, SPS has been involved with the National Skills Development Council in linking the standardization of occupational requirements to the MGNERGA program. SPS has been involved in defining the trainings and syllabi for National Occupational Standards and Quality Pacts, which provides certification for workers with technical skills. Linking these workers, such as barefoot engineers, to the GPs through NREGA addresses the need for human resources within the local government sector–a major hurdle in implementing NREGA works. SPS is also partnering with the Ministry of Rural Development, Govt. of India, in the Cluster Facilitation Team programme in the Melghat region of Maharashtra, for better implementation of MGNREGA at the grass-roots. These initiatives and field-based lessons coupled with SPS films, “The Road Back Home,” and reports “Two Years of MGNERGA and the Road Ahead,” demonstrate the potential of MGNREGA.

Support Voluntary Organisation

MGNREGA Consortium

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