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ISPWDK's partner
NGO SAMUHA is responsible for facilitating and organising
village communities to implement the watershed development
programme in the Kanakanala watershed in Koppal District,
Karnataka. People-owned development processes are promoted.
The concept of watershed development in India has made a significant
shift over the past decade. ISPWDK has taken part in this
shift actively. In its beginning (1980's) watershed development
focused on technical and physical interventions with the
aim of improving the biophysical environment of the rural
areas. It was tacitly assumed that sustainable management
of natural resources leads to regional improvement of peoples'
livelihoods. Careful analysis (e.g. Kerr et al, DFID/KAWAD,
ISPWDK internal evaluation reports etc.) and the experiences
in the field revealed this assumption proved unlikely, since
benefits and outcomes were not always contributing to poverty
reduction. In fact, increasing production and restoring natural
resources often turned out to conflict the original development
goals, since the powerful (local elites, big landowners etc.)
benefited more. Marginalization of some of the watershed inhabitants
did not decline. Further it was concluded that the livelihood
strategies of farm households were not sufficiently taken
into account. Rural households should not only be supported
by improving their own and communal natural resource base,
but also in their non-land based strategies: The sustainability
of their household or livelihood strategies should be increased.
ISPWDK
was no exception to these accounts. Thus under ISPWDK it was
decided to select and implement a pilot livelihood intervention
with support from BASIX, Hyderabad, a leading institution
in micro finance in Andhra Pradesh. As a profit making holding
company with a corporate structure they follow quite a different
strategy than NGO's. They define themselves as a rural livelihood
promotion organization with the mission:
| "to
promote a large number of sustainable livelihoods through
the provision of financial services and technical assistance
in an integrated manner" (www.basixindia.com). |
Starting in late
2002, various workshops were conducted involving BASIX and
the other two partner NGO's (PRAWARDA, MYRADA). Each partner
decided on a pilot intervention. SAMUHA selected home-shopping.
MUNJAVU, their Micro-Enterprise wing organising and supporting
a network of Self-Help Groups, started to put home-shopping
into operation. At present, a crucial phase of consolidating
the system has started. This assignment provided an opportunity
of analysing the intervention. Chapter 4 introduces the Rural
Livelihood Systems (RLS) approach, with the Nine Square Mandala
as a research and monitoring tool.
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