livelihoods. learning. sharing.

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April 2014

LIVEwireLIVEwireVol. II No. 1

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on LIVEwireThis Month

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Launch of XIMB ­ Livelihoods MANTHAN Online KnowledgeRepositoryThe “Livelihoods MANTHAN Online Knowledge Repository” was launched by

the Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB) in Bhubaneswar

on March 21, 2014. A wide variety of stakeholders from State Rural

Livelihood Missions, academics and practitioners from livelihood promoting

organizations attended the launch meeting to understand how this online

tool could assist in learning and sharing experiences on livelihood

promotion in India. The online repository was launched by Fr. Paul

Fernandes (Director – XIMB) in the presence of Dr. Ajit Kanitkar

(Programme Officer ­ Ford Foundation India), Mr. Narasingha Panigrahi

(Director, SDRC), Ms. Warisha Yunus (ILO & Solution Exchange) and Mr.

Annamalai Premkumar (Joint Director, Tamil Nadu SRLM).

The XIMB ­ Livelihoods MANTHAN Online Knowledge Repository is an open

portal to share training materials, research reports and other resources to

aid livelihoods promotion in India. It offers a unique platform to access

available knowledge resources on livelihoods issues, cutting across themes

and regions. It is a tool to strengthen collaboration among practitioners,

academics and policy makers, built on submissions by these stakeholders

towards building a community of knowledge and practice on livelihoods.

The Repository is visualized and managed by the Xavier Institute of

Management, Bhubaneswar as part of Livelihoods MANTHAN, a

collaborative effort to envision the participation of academic institutions in

the livelihoods ecosystem. This is among various other efforts by XIMB to

strengthen knowledge and education on livelihoods in India. The Repository

has been developed in collaboration with Siddha Development Research &

Consultancy (SDRC).

The Repository enables stakeholders in the Indian livelihoods ecosystem to connect and collaborate by sharing

resources on livelihoods. It is built on an open source platform so as to make collaboration with other online

partners easy and is available online 24*7.

Its main features are :

1. A Search facility to look for resources based on keywords, authors, titles, regions, resource type, etc.

2. A Submit feature for users to contribute resources to the repository

3. A Browse feature to sift through the existing records by Theme, Publication Type, State, etc.

4. A Description of each resource for ready reference using which the user can explore it through a hyperlink.

The Repository currently hosts a few hundred resources. The challenge is to get SRLMs, livelihoods promoting

organizations, academic institutions, students, etc. to envision the Repository as a collective effort and

contribute to its utility. Despite its technical potential, the true success of the Repository lies in its being

considered useful by the people working at the grassroots. XIMB invites all stakeholders to use the repository as

a tool ‘for all, by all’ to engage with other stakeholders in the livelihoods sector.

­ 2 ­LIVEwire April 2014

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Dr. Madhukar Shukla, Professor and Storyteller at XLRI

Jamshedpur, shares his insights on being a jury member at

the 2014 Innovation Forums in Bihar andMaharashtra

In January 2014 end, Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion

Society (BRLPS) and Maharashtra State Rural

Livelihoods Mission (MSRLM) organized the final

selection rounds of their Innovation Forums – Bihar

Innovation Forum (BIF) and Maharashtra Rural

Livelihoods Innovation Forum (MRLIF) ­ to identify

innovative social ventures who can be potential

partners. I had the privilege of being a member of one

of the two jury panels for the MRLIF – and also had

informal communications with some of the BIF

organizers, jury members and the participants. This

short note is based on these learning.

I found a couple of noteworthy and distinctive aspects

about these Forums. Firstly, they are significant since

these were the first efforts to operationalize and

implement the “Innovation and Partnerships” framework

on the NRLM. The framework has envisaged a

partnership with social ventures to scale and replicate

their innovations to further the livelihoods agenda.

Moreover, the Forums also represented an impressive

exercise of scouting, identifying and selecting

sustainable and scalable/replicable social innovations

which can be leveraged to further the livelihoods

agenda. BIF had followed a two­pronged strategy, and

scouted for high impact innovations at the national level,

and also grassroots innovation at the state level. This

exercise led to identification of 125 pan­India social

innovation (out of 491 applications) and more than 1700

state­level grassroots innovations, which were then

shortlisted 173 in nine different categories through field

validations; these were further narrowed through eight

divisional events and then the final jury in Patna to

identify three winners in each category. Likewise, MRLIF

Insights on the emerging livelihoods ecosystem in India

­ 3 ­

shortlisted 38 innovative grassroots ventures (out of

more than 350 applications) in six thematic areas

through field­validation and then further filtered them

through a final jury process to identify and recognize

one winner in each category, and three overall

winners across the categories.

What also made these selections distinctive from

other competition was that they cut through the

language barrier to reach out to those venture, whose

members can only converse in their vernacular

language; many of the finalists in MRLIF could make

their presentations only in Marathi. I found this

important because in most such selections, the

procedures and the language (English) often de facto

exclude many impactful innovations.

The Forum and awards, however, are only the

beginning of the partnership process. For the other

stakeholders, it would be a learning to watch how the

proposed partnerships would take shape and help

accelerating livelihoods promotion on the ground.

Since the selected innovations vary widely in terms of

themes, impact and life­cycles stages, the nature of

partnerships and support from the SRLMs would also

vary – ranging from technical, mutual learning to

financial.

Moreover, while the awardees in the forum are mostly

well­known well­established social ventures, the other

short­listed ventures/ innovations are perhaps more

important. Since the purpose of the Forums was to

scout and discover new and scalable/replicable

innovations, these other non­awardees are the real

‘discoveries’ and represent new, albeit less known and

less mature, innovations and solutions. While they

would require more intense support in terms of

mentoring, incubating and funding, many of them

would also be real leverage of the Forums.

LIVEwire April 2014

RReeaaddeerrss WWrr ii tteeI was very pleased to see the short report from Anoop Tiwari on SRI experience in Madhya Pradesh (in LIVEwire

dated October 2013). He is one of my favorite field workers in the whole wide world. His field work is inspiring, and

I am glad to see the NRLM in MP taking advantage of his experience and idealism.

­ Norman Uphoff

Professor at Cornell University

MMAANNTTHHAANN iinn AAcctt iioonn

What works and why it works ­Understanding JEEViKA (BRLPS)

Prof. Avanish Kumar and Aman Dewan (MDI) share

insights from on an ongoing research study on the

JEEViKA model oflivelihoods promotion.

MDI Gurgaon leads an ongoing research project geared

towards identifying, distilling and documenting ground­

level understanding of JEEViKA in Bihar, via a

participatory approach. The focus of the study was on

'what works, and why it works' pertaining to issues of

social, livelihoods and financial inclusion among the

marginalized. The study was conducted in two phases ­

initially a team had four thematic discussions with the

team of JEEViKA at Patna. The team comprised of Ajit

Kanitkar (Ford Foundation), KV Gouri (Livelihood

School), Kalpana Pant (Chaitanya) and Avanish Kumar

(MDI). The second phase was intensive fieldwork

carried out by Aman Dewan and Avanish Kumar of MDI.

The study employed a participatory multi­pronged

approach while covering four villages across two blocks

of Gaya district in Bihar. Gaya is part of the intensive

districts from the time of conception, two adjacent

villages were chosen in the two blocks of Gaya, which

were Bodh Gaya and Barachatti block. These blocks

were selected to understand the difference of impact

due to spatial administrative exclusion. Barachatti block

is at the periphery of the Gaya district, bordering with

Jharkand while Bodh Gaya is the administrative hub of

the JEEViKA project. The study tools comprised a

detailed household survey with a focus on livelihood,

social and financial inclusion parameters; along with

focus group discussions (FGD) and semi­structured

interviews with the community members, beneficiaries,

JEEViKA’s professionals and community workers. The

study was carried out with the administrative and

technical support of JEEViKA.

One of the key achievements of JEEViKA is in terms of

social inclusion. In the absence of literature on

women’s empowerment in the context of rural India, it is

worth the while for scholars working on gender, to

understand the worldview of these women. For them

empowerment means ‘creation of their identity’­ “people

know who I am and not by my husband or son’s name”.

As a women’s collective, these SHGs leverage collective

strength.

News updates from the Livelihoods MANTHAN consortium

­ 4 ­

Apart from weddings, village dinning and food has

remained exclusive to caste and class in the multi­

caste villages of Bihar. Except marriage, Brahmins or

upper caste cannot take food with or from lower

caste. But, dinning during Village Organization (VOs)

meeting organized by JEEViKA has created platform

that promotes social cohesion with the exchange of

food irrespective of caste. Preliminary observations

suggest that household level empowerment of women

has drastically improved. This is ascertained from the

higher level of freedom in decision making that

women exercise within household and in the villages.

At one of the FGDs, a woman said, "today we women

are discussing about our work in front of the house

after sunset while men are inside". Still, considerable

work is required in the realm of community level

empowerment as a collective. Women are also

encouraged to take up ‘home­based’ productive

activities as they have to balance between the

emerging roles of income generation while still

shouldering traditional responsibilities of household

responsibilities. However, it’s not role burden ­ but it

is considered as skills of multi­tasking and sings of

empowerment.

In terms of Financial inclusion, under JEEViKA, the

interest rate on loans given to SHGs are at 2 percent

for all loans except those under the Health Risk Fund,

There has been an improvement in the health of the

community due to the presence of the health risk

fund, which subsidizes micro­loans to one percent

interest. However, the overdependence on private

hospitals, specially quakes due to lack of access to

good quality government healthcare facilities, puts

debt on the community. A woman mentioned that

simple things like medicine for fever, blood pressure

measurement also don’t happen at the government

LIVEwire April 2014

hospital due to lack of instruments. During our FGD, a

woman returned from a clinic of a private doctor. He

charged rupees hundred for the medicine. The child had

fever; the treatment was of allopathic medicine such as

paracetamol and homeopathic medicine. Ironically, he is

considered as the most effective doctor available.

Findings from the household survey suggest that health

care expenditure is the primary loan­purpose (32%),

followed by education (25%). The practice of private

tuition in every eligible household indicates the

unfulfilled demand for quality public education. Both

these financial burden can be reduced with improvement

in access and utilization of quality health and education

through collective action.

The findings on livelihoods inclusion of the target

community indicate that massive subsidies have had to

be provided to incentivize adoption of poultry farming as

an alternate livelihood path. There are location specific

differences in livelihoods also; we observed that

Barchatti is different than Bodh Gaya. Barachatti is high

in vegetable production than Bodh Gaya. The main issue

in Barachati is lack of market linkage. Farmers do not

transport their produce to local markets for better

prices, but rather end up selling to middle men at

distress prices. For an example Bodhgaya which is 25

km away from Barachati, the market price of green bean

(frenchbean) was twenty eight rupees, while the farmers

sold 100 kg at the rate of sixteen rupees to a

middleman. We explored the possibility of JEEViKA

linkage with the weekly market. It is well organized but

management rest with few local landlords. Many

JEEViKA members sell artificial jewelry and vegetables,

but it is their personal initiative. JEEViKA can tie up with

these local markets which has potential to boost

opportunities for these women. One of the prerequisite

of these women is to have minimum relocation from

their home due to livelihoods. Thus livelihood options

that are locally available are best suited. Crop

intensification systems have been a great success

particularly for those people who have access to private

tube­wells, but there are equity implications to this as

­ 5 ­

being an irrigation free zone. The lack of water

availability has been a major hindrance. The other

upcoming livelihood interventions in this areas is

Agarbatti making, which is estimated to have more

takers than poultry as space and cultural restraints do

not apply.Based on in­depth participatory observations,

preliminary suggestions of the study tackle the two

financial drains of the community i.e. improvement of

government health and education services ­ primarily

through improving the practice of social audits, and

initiation of collective bargaining by the community.

Establishing market linkages need to be prioritized to

promote entrepreneurs to rise at local level. A sense

of urgency in creating new livelihood options is of

utmost importance as the rapid rise of micro­finance,

if not backed by livelihood generation, will lead to

vicious debt cycles. Thus, reducing financial pressures

on account of health care and education through

improved governance. Parallel to it, skill development

and establishment of market linkages will be key to

bridging the gaps between financial and livelihood

inclusion of the community.

As a rural livelihood programme, there are three key

learnings: JEEViKA is successful because it has supple

management ­suited to the local demand providing

ways of bottoms up approach to development.

However, in this approach success and failure rests on

Block Programme Managers. These roles require

passion and perspective for future development

beyond top­down prescribed list of activities. The

second important aspect of JEEViKA is the

personalized leadership – all members associate with

the leader. It is a big challenge to institutionalize this

‘culture of leadership’ in JEEViKA. The last but not the

least, programmes may come and go but a

programme like JEEViKA has potential to create

sustainable human capital. This would require more

clarity on professional linear growth policies among

the professionals. Currently, JEEViKA is in expansion

and experiment mode.

LIVEwire April 2014

MMAANNTTHHAANN iinn AAcctt iioonn

Livelihoods Panel at Harvard IndiaConference 2014Prof. Shambu Prasad of XIMB was part of the “Rural

Livelihoods: Agriculture and beyond” panel at the India

Conference 2014 in Harvard University from February

15­16, 2014. This was the first time the conference was

hosting a panel on sustainable livelihoods for the rural

poor. Specifically, the panel discussed three major

themes­ Agriculture sector, MSME sector and Access to

Finance. The strategies and issues were discussed

through the lens of Government, Private sector and Civil

Society. Impact of National Rural Livelihoods Mission and

Private sector investment also formed significant part of

the discussions. Other panelists included Tara

Thiagarajan (Chairperson, Madura Microfinance & Chief

Scientist Scimergent), Sampath Kumar (CEO, Rajiv

Gandhi Mahila Vikas Pariyojana) and Rajesh Srivastava

(Chairman and MD, Rabo Equity Advisors).

Workshop on Micro Enterprise PromotionThe Livelihood School (TLS) has organized a two day

Livelihood Learning Group (LLG) workshop on Micro

Enterprise Promotion on January 16­17, 2014. The

workshop was organized at Centre for Organization

Development, Hyderabad. The participants included

Livelihood Promoting Organizations (LPO) involved in

micro enterprise promotion, academics, experts on the

subject, and Government representatives among others.

The faculty of TLS documented 12 cases studies on

micro enterprise promotion which included both

successful and failed interventions of six LPOs. The

livelihood promoting organizations whose interventions

were documented include PRADAN, BAIF, EDII, Udyogini,

Kudumbashree, and IGS.

News updates from the Livelihoods MANTHAN consortium

­ 6 ­

The process of documentation involved initial dialogue

with the partners where the interventions that can be

documented were decided by the partners. The

faculty of TLS undertook field visits to all the

intervention locations, interacted with the

stakeholders and developed the case studies. The

case studies were jointly presented by the partner

organization and TLS during LLG to larger audience

for critique and analysis of the cases studies to distil

the learning. The cases will be revised based on the

feedback and published as output of LLG

Rethinking development at the 6th NationalConference on Social EntrepreneurshipXLRI organized the 6th National Conference on Social

Entrepreneurship from January 31 to February 2,

2014. Organized under the aegis of Fr. Arrupe Centre

for Ecology and Sustainability by the student

committee SIGMA, the conference’s theme for this

year was “Rethinking Development: Strengthening the

Grassroots ­ aims to explore and create a platform to

showcase and learn from initiatives and social

ventures which are promoting a holistic and “grounds­

up” model of development.

The conference saw several social entrepreneurs and

development sector professionals share their

experiences, issues and challenges on alternative

models of development. The conference was attended

by about 170 practitioners, academicians and

students, and provided a platform for knowledge­

sharing and partnerhship.

LIVEwire April 2014

A PMRDF Fellow speculates on his journeyahead

Arpit Asthana, XIMB Alumnus (2010-12) and PMRD

Fellow (2014-15), shares why he thinks the Fellowship is

uniquely posited to promote livelihoods in India.

My inclination towards Physics and Mathematics in my

school days landed me in an engineering college. I was

placed at a software consulting firm as a result of the rat

race to get a “good” campus placement. Friends, peers,

location, money etc. was merry then... all except my

work. I felt that my work was neither inspiring nor could

I contribute anything to society. It was not motivating

enough and with the passage of time I was getting

bored with it. It was in the year 2010 that I decided to

attempt the IRMA entrance exam and subsequently

qualified for the Rural Management course in Xavier

Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar.

I have been following Prime Minister Rural Development

Fellows Scheme (PMRDFS) very closely since my XIMB

years and was delighted when I came across the 2nd

batch admission notification in 2013. After a Rural

Management degree and for a person to work and make

a career in development sector I think PMRDF is the

logical step on the ladder. In development lingo, a

PMRDF will act as a ‘development agent’ and ‘facilitator’

to help in bridging the program delivery mechanisms

and developmental/governance deficits. For me, this

proved to be an opportunity of not only interacting

directly with the people but also closely observing the

district administrative machinery of an IAP (Integrated

Action Plan) district.

The fact that this is a Government of India fellowship

aided with the academic expertise of TISS makes it

special for me. Besides, the mix of office­field work

and the tie up with District Magistrate and various line

departments will help me in understanding the

intricacies in administering and developing a

backward district. The multi­dimensional work scope

covering project monitoring, implementation and

research is also a unique proposition.

A PMRD fellow’s work includes capacity building of

SHGs, designing innovative projects, assisting in

better implementation of poverty alleviation programs

and providing feedback on rural development

initiatives. A fellow also has the liberty to undertake

action research, discover more appropriate ways of

program delivery and also conduct socio­economic

analysis of the local areas at block level. Post the

fellowship, TISS will award an M.A. / M.Sc. degree in

Development Practice, following which the fellow will

be attached with an SRLM for atleast a year. Such

opportunities broaden the horizons which I think no

other opportunity can provide at the entry level. All

these factors make the fellowship special indeed. This

fellowship will catalyse my long term ambition of

becoming a policy maker and analyst.

India’s unique demography should act as a beacon for

the government to encourage youth in joining and

helping the backward districts of a country to

progress. PMRDF is one such experiment. Young

Professionals (YP) Scheme is another initiative by the

Indian Government and is already proving fruitful in

Bihar (BRLPS) and elsewhere. I feel that youth, if

properly moulded, can contribute much in the

development and upliftment of backward districts of

India by their new and innovative ideas backed with

latest technology.

VVooiicceess ff rroomm tthhee ff iiee llddReports from livelihood professionals in the field

­ 7 ­LIVEwire April 2014

Developing natural resource basedenterprises and businesses

Kapil Sahasrabuddhe of Yojak shares the highlights of a

workshop on natural Resource based business/enterprise

development.

A two day workshop on Natural Resource based

business/enterprise development was organized by

Yojak (Centre for Research and Strategic Planning on

Sustainable development) and MGIRI (Mahatma Gandhi

Institute for Rural Industrialization, Wardha) on

February 3­4, 2014 at MGIRI. The workshop was

designed to bring together various development

partners from the domain of rural livelihoods for an

interesting sharing of practices and ideas.

Yojak initiated this step to work towards an Indian

school of thought on development and bring different

stakeholders together to explore the possibility of

partnerships between CSR, NGOs and Research

Organizations on development projects. Taking it

forward from there, the Wardha Workshop saw over 30

organizations’ representatives from across Central India

and speakers from government initiatives, funding

organizations, technology innovation centres, NGOs and

networks. The participants shared best practices in

livelihoods through community mobilization with

people's institutions around local resources and creating

pro poor value chains and alternative solutions.

Some of the common threads that ran through the

sessions are shared below:

1. Whereas most livelihood models appreciated the need

to work on both supply (better farm practices) and

demand (forward linkages) sides simultaneously they

also emphasized that a preoccupation of one over the

other can lead to damaging outcomes.

2. There are a lot of similarities in all the models, like

need for better packaging and branding, improved

marketing strategies, web based marketing,

technology innovations. But there has been minimal

sharing between implementers leading to repetitive

efforts. An effective network as a platform for cross

learning and replicating is required.

3. Understanding of available institutional structures

that can be used for people's organizations need to be

studied, weighed for their pros and cons and selected

suitably for each work that organizations take up

around their local resources and skills. Exploring the

public private partnership models in this regard could

be a game changing approach.

4. While market led interventions are giving the

current livelihood models the edge, development

practitioners should not be closed to the impacts on

the rural producer communities and must ensure that

local closed loop based models also get equal status.

Else the current attempts would lead to the best

produce going away leaving them with substandard

resources for their own families.

5. Dissemination of technology so far has been

restricted and utility of institutions like MGIRI and

KVKs should improve if local NGOs work more closely

with them ­ thus expertise and practical knowledge

will bring marked improvement in work.

Most sessions captured very well the process and

systems related information, but more discussion was

needed on the challenges and how they were

overcome. Nonetheless, the participants felt inspired

by the two days and definitely learnt how to better

their existing efforts on livelihoods promotion.

Following this workshop Yojak will facilitate 7 to 8

organisations to scale up their work through a

collaborative effort between local organizations,

facilitating organizations, government and partner

donors. MGIRI has committed to respond the

participants’ needs in terms of offside trainings and

development of appropriate technology.

VVooiicceess ff rroomm tthhee ff iiee llddReports from livelihood professionals in the field

­ 8 ­LIVEwire April 2014

Lessons from Tamil Nadu Pudhu VaazhvuProject (TNPVP)

Deepti Kc and Kalrav Acharya, IFMR Research share

key lessons from a study on TNPVP.

The guiding principles of Tamil Nadu SRLM is based on

the learnings from the World Bank supported TNPVP. Our

team conducted a comprehensive study in four villages

where TNPVP was implemented more than four years

ago. The following are key learnings:

1. Three­fourth households from the PIP (Participatory

Identification of Poor) list were present during the PIP

exercises indicating villagers participating in exercises

ensure their households are included. Thus, staff must

monitor if disadvantaged households are truly

participating during the PIP process.

2. Two­third of eligible households that had connections

with Village Poverty Reduction Committee (VPRC) were

beneficiaries. Only 22% households with no connection

benefitted. Three­fourth VPRC leaders have been serving

in the Committee for more than 2 years. If

connections are needed, it is possible that

disadvantaged women, particularly those facing

domestic violence and restriction in mobility are

excluded. Hence, officials must ensure that members

are changed every two years to provide opportunities

to all.

3. 84% of VPRC members reported the VPRC Head or

those close to the Head, influence the decision in their

favor. Perhaps those VPRC members representing the

most disadvantaged are not being heard. Thus,

officials must ensure democratic mechanism of voting

is being implemented in VPRC meetings.

4. All VPRC members reported that loan default is

affecting the sustainability of VPRCs. If the onus of

managing credit is given to VPRC members, then

officials must provide more periodic rigorous trainings

on managing sustainable microfinance programmes.

At the same time, TNSRLM must assign intense

monitoring mechanisms before it expands.

Read the complete report here.

VVooiicceess ff rroomm tthhee ff iiee llddReports from livelihood professionals in the field

­ 9 ­LIVEwire April 2014

­ 10 ­LIVEwire April 2014

NNeewwss WWaattcchhLivelihoods related news and updates in the media

SRIJAN’s book on building human resourcesfor the development sectorSRIJAN organized a brainstorming session on "Attracting

Human Resources to Development Institutions and

Creating a Nurturing Environment to Retain them" in

New Delhi on February 4, 2014. During the session,

SRIJAN also announced some of the larger findings from

its research work on “Building Effective Institutions to

Empower the Poor: A Policy Maker’s Guide for Human

Resource Strategies” which will later be launched as a

book. Ved Arya, who founded Srijan and also promoted

Srijan Infrastructure and Development Services (P) Ltd,

an international development consultancy organisation

credited with bringing the focus on quality human

resources for the development sector, has spearheaded

this effort with Tejinder Bhogal.

Read interview with Ved Arya here

Deshpande Foundation's Sandbox model forsocial innovation hubsGururaj Deshpande, founder of Deshpande Foundation,

will launch a social innovation hub each in five locations

across three states ­ Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and

Haryana. Each hub will support social businesses and

NGOs by providing financial and capacity building

resources with the aim of scaling each venture within

the immediate proximity of the respective hub. This

"Sandbox model" seeks to work with business people

and community leaders to build a comprehensive

programme to encourage entrepreneurs to move from

ideas to actual businesses. Using broad­based

marketing, along with the help of community partners,

Sandbox looks to attract a broad cross section of

entrepreneurs.

Read more about the Sandbox model here

Centre issues directive for 150 days workunder MGNREGA for STs in Forest AreasThe Ministry of Rural Development has issued a directive

to provide 150 days of wage employment under

MGNREGA for Scheduled Tribe households living in forest

areas. The move will benefit about Eight lakh people in

the states like Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and

Andhra Pradesh, The additional 50 days of employment

beyond the stipulated 100 days under the Mahatma

Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act

(MGNREGA) will be applicable to those individuals who

got pattas under Forest Rights Act, FRA( 2006). This is

an important initiative since a lot of land­levelling,

plantation and other activities are required to be

undertaken on these lands to make them more

productive. The additional days through MGNREGA will

allow the households to undertake additional work on

their own land.

Read the press release here

SEWA's mobile phone project bags globalawardThe RUDI Sandesha Vyavhar (RSV), a unique mobile­

based management solution, developed collaboratively

with Vodafone Foundation, Cherie Blair Foundation for

Women and Self Employed Women's Association

(SEWA), has been given a GSMA mWomen Innovation

Fund Grant. The project enables Rural Distribution

Network (RUDI) women members of SEWA — to order

stock from the field and have their goods delivered,

receive real time updates from RUDI on price changes or

marketing schemes, and for RUDI to transfer the entire

management of the RUDI business from a paper­based

system to an electronic backend.

Read more about the award here

Unilever and IFAD team up support smallfarmersThe International Fund on Agricultural Development

(IFAD), a UN agency, on February 20, 2014 stuck a five­

year global agreement with Unilever that aims to better

train and connect smallholder farmers to the

marketplace. The partnership will aid Unilever in

reaching its ambitious goal of integrating 500,000 small

farmers into its supply chain by 2020 and provide

training on sustainable farming methods. The new

initiative was announced at IFAD’s annual governing

council meeting by Unilever CEO Paul Polman at a panel

event called Small Farmers=Big Business.

Read more about the initiative here

Do you have events, research or publications to share in this newsletter?Are you looking to collaborate with others?Would you like to be part of the Livelihoods Learning e-Group?

Email us at manthanlive@ximb.ac. in

If you have any comments or feedback on this newsletter, please email us; we would behappy to refine and innovate in future editions ofLIVEwire.

Editorial TeamJoseph Satish VC Shambu Prasad

Produced byXavier Institute of Management,

Xavier Square,Bhubaneswar - 751 013

Odisha, INDIAPh: + 91 -674-6647 720

Email: manthanlive@ximb.ac.inWeb: http://livelihoods-manthan.net/

IIMU's Summer School for Future Leaders inDevelopment 2014IIM Udaipur and Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke

University launched the second year of the Summer

School for Future Leaders in Development Program that

will run from May 31 through July 11, 2014 at IIM

Udaipur. With a challenging curriculum and world class

faculty who have been enlisted to give lectures and lead

discussions, the Summer Program will provide a unique

opportunity to encourage peer learning through diversity

in the classroom. Hence, students for the summer

school will be drawn from among from Indian university

students and practitioners from Indian NGO's, and from

Duke University.

Read more about the Summer School here

Community­Based Microfinance forFinancial Inclusion Certificate Course 2014This certificate course facilitated by the Coady

Institute and APMAS, aims to enhance knowledge and

build practical skills on community­based microfinance

approaches; the emphasis is placed on savings­led

models such as village savings and loan associations

(VSLAs), self­help groups (SHGs), savings and credit

cooperatives, and other member­owned microfinance

institutions from various parts of the world. To be

offered at the Coady Institute, Canada, this program

is supported by DFATD/Canadian government and

MasterCard Foundation Microfinance Scholars Program

for scholarships.Apply to the course here

EEvveenntt SSccaannUpcoming livelihoods events across the nation

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­ 12 ­LIVEwire April 2014