Keya Sarkar: Self-help groups have a lesson to teach

OUT OF FOCUS

At every gathering of micro finance practitioners and livelihood promoters, I have always heard talk of how the microfinance-led self-help group (SHG) movement empowers women, and how it increases their confidence and enhances their participation in local governments, and thereby builds social capital.

But I also know how the true finance professionals, blue-chip bankers, for instance, view issues like social capital. With complete disregard! What cannot be quantified or what cannot be put into spread sheets for sensitivity analysis is not worth bothering about!

Unfortunately, however, many bankers are now having to look at microfinance as a means of portfolio diversification and are to understand and appreciate what SHGs are, and why NGOs bother to set them up.

So when I received an invitation from Dr Kaustav Kanti Bandyopadhyay, of Delhi-based PRIA, to attend a conference on "Potential of SHGs in enhancing women participation in local self-help groups", I was intrigued. Here was an effort to actually appreciate how the SHG process works for women.

Because unless the SHGs interact with local governments to change many of the things that bothered them, much of the money that bankers were now keen to lend to this sector might actually go bad.

So it was in the interests of institutions like the RBI, NABARD, and SIDBI, which are believers in the SHG route for micro finance delivery, NGOs and microfinance institutions that have a large stake in their relationships with SHGs, and, of course, bankers, to understand how this works.

PRIA is a civil society organisation based in New Delhi, undertaking activities to strengthen local self-governance and civil society building under its strategic plan "Governance: Where People Matter", in 12 states of India.

The organisation involves and engages a range of stakeholders including academia, media, donors, civil society organisations, trade unions, private business, and government agencies in its efforts and provides a platform for a multi-stakeholder development approach.

The conference was based on a study by PRIA that covered the work of three NGOs. These NGOs, which PRIA actively participates in, were chosen on the basis of their work with SHGs who interact with local self-governments. These were Samarthan in Madhya Pradesh, Sabhagi Shikshan Kendra (SSK) in Uttar Pradesh, and Himalayan Action Research Centre (HARC) in Uttaranchal.

The SHGs were selected on the basis of the following:

1. the groups were two to four years old,
2. the groups had been saving continuously for the last two years,
3. there were no dropouts in the groups in the last two years,
4. the groups had received capacity-building inputs,
5. the groups had demonstrated their ability for collective action,
6. the groups had participated in gram sabhas as members and elected members.

The study document underscores the point that it is not comprehensive or representative of the process of participation of SHGs in the political process throughout the country. The qualitative nature of the study and purposive sampling have minimised generalisations.

But the potential that SHGs have in making the panchayati raj institutions (PRIs) responsive to the concerns of women need to be studied, and this is a significant beginning in that direction.

The study highlightsthat the 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act (CAA), 1993, envisioned vibrant and active PRIs, responsive to the needs and aspirations of the local community, where the participation of all people across caste, class, and gender in planning and administration would ensure the accountability of the system to the local community.

The political restructuring has given rural women an opportunity to participate in political decision making. Women not only have one-third membership in the gram sabhas but actually chair one-third of them.

But this route to making women participate in local self-governance is far too simplistic, overlooking as it does the socio-economic position of women. Enhancing the participation of women in PRIs, therefore, calls for alternative organisational forms and the SHGs assume significance in this context.

Besides the usual efforts that NGOs make in forming SHGs and training them in saving, financial management, and enterprise development skills, these chosen NGOs have also spent time in training the SHGs on gram sabhas and PRIs.

What is the role and function of a gram sabha, the proper way of conducting a sabha, provisions of gram swaraj under the Panchayat Act, the process of removing a sarpanch and micro-level civic planning""are all areas in which these SHGs have received training.

The document is replete with examples, too many to list here, of how women who originally sat dumbly behind their "ghunghuts" had emerged strong enough to voice their requirements at the gram sabhas and on occasion even to question the authority of the sarpanch and to remove him.

And this was all because of their training as SHGs, their networking with other SHGs at a federation level, and their increased interaction with local government bodies.