By Kit Shangpliang
“The real source of market promise is not the wealthy few in the developing world, or even the emerging middle-income consumers. It is the billions of aspiring poor who are joining the market economy for the first time” – C.K Prahalad, one of the known Business teachers in today’s world. The workforce and the economic contribution of the hardworking poor is something to reckon with.
Apply this to the development story of Meghalaya, the inclusiveness of the poor impresses social thinkers only in paper. If we had development models, they are those designed for bigger Indian states, that is why, they brought very short-lived success here in this hill-state. The solution was at hand when the then government of Meghalaya in 2004 supported the development model brought about by the International Funding for Agriculture Development, IFAD through its implementing agency – the government initiated Meghalaya Rural Development Society, MRDS.
Having had a chance to travel to the five districts where MRDS works, many development specialists who have witnessed the same would agree that the programme, so far, is the best development model of its kind, embraced by Meghalaya and its people. No organisation is perfect, but given the circumstances, the organisational leadership or the lack of it – this implementing agency has engaged people at the grass-root level to write their own development story. To that end, MRDS working more on the aid-agency mode has done relatively well.
At the time when this rural development programme had just earned the trust of the people, change is being thought about. From what social thinkers can carefully assess, these schemes of change will once again push the poor to the back benches. There is contemplation to carefully shift development strategies that are well drafted conceptually, well calculated politically but may not be in favour of the underserved section socially. Is there time and power to alter these decisive moves – the ball is the court of the state leadership, the community based organisations representing the marginalised and the impoverished communities themselves.
Back to the writings of Prahalad, he says, “Decision makers do not often hear the voices of the poor. We tend to make assumptions about how they feel”, how true this is – with the way we do development in this state. So what is the voice of the poor? These are the empowerment stories written in the story book of the organisation
From the spin-doctors perspective (bureaucrats included), these stories will appear overtly – their logic lies in the clear message of asking the people to look at the ‘bigger picture’ of development. This big picture seems to create more economic space for entrepreneurs mostly from the rural middle-income group and established middlemen and from them, the earnings will trickle down to the people at the bottom of the economic pyramid. Development history will tell this will not work.
To a large extent, the agency was able to disconnect itself from the political wiring which is good for the people but bad for political control. In the interest of the marginalised – the government can still take courage to make decisions with a bias to the poor. Why?
Many communities have just started to stand on their own feet but they still need to be looked after. To leave now – is to leave them orphaned and (at best) leave them with adopting parents that they do not know.
It is also natural for funding agencies and social sponsors like DFID, AUSAID, USAID etc to extend funding duration by 2 to 8 years before the start of the next phase. This is done after the assessments that usually reveal the need to prolong social operations. All this is generally done in the interest of the poor and the poor in this case still need the care and handholding support of the trusted organisation.
The mandate of MRDS is very clear and in line with what IFAD talks about. Serve the poor and all those at the bottom of the pyramid.
The organisation has become this Human Resource Hub that IFAD and the government of Meghalaya would have invested hugely. They are social assets to the state of Meghalaya. To lose them is to incur a huge loss. These personnel will be scattered then find their own space in their personal pursuits or in other social national and international organisations. On the other hand, imagine the loss that the poor will unknowingly incur – the loss of having these social facilitators by their side hand-holding them.
These people are in the age bracket from 35 – 45. They have command of the local language that they speak and that helps convince the local leadership and the district and block administration to act. On the other hand, other new initiatives of the government have been intentional to predominantly accommodate the young educated unemployed, without field or desk experience.
The staff members’ proven performance, and their rich experience from working with other organisation prior to working with MRDS brings HR value. The economically poor of this state cannot afford to lose them and the concerned state leadership should not let go of this talent pool at any cost, if it believes in pro-poor policies.
To introduce a bigger replica of MRDS sounds good with good intention – but when there is ample evidence that the ingredients of the present project are working well to facilitate effective development among the poor, why the need of a sudden change? Why the need to reinvent the wheel? Why the need to deconstruct the half-standing wall and work from the start? Can we build the wall from where it is left off – by retaining the identity of a contributing institution? Or are we removing a foundation?
Finally, let us take some time to look at the development mentality of other states in India. The governance system in Andhra adopted in 2005 is praiseworthy. It is important that the direction of change, the quality of implementation, and progress are measured. With this in mind, the government of Andhra Pradesh, in collaboration with the International Development Institute of the United Kingdom, has set up an independent watchdog agency called the Centre for Good Governance (CGG). The role of the CGG is to monitor the implementation of the typical political-centric social programmes and attempt to shift it to citizen-centric governance and publish independent and periodic reports of how the entire process is proceeding. The CGG is authorised to challenge the government agencies. Further, it makes recommendations to the Chief Minister on what needs to be changed. How we wish a similar model exists in context here in Meghalaya.
Numerous evaluation, monitoring and social audit processes, certified by local, national and international bodies approved by IFAD itself states that the implementing agency has a financial achievement of more than 93% and Physical achievement of more than 114% over 8 years which is in conformity with the evaluation by the third party and verified by IFAD Project Closure Report validation Mission fielded in early 2013. The success of this development model has been acknowledged by the Board of Directors. This project covered 709 villages as against 570 targeted, 44,429 households as against 29,300 targeted households, promoted 2387 SHGs as against the target of 1955 groups. As per reports 42% of households in project villages are covered, with 73% of families belong to the poorest of the poor. Community leadership across the five districts has acknowledged that 85% of the households have experienced increase in income.
What more logic does the leadership need to make a right decision? Socially concerned people wish to believe that the political class (opposition bench included) would exercise wisdom and gather courage to make pro-poor decisions. And while a section of NGOs has put the ILP issue at the fore – let us not forget the backbone of our economy – our rural populace. Let us not take away the economic development facilitating unit, now embedded into the village economic and social fabric.
( The author is a social communicator and can be reached at [email protected])