Key Activities under the PRI-CBO Convergence Project:

Participatory Assessment of Entitlements – The Result Framework for the PRI-CBO Convergence project has been developed to guide the implementation of pilot projects and this requires proper baseline information. It involves each SHG, in its regular meeting, in identifying members who have availed of various entitlements or not. This is done through use of coloured ribbons and similar props. The reason for both (accessing and not accessing) is discussed in the same meeting and the process helps each member to identify the issues in their interaction with the governance system. The information collected from each SHG is presented to the VO and is compiled at the GP level which forms the GP-level baseline for the Convergence project. The PAE exercise has been completed in Assam, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha and Rajasthan and the baseline data has been prepared.

Entitlement Access Plan –The Entitlement plan will be the action plan of the village organisation for the schemes which they will be aiming to achieve in two quarters. The EAP exercise has been completed in Assam, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha and Rajasthan.

Mobilization for the Gram Sabha – The 02 October Gram Sabha that happened in our pilot panchayats in 6 states has been well attended by the SHG members and have shown improvement over the project period. The women have gone in large numbers to attend the Gram Sabha and they have used this opportunity to participate as well as put forth many of their demands. Over the course of the project it has been a great realization for the VOs and the LRGs on the importance of attending Gram Sabha and many a times they have also been successful in getting the panchayats to respond to their demands. Total attendance by women in the Gram Sabha in 173 GPs for which reports are available was in excess of 20,000 women, who formed about 66% of the total attendance in the Gram Sabha.

Mentor Workshops - Quarterly review workshops were organized in May and August of 2016 and January 2017. Each of the workshops had specific objectives. The workshop in May was organized to get a clear understanding about the Convergence Exit Footprints that needs to be achieved and detailed panchayat wise planning was done. Mentor performances were also evaluated during this workshop.

The August Workshop was organized to reflect on the journey of mentors so far, achievements and challenges and identification of gaps in the intervention so far. Key takeaways from the experience of working in partner states that could be adapted to Kudumbashree was also given a major thrust in the workshop. The January workshop was organized as a learning and sharing workshop with each partner state preparing exhibits on the work done in the respective states over the three years. An exhibition was organized at Kanakakunnu Palace to exhibit the work which was attended by the Honorable Minister for LSGD.

Gram Panchayat Poverty Reduction Plan (GP2RP) - The Gram Panchayat Poverty Reduction Plan has been developed as a comprehensive demand plan for local development prepared by the self-help groups and their federations in partnership with the Gram Panchayats. A format for capturing the demand has been developed for the three tiers of federations and module has been prepared for capacitating the VOs to prepare the plan. The GP2RP exercise has been completed in Assam, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Odisha and is ongoing in Rajasthan.

Gram Panchayat Development Plan - Kudumbashree NRO has been supporting the GPDP process in its pilot locations. Leaders of SHG network and LRGs have been included in working groups of GPDP and also been engaged in mobilization efforts together with the panchayats. The GP2RP prepared by the SHG network is also in the process of integration with the Gram Panchayat Development Plan.

Village Organization Coordination Committee (VOCC) - The major purpose of VOCC is to provide a link between the existing community structures with that of Gram Panchayat in locations where a GP level federation does not exist. In locations where GPLF has been formed, the federation is being strengthened so that engagement with Panchayats can be improved. This is being done across the 6 pilot states.

Gram Panchayat Coordination Committee (GPCC) – To promote and institutionalize convergence, Gram Panchayat Coordination Committee is envisaged to be the formal platform of interaction for the Community Based Organization, Panchayath Raj Institutions and Line Departments. GPCC is being formed in all pilot locations of the Convergence Project and for institutionalization state guidelines are to be framed.

Selection of pool of Internal Mentors - Local Resource Group (LRG) members who engaged as facilitators of the project activities at the grass root level providing handholding support to SHG network and PRI representatives have been capacitated on various aspects of the project and been continuously mentored by Kudumbashree Mentor RPs. After the pilot phase of the project more capable LRG members have been capacitated and are to be deployed as Internal Mentors or Trainers. Selection of internal mentors has been completed in Assam, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Odisha.

A National Workshop on Convergence was held in Guwahati from 12th to 15th of July 2016 organised jointly by NRLM and Kudumbashree NRO. The workshop aimed at orienting states on various facets of convergence; showcase the experiences of convergence practices in pilot locations in Assam where Kudumbashree NRO is working. The workshop had SRLM officials from 9 states visiting blocks where convergence project is being piloted, interacted with CBO leaders, LRGs and the Panchayat representatives, following which the states prepared comprehensive plans for implementing convergence in their respective states.

National Workshop on ‘Panchayat- SHG Convergence: Towards Poverty Free Panchayats’ was also held in Thiruvananthapuram on 17th and 18th of March 2017 where representatives from 9 SRLMs attended. The workshop aimed to share, learn and understand the experiences of working in the States, both impact and challenges, and to brainstorm and plan for the way forward. It also sought to create a dialogue about the various facets of Convergence and how the model can be owned and driven by the community institutions for achieving poverty free Panchayats.

Key activities under Enterprises domain

Community Cadre – The trained MEC have emerged as a strong community cadre supporting the SRLM to take up livelihood initiatives in the non-farm sector. They have also emerged as capable community trainers for micro-enterprise development. The year also saw the cadre for enterprise promotion scaled up across country under SVEP. States like Jharkhand has already decided to scale up the model across the state in all districts in a phased manner. States like Maharashtra has decided to scale up the model to few more districts across the state in the upcoming period. Kudumbashree-NRO continued to use the services of MECs trained under the pilot projects in Bihar and Jharkhand as trainers for MEC/SVEP projects in the respective states as well as in Rajasthan. Some of the MECs in Maharashtra has become trainers in SVEP project supporting other PIA. Internal Mentors for the scale up activity has also been identified from the existing cadre in Jharkhand and Maharashtra. In total 596 MECs are currently deployed in six states under the MEC Project. Training for 275 MECs in 15 blocks in Bihar, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Kerala were conducted under SVEP.

Micro Enterprise Consultant Firms – Micro Enterprise Consultants are drawn from the community, trained and placed locally to provide handholding support to existing and potential entrepreneurs on a chargeable basis. MEC Firms are registered as partnership firms offering business consulting services, leveraging the different skill sets of its members in the interest of providing quality services to targeted clients. 41 MEC groups have been formed across five states under the MEC Project as partnership firms. These MEC firms have been providing support in identifying viable business opportunities which are appropriate to the conditions of the entrepreneur and the market, developing bankable business plans and linking with the financial institutions if necessary, and assisting enterprises in creating product market linkages including procurement of raw material and equipment.

Mobilization of SHG members for non-farm livelihoods – The work done by the MEC is helping mobilize members of NRLM SHGs to think and act towards diversifying their livelihood options in the non-farm sector. The availability of MEC support is helping overcome fears and challenges related to understanding the risks in investing in a business, forging clear backward and forward linkages required to set up and run the business and in ensuring timely availability of business performance related information. Focus on women-run café’s from states like Jharkhand have given increased confidence to SHG entrepreneurs. Some of the MECs have been part of the Producer Collectives in Jharkhand enabling availability of professionally trained person to support its operations at an affordable cost.

Community Institutions driven enterprise development – Under the enterprise project, across five states, MEC firm’s linkage with the community institutions have been established. MEC's are envisioned as service providers to the community institutions. Entrepreneur identification as an activity has been carried out at the SHG level and efforts have been made to make the federations capable of creating mechanisms to steer and monitor the enterprise development process. The relationship between MEC firms and CBO is governed by contracts. The monitoring is done by the CBO and supported by the implementation support structures of NRLM.

Enterprise Performance Tracking System – Performance Tracking System is a mechanism to record transactions, create financial statement, monitor and communicate the financial health of micro-enterprises. MEC's train entrepreneurs to maintain a simple daybook, customized for the specific type of business, manually or directly on their phones. The day-book data is compiled to generate periodic cash flow statements, profit & loss statements and balance sheets for every enterprise registered in the system. The PTS in its paper based format has been rolled out in all the 5 partner states where MoU was in place for 2016-17. MECs have been preparing the books of accounts and financial statements which they also use to provide frequent consultation. The software application for PTS developed in association with ENABLE NRO has been piloted in Jharkhand. It is expected to roll out the app in other MEC project states during this financial year itself with technical assistance from ENABLE NRO.

Local Markets – Local markets have been initiated by MECs to provide first time women entrepreneurs visible and accessible platforms for selling their products. It brings markets closer to the villages, saving time and effort for the buyers. The MEC Group identified locations to hold markets and motivated SHG entrepreneurs to participate. They liaised with administration for resources and approval, and conducted promotion activities to popularize the markets. During 2016-17 financial year more focus has been given in building the local markets for the SHG entrepreneurs in all partner states. Local markets promoted by MECs from states like Karnataka and Maharashtra have become streamlined and functional on weekly basis. Local markets have also been initiated in Rajasthan in 2016-17.

MEC Policy –The MEC Policy is designed to enable smooth functioning of the micro enterprise development system of the partner state, with support from the MEC groups, and details out the way in which the MEC group needs to function. It also outlines the relationship MEC groups would share with the Community based organizations, the state and its functionaries, the associated costs of services rendered and the monitoring protocol of the MEC group work with conflict resolution mechanism. MEC Policy has been approved in the state of Bihar and Maharashtra during 2016. States like Jharkhand, Karnataka and Rajasthan are in the final stage of approving the MEC policy.

Training modules – The MEC Project has enabled NRLM to create a strong set of training modules for building business management skills among less educated rural women and men. The Training in Enterprise Administration & Management (TEAM) course developed as part of the MEC Project enables application oriented learning of business management concepts in the local language. MoRD has decided to engage KS-NRO to develop the SVEP TEAM training curriculum for which the work is underway from TREE society. The Community Based organizations’ roles and responsibilities has been envisaged to strengthened under SVEP project for which Kudumbashree-NRO initiated creation of activity based training modules in the year 2016-17. Training of Trainers have been conducted in two out of four modules in Bihar and Jharkhand.

Workshops for Project Review and Strategy Setting - A project review workshop was conducted in April 2016 to evaluate the progress under the Enterprise domain where focus was given to complete the MoU objectives and on how to move towards an exit strategy. In August 2016, a workshop was conducted to review the progress of the work and set the strategy for upcoming activities in the field. Based on the revised SVEP guidelines a workshop on SVEP implementation strategy was conducted in November 2016 for the entire NRO Enterprise team. Mentor Performance Appraisal and feedback for year 2016-17 was also undertaken during the period. In December 2016, stakeholder orientation workshop was conducted at EDII, Gandhinagar where the newly selected BPM-SVEP from partner state and NRO Block Anchor Persons from the SVEP pilot blocks attended. In January 2017 a workshop was organized as a learning and sharing workshop with each partner state preparing exhibits on the work done in the respective states over the three years. An exhibition was organized at Kanakakunnu Palace to exhibit the work which was attended by the Honorable Minister for LSGD. During the same time review of the projects was also conducted along with certification process for Mentor MECs. MEC project review and SVEP stakeholder orientation workshop was conducted in Rajasthan in February 2017.SVEP stakeholder orientation workshop was conducted in Bihar in March 2017 and in Jharkhand in April 2017.

MoU with ENABLE - MoU has been signed with ENABLE for the Annual Maintenance and Customization (AMC) of the PTS app. After the expiry of the Principal Agreement, ENABLE has been providing free support for two months. The AMC has come into place after that to ensure ENABLE provides services related to software-related upgrades, database management and data sharing with NRO.

Key activities under Resource Development

During 2016-17, the Kudumbashree story and portal was launched which is a knowledge portal on Kudumbashree and its activities. KS-NRO also published presentations capturing a wide range of best practices from its pilot locations and narratives of its project stakeholders from partner-States on the organisation’s website. Furthermore, publications summarizing the organisation’s projects and its flagship tools were developed for circulation. Kudumbashree NRO Progress Report was also published in March 2017. Several manuals and booklets were also prepared together with the Convergence team. These include the CBO Governance Manual, Enabling Convergence Through Poverty Reduction, Gram Panchayat Poverty Reduction Plan (GP2RP)- Strengthening the CBO through Participatory Planning and Training Manual for PRI-CBO Convergence.The Kudumbashree Story and portal was launched on February 9th 2017 as a platform for policy makers, development practitioners, scholars, activists, journalists, innovators and members from local communities to engage in a dialogue on the evolution, significance and future of the Kudumbashree movement. The work was commissioned by Kudumbashree NRO to a team of consultants. The content is available in www.thekudumbashreestory.info

A panel discussion titled ‘Kudumbashree - The Road Ahead’ was organized with panelists from different walks of life to evaluate the gains made by Kudumbashree movement since its inception and deliberate on ideas that should shape its future progress.

Key activities under Learning Services

Learning visits were organised to various panchayats in Kerala for various stakeholders, including Gram Panchayat elected representatives, women from the CBO network, Block, District and State level officials from SRLMs and other organisations visit Kudumbashree and Kerala to understand the development context, and activities on ground. Sikkim, Jharkhand, Tripura and Goa SRLMs and PRADAN attended learning visits in 2016- 2017. Training was also organised in Kottayam and Idukki districts for CDS chaipersons from the respective districts in May and June respectively using the rich experience of working in partner states.

Internships- Kudumbashree NRO had hosted five people from institutes like Institute of Rural Management(IRMA) National Law School of India University, Azim Premji University, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India(EDI) and Indraprastha Institute of information technology, New Delhi