Assignments

Assignment Title (Year)

Description	The Backward Region Grant Fund (BRGF) is a central scheme designed to redress the regional imbalances in development and bridge critical gaps in local infrastructure. The state government appointed Samarthan as a TSI (Technical Support Institution) to support the district administration in preparation of five yearly district plan. Samarthan helped prepare the plan for four backward districts of Madhya Pradesh.
Geographical Coverage	Panna, Dhar, Jhabua, Alirajpur
Objectives	Baseline survey and SWOT analysis of the district to identify sectoral gaps Preparation of vision and mission documents of the district Organizing district and block level workshop to help prepare the village level plans for BRGF Consolidation of the village plans to form block and district plans for BRGF Approval of the plans from district planning committee and feeding it into the plan plus software
Key output	Successfully demonstrated utility of bottom-up planning District, block and Panchayat level functionaries trained in decentralised planning process Preparation of five yearly district plans with the participation of all the stakeholders
Year/Period	2010-11
Client/Donor	Panchayat and Rural Development department, Madhya Pradesh government

Description	Supporting devolution in Madhya Pradesh by campaign
Geographical Coverage	Bhopal
Objectives	To create demand for devolution for enabling political environment for devolution To engage civil society organization, citizen and elected representative in the process of demanding devolution Develop information material for enhancing the knowledge of partners, ERs and citizens District level consultation with ERs and CSOs Organizing meetings in selected Vidhan Sabha constituency Engaging with Media State level Sammelan of Elected Representatives
Year/Period	2009-2010 (6 months)
Client/Donor	Society for Participatory Research in Asia, New Delhi

Description	Recognizing the paradox of growth and poverty, CARE India decided to do a comprehensive situational analysis in the states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh to find out the underlying causes of poverty. The aim of the study was to identify impact populations and their major development needs (issues) to develop sector specific program priorities and strategic considerations.
Geographical Coverage	Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh
Objectives	Identify the most poor and marginalised population in a state and prioritize them based on their human conditions and capabilities Identify the issues of the identified impact population and undertake need based prioritization of issues Identify and analyse the districts, blocks and urban slums with significant presence of impact population Identify issues that can be addressed through Care India Identification of programmatic opportunities and strategic considerations
Year/Period	2009 (3 months)
Client/Donor	CARE, India

Description	Madhya Pradesh is among the poorest states when it comes to child development indicators like malnutrition, infant mortality, immunisation, etc. Children especially girls face lack of educational opportunities, malnourishment, infant mortality and early marriages and so on. Samarthan proposed to develop models of Child Friendly Panchayats where the Panchayats would monitor the service delivery apparatus of the government at the village level and provide inputs for improvement in the system.
Geographical Coverage	Guna district
Objectives	Developing innovative tools for community based monitoring of the public services. Block level workshops to sensitize service providers for providing better services Formation and capacity building of monitoring committees of Panchayts Improving monitoring systems of the Administration Encouraging Institutional Deliveries and utilization of various schemes Ensuring that all children of age 3-6 are registered in Anganwaris and they attend aanganwaris Ensuring the children of age 6-14 attend schools regularly
Year/Period	2008-09 (6 months)
Client/Donor	UNICEF, Bhopal

Description	The 11th five year plan emphasizes on bottom-up planning process to be institutionalized for allocation of development resources. In this direction, M.P. Government issued guidelines and evolved formats for carrying out village/ Panchayat as well as town level planning. Samathan provided the technical support in operationalizing decentralized planning process as envisaged in the state guidelines and fulfil commitments with regard to the 11th five year plan/ Planning Commission.
Geographical Coverage	Madhya Pradesh
Objectives	To develop an operational manual/ guidebook for the field level functionaries for conducting development planning at Panchayat/ town level To evolve tools/ formats and computerized systems relevant to draw up plans as well as to aggregate plans at the block/ district or town level To pilot decentralized planning in at least two districts in such a manner that district plans are approved by Planning Commission and State Planning Board To develop a core group at the state level for up-scaling decentralized planning process in other districts by providing capacity building support as well as creating enabling conditions/ policy change support in favour of decentralized planning
Year/Period	2008-09 (6 months)
Client/Donor	UNICEF, Bhopal

Description	Shramik Bharti, a livelihood and microfinance organisation in Kanpur, involved Samarthan to facilitate evaluation of their programme “Enhancing access to financial services by facilitation user owned community based organistions” supported by Cordaid, along with a mandate to reflect on the organizational issues. A team of subject matter experts visited the communities and met the SHG and the federation members to review their democratic processes, empowerment and effect on people’s income and lifestyles.
Geographical Coverage	Kanpur District
Objectives	Evaluate Maturity of SHGs Judge Viability of federations Assess the effect of economic empowerment on political empowerment (whether any of the SHG members have been elected into Panchayats)
Year/Period	2009 (3 months)
Client/Donor	Shramik Bharati, Kanpur

Description	The poor in the urban agglomerations in India, deprived of access to basic amenities, legal identity and minimum social security measures, are the most vulnerable section of society. This is largely due to several practice bottlenecks compounded with inadequate policy framework and a combination of several demand side problems like poor education, awareness and poverty etc. The Bhopal Municipal Corporation commissioned Samarthan to conduct a study to identify the barriers the urban poor who live in slums face in accessing statutory rights/entitlements/benefits as citizens of Madhya Pradesh falling within the purview of the Madhya Pradesh Urban Services for the Poor (MPUSP) programme.
Geographical Coverage	Bhopal
Objectives	To inform and guide the MPUSP interventions for business process re-engineering and setting up citizen facilitation centres To provide strategic recommendations for Bhopal Municipal Corporation and MPUSP to minimize the access to barrier for the selective municipal services To contribute in building a base line information on service provision as an input to the monitoring and evaluation system Provide guidelines for citizen facilitation
Year/Period	2008 (4 months)
Client/Donor	Madhya Pradesh Urban Services for the Poor Program (MPUSP)

Description	Samarthan realizes through its experience that there is a visible apathy in citizens towards demanding services from urban and rural local self governance institutions. There is a need to strengthen citizen collectives to put pressure on these institutions to deliver services effectively. The project demonstrates models of effective urban and rural local self governance institutions where the institution delivers the services to the citizens (especially the underprivileged sections of the society) and the citizens can keep a check on the functioning of these institutions. On the one hand there will be efforts to strengthen the capacities of the governance institutions and elected representatives so that they are able to deliver services to the citizen at the same time there would be interventions to educate citizen on their rights in the current set up of governance.
Geographical Coverage	Sehore and Panna districts
Objectives	Focused group discussion with citizens covering 100% of the habitations of the two towns Preparation of Resource Maps, problems and possible solutions Build common understanding on the problems and solutions among different stakeholders, like councillors, Municipal head, CMO, Municipal engineers Facilitated audits of Panchayat accounts by preparing a local cadre of youth
Year/Period	2007-08 (6 months)
Client/Donor	Hans Siedel Foundation, New Delhi

Description	The Panchayats are increasingly being looked upon as vehicles for development at the grassroots, health and sanitation being a core component of their social welfare agenda. However, serious gaps exist between the healthcare delivery role envisaged for Panchayats in legislation and what actually happens in practice on the ground. The review, which forms part of a multi-task centre study commissioned by the Indian Council of Medical Research in five states (Kerala, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Assam and Haryana), looks at the legislative framework defining the role envisaged for Panchayats in grassroots governance; the extent to which the enabling legislation has actually been put into practice; the socio-political constraints, capacity gaps and internal contradictions that prevent Panchayats from assuming their assigned role and their actual performance in the field.
Geographical Coverage	Madhya Pradesh
Objectives	To document the role and responsibilities of PRIs in relation to health matters under the constitutional framework To assess the level and process of devolution of power to the PRIs by the state To gauge the capacity of PRIs and the constraints they face in managing the health system To understand their actual level of involvement in providing support and corrective measures to the health system To find out the attitudes and opinions of health service providers on the role of PRIs in the health system
Year/Period	2007-08 (9 months)
Client/Donor	Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi

Description	Monitoring of IRI programme of EDC in the state of Madhya Pradesh
Geographical Coverage	Madhya Pradesh
Objectives	Monitoring of IRI Programme by deploying one monitor each for two districts to cover 48 districts To provide strategic support to the monitors by organizing fortnightly regional level meetings and state level monthly meetings Initiate “Radio Bandhu clubs” in school/ village. Interact with the members of Parent Teacher Association for effective and sustained implementation of IRI programmes in the schools Strengthening IRI programme of EDC by facilitating the setting up of a steering committee for IRI at the block level. Ensure that the teachers use IRI handbook and worksheets. Provide on the spot guidance and support to the teachers on project-based learning.
Year/Period	2007 (5 months)
Client/Donor	Education Development Centre, Bangalore