Sustainable Livelihood and MDG.....

I would like to add up somemore things rather bveing critical for the great work you have embarked. This is fine with us that we have certain framework of livelihood which has been developed by DFID and i also find it optimum for the evaluation of any project as well as a blue print for the development related project doesnt matter it is realted with education or health or may be development of intellectial property rights of the community.

I would like to give a shape to this discussion in a different way, as you must be rememberd few days back you had also initiated the discussion on the topic which is related with MDG and grassroot community development and how far we have reached and what planning we have to contribute for these goals, just i am trying to incorporate the MDG and sustainble livelihood framework, since this framework is incuding all aspects which are important for contribution in well being index of human development. Here i have tried to find out the gaps which are existing due to absence of decentralised planning at global as well as indian perspective (since this is my assumpation and i would able to understand to that extent only so with due respect of all planner i am stating these words may be my little understanding is not touching their level of acumen).

Here i have divided the Well being of human in four broad parameters:

Health Well-Being
Intellectual Well-Being
Social Well-Being
Development of Partnership

There could be more than what i am trying to include in this work but here i would like to make some co-relation between SL framework and MDG so i have kept it to that extent only.
Now coming to the gaps i find in SL framework and MDG, i think we have enough reasons to smile for excellent work we have done development of broader parmeters for social development. I would like to take your concentration on those points which are having great importance for development of sustainable livelihood. I have made different coloums in the tables are tried to relate them with MDG. Here first i would like to mention some of the points which are still to be addressed while achieving MDG:

Health Well-Being: In health well being we have taken health and nutrition of human being in consideration and try to address these issues and developed some indicators for it like combating HIV-AIDS, Malaria, reducing infant and maternam mortality but health also includes and capacity to work but we have not tried to address the capacity to work in our MDG but is has got place in SL framework in human capital which is directly related with livelihood, whether in terms of intellectual or physical context. One study conducted by Ford which reveals that intellectual development doesn’t take place if a child is not get proper nutrition from infancy but it was also told that one need to have constant supply of nutriton for proper development and capacity to work. I would also like to add one of the buzz which is told everywhere that we are youngest country of this world and we have maximum number of youths which can contribute for development but you see we need to work on the development of their capacity rather than just giving more and more emphsis on a defined objective of someone who is sitting far away from reality. Here i am leaving this question to you and all who will be reading it that what could be done for the development of capacity of work in indian context or if it is existing in the MDG then how it is relevent for us.

Intellectual Well-Being: We have the global agenda of achieving universal primary education and based on that we have decided our objective as well like all children to complete their five years of schooling by 2007 and 75%increase in literacy rate of women by the end of 10th Plan. I am not going to state that whether we would be able to achieve this or not because we are well known with the fact as we are at the verge of completion of 10th plan. But let me tell one thing we need to have proper gaze on two important parameters realted with intellectual property development one is knowledge and skills and other one is capacity to adopt. Now here is the question do we have answer of these in Indian perspective of MDG, we used to have schemes like TRYSAM which was incorported with SGSY from 1999 but we need to make it clear that how it would be possible to nullify with MDG. Here i have also written some of my perspective in perview of Knowledge and skill development and capacity to adopt. I have kept it open to plug the gaps in development perspectives in MDG.

Social Well-Being: In social well being we have got answers for all componets of SL frameworks which is relevant for contribution in well being context which are poverty, gender equity and development of Community Property Resource Management, though CPRM has been taken in the perspective of environmnetal contest but here i have take it in CPR because it is directly related with tribals and it is well known fact that in india there are almost 18% traibals of total population apart from that recently UN has also passed a resolution for conservation of traditional property rights of indegenous people. I am not very sure abou the potable water so i have kept it with CPRM as it also requires some commuity management but at the same time it is not matching with the maternal and child health agenda of MDG, so if you have any view point on this then please make necessary correction on it.

Development of partnership and infrastructure: In this context i have made some possible break up like network and connections, financial perspectives and physical infrastructure. I could able to make some possible changes in the mentioned paremeter as per my understanding like making nerwork and connection is related with formation of informal as well as formal groups as well relationship based upon mutual support and agreement. For financial development we can make linkage with instritutional credit linkages of CBOs, social security for the people who are working in unorganised sectors and assurance of minimum wages for labours. For physical infrastructure development we have means of communcation development, secure shelters and secured market for products.


1. Health Well-Being
Health
Nutrition
Capacity to Work
Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

Specific HIV/AIDS targets within the 10th Plan Period

To reduce child mortality
Reduction of infant mortality rate to 45 per thousand live births
by 2007 and to 28 by 2012.




Specific malaria targets within the 10th Plan Period.

Improve maternal health

Reduction of maternal mortality rate to 2 per thousand live births
by 2007 and to 1 by 2012.

2. Intellectual Well-Being
Education
Knowledge and Skills
Capacity to Adopt
Achieve universal primary education

All children in school by 2003; all children to complete five years
of schooling by 2007.


Providing means of self employment and development of IP,

Multifunctional attitiude and skill development

Increase in literacy rate to 75% within the 10th Plan period.

Need to stress on higher education as well functional literacy

Need based and ambience suitable livelihood generation

3. Social Well-Being
Poverty
Gender and Population Equity
Development of Common Property Resource Management (CPRM)
Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Reduction of poverty ratio by 5percentage points by 2007 and 15 percentage points by 2012.
Providing gainful and high quality employment at least to the addition to the labour force over the 10th Plan period.

Promote gender inequality and empower women
Reduction in gender gaps in literacy and wage rates by at least
50% by 2007.

Ensure environmental sustainability

Increase in forest and tree cover to 25% by 2007 and 33% by
2012

Reduction in the decadal rate of population growth between
2001 and 2011 to 16.2%.


All villages to have sustained access to potable drinking water within the 10th Plan Period

4. Development of Partnership & Infrastructure
Network and Connections
Financial Development
Physical Infrastructure

Development of Formal and Informal groups

Development of Credit /debt formal and informal structures

Development of means of communication

Relationship based on mutual support and need oriented

Providing Social Security in unorganised sectors

Secure shock proof shelter and buildings



Minimum Wages security for countrymen

Secured market



I have tried to put my view point in the perspective of MDG and SL framework but i have my own framework for decentralised perspective of integrated development and how it could be implemented for contribution for the vision of development.I will discuss it with you in our next conversation. There is possibility that i would have left some of the points which might be there in MDG and would be out of my understanding or reach becasue this is a streatched writing and ended without editing so there is always scope of improvement so here i would like to to have suggestion from you.

Regards

Delivery Mechanism and Community.......

Mother who lost her 3 days old baby

A Girl in Aangan Wadi Center

Yesterday was one of the important days of my professional life, I have no regret in confession that I have always had inclination towards livelihood intervention but never realized that other thematic issues like health and education are also having some sense in and need same treatment for the development of community.

The day broke like any other day and dawn was beautiful, I was not feeling well as these days it is regular phenomenon, I don’t know why the morning is not brining freshness to me. But I was thinking that there is something new would be happening today, so realizing it I wake up and getting ready for field. The reason for this enthusiasm was assignment of health interventions I was suppose to take for my region. Vehicle was waiting outside my gate and I was on time like another day. Got back to vehicle and off to the field, later my technical manager accompanied me which was also an opportunity for me to discuss her experiences as she had varied experiences working in partnership with Government on health related issues.

We were on the way and I was getting back my energy which was lost when I was awake, there were some good conversation with her about the present status of health in India as a whole and particularly in Gujarat. We discussed how health is important for human development as well as in contribution of family expenditure reduction. It is really crystal clear that if a person who is earning bread and butter for family from everyday labour s/he has to keep herself healthy for the sake of keeping her family feeding. If a person is not healthy or somehow not able to go for earning then certainly it is going to affect her family and this will lead to starvation because this is well known fact that poor have not been very skilled in the management of finance.

The day was going on and within an hour we reached to a block where some of NGOs officials were waiting for us to join the tour. We greeted each other and moves towards ICDS office where one Supervisor was waiting for us. She was all set with her data and reports to talk about centers running in the block. While talking to her we got to know that she overloaded with work due to assignment of almost four times of work against her duty and the reason is absence of human resource which contribute to low performance of this scheme. On the way she told us many things about AWC running in the village. She informed that there is center running in the village but in many of the centers structures are not in real shape as they have been distorted by anti-social elements of the village. The villagers are also not taking steps against them because of absence of ownership of those structures.

At last we reached to a village. It was economically and socially backward village of the block and having not proper access to reach through public transport though we had our own vehicle so it was not a problem for us. We have world’s one of the largest program called ICDS which is feeding the rural children through 0.75 million centers and managing such massive structure is itself a Herculean task. It is not that this was my first time I was visiting any AWC but this period was something special as I was there with some focus and objective. We have this program in a great sweep in the state and also proven some good results also with time and space. AWC center a bit ok in the structure and space for the children but still the condition of children was not upto the mark may be the reason of my biasness of comparing them with well off children of our society. This is something which I don’t understand that why there is suffering for them what wrong they have done so that they are not getting even the basic necessity of life and on the other side some children are having obesity because of over eating. The condition children were not good and they were stunned to see us. I must appreciate the approach of my senior over there who made them comfortable through her conversation. But there was a question in mind that there is system established, government is spending money in the scheme, even the AWC is set up in the village as per the need of the community but still our future is not being fed properly.

Then we got the news that in the village one infant died just after three days of her birth. We decided to move to that house and when we discuss then we came to know that the reason of death was not natural but the ignorance of mother in taking care of herself during pregnancy as well as the doctor who delivered the baby. Mother and child were discharged from the hospital after 3 hours of delivery and when the baby was pre mature delivered. So what should I say whether it is failure of system or the ignorance of mother who was not knowing that how to take care during pregnancy. We talked her and the family and tell them about importance of AWC and getting services from there. I think here the need of NGO to work on because they have to bridge the gap and complement the activities of government and also advocate the issues rose from community. They should aware the community about the services which are offered from government for the welfare of villagers. Many times I have personally felt that they are not even a clue what are the welfare schemes for them and other who are on the higher get the benefit and those who are most behind in the race of development don’t get a bit of it.

Then we moved to other village where Nutrition and Health day was being celebrated. But what saw there that the turn up of the villagers was very low and when we asked this to Health worker then she said villagers are giving proper response for services and also there is no smooth coordination between AWW and she. But here again the question raised in my mind if there in no coordination established then the local leader should come out with the solution and make necessary actions but still the community is not so mobilized to understand the importance of health. So again the issue of ignorance. It was also a consideration on the village that AWC center was on the mercy of worker of the center and not on the need of the community.

After my whole visit I realized and concluded to some of the points:

System should be strengthening for the delivery mechanism because for the program like ICDS it must be solid and fool proof.
NGO should be instrumental in awareness generation of community specially their rights and welfare schemes of government,
There should not be over burdened staff in the system because it hampers the whole system and also weaken their working,
Finally but the most important point we have to put some professional approach in development sector because this is where we lack…

There are many points which have been left while writing but this is for sure this visit added values to my life and approach of working towards social cause…..