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No more than 10 pages and wherever necessary put details in separate appendices.

IKEA Foundation reference:

Partner : Project Title, Ref.

Integrated Approach towards Women’s Empowerment – Sustaining Change for GenerationsReplication of the Integrated Women’s Empowerment Model in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan

Amount requested from IKEA Foundation

Euro 17,343,512

Applicant organisationUnited Nations Development Programme

Address55, Lodi Estate, New Delhi - 110003

Geographic coverageApproximately 10,000 villages covering 7 districts in three States – Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan, India

Timeframe

Project duration 4.5 yearsProject start date April 2012Project completion date

October 2016

Beneficiaries

Direct Support:Of a total of 170,000 members of women’s primary collectives, the project will provide specialised inputs to:

135,000 Women Entrepreneurs/ business women

150,000 existing and potential migrant families

15,000 Women-in-Distress 20,000 Elected Women and Men

Representatives of Local Governing Institutions

30,000 Community Change Agents (women and men)

500 Community Resource Persons 134 Para-legal Women Workers 67 Business Development Service Providers

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Indirect Support:Through the cadre of field functionaries the project will,

Benefit 1,000,000 women and their family members with consensus building activities

1,000,000 women and their families with information on legal rights and entitlements

Executive Summary

In the year 2000, the IKEA Foundation supported a Child Rights Project in 500 villages across three districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh with the goal of sustainable prevention of child labor. The experience of this project which ended in 2007 underlined poverty as one of the critical factors behind child labor and drew attention to the inter-linkages between child labor and women’s empowerment, household indebtedness, education, health and prevalent social issues linked to gender and social discrimination.

In recognition of this link, in 2009, the IKEA Foundation partnered with UNDP to pilot a Women’s Empowerment Model (SWAAYAM) in the same 500 villages adopting an integrated approach that simultaneously addressed four key dimensions of women’s empowerment – social, economic, political and legal. Field application of this integrated approach has positively impacted the lives of 50,000 women improving both their condition (enhanced income, access to services, health and education levels) and position (favorable transformation in external power structures and decision making systems that are the root causes of gender inequality). The pilot project enabled the women to play a greater role in the local economy through collectivization, promotion of women’s entrepreneurship and supporting women-led and women-managed economic enterprises. By investing in leadership development for women through awareness generation on rights and entitlements, nurturing of grassroots leaders and elected women’s representatives and training of these leaders on political leadership and legal awareness, the pilot also demonstrated that when, women become politically empowered, they are able to play a more effective role in finding solutions to many of the social and economic challenges that they face.

In acknowledgement of the accomplishments of the pilot, the IKEA Foundation and UNDP are joining forces again to scale up the integrated approach to women’s empowerment not only within Uttar Pradesh but also across three other states in India – Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan, all associated with areas under cotton production in India. While Gujarat and Maharashtra have vast areas under cotton cultivation, Rajasthan is a major labor supply corridor for the cotton fields in the neighboring state of Gujarat.

The project ‘Replication of the Integrated Women’s Empowerment Model in Cotton Growing Areas of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan (2012-2017)’, will leverage the systems, knowledge, human resources and partnerships developed and established during the pilot phase. The project will cover approximately 10,000 villages across seven districts spread over the three states. The districts include Banaskantha and Patan in Gujarat; Jalna, Wardha and Yavatmal in Maharashtra; and, Dungarpur and Udaipur in Rajasthan.

Over the past decade, poor cotton farmers in the area have been suffering from

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high level of indebtedness caused mainly due to crop failure and declining productivity. Cotton farming has increasingly become input intensive and high input costs have resulted in low returns for the farmers. In addition, the cotton procurement process is long winded and delivers minimum returns to the primary farmers who are the ones most at risk when crops fail and institutional credit is not forthcoming, or when market fluctuations loom large.

Women are an integral part of cotton cultivation and processing and are adversely impacted either directly as farmers and farm laborers or indirectly as family members of cotton farmers. Work participation of women is high as more than 70% of agricultural operations in the Project Districts are performed by women. Despite this, the status of women’s social, economic and political empowerment in the area remains low.

Gender inequality is highly prevalent and women face many kinds of social discrimination and suffer from lack of exposure, poor access to life’s basic needs and social security entitlements. Economic exclusion of women is characterized by lack of title to the land that they till, lack of skills and other livelihood resources, historical indebtedness and poor access to the formal banking system. Politically and legally, women are ignorant about their human rights, their rights as women, as well as their rights and responsibilities as citizens and elected representatives. As a result their voice is weak, they have limited access to their entitlements and are excluded from public decision making processes and platforms.

In this scenario, the immediate objective of the project is: ‘By 2017, women supported by the project will be mobilized and capacitated for taking up collective action to realize their rights and entitlements, undertake economic activities to improve their livelihoods and increasingly participate in decision making in domestic and public spheres’.

The project will impact the lives of 1 million women and their families through strategies that include – (i) promoting social inclusion by strengthening and mobilizing 135,000 women into collectives; (ii) supporting women owned and managed enterprises, building financial and market alliances and facilitating availability of resources and services to enable sustainable economic activity thereby augmenting incomes of at least 150,000 women by 20- 30%; (iii) enhancing women’s political participation in the local governance system by training at least 15,000 elected women’s representatives on transformational leadership and creating awareness among 900,000 women and men on voter rights, nominations and electoral processes, (iv) facilitating legal empowerment by enabling women to access and secure justice through the development of a cadre of 200 para legal workers who will generate awareness among 1 million women and their families about laws, rights, entitlements and also facilitate institutional response to human rights violations.

In order to achieve its objective, the project will also invest in the development of a number of other resources including; more than 67 women empowerment centers at the local level, 500 community resource persons, 30,000 community change agents, 67 business development service providers and 134 para-legal workers.

The project is designed to contribute to the achievement of Millennium Development Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger and Goal 3:

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Promoting gender equality and empowering women. To empower women in a manner that brings about transformational change in their day-to-day condition as well as their position - both within their household and in the larger community, the project will ensure sustainability of interventions at three levels – the primary foundation of sustainability will be the creation of an enabling environment through consensus building that involves men and boys wherein women become active and resilient change agents; the secondary foundation of sustainability will be the establishment of strong, dynamic and entrepreneurial institutions and networks of women that will last beyond the project and the tertiary foundation of sustainability will be linking project efforts to mainframe national government and state government programs and private sector interventions to leverage additional resources and reap the benefits of complementary efforts.

C.

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A. INTRODUCTION

A.1 Introduction text

The states of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan lie in the western region of India. Maharashtra is India’s second largest state in terms of population and geographical area1. It is also one of the most industrialized states in the country and contributes about 14.7% to the national GDP. The state receives a large number of migrants from all around the country- especially cotton growing belts. The prosperous state of Gujarat is concidered developed across nearly all key parameters of development2. Having some of the largest businesses in India and commercial pockets of production (for cotton, groundnuts,sugarcane and milk), Gujarat is seen as economically porgressive. However, both Gujarat and Maharashtra show paradoxes; while on one hand both have high GDP’s and are considered viable hubs for investment, both have vast numbers of poor, especially women who are excluded from the development process. Hunger, disempowerment and exclusion continue to persist pointing to inequitable development. As an example, the India Human Development Report-20113 indicates that hunger and malnutrition in these states is worse than some poor states - with Gujarat at a hunger index of 24.7 being the worst performer. Rajasthan is among the most backward states of India. With 60% of the state topography being desert areas, the state is overwhelmingly rural with more than three quarters of its 68 million people residing in villages. The state fares poorly on all gender indicators and points to historical acceptance of practices such as female feticide, early marriage and intra- household discrimination against women.

Agriculture is a way of life for a large number of farmers and women labourers in these states who are involved in the production and processing of crops –especially cotton and participate actively in animal husbandry, forestry and wage labour operations. While Gujarat and Maharashtra have vast areas under cotton cultivation4, Southern Rajasthan is a major labour supply corridor to the cotton growing areas5. Women are an integral part of cotton cultivation and processing and are adversely impacted either directly as farmers and farm laborers or indirectly as family members of cotton farmers. Work participation of women is high as more than 70% of agricultural operations in the Project Districts are performed by women. Across this agrarian landscape, low levels of literacy among producers, little or no awareness of Government schemes and programs, inadequate knowledge of rights and entitlements, and negligible participation in local decision-making bodies is very common. Although 50% seats in rural local bodies are reserved for women, real participation in local decision making bodies us negligible. The situation is much worse for women who are not seen

1 Maharashtra- state population 11,23,72,972 (2011 census) 2 Per capital National State Domestic Product, rural poverty headcount, Human Development Index, literacy, infant and maternal mortality rates. 3 Institute of Applied Manpower Research and Planning Commission, India Human Development Report, 2011 4 Gujarat and Maharashtra together accounted for 69% of the total area under cotton production in 2010-11in the country. Source: Cotton Corporation of India http://www.cotcorp.gov.in/statistics.asp5 Khandelwal A, Katiyar S, Vaishnav M (2008), Child Labor in Cottonseed Production, Dakshin Rajasthan Majdoor Union (DRMU)

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producers with equal economic status as their male counterparts, are often involved in the lower end of the production cycle characterised by long hours, drudgery and lower wages. Women also have least access or awareness to rights and benefits- whether in the household or in public places.

In 2009, United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in partnership with the IKEA Foundation initiated a pilot to test an integrated approach to women’s empowerment titled SWAAYAM. SWAAYAM (meaning self-reliant and empowered), encompassing all dimensions of empowerment- social, economic, political and legal was implemented in 500 poor villages of Uttar Pradesh and reached out to 50,000 women. Experiences from the pilot demonstrated transformational changes in the lives of women and their families and highlighted numerous examples wherein women triggered processes of change- at the individual, household and community levels. This pilot project aptly demonstrated that women can transcend the cycle of poverty when they realize their potential by organizing themselves, earning incomes and accessing rights.

Successful strategies and prototypes that have been tested in Uttar Pradesh are now ready to be adapted in other states where IKEA Foundation supported projects on child rights are operational. Under the proposed intervention, SWAAYAM will be dovetailed to UNICEF’s ongoing child rights initiatives supported by the IKEA Foundation and will reach out to 1,000,000 women and their families across approximately 10,000 villages of Banaskantha, Patan (Gujarat), Jalna, Wardha, Yavatmal (Maharashtra) & Dungarpur and Udaipur (Rajasthan). The concept note approved by IKEA Foundation forms the basis of this detailed proposal for expansion in these three states (Refer Annexure I for Concept Note).

This expanded phase of implementing SWAAYAM will leverage UNDP’s comparative advantage and partnerships with national and state governments on policy, programmatic design and implementation. These strategic partnerships will allow sharing of successfully tested prototypes with the government for up-scaling using government’s own resources. Given UNDP’s global focus on gender equality and women’s empowerment6 both as human rights and as pathways to achieve MDGs, learning from this project will inform and strengthen UNDP practice on women’s empowerment at a global level.

This project document has been designed following a three-phase planning process comprising (a) Situational Analysis and Interim Baseline, (b) Stakeholder Consultation and Validation, and (c) Logical Framework Planning.

As part of Step (a) Situational Analysis, UNDP conducted an Interim Baseline in the 7 Project Districts that involved interaction with potential primary stakeholders of the project and a review of available secondary data on key development challenges and issues in the Project States and especially the Project Districts. Secondary literature on key areas such as gender, women’s empowerment, workforce distribution and patterns in cotton cultivation, migration in agricultural sector, women’s livelihoods and women’s positioning in political spheres and legal awareness helped define the context and analyse the key problems. It also helped map the existing interventions for women’s empowerment in the Project Districts. The critical part of the Interim Baseline 6 For information on UNDP’s Global focus on women’s empowerment visit : http://www.beta.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/ourwork/womenempowerment/overview.html

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was survey and discussions with primary stakeholders –140 interviews with women producers and labourers, 14 interviews with Elected Women Representatives and Focussed Group Discussions with 136 Self Help Group women were conducted. Focussed Group Discussions were also organized with small and medium cotton farmers (males), value chain actors and Elected Male Representatives to capture their perceptions as well as expectations from women’s empowerment programmes. Consultations were also held with key development players comprising 32 local NGOs and Government officials at state, district, and block levels7. The interim baseline fed into formulation of a situational analysis encompassing women’s condition and position across all spheres- social, economic, political and legal.

Subsequently Step (b) Stakeholder Consultation and Validation Workshops were organized by UNDP wherein State-specific Situational Analysis (Refer Annexure IV, V and VI for State-wise Situational Analysis Reports) were shared with various Government Organisations, UN agencies, NGOs, and community representatives. These workshops enabled validation of findings, formulation and refinement of problem statements, problem prioritization, root-cause analyses and generated a potential list of interventions and partnerships that can be operationalised under the proposed initiative. (Refer Annexure VII for a Consolidated Situational Analysis Report and Annexure IX for Outputs of Consultation Events).

Under Step (c) Logical Framework Planning, outputs of step (a) and (b) fed into the design of a detailed Logical Framework and the overall project plan. The proposal presented herein is a consolidation of these three steps within a framework of optimized results and resources as per the approved format of the IKEA Foundation. B. NATIONAL CONTEXT AND PROBLEM ANALYSIS

B.1 National Context

Inclusive development cannot be attained unless women participate equally in the development process. India on that count continues to face persistent challenges with respect to gender as a result of which huge gender inequalities and discrimination continue to exist. Of the 1.2 billion people who live in India, 50 percent are women. For these women, especially those who are poor, poverty does not just mean scarcity and want. It means denial of rights and opportunities and persistent suppression of their voice. Despite the efforts of government, development agencies and civil society to address inequalities between girls and boys, men and women and targeted initiatives aimed at enhancing equality, women’s status continues to bear heavy on India’s human development. The fact file below indicates the severity of the situation.

India’s sex ratio of 940 is lower than that of its neighbours Nepal, Myanmar, Pakistan and Bangladesh8

7 Including Block Development Officers, NABARD representatives, bankers, nodal officers for SGSY, representatives from the State Departments of Women and Child Development, Panchayati Raj, Rural Development and Labour Welfare.8 Sex ratio- Bangladesh 978, Nepal 1014, Myanmar 1048 and Pakistan 942 (http://censusmp.gov.in/censusmp/All-PDF/06Gender%20Composition.pdf)

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India’s Gender Inequality Index indicates that Indian women lag significantly behind men in education, parliamentary representation and labour force participation. India is ranked at 129 out of 146 nations on the Gender Inequality Index.9

There has been a dramatic fall in the labour force participation ratio of women in both rural areas and urban areas. Less than one in four women now work, down from three in ten10.

When women are reported as part of the labour force; their daily income is estimated at only 53 paise per rupee earned by men in rural areas and 68 paise in urban areas11

Disturbing presence of anemia in 56 per cent of adolescent girls, 59 percent in pregnant women and 63 percent in lactating women points to discriminatory practices in food consumption, poor awareness and pregnancy related follow up. 12

Violence against women continues unabated; overall one-third of women aged 15-49 years have experienced physical violence13.

India’s maternal mortality rate at 21214 is still far from the UN Millennium Goal of 109.

These facts bring out the limitations of piecemeal approaches to women’s empowerment and point to the need to devise holistic strategies that promote women’s development across multiple dimensions, ultimately enhancing their capabilities and capacities to address various challenges they face on a sustained basis.

The three Indian States, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan, where the proposed project interventions will be located, have traditionally fared poorly where gender equality is concerned. While Gujarat15 and Maharashtra16 are emerging as developed States, Rajasthan is considered a laggard on standard social and economic parameters. However, even in Maharashtra and Gujarat, concerns like prevalence of hunger and a weak linkage between income increase and women’s empowerment in various pockets, remain.

The 7 Project Districts are high poverty concentration areas and are predominantly rural (Refer Annexure II for Area Maps and Annexure III for State and District Data Sheets). Four out of seven Project Districts (Udaipur, Dungarpur, Yavatmal and Banaskantha) figure in the Government of India’s 250 most backward region districts of India. As per the interim baseline study, all the seven Project Districts have at least 70 percent of their population residing in rural areas and nearly half of the women in all Project Districts suffer from

9 UNDP Human Development Report, UNDP (2011)10 NSS – 66th Round 11 Human Development in India, Challenges for Society in Transition, Oxford University Press, 201012 NFHS-3rd Round (available at http://www.nfhsindia.org/pdf/India.pdf) 13 National Family Health Survey (Series 3, 2005-06) conducted by the International Institute of Population Sciences (IIPS), 2009 14 Census 201115 Gujarat - State Human Development Report 2004, available at http://data.undp.org.in/shdr/gujarat/report.pdf16 Economic Survey of Maharashtra 2010-11, Government of Maharashtra.

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anemia and malnutrition. The poor sex ratio and child sex ratio, especially in Gujarat point to sex-selection during birth17.

Gujarat is predominantly an agricultural economy. Women are involved both in the production and processing of crops and participate actively in horticulture, animal husbandry and wage labour operations. While women in Gujarat have registered marked improvements in literacy, age of marriage, sex ratio and access to resources, the underlying issues such as domestic violence, poor workforce participation and low engagement of women in political spheres point to latent structural determinants that undermine the positive trajectory of women’s empowerment in the state.

While Maharashtra is one of the most industrialized states of India, development in the state has been regionally unevenly distributed. Agriculture and allied activities are a major source of livelihood for more than two-third of the State’s population. However, since 2000, a large number of farmer suicides have been reported in cotton growing belt of Vidarbha. High levels of indebtedness, caused mainly due to cotton crop failures, poor productivity and low returns from increasingly input-intensive farming and high input costs have worsened the plight of distressed communities in this region. While one third of women in the state work and about a half of them are literate, the state ranks poor on women’s voice, decision making and incidences of violence against women. Surprisingly the state sex ratio at 92218 is much lower than the national average.

Poverty in Rajasthan is endemic. In 2000, 8.65 million people in Rajasthan lived below the poverty line And a larger number were clustered just above the poverty line, making them susceptible to fall into poverty during distress19. Life Expectancy at Birth for both males and females in Rajasthan is lower than the country as a whole; this together with a high Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) and poor Sex Ratio reflects an absence of life-supporting environment, especially for the girl-child in Rajasthan. Recurring droughts, a growing crisis of ground water supply, falling investment rates and lowered public investment in infrastructure have all contributed to lowering of growth rates and increasing economic volatility in Rajasthan20. As a result migration is a significant phenomenon in the region given the paucity of self employment and wage labour options. The state fares very poor across all parameters of women’s empowerment. Ranging from incidences of female infanticide and feticide, poor nutrition and historical discrimination to 80% of women of child-bearing age suffering from anaemia and maternal mortality rates among the highest in the country21, women and girls are caught in a cycle of disempowerment in the state.

Problem Analysis - Social Sphere:

17 Sex ratio of Gujarat is 918 while that of India is 914 as per census 201118 Census of India 2011, Government of India19 Project Information Document- Rajasthan Rural Livelihoods Project; http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2009/02/11/000104615_20090211142934/Rendered/INDEX/RRLP010PID01PCN0stage1.txt 20 Annual Plan 2010-11 - Rajasthan Government. Jaipur: Government of Rajasthan.21 http://www.wellsforindia.org/pdf/empowerment.pdf

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Baseline studies and situational analysis conducted in the three states indicate poor status of women in household decision-making and their lack of engagement and participation in the public sphere. Lack of appreciation and under-valuation of a woman’s work (especially contribution in home management), unequal opportunities for engagement in the household22

and social restrictions on mobility, access and participation largely due to dominance of patriarchy restrict women’s development as human beings in their own right. Although common, domestic violence is not acknowledged as a household problem either by women or men. Furthermore, most vulnerable segments within women (single, deserted, divorced, handicapped and elderly) remain doubly disadvantaged due to their multiple vulnerabilities.

The child sex ratio in Gujarat (918), Maharashtra (925) and Rajasthan (926) are higher than the national average of 914 (Census, 2011). While the child sex ratio in all the Project Districts except Patan is higher than the respective State average, although they have improved over the last ten years. Low levels of female literacy23, maternal and infant mortality24, prevalence of malnutrition and anaemia among women exhibit strong gender bias against women and the girl child in the Project Districts and point to a deeper societal malaise concerning the social status of women.

While in Gujarat increase in mean age of marriage (at 19 years) and reduction in the gender literacy gap (50% and 58% in Project Districts Banaskanta and Patan respectively) indicate increased awareness and education opportunities, only a 33% of women have land in their own names and women continue to take up ardours tasks such as collection of drinking water and fuel wood which is labour intensive and physically taxing. The interim baseline revealed that in the districts of Maharashtra, while over 50% of women lived in semi-pukka or pukka houses and had access to private latrines, a major section of respondents complained of malnutrition and anaemia related weaknesses and highlighted mounting indebtedness and family concerns due to growing alcoholism (over 90% of women survey respondents in the state indicated alcoholism addiction among men as a main cause of their suffering). Rajasthan reported the worst progress on gender indicators with over 56% women respondents being under weight (Project District - Udaipur reporting female malnutrition levels as high as 65%). Women indicated inadequate control of their reproductive rights with over 50% women having three children or more and over 75% births taking place at home. Women indicated poor mobility and awareness and only 2.7% received full anti-natal care. Southern Rajasthan, where the Project Districts are located is largely tribal, follows a matriarchal system and women are paid bride price. Herein thousands of cases of men taking loans from money lenders and big farmers in Gujarat for marriage purposes were reported. Migration is the most important source of livelihood in the Project Districts and a majority go to Gujarat for unskilled work in farms. Sexual harassment and Violence against Women emerged as distressing highlights of the social existence of women and adolescent girls in South Rajasthan (especially among migrants) and in the rural areas of the Project Districts in Maharashtra. As a result of the widespread gender bias within the society – especially in Rajasthan, respondents in 22 Rustagi P. (2004). Significance of Gender-related Development Indicators: An Analysis of Indian States. Indian Journal of Gender Studies. 11-3: 291-343. (Available at http://www.dise.in/Downloads/Use%20of%20Dise%20Data/Preet%20Rustagi.pdf)23 Except for Wardha and Yavatmal female literacy rate in all the districts hovers around 50%.24 IMR and MMR figures in Rajasthan are higher than the national average.

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Dungarpur and Udaipur shared that women, especially widows are branded as witches and violence against them is occasionally sanctioned by Caste Panchayats. Otherwise too, polygamy and desertion are all too common in these areas, and are part of a vicious cycle of marginalization, exploitation and hardship.

In recent years, positive trends across all Project Districts are evident in women’s engagement with local SHG’s that are indicative of their enhanced ability to save, seek loans, participate in meetings - especially in states such as Gujarat and Maharashtra where women respondents did attribute positive development through SHG’s. Further, all the three state governments have launched institutional responses to tackle issues of women’s disempowerment. The Government of Rajasthan has launched a 7 point programme for women’s empowerment and has proposed 50% reservation of women in local governance bodies. The Government of Maharashtra has launched special credit packages for the Vidharba region and support services to widows. Gujarat has launched the Gujarat state Commission for women that is working to ensure women’s legal rights and is implementing the Mahila Samakhya programme in all districts for women’s empowerment. These are positive signs that the Government is concerned about women’s issues. In addition, several civil society initiatives across the three states are operational creating a good foundation for the launch of SWAAYAM in the proposed districts.

Problem Analysis - Economic Sphere:

While work participation of women in the Project Districts has increased in the last decade, women’s engagement is restricted to low investment-low output economic activities. More than 70% of agricultural operations in the Project Districts are performed by women; yet, very few women own titles to the land. For about 4-5 months in a year, women in Project Districts are intensely involved in agricultural activities and for the remaining period, report an insecure basket of livelihood options. High risk livelihoods characterize the livelihood portfolio of the poor in the Project Districts. Skill-sets of women are inadequate. With their participation remaining mainly in the unorganized and informal sectors, women are able to access largely low quality and poorly remunerated employment25.

Financial inclusion remains a distant reality in these Districts despite concerted efforts made by state governments- especially in Maharashtra. There is a high level of indebtedness among farmers in all the Project Districts especially in pockets of Banaskantha, Patan and Vidarbha. SHGs seem to meet their household credit requirements in more than half of the cases and in rest of the cases loan is taken from moneylenders at a very high rate of interest ranging from 24-120% per annum. However, this credit from SHGs is not sufficient for making investments in livelihood options and thus in the absence of adequate equity finance and seed funds, women enterprises are a non starter. As an example, of the 3556 SHG’s reported in Banaskantha and Patan districts of Gujarat, only 611 were credit linked. In Maharashtra, impact of the Prime Minister's Package and the Loan Waiver Scheme has on one hand been positive and on the other has not been able to check occurence of suicides by farmers especially in the cotton belt.. Persistent issues pertaining to poor access, 25 UNIFEM and Sahr Waru (u.d.). A Resource Directory on Support Services to Counter Violence Against Women for State of Gujarat. Delhi and Ahmedabad: UNIFEM South Asia Regional Office and Sahr Waru. Available at http://www.sahrwaruindia.org/pdf/main.pdf

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indebtedness and credit awareness still continue among women. In Rajasthan despite mass scale distribution of Kisan (Farmer) Credit Cards, the uptake is low. SHG’s are the only local mechanism of inter-loaning and credit aside from money lenders who charge 2.5-15% rate of interest per month. Insurance covers related to agriculture and health are also not popular due to lack of awareness and poor access. As an example, Gujarat reported just 40% coverage of the National Health Insurance Scheme (or the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana) and negligible coverage of crop insurance. The picture is the same for Rajasthan wherein only 4 out of 40 respondents reported having an RSBY card. Data from Udaipur (Rajasthan) indicated that just over 10% land holdings were insured for crops.

Cases of migration from the Project Districts for skilled work are few, and most migration is under distress and is unskilled in nature. Women usually do not migrate but when they do (example, for sharecropping or when crops fail and other exigencies arise), they are vulnerable to physical, mental, financial and sexual exploitation, especially at work sites where the whole family is not engaged together.

Baseline assessments find that in Gujarat, women and girl children from migrant households - who constituted about 59% of the labour force (mainly tribals from Southern Rajasthan), are intensively engaged in picking and processing hybrid cottonseeds. They were found to be in heavy debt, often caught in the contract farming cycle. On the positive side, the situational analysis also indicated livelihood diversification with women engaged in animal husbandry (milk marketing), forestry and crafts and examples of successful women’s cooperatives in Banaskantha. In Maharashtra all the three districts where the project is located are cotton growing and over 80% of respondents reported growing cotton either on their own land or through share cropping. Women reported being hired as labourers for harvesting and picking at a wage-rate of INR 100 per day. Men usually are at the forefront of cotton sales through a middle-man or through the ginning federation. There are very few farmer’s cooperatives or producer companies and the industry is controlled by private players. Families just break even with huge variances in prices realised from cotton sales (between INR 3000 - 7000 per quintal). In fact, introduction of hybrid and Bt cotton seeds has resulted in a change in traditional farming patterns in the Project Districts. Farmers have moved from growing sorghum (jowar) and pearl millet (bajra) to mono-cropping just cotton and soybean. As a result of this, the situational analysis indicates that other livelihood options for women are very limited. In Southern Rajasthan, the average household income of tribal families is INR 22,621 per annum and the proportion of rural poor is 48%. Wage labour, agriculture, animal husbandry and forest produce collection constitutes the entire livelihood basket. Though there is negligible landlessness in the area, the land is not fertile and farming is largely subsistence oriented. Drought is common and a large number of families (women, men, and children) migrate for 4-6 months a year, largely to cotton farms in Gujarat. Individuals or families are contracted on a cash advance basis thereby restricting their freedom or choices. Women in the area have hardly any non-farm skills and few livelihood choices.

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Problem Analysis - Political and Legal Sphere:

Political empowerment of women has gained focus with decentralisation of governance and the more recent thrust on reservation of women in all three tiers of Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs)26. However, women in Project Districts are largely ignorant about the political set-up and their rights and responsibilities as citizens or leaders. Despite reservation, their participation in gram sabhas27 is abysmally low, and their voting decisions are influenced to a great extent by men in the household across all Project Districts (except in Maharashtra). According to a study, participation of women citizens of the village in gram sabhas was reported to be less than 25 percent highlighting the lack of effective participation of women in local governance. 28

Proxy-membership is rampant with EWRs being used as proverbial heads to keep seats booked for men-folk, whenever Panchayat seats are reserved for women under the rotational reservation system. Although there is a linkage between SHGs and EWRs (with many EWRs being members of SHGs in their respective villages), this linkage is not organic in the sense that development issues highlighted and discussed in SHG fora are not carried forward for action to the PRIs which have the mandate and funds to do so. Poor socio-economic status of women and the patriarchal set-up ensures that Elected Women Representatives (EWRs) are passed over while sending out information on PRI meetings and their suggestions ignored during major meetings.

Gujarat has 46,000 elected women representatives (2230 and 1310 in Banaskantha and Patan). Situational analysis and interim baseline assessments found that over 90% women had voter cards but a half of them reported casting votes as per advice from husbands. While state data indicates that 14,221 EWRs have been trained, of the EWRs interviewed, many had been elected unanimously on reserved seats and only a few had knowledge of their roles as EWR’s. None could recall any training support extended to them. The state government’s efforts to setup Panchayat Resource Centres and a policy of 100% training coverage of EWRs has been appreciated by government officials and EWRs both, however benefits of the same are yet to be realised. In Maharashtra, during baseline assessments, women interviewed unanimously indicated that they participated actively in voting and made their own voting choices. However, overall in their assessments, the Gram Panchayat members were inactive and looking after self interests. Very few women participated in gram sabhas. EWR’s interviewed were educated (primary schooling) and won reserved/un-reserved seats and indicated that a growing number of EWRs had

26 The Indian government has decentralized several administrative functions to the local level to Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI). The panchayats receive village & community development funds from three sources – (i) local body grants, as recommended by the Central Finance Commission, (ii) funds for implementation of centrally-sponsored schemes, and (iii) funds released by the state governments on the recommendations of the State Finance Commissions. In Rajasthan and Maharashtra there is 50% reservation for women in PRIs. In Gujarat it is 33%.

27 A Gram Sabha means a body consisting of persons whose names are in listed as electors in the electoral roll for a Panchayat. The gram sabha meets regularly to discuss village matters.

28 Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Study on EWRs in Panchayati Raj Institutions, 2008

13

Draft for Comments

reduced the instances of gambling and alcoholism in the villages. All EWR’s interviewed were broadly aware of their roles. However, many indicated dependence on son and husbands to carry out duties and that they did not raise many issues in the Gram Panchayat. Elected Male Representatives interviewed indicated that meetings were not democratic and that women’s concerns were not at the top of the planning lists. In Rajasthan, reservation of women has increased from the mandatory 33% to 50%. Even though the numbers of EWRs has increased, their true participation is still wanting. Caste dynamics, low literacy, poor exposure lead to poor performance of women in local self government. Knowledge of governance mechanisms and benefits is poor. 70% women largely cast votes, through as a matter of social obligation & based on their husbands advice or cash benefits offered by contestants. Respondents indicated extremely low participation in the gram sabha (over 70% denied participating in one). Community feedback indicated that the Panchayat rarely shares information freely and that women were minimally involved in Panchayat matters.

Women in the Project Districts lack awareness about their legal rights. Poor access of rural women to legal aid was largely assessed as a demand-side issue. Much of the violence against women and other kinds of harassment and discrimination in the socio-economic and political domain is accepted by women as a given. Situational analysis indicated pervasive ignorance about women’s rights, laws formulated and institutions set up specifically to protect women in the society. Fatalism and ignorance together result in poor legal-aid-seeking behaviour among women in the Project Districts.

In Gujarat awareness pertaining to laws related to domestic violence, dowry & harassment, property, Right to Information, Sex determination etc was found to be low. While overall awareness of all major schemes (highest knowledge of National Rural Employment Gurantee Scheme followed by National Health Insurance Scheme, Indira Awas Yojana - housing scheme, Public Distribution System, Integrated Child Development Scheme etc) was about 60%, access was much lower. Over 57% women (NFHS-3) reported it is justified for men to beat women under specific circumstances. Perhaps that is the reason why only 1/4 th of SHG’s interviewed indicated discussing issues of harassment and violence in group meetings. To address the aforesaid concerns, the government has opened several Legal Aid centres, counselling centres – however lack of awareness of these and poor facilitation channels lead to poor utilization of these facilities. In Maharashtra while over 60% women knew about the major government schemes, over 80% didn’t have access to them. Official data from NREGS indicates very low expenditure and work created in the three Project Districts. Primary assessments indicated that women worked a maximum 15 days per year under the scheme. While awareness regarding dowry act, domestic violence was between the range of 30-40% women were not aware of the actual recourse mechanisms available to them should they seek help. On acts such as RTI, women responded negligibly whereas regarding property rights indicated that since women marry, the property is essentially for men. Several women expressed disdain with the police and justice system and were not aware of the benefits of legal aid, family courts and role of protection officers. In Rajasthan, almost all women interviewed showed awareness of NREGS, PDS and Pension schemes, while fewer knew about Livelihoods, Sanitation and Girl child related schemes. However a fewer had ever benefitted from the same. Overall feedback from communities indicated problematic access to any scheme of the government. Problems of domestic violence and dowry were common and less

14

Draft for Comments

than 10% women respondents knew of the anti dowry laws and fewer knew of their rights to property, protection and information. While SLSA’s and District Legal Service Committees are operational in the area, women and community members interviewed have not been able to avail of legal aid services. Overall apathy towards women’s rights exists as a matter of historical acceptance.

In response to the contexts elaborated above, the proposed Integrated Women’s Empowerment project aims to bring about significant and sustainable improvements in women’s social status, economic productivity and participation, politico-legal awareness and improved access to entitlements. Strategies to be implemented have already been tested successfully under SWAAYAM - the IKEA Foundation supported and UNDP-implemented women’s empowerment project in Uttar Pradesh. For this project, strategy roll out pathways will draw from experiences in the UP project as well as take into account local experience and context in the 7 Project Districts of Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan. The pathways will ensure that (i) women are mobilized, capacitated, and organized for collective action to enhance their social and self-wort, and reduce social inequalities; (ii) women’s capabilities to initiate new economic activities/enterprises or to strengthen existing ones and to access livelihood infrastructure are enhanced, and their (families’) livelihood risks are characterized and covered/reduced; and (iii) women are empowered to resist all forms of violence and injustice, to participate effectively in local decision-making and to demand their rights, entitlements and access to quality public services.

The project will adopt an inclusive approach, wherein while the key change agents (as also targets) will be women, concerted efforts will be made to involve youth, men, and representatives of local (formal and informal) institutions to ensure societal buy-in of the strategy by various interest groups. The project will also establish strong linkages with the Government, financial institutions, private sector, and the civil society to accentuate project gains and sustain project impact.

UNDP had had extensive experience of working in all the three states on issues of human development, livelihood promotion, empowerment of poor communities- especially women and tribal groups. In Rajasthan, UNDP has been engaging for more than 10 years on livelihood promotion; working with a range of local communities and partners in different agro-ecological contexts. This has culminated in the setting up of the Rajasthan Mission on Skill and Livelihoods29 which has supported sectoral interventions in agriculture, livestock, forestry, skill development cum job placement, migration support services and promotion of tribal and women centred livelihoods in Southern Rajasthan. UNDP has also supported the state government in building capacities of elected women representatives to enhance their participation in institutions of local self governance. In Gujarat, UNDP has collaborated with some of the leading civil society groups on enhancing livelihoods based on natural resources, crafts and rural tourism. Post the earthquake in Kutch UNDP supported extensive rehabilitation efforts focussing on most marginalised groups. In Maharashtra UNDP has supported the state government research and published the Human Development Report and has worked extensively with civil society partners in demonstrating environmentally sustainable livelihood models and assessing the

29 http://rajasthanlivelihoods.org/

15

Women are unable to bring transformational change in their lives and in those of their families because of entrenched gender disparities at all levels, exacerbated by their own lack of capacities (awareness, knowledge, and skills) in an environment of limited resources and opportunities.

Draft for Comments

impact of HIV and AIDS. UNDP will leverage its past partnerships, learning’s and experience to contribute to the SWAAYAM initiative.

B.2 Problem Analysis

The problem analysis is located in the socio-economic and political context described above30 and is given below: (Please refer to Annexure X for detailed Problem Analysis)

Theme-wise problem statements across the three domains - social, economic, political and Legal - can be identified as given in Figure 1 below.

Under the project, rural women (especially those from poor, vulnerable, and marginalized families and women-in-distress (hereinafter W-i-Ds), SHG members, the SHG leaders, adolescent girls and boys and EWRs across 10,000 villages of the Project Districts would constitute the group of Primary Stakeholders.

Since the socio-cultural, economic and political context also plays a key role in influencing the extent to which women in the area are in charge of their lives, the project will also work with family members of the women, Elected Male Representatives (EMR’s) , other Panchayti Raj Institute (PRI) representatives, community leaders, Government functionaries (at Block, District, and State 30 Detailing of problem statements and cause-and-effect analysis were done through two multi-stakeholder Consultation events organized during Project formulation.

16

PROBLEM STATEMENTIgnorance about their their rights and

responsibilities as citizens and as EWRs results in lack of women’s voice, limited access to entitlements and exclusion of women from decision-making processes

STATUSWomen’s Exclusion from

Decision-making Processes and Platforms

POLITICAL & LEGAL

EMPOWERMENT

PROBLEM STATEMENTLack of capacities and resources, poor

access to livelihoods, indebtedness, and rising risks lead to economic exclusion

of women

STATUSEconomic Exclusion of

Women

ECONOMIC EMPOWERME

NT

PROBLEM STATEMENTGender inequality and discrimination at all levels manifests in lack of exposure,

poor access to life’s basic needs and social security entitlements

STATUSReduced Self-Worth &

increased Social Vulnerability of Women

SOCIAL EMPOWERME

NT

Draft for Comments

levels), lead Banks and NABARD, Non Government Organizations (NGO’s) , Rights Based Networks, and Business Development Service Agencies (BDSAs) as Secondary Stakeholders. The project will also work closely with other UN Agencies- especially UNICEF and the IKEA Foundation as significant secondary stakeholders to enhance cross learning and sharing on the initiative. External Stakeholders comprising private sector entities and institutions which may include traders and other market actors along the business value chains, Technical Resource Agencies (TRAs) (will be reached out to. The strengths and weaknesses of each key stakeholder category have been presented as Stakeholder Analysis in Annexure XIV.

C. PROJECT DESCRIPTION

C.1 The Development Objective

The development objective of the project is “Women in the Project Districts exercise greater say and control across social, economic, political, and legal spheres, thereby transforming their lives and those of their families and communities”.

The project is designed to contribute to achievement of the Millennium Development Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger, and Millennium Development Goal 3: Promoting Gender Equality and Empowering Women.The project is an integral part of the ongoing country programme (2008-12) as well as the next country programme (2013-17) and contributes to the core thrust on just, sustainable human development with a focus on issues of greater equity, participation and empowerment of marginalized people (such as dalits, tribal groups, women, population affected by HIV/AIDS, Muslims, and people with disabilities) to achieve lasting, transformational change. It feeds into three of the four outcomes of the next country programme related to inclusive and equitable poverty reduction, democratic governance and advancing women’s social, political and economic rights.

C.2 The Project’s Immediate Objective

Within the above development objective, the project’s immediate objective is: By the end of the project, women will be mobilised and capacitated for taking up action to realize their rights and entitlements, undertake economic activities to improve their livelihoods and increasingly participate in decision making in domestic and public spheres’’.

Key Performance IndicatorsBy the end of the project: At least 400,000 women and their families access their rights and basket of

entitlements under various Government schemes and programmes Sustainable increase by 20-30% in average annual income of at least 150,000

women in the Project Districts At least 30,000 women and youth emerge as change agents and lead

collective action at village, block, and district levels

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C.3 Expected Output(s)

OUTPUTS KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORSOUTPUT 1SOCIAL EMPOWERMENTBy end of the project, women in Project Districts mobilised and capacitated for individual and organized action to address persistent exclusion and violence, access entitlements and exercise greater ownership over resources

At least 1,000,000 women belonging to poor, vulnerable, and marginalised families identified and reached through community consensus building activities

At least 67 Women Empowerment Centres (WECs) established to provide training, advisory and support services on social, political and legal aspects to women from approximately 10,000 villages

At least 170,000 women SHG and other women collective members strengthened/ mobilised

At least 7 SHG and other women collective Federations established and/ or strengthened

At least 30,000 leaders of women’s collectives and local Youth mobilised at village level as community change agents (CCAs)

At least 150,000 existing and potential migrant families benefit from awareness on migrant rights

OUTPUT 2ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENTBy end of the project, women in Project Districts diversify their livelihoods, own and operate sustainable enterprises and increase household incomes

At least 10 livelihood sub-sectors which have special relevance to women identified

At least 150,000 women trained in sector-specific skills, enterprise management and financial literacy

At least 150,000 women benefiting from involvement at various levels of the value chain

At least 67 Business Development Service Providers (BDSPs) supported in providing business and technical services to women entrepreneurs

At least 10 successful, women-centred livelihood prototypes demonstrated for up-scaling

OUTPUT 3POLITICAL And Legal EMPOWERMENTBy end of project, women in Project Districts participate effectively in local self-governance, demand quality

At least 900,000 women and their families made aware of voter’s rights and responsibilities, nominations and electoral processes

At least 15,000 EWRs trained on their roles and responsibilities, political system and structure, and leadership development

At least 20,000 members of elected local bodies(women and men) sensitized on engendering governance

At least 30,000 women and change agents mobilised

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Draft for Comments

public services and access justice and grievance redressal mechanisms to realize their rights and entitlements

as pressure groups/ vigilance committees At least 7000 women part of the project spell out their

rights and entitlements under major government schemes

At least 67 networks of EWRs established and / or strengthened

At least 1,000,000 women and their families informed about entitlements and laws related to women

At least 134 Para-Legal Women Workers (PLWs) trained on legal issues faced by women

A detailed representation of Outcomes, Inputs Required, Outputs, Activities, Output Indicators, Means of Verification, and Risks and Assumptions is available as the Project Log Frame in Annexure XIII.

C.4 Project Implementation Strategy

The Integrated Women Empowerment Framework (see Figure 3 below) implemented successfully as SWAAYAM in Uttar Pradesh forms the core approach for this initiative. A strong need based approach with an eye for improved targeting and integrated planning and roll-out forms the basis of the project strategy. Herein social, economic, legal and political streams of women’s empowerment will be interwoven and rolled out based on need; thereby creating an overall environment for engendered development. The initiative will be rolled out across all 67 blocks of 7 districts. However since variances in vulnerability, severity of depravation and consequent needs are expected, interventions will also be tailored based on clustering of needs and in cases where pockets of extreme poverty exist- interventions will be intensified to maximise benefits to the most vulnerable. The primary strategy of the project will be to strengthen existing & organise women’s collectives (such as SHGs, Joint Liability Groups (JLGs), producer groups, Farmers Interest Groups (FIGs), Co-operatives) for economic activities of thrift/ credit and income generation. These groups will also be strengthened across social, political and legal lines through capacity building, campaigns and hand-holding support, thereby enhancing the overall self-reliance and strength of women. Mobilisation and strengthening of women’s groups will serve as the primary social base. Secondary level organisation of such groups into networks, federations and cooperatives/ companies will serve as the institutional base for women to take up sector specific activities. Building of such institutional coherence among women is expected to give them the chance to enhance their self-worth and incomes at the individual level and multiply the benefits through enhanced voice, representation and acceptance at the community level. Together, the project’s strategy aims to bring out transformational change in women’s ‘condition’ and ‘position’ across all domains of empowerment.

Figure 2: Women’s Empowerment Framework

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LevelsDimensionsProcesses

Individual, Household & Community

Economic, Social, Political & Legal

Transformation of Power Relations

- Enhance local organisational capacity through social mobilisation- Work towards greater inclusion and participation- Strengthen leadership and negotiating power

ECONOMIC: Increasing capacity and opportunities of women and their households for secure & enhanced income and greater access and control over resources

POLITICAL & LEGAL:Strengthening processes and greater participation, voice and decision-making role in local development

- Interventions designed to impinge on structural issues of gender, caste, religion and class

SWAAYAM- Transforming Women for Lasting Change

SOCIAL: Supporting a

conducive environment for addressing social

issues and promoting positive relationships among women and

men and within communities

Draft for Comments

UNDP will implement this project under the direct implementation modality. To this end, managerial and technical oversight will be provided by the UNDP Country Office (for management arrangement, see section D1). Project implementation in 7 Project Districts across the three project States will be undertaken by two Project Management Teams (PMTs). At the District level, implementation of activities will be undertaken by 7, carefully selected and reputed Mother NGOs (MNGOs). These MNGO’s will work directly with Community Resource Persons (CRPs) linked to Women’s Empowerment Centres (WEC’s) at the Block level. To enhance last mile outreach, the CRPs will in turn develop a strong base of women leaders and youth groups (referred to as Community Change Agents - CCAs) in the villages who will also work as vigilance/ pressure groups on various issues concerning women in the project area. In addition, the project will partner with national and state level Technical Resource Agencies (TRA) mandated to provide specialised support to the different domains of empowerment. Specifically, for rolling out the economic empowerment component of the project, three Business Development Service Agencies (BDSAs) will be contracted – one for each State31 to provide high end business, equity, skill development and market support to women on an end to end basis. Documentation of good practices and results of project experiences (under each component) will be an ongoing endeavour. . Specific attention on knowledge sharing and management as a key component of the project will be operationalised through a two way knowledge management strategy wherein a regular inflow and outflow of knowledge products will be maintained. 31 The role of a BDSA is given in section D1.

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Draft for Comments

These products will not only be for the benefit of the project team and allied stakeholders but also for a wider audience seeking solutions to gender equity and women’s empowerment issues. (see Annexure XII for detailed project strategy).Specific strategies to be adopted for operationalising the three components of this project, aimed at Social, Economic, and Political and Legal Empowerment of Women in the Project Districts, respectively, have been described below.

SOCIAL EMPOWERMENT STRATEGY Key dimensions of social empowerment strategy and operationalisation are given below (see Annexure XIII for details). The key components of Social Empowerment Strategy of this project can be summarised as follows: Strengthening/ organization of women at primary and secondary level

through strengthening of existing and creation of need based women’s groups and institutions

Improved targeting through vulnerability mapping for visibility, characterisation of the vulnerabilities of women especially W-i-Ds and identification and application of specialised interventions

Enhancement of social capital at the village level through CRP and CCA cadres, for sustainability of social change processes and social action

Engagement of men and boys in the empowerment process Convergence and linkages with existing/ ongoing development initiatives

aimed at social empowerment of women Behavioural Change Communication for mass scale awareness building Support to migrant families involving services both at destination in

Gujarat as well as at source in Rajasthan

A comprehensive social empowerment strategy successfully tested by UNDP in Uttar Pradesh will be adapted to Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan. Its three tenants relate to a) building capacities of women on social issues, b) creating and strengthening community change agents, and c) creating a positive external environment for overall change.

The project will work with women, starting from pre-existing women’s groups such as SHGs, JLGs, FIGs and other primary collectives at the village level. While the project will primarily work with pre constituted groups, in the event where marginalized women are left out from collectives, they will be mobilized and capacitated. These primary groups will be aggregated into secondary level organizations such as federations or consortiums and strengthened to emerge as a point of contact for individual women groups for various social, economic, political and legal issues and to ensure post-project sustainability of interventions. The collectives/ federations will function as apex institutions that will support women members in demanding rights and entitlements and escalating concerns of women with government and civil society stakeholders. Keeping in view sustainability of the project, an umbrella organization of secondary level institutions (a SWAAYAM consortium) will be established to create a self-sustaining institution that will backstop all institutions developed under the initiative.

Social mobilization of women and mass scale consensus building around women empowerment issues will be initialized with a focus of enhancing women’s voice at household and community level and creation an enabling

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Draft for Comments

external environment. Special efforts will be made to reach out to Women in Distress (WIDs). Such women will be identified and targeted for specific social empowerment interventions such as counselling, wellbeing monitoring, linkages, access to services.

A Behavioral Change Communication Strategy using mass scale social awareness as a medium will be adopted in the Project Districts to share information, ideas and values relooking and re-prioritisinfg women’s issues in the Project Districts. Extensive work with men and boys aimed at building their buy in and ownership towards women’s empowerment issues will be undertaken and several of them will be brought into the project mileau as CRP’s, CCA’s and champions of women’s rights and issues.

Targeted interventions will be designed for reducing vulnerabilities of migrant families.  UNDP will leverage its current work in Rajasthan with migrants and support/strengthen provision of migrant support service to migrants at destination (Gujarat) as well as to their families left behind at source (Rajasthan).  Such services include access to health services, remittance transfer, access to food grains through the public distribution and also involve capacity building of migrant families to access their rights as well as deal with instances of exploitation that range from issues of wage, child labour and sexual exploitation.

Specialised services will be provided to women through the Women’s Empowerment Centres. Counselling and support services will operate through the women’s empowerment centres 32These WEC’s operational at the Block level and/ or for every cluster of Villages/Panchayats will serve as a single-window advisory for servicing women’s empowerment across all domains. WECs will be linked to CRPs, who will serve as the primary link workers for the project and will be selected from the local community and trained intensively. CRPs, in turn will mobilize the CCA. The CCAs will assist in operationalization of empowerment activities with and for women at the village and household levels in Project Villages. CRPs along with CCAs will form the backbone of the project and will be engaged in the social change process beyond the duration of the project.

32 The WEC’s will house a resource centre with updated information on social, economic, political and legal dimensions of relevance to women and their families. Each WEC will house one para-legal worker, one business development service provider and support staff from the MNGO’s.

22

Linkages and advocacy with Block/District Headquarter and other stakeholdersAuditing of women’s collectivesAggregation of SHG and other collective based functions

Serving a single-window link with women supported under the projectDecentralised advisory services across social, economic, political and legal domains of empowerment with special reference to social mobilization and cohesion

7 collectives/ Federations

Social mobilization by MNGOs; CRPs as village level change agentsParticipatory process for SHG formationSHG based thrift and credit activitiesSocial action and advocacy for social issues at village level

Block / Cluster Level women Associations

Primary collectives of 150,000 Women Members

Figure 3: Social Mobilization Strategy

Linkages and advocacy with State government and private sector playersTaking up functions of the PMU beyond the project duration

SWAAYAM Consortium

Draft for Comments

ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT STRATEGYThe key components of the Economic Empowerment Strategy of the project can be summarised as below (see annexure XII for details of project strategy):

Promotion of women entrepreneurship and enterprise development Development of a local cadre of Business Development Service

Providers (BDSPs) to serve as business advisory for inputs as well as linkage requirements of women entrepreneurs in the long run

Promotion of producers’ groups and economic collectives of women Mainstreaming women’s livelihoods with government and markets Building business linkages with suppliers and markets Introducing inclusive livelihood promotion approaches Specialised focus on WIDs and adolescent girls

Economic inclusion of women by improving the quality of their economic engagements is critical to women’s empowerment. The strategy for expanding economic opportunities for women spins off from the social mobilisation process initiated under social empowerment. Going by UNDP’s Growing Inclusive

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Draft for Comments

Markets (GIM)33 approach, the strategy for economic inclusion and subsequent empowerment of women will be holistic in nature and will include options for self-employment, wage or job employment, enhancing skills and up-scaling of enterprises , run and managed by poor women. The project will extensively focus on demonstrating as well as incubating innovations in the livelihoods domain.

For operationalising the economic empowerment strategy, the project will partner with competent Business Development Service Agencies (BDSAs) – one in each State to augment business opportunities for women by working closely with producers on one hand and institutional players (CSOs, market, banks) on the other. The BDSAs will also keep track of innovations in various sectors34. BDSA’s will (a) classify and segment women based on economic potential and detail strategies for each economic segment (b) anchor skill and financial enterprise trainings (c) work closely with women from migrant households to strengthen their livelihoods and mitigate risks; (d) build capacities of women linked to value chains to benefit economically and sustainably from the same, (e) scout, develop, host, and mentor a cadre of local Business Development Service Providers (BDSPs) (one BDSP/Block) in the Project Districts (f) link with national level sub-sector agencies and innovation banks for highest level technical support, (g) document good practices and develop sub-sectoral knowledge products. The services of the BDSP’s will be linked to women through the WEC’s. Specialised sub-sector agencies will be hired to provide technical backstopping to BDSAs and the enterprises of poor women. These agencies will in particular support in designing livelihood prototypes, conduct sector analysis and monitoring; help the BDSA’s make explicit choices and highlight possible trade-offs in executing different livelihood activities. They will also help to identify constraints and the means of overcoming these. The capacities of all women part of economic empowerment activities supported by the project – both individual and institutional will be identified and developed with the aim to enhance their productivity and long-term engagement in businesses. While the triad of sector-specific skills, enterprise management and entrepreneurship capacities, financial literacy and counselling will be the focus for individual producers, organisational development to promote producers’ groups and collectives will be the next level of endeavour. The project will also strengthen linkages with institutional actors (markets, financial institutions, other value chain actors) to harness opportunities for women producers. In specific, the project will support linking women in accessing financial services such as credit, insurance, pension, remittances, micro-leasing and savings. Overall, specifically under the economic empowerment portfolio, project inputs (budgeted at around 9 million USD) are expected to generate a minimum of 24 million USD worth of35 incomes for 150,000 women producers. For this (given that wages comprise ¼ of the product value), the local economy will to be energised with product diversification/development to the level of 100 million USD. To achieve the

33 Please refer www.growinginclusivemarkets.org; in India the GIM approach has been adopted in various sectors like health, water, rural energy, and farm/ off-farm enterprises (http://cases.growinginclusivemarkets.org/countries/95) 34 National Innovation Foundation, National Design Centers are some institutions that document innovations in various sectors.35 Assuming an annual income of Rs 40000, a 20% increase in annual income of a household amounts to an annual increase of Rs 8000

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above, the project will roll out a partnership strategy and leverage resources from government flagship programmes, banks, private sector other development agencies etc. In addition to interventions aimed at augmenting women’s roles in market oriented value chains, the project will work with some special groups to improve their economic potential and position, In particular Women in Distress (WID’s).

POLITICAL AND LEGAL EMPOWERMENT STRATEGYThe key components of the Political and Legal Empowerment Strategy of this project can be summarised as below (see annexure XII for details of project strategy):

Building women’s Political Leadership through EWRs and Leaders of women collectives

Sensitizing Elected Leaders (men and women) on governance issues Building EWR Networks and Alliances Creating an enabling environment for good governance through voter

awareness and strengthening of gram sabhas Building a cadre of Community Change Agents as Vigilance

Committees Building a cadre of women PLWs Creating legal awareness

The project will adopt an integrated strategy for political empowerment covering intensive capacity building of Elected Women Representatives (EWRs), Self-help Group leaders and other women leaders. Special emphasis will be paid on building capacities of Elected Men Representatives (EMRs) to respond to women’s concerns. Capacities of Elected Women Representatives will be developed through trainings on transformational leadership, exposure visits, networking and hand-holding support. EWR networks will be formed at the

25

Draft for Comments

district level to serve as a strong political constituency to negotiate better services and access formal governance structures. Further, to ensure that local self-government institutions are accountable to communities, Pressure Groups/ Vigilance Committees will be initiated in each project village with CCA representatives as its primary members. Capacities of these CCAs will be developed to activate Gram Sabhas and to function as Pressure Groups on issues of concern. In addition, mass-scale voter awareness campaigns will be initiated to educate women and their families on political processes and their citizen rights and duties. Where possible, linkages will be forged with existing programmes of the Government and developmental agencies that are working in the Project Districts to ensure a synergistic and complementary approach to capacity development efforts. District level Advisory Groups will serve as a forum to address systemic challenges in implementation of relevant Government schemes and access to entitlements.

The strategy for legal empowerment will accentuate a culture of rights within communities. This will involve developing and building capacity of a cadre of Para-legal workers who will support women and their families access formal justice mechanisms and enable better access to entitlements of women and their families. As a mechanism of operationalizing the legal empowerment strategy, PLWs will be the first point of contact for legal awareness and aid and will facilitate access to redressal mechanisms through WECs. PLWs will perform advisory and support roles in supporting women and their families, access rights and entitlements. Linkage of the PLWs with existing mechanisms and institutions of justice delivery (like District Legal Services Authority (DLSA), Tanta-Mukti Samities in Maharashtra, legal aid cells run by NGOs, local groups of lawyers and social activists, etc.) will be established to contribute to the sustainability of project. The PLWs will work closely with CCAs, EWRs and CRPs in taking up issues for redressal through strategic engagement with the Judiciary, local self-government, CSOs and Government functionaries at the Panchayat and Block levels. A clear partnership strategy will be developed and rolled out with NALSA/DLSAs including to ensure widest outreach and benefits.

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C.5 Sustainability

Under the project strategy several institutions of the poor will be strengthened/ setup. These women-owned and member-based institutions are expected to draw resources and strength from the surrounding local environment as a means to sustain themselves beyond the project duration. A post-project structure of the inter-linked primary, secondary and tertiary level institutions of poor women from Project Districts is envisaged as the primary

27

Figure 5: Strategy for Political and Legal Empowerment of

State Legal Service

Authorities

State Panchayati Raj Department State Institute of

Federation

Networks

• Serve as a strong political constituency to negotiate better

• PLW’s provide Legal aid services

• EWR’s serve as link between

District Legal Service

Authorities

Panchayat, Block & District

Administration

PLW’s at

EWR’s & SHG

• Act as pressure/vigilance groups

SHG Women in

Primary Members

Federation of SHGs Networks of EWR’s and PLW’s

Federation of cooperatives and producer companies

Possible SWAAYAM Consortium (Not for Profit Entity)Apex body / Consortium

Figure 6 - Proposed Post-Project Struture of Consortium Partners

Area Federations

Producer Groups

Cooperative Societies

Networks of PLW’s

Networks of EWR’s

Provide services of saving and credit, value chain support, production aggregation, advocacy, support to greviances and access to rights & entitlements

etc.

Possible Aggregation of women’s needs at State level

Draft for Comments

strategy for post project sustainability. An apex SWAAYAM consortium (possibly inter-state where UNDP implements the SWAAYAM approach) will act as the apex body assisting and advising federations of SHGs and other women economic collectives on various operational, policy and programmatic issues. Further, cadres of CRPs, BDSPs, EWR’s and PLW’s developed at the field level are expected to keep the agenda of integrated women empowerment including women’s rights and entitlements alive at the grassroots. Long-term and effective functioning of these community groups and institutions will be aided further by the linkages established and tested during the project phase, between them and the Government Organisations (GOs), Technical Support Agencies (TSAs) and NGOs (see Figure 7 below)

Other sustainability factors that inherent and dovetailed in the project strategy include:

Linking women and their families with Central and State flagship developmental programs as a means to ensure and bring to them mainframe benefits.

Create provisions of risk coverage and/or mitigation measures as a safety net and means of sustainability to women’s livelihoods.

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Setup economic entities and help them become financially viable and capacitated to negotiate with the market and local value chain actors on beneficial terms. Linked to this will be the existence of a strong cadre of local and trained human resources BDSPs, CCA’s. PLW’s, CRP’s who enhance post project sustainability.

Ensuring increased role of EWRs and CCA cadre in helping women demand their rights, entitlements and public services is expected to create a strong culture of rights which is sustained even in the post-project phase.

Successful models will be adequately researched, documented and shared with Central and State Governments to create possibilities for wider adaptation and up-scaling.

C.6 Activities The project will be implemented over a period of four and a half years (2012-2016). The list of Main Activities Proposed has been provided as Annexure XI .

C.7 Target Group and Participants

The primary direct target group for the project includes rural women from disadvantaged communities and migrant families, members of SHGs and other women collectives, Elected Women and Men Representatives, and local youth in 7 Project Districts. While 170,000 women would be the direct beneficiaries of this project, 1,000,000 women and their families will benefit indirectly through social and political empowerment interventions. Segment-specific interventions, efforts will also be made to strengthen the livelihoods of 15,000 W-i-Ds and women and at-risk households and 15,000 Elected Women Representatives trained to strengthen governance systems. As secondary stakeholders, men in the households of target women and local development agencies will be provided information on the project, its purpose and component activities will be provided and buy-in obtained from GO functionaries, PRI representatives, and private actors in the value chains of relevance for women, within the first year itself. Thereafter, regular interface with project beneficiaries and other stakeholders will be maintained.

C.8 InputPlease refer to Section D2 of this Proposal for human resource inputs and Monitoring and Evaluation.

C.9 Assumptions & RisksAssumptions:

Social, economic, and political structures and policies in the project area are conducive and responsive to women's empowerment processes and their needs and priorities.

Project efforts and its main actors, i.e. women, receive support from the larger community, local development stakeholders, including PRIs, GO

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Draft for Comments

functionaries and men folk from the households and communities to which the target women belong.

Credible MNGO’s and experienced BDSAs are available for project implementation.

There are at least 10,000 (or 60%) pre-existing SHGs, JLGs, FIGs in project villages, which are amenable for strengthening.

Project actors will be able to leverage approval, space, and basic linkages for establishing WECs in locations accessible to women.

TSAs are available (preferably, within the project States) for contracting and/or sourcing technical expertise and resource materials as per project requirements.

There is no major natural calamity or man-made disaster during the project term which would hamper community mobilisation efforts.

Enterprising youth and other individuals are available for serving (with/without training) as BDSPs in the identified value chains / sub-sector.

Local Government functionaries co-operate in the roll-out of project activities and facilitate linkages with existing Government programs and mechanisms that provide legal aid and protection to women.

Risks that may hinder achievement of the project’s objectives or delay implementation significantly are estimated as below: There could be resistance and backlash from existing power structures at

household, village, and larger community level as the project progresses and is able to generate the envisaged impact with respect to empowerment of women.

Social customs (including deeply rooted patriarchy) and local politics may make it difficult to sustain project processes of women’s empowerment.

Difficulty in establishing adequate convergence of activities and interventions with Government Departments, Programmes, and Schemes may hamper sustainability of project impact.

Markets may not respond favourably (during/within the project term) to products and services of women's groups.

The composition of EWRs in a District may change due to unforeseen incidents like elections, etc.

Adverse climate and weather conditions may lead to less production in relevant sectors such as agriculture.

Adverse exchange rate fluctuations may reduce the fund available for project activities.

A detailed description of assumptions, risks and mitigation for the overall project implementation as well as for specific activities are indicated in Annexure XIII .

C.10 Action PlanA detailed list of indicative activities to be undertaken during the project period and their year-wise phasing has been presented as part of the Project Log Frame in Annexure XI and XIII .

D. Project Organisation and Management

D.1 Management and Co-ordination

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Social Mobilization, Field-level Implementation, Anchoring & Advisory Services to WECs, Managing & Mentoring CRP/BDSP/PLW/CCA’s, Reporting

& Village-level monitoring

Districts- Banaskantha, Dungarpur, Jalna, Patan, Udaipur, Wardha and Yavatmal

CRPs and CCAs at Village and Panchayat Level

WECs are single-window advisory for women

Women Empowerment Centres (WECs) at block level

7 District Level MNGOs

3 State level BDSA

Project Office for MaharashtraProject Manager, Specialists (3), Associates (2) – Admin & Finance

Project Office for Guj and RajProject Manager, Specialists (3), State Focal Point (1), Associates (2) – Admin, & Finance

Project Assurance, Compliance, Controls, Donor Reporting

Project Team at UNDP Country OfficeProject Officer (1), Project Associates (2)

State Advisory GroupState GO-DC, UNDP,

UNICEF, Representatives of MNGO & BDSAs,

Leaders of SHGs

Project Steering Committee

District Advisory GroupCollector, Representatives of GOs, PRIs, SHGs, CRPs, CSOs & members of Civil

SocietyProject Planning & Implementation, Monitoring, Review, Reporting,

Technical Support to CSOs & Field Oversight

Technical Resource Agencies

Draft for Comments

The project will be implemented by UNDP with full responsibility and accountability for delivering the agreed outputs and outcomes. The UNDP Country Office will be responsible for all financial management, reporting, procurement and recruitment services. The project will strive to promote gender balance in the Project Management Agency/Team as well as in the field teams. The project’s Management and Co-ordination Structure has been presented in Figure 8 below.

Under the

Government of India (GOI)-UNDP Country Programme (2008-12), Country Programme Management Board (CPMB) has been set up to provide oversight to the country

programme. The CPMB is jointly chaired by the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Government of India and UNDP and meets twice a year. In addition, Programme Management Boards (PMBs) have been set up to provide guidance and oversight to the different programme areas. As this project contributes to, both, the Poverty Reduction and Democratic Governance programmes, it will also be reviewed at the PMB meetings of both these programmes. A Project Steering Committee (PSC) comprising UNDP and IKEA Foundation will be set up and will meet at least bi-annually to provide overall guidance and direction to the project, ensuring its business case remains within the specified and approved parameters. The PSC will also review progress and serve as a forum to agree on possible management actions to address specific project risks and will assess and decide on project changes through revisions, if deemed necessary. The PSC will make recommendation for follow-on actions to be submitted for review in the following PSC. For operationalising project strategies across the project area, pre-existing linkages with Government Administration at the District level will be further strengthened by the District Advisory Committees (DACs) anchored by the District Collector with representation from key line departments, women’s groups and civil society members. The DACs will serve as a platform to build project synergy, ensure knowledge sharing and interlink women’s empowerment

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efforts at the District level. A State Advisory Group (SAG) comprising senior officers of key line departments, UNICEF, board members from women’s collectives and CSOs will be constituted for knowledge sharing and to ensure coordinated action on issues of women’s empowerment. Inputs from State and District level Advisory Groups will be shared at the PSC meetings and in the project reports. At the Country Office level a fully functional Technical Group that has since 2009 backstopped the development of effective project strategies will continue to provide advisory and strategy planning guidance to the project. Project implementation at the field level will be undertaken by Project Management Teams (PMT) to be set up in Gujarat and Maharashtra. Each PMT will be led by a Project Manager (SB5 level) who will have a team of four Specialists (SB4 level) (on Social Empowerment, Economic Empowerment, Political & Legal Empowerment and Monitoring and Evaluation) and two Project Associates (for Administration (SB2 level) and Finance (SB3 level)). Besides, for Rajasthan, there will be a State Focal Point (SB4 level), who will either be based in Ahmadabad PMT with extensive travel to Project Districts in Rajasthan or operate from one of the districts in Rajasthan. The Project Manager will run the project on a day-to-day basis within the requirements laid down in the project document and will have the prime responsibility of ensuring that the project produces the results specified in the project document, to the required standard of quality and within the specified constraints of time and budget. S/he will present annual budgets and work plans for approval by the office management and will review budgets and work plans thereby bringing to attention of the Country Office proposed changes and risks. S/he will also prepare annual procurement and recruitment plans for the project and overall monitor project delivery based on the multiple plans developed. At the UNDP Country Office, a designated National Officer level Programme Analyst will perform the assurance and compliance functions and monitor project activities and expenditure in line with the project’s annual work plan, outputs and outcomes. S/he will be assisted in this task by one Project Officer (SB4 level) and one Project Associate – Admin (SB3 level) and will manage the project in accordance with UNDP’s financial management procedures and guidelines and donor requirements.In addition to the above and under UNDP’s policy of cost recovery, specialised oversight and management support is provided to the project. On the technical side, these include, thematic backstopping of different project components by an in-house technical group and through regional bureaus. On the operational side this includes provision of system management services, infrastructure, branding, recruitment, clearances, procurement and financial compliance support. The project will be implemented through a decentralised approach towards community outreach and management compliance. The key stakeholders in activity implementation comprise the following:

Primary Stakeholder:

Women and their families who will benefit from project intervention

Project Facilitators

CRPs, BDSAs and Para-Legal Workers will function as project facilitators along with EWR’s. CRPs who are women and men from villages/ clusters mandated to serve as the link between women and the project and are the primary bearer of project messages,

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advisory and local support/change management. CRPs will primarily function in rolling out social, economic and political and Legal empowerment strategies at the ground level.The BDSP will be a person recruited from the field area and a key person for successful operation and sustainability of women-based businesses established as part of economic empowerment component of the Project.The PLW will be a local person and key to operationalization of legal empowerment activities with and for women in the selected Project Villages.

Community Change Agents:

CRPs will identify and train women leaders, especially EWR’s . Interested youth will be formed into an informal youth group and along with the women leaders from the village, will be trained as CCAs by the CRPs.

Facilitating Agency:

District level MNGO’s will be mandated to anchor the WECs, and will undertake social mobilisation and campaigns, build local capacities, report on agreed result indicators and provide human resources to manage field level operations up to the village level.BDSAs at the State level will build capacities of women in the project in livelihood aspects, roll out livelihood prototypes and anchor support to W-i-Ds. BDSAs will engage local youth/ value chain actors as BDSPs, train them and mentor them to provide their services independently of the project.

The WEC will be managed by one of the selected MNGOs or BDSAs in the area and will be an umbrella for CRPs, CCAs, BDSAs and PLWs. WECs will serve to provide support to women from the project area on social, economic, political and legal livelihood aspects of empowerment.

Technical Agency:

Specialized agencies in livelihoods (specialised sub-sector agencies), political and legal aspects providing need based and high level technical backstopping and solutions on different aspects of women’s empowerment to the BDSAs, MNGO, WECs, CRPs or directly to the PMT.

Monitors: Level 1 monitors will be women themselves who through institutionalised mechanisms will be requested to grade project progress bi-annually/annually. Level 2 monitors will be designated officers and associates from UNDP who will undertake programmatic, systems or financial reviews on a quarterly and annual basis. Level 3 monitors will be externally mandated agencies who will undertake concurrent monitoring on monthly/ quarterly basis and conduct baseline, mid-term and end line evaluations. The external agency will also undertake the process documentation aspect. UNDP may also commission need-based reviews and evaluations from time to time.

UNDP will also build synergies with existing UNDP and other UN agency supported programmes in the three project States and key Government Programmes like the National Rural Livelihood Mission, Programme for Empowerment of Women Farmers, National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, National Women’s Empowerment Mission, Backward Region Grant Fund and state government schemes for EWR’s, legal aid, key social protection and food security schemes to ensure a holistic response to women

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empowerment challenges as well as to promote the integrated women’s empowerment model nationally.

D.2 Monitoring, Learning and EvaluationThe Monitoring, Learning and Evaluation (ML&E) systems of the project will be as per UNDP’s policies and procedures, with adherence to the IKEA Foundation’s reporting requirements. As the project will be operational in 7 Districts across three States, a common Monitoring, learning and Evaluation (ML&E) framework and a corresponding Management Information System (MIS) will be set up. Effort will be made to harmonise reporting & produce standardized analysis on a quarterly basis on process, adaptation of strategies and learning’s. The project will be monitored at three levels. At the first level, women and their collectives (SHGs, JLGs, FIGs, EWR’s, PLW’s etc.) will engage in Monitoring & Evaluation at their village, block and federation level. This monitoring will mostly be half-yearly with different Blocks/ Districts monitoring at different time periods. Participatory M&E tools like Most Significant Change36, Community Score Card37, etc will be used.

At the second level, the MNGOs, BDSA’s and TSAs will prepare an MIS that will report on the outputs emerging from the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as approved in the Project Log Frame besides reporting on physical and financial inputs and outputs. This MIS (anchored within the MNGO) will have a complete database of 170,000 target women. The state offices will specifically work to develop, update, report and share key data related to project progress (to the UNDP Country Office for strategic action) based on quarterly project monitoring reports. A project Monitoring Schedule will be set up and will be adhered to rigorously for tracking progress towards planned results. At the third level, services of an external ML&E agency having expertise in the M&E domain and understanding of Women’s Empowerment will be engaged across the programme (in the proposed three States). The external ML&E Agency will design the Performance Management Framework and Evaluation Framework38 and assist in the overall ML&E of the programme by conducting periodic field assessments of the MIS information (on output indicators of the KPIs), facilitating participatory ML&E processes described above, support internal ML&E activities of the PMT and the UNDP Country Office and conducting baseline, mid-term and end-term evaluation of the project. The key components of ML&E will include: Two baseline studies will be conducted during the initial stage of the project.

One baseline will be conducted by the MNGO in their respective Districts to map existing women’s collectives on their management, functionalities and thrift and credit and to identify the target women and define their socio-economic and livelihood profile. This will feed into the project MIS maintained at the MNGO level. The second baseline will be done as a part of overall ML&E design by an external M&E agency to set the formal baseline for tracking.

36 The process involves the collection of significant change stories emanating from the field level, and the systematic selection of the most significant of these stories by panels of designated community members or staff.37 The Community Scorecard (CSC) process is a hybrid of the techniques of social audit, community monitoring and citizen report cards.38 Performance Management Framework will entail development of output indicators that will be periodically monitored against the reporting frequencies and responsibilities whereas the Evaluation Framework will detail outcome indicators which will be assessed in baseline and periodic evaluations.

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To track the progress against planned activities, a progress monitoring system will be established which will be based on monthly progress reports, MIS data and report cards generated from the community level. Progress review meetings will held at Block, District and PMT levels on a monthly basis by UNDP. A computerized ML&E system will be part of the integrated progress monitoring design. Designated Country Office Personnel will conduct performance and process monitoring on the KPIs and annual work plans on a quarterly basis.

Annual participatory monitoring and process documentation will be conducted by the external ML&E agency. Updating of issues, risks and lessons learnt through this will ensure that major project learnings are tracked in a timely manner and issues are addressed expeditiously. The agency will also conduct a mid-term evaluation and an end-term evaluation.

Quarterly Progress Reports and quality assessments will capture feedback from the beneficiary perspective and their feedback on timeliness and resource usage. This will be first completed by the Project Manager (at PMT level) and shared with the designated Programme Officer and the PSC. The project will also be part of the periodic programme portfolio reviews at UNDP and feed into the bi-annual Country Programme Management Board meetings co-chaired by UNDP and Department of External Affairs (DEA).

An Annual Review Report will be prepared by the Project Manager and shared with the designated Programme Officer and the PSC.

An Annual Project Review will be conducted together with the IKEA Foundation and the UNDP Country Office to assess the annual performance of the project as per the Annual Work Plan (AWP). In the last year, this review will be a final assessment.

D.3 Impact TableThe expected impact of the project on its target group over the project term has been summarized below; it reflects the “After Picture” of the project.

No.

Indicators Estimated Target (cumulative)Yr 1 Yr 2 Yr 3 Yr 4 Yr 4.5

Social Empowerment1 Number of women

belonging to poor, vulnerable, and marginalised families identified and reached through community consensus building activities

Overall: 1,000,000Gujarat: 300,000Maharashtra: 400,000Rajasthan: 300,000

50,000 200,000

500,000

700,000 1,000,000

2 Number of women collective members mobilised/strengthened

Overall: 170,000Gujarat: 60,000Maharashtra: 70,000Rajasthan: 50,000

- 100,000

135,000

170,000 -

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No.

Indicators Estimated Target (cumulative)Yr 1 Yr 2 Yr 3 Yr 4 Yr 4.5

3 Number of Federations of women collectives established

Overall: 7Gujarat: 2Maharashtra: 3Rajasthan: 2

- - 2 6 7

4 Number of leaders of women’s collectives and local Youth mobilised at village level as community change agents

Overall: 30,000Gujarat: 10,000Maharashtra: 12,000Rajasthan: 8,000

3,000 15,000

24,000 27,000 30,000

5 Number of Women Empowerment Centres (WECs) established to provide training, advisory and support services on social, political and legal aspects to women

Overall: 67Gujarat: TBDMaharashtra: TBDRajasthan: TBD

- 10 50 67 -

6 Number of existing and potential migrant families benefit from awareness on migrant rights

Overall: 150,000Gujarat: 50,000Maharashtra: 30,000Rajasthan: 70,000

- 50,000

100,000

- -

Economic Empowerment1 Number of livelihood

sub-sectors identified which have special relevance to women

Overall: 10

5 10 - - -

2 Number of women trained in sector-specific skills, enterprise management, and financial literacy

Overall: 150,000Gujarat: 50,000Maharashtra: 50,000Rajasthan: 50,000

5,000 60,000

135,000

150,000 -

3 Number of successful, women-centred livelihood prototypes demonstrated for up-scaling

Overall: 10Gujarat: 3Maharashtra: 4Rajasthan: 3

- 5 8 10 -

4 Number of BDSPs Overall: 15 67 67 67 -

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No.

Indicators Estimated Target (cumulative)Yr 1 Yr 2 Yr 3 Yr 4 Yr 4.5

supplying business and technical services to women entrepreneurs

67Gujarat: TBDMaharashtra: TBDRajasthan: TBD

5 Number of women benefiting from involvement at various levels of the value chain

Overall: 150,000Gujarat: 50,000Maharashtra: 50,000Rajasthan: 50,000

- 50,000

100,000

150,000 -

Political and Legal Empowerment1 Number of women

and their families made aware of voter’s rights and responsibilities, nominations and electoral processes

Overall: 900,000Gujarat: 300,000Maharashtra: 300,000Rajasthan: 300,000

- 200,000

700,000

900,000 -

2 Number of Elected Women Representatives (EWRs) trained on their roles and responsibilities, political system and structure, and leadership development

Overall: 15,000Gujarat: 3,500Maharashtra: 6,500Rajasthan: 5,000

1500 10,000

15,000 15,000 15,000

3 Number of networks of EWRs established

Overall: 67Gujarat: 19Maharashtra: 32Rajasthan: 16

28 49 67 -

4 Number of CCAs (members of SHGs and local Youth) mobilised at village level as pressure groups/vigilance committees

Overall: 30,000Gujarat: 10,000Maharashtra: 12,000Rajasthan: 8,000

- - 15000 30,000 30,000 -

5 Number of members of elected local bodies sensitized on

Overall: 20,000Gujarat:

- 8,000 12,000 18,000 20,000

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No.

Indicators Estimated Target (cumulative)Yr 1 Yr 2 Yr 3 Yr 4 Yr 4.5

engendering governance

7,000Maharashtra: 8,000Rajasthan: 5,000

6 Number of Para-Legal Workers (PLWs) trained in legal issues faced by women

Overall: 134Gujarat: TBDMaharashtra: TBDRajasthan: TBD

- 67 134 134 -

7 Number of women & their families informed about entitlements and laws related to women

Overall: 1,000,000Gujarat: 300,000Maharashtra: 400,000Rajasthan: 300,000

5000 500,000

700,000

900,000 1,000,000

8 Number of women part of the project spell out their rights and entitlements under major government schemes

Overall: 7000Gujarat: TBDMaharashtra: TBDRajasthan: TBD

- - 2000 5000 7000

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Budget Summary and Significant Input (all figures are in Euro)

Particulars Total Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 4.5

a. Opening BalanceSecured income:IKEA FoundationOther Sources Non-secured income:IKEA FoundationOther sourcesTotal incomeb. Programme Costs(i) Output 1 - Social Empowerment

3,787,219 535,547 1,039,932 909,536 884,712 417,493

(ii) Output 2 - Economic Empowerment

8,010,089 297,390 3,453,438 2,899,285 1,141,562 218,413

(iii) Output 3 - Political Empowerment

3,810,220 983,183 1,171,892 1,242,444 309,041 103,660

(iv) M&E; Reporting & Process Documentationc. Programme Management Costs (@ 3%)(i) Project Management Unit Establishment & Operational Costs 173,633 38,585 38,585 38,585 38,585 19,293(ii) Project Staff at PMT

261,48853,515 55,656 59,349 61,665 31,303

(iii) Travel (Outstation, local, project locations) 86,817 19,292 19,292 19,294 19,293 9645d. Sub-Total (b+c)

16,129,4661,927,512 5,778,795 5,168,493 2,454,858 799,807

e. Recovery Costs @ 7%

1,214,046 145,082 434,963 389,026 184,774 60,201

f. Total Costs (d+e)

17,343,512 2,072,594 6,213,758 5,557,519 2,639,632 860,008

Exchange Rate: 1 EURO = 62.2 INR

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(Refer Annexure XV for Detailed Project Budget)

D.4 Other relevant information concerning the project

Annexure

Annexure Title

I Concept NoteII Area MapsIII State and District Data SheetsIV Situation Analysis Report – GujaratV Situation Analysis Report – MaharashtraVI Situation Analysis Report – RajasthanVII Compiled Situation Analysis ReportVIII Women’s Empowerment initiatives by non state actorsIX Outputs of Consultation EventsX Problem, Cause and Effect AnalysisXI Main Activities ProposedXII Detailed StrategiesXIII Project Log-Frame AnalysisXIV Stakeholder AnalysisXV Budget - Format C

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