Kudumbashree, A Pathway to National Recognition

Kudumbashree, formally began in 1998 has managed to stay the course for 27 years, which is a national record for a programme of such nature. The timing of the programme coincided closely with the launch of the Swarn Jayanti Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) at the national level for poverty alleviation built around the idea of Self Help Groups and micro enterprises. Even though, on the ground, the two interventions ran parallel to each other and many of the Kudumbashree neighbourhood groups were canvassed as SHGs for the SGSY and were able to access the subsidy support available for group enterprises. This meant that at the national level, Kudumbashree was conflated with SGSY, and many of its innovative experiments with enterprises were noticed by the Central Ministries. This was further reinforced by the Radhakrishna Committee on credit linked issues under SGSY in 2009 and had come to the conclusion that the Andhra Pradesh Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) and Kerala Kudumbashree models were the most sustainable of all SHG programmes in the country.

There were three specific components of Kudumbashree that were acknowledged

Kudumbashree did not work at the level of the SHG (NHG) alone. Its federated three tier structure – the NHG, the ADS and the CDS brought out a consolidation of strength within the community network, and made it more resilient. Communication was faster, and more reinforced; solidarity among the groups was higher, and access to development opportunities and to government officials, the LSG leadership and to other important stakeholders was vastly improved.

Kudumbashree worked in mission mode that the team working for Kudumbashree were more motivated and goal oriented, rather than just merely satisfying the numerical achievements. They worried about sustainability of the NHGs formed, the activities they undertook, the opportunities that could be leveraged, the challenges faced by the women in handling money in banks, the feasibility of some of the micro enterprises started, the ways by which income generation could be strengthened, the space for engagement with local governments and other community structures, among others.

Kudumbashree relied heavily on community resource persons for training and capacity building who understood the women of Kudumbashree much better than the regular trainers, and could speak to them as one of them, which was very important in creating trust and comfort. They supported Kudumbashree by organising large scale trainings, disseminating new programmes and ideas, bringing matters of concern to the network that needed careful and calibrated interventions – from sustaining livelihoods projects like fallow land cultivation or Ksheerasagaram on the one hand and social and political empowerment concerns on the other. It was also one of the reasons for women to move out of their panchayats for training and to be away from their homes for a long duration. T he better the capacity building, the greater the empowerment, the stronger the resilience

T hese were similarities that were found with the Andhra model of SHG federations as well, and were identified by the Committee as areas for restructuring of the SGSY programme. When NRLM was formed, it took these principles to be its cornerstones.

However, NRLM did not adopt the model of LSG convergence that Kudumbashree stood for. This was primarily because of the low levels of empowerment of the Panchayati Raj institutions in most States, and the mistrust in local power structures that were likely to discourage women from coming into their own. The 14th Central Finance Commission award brought in a new development complexity – the huge resource transfer that was made to gram panchayats and municipalities across the country. The prospect of coordinating the MGNREGS works with the CFC grants also pushed the possibility of bringing women actively into the local development paradigm into focus. This led to a renewed interest in Kudumbashree.

Under NRLM, a special entity called the National Resource Organisation had been created in order to take the message and philosophy of NRLM into the intensive blocks of the programme through specialised community resource person- mentors who would handhold the local networks to practice and inculcate the principles of NRLM. Kudumbashree was roped in as NRO for panchayati raj convergence as well as for handholding micro businesses (non-farm livelihoods), while SERP of Andhra Pradesh/Telengana was the main NRO to handhold SHGs in the new areas for the core programme. The Kudumbashree experience was critical in developing the NRLM framework for SHG convergence with PRIs (Panchayati Raj Institutions).

Kerala being the only state to have experimented strategically with issues in local businesses and micro enterprises at the time, looking inwards for community mentors – micro enterprise consultants (MECs) – to help develop small time entrepreneurs especially from among women SHGs develop viable businesses and work local markets was also a contribution that Kudumbashree made to NRLM. Kudumbashree has given support to 25 States and Union territories since its recognition as an NRO of NRLM.

In the urban space, the urban SHG formation, consolidation and enterprise development had been areas where Kudumbashree was seen as pioneer. Kudumbashree was the only state level mission at the time that worked seamlessly across rural and urban geographies. Therefore the blue print for urban poverty reduction under the NULM (National Urban Livelihood Mission) had only the Kudumbashree urban experience to fall back on, apart from the NRLM template. However NULM incorporated several new elements like the street vendor interventions that Kudumbashree had to newly develop capacity for.

International entities like the World Bank and UN have picked up on multiple aspects of the Kudumbashree story and triggered international interest including that of academic institutions, to the extent that Kudumbashree has made it to the syllabus of international development courses abroad.

The continuity of government support for Kudumbashree over the years has been very important for its continuing to reinvent itself and to focus critical attention to the empowerment of people at the lower end of the socio economic spectrum. It has also been critical to the continuing saga of building a society whose foundational pillars are growth and equity.

The author is former Chief Secretary to Govt. of Kerala, CEO of NRLM, Ministry of Rural Development and Joint Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Govt. of India.

The work of Kudumbashree has generated domestic and international interest from multiple angles

•The scope for community participation in local governance processes

• The large scale empowerment of women on the social, economic and political fronts through process driven interventions

• Women in agriculture and synergies for sustainable agriculture

• Local economic development – livelihoods on scale

• Community resource organisations for capacity building, accounting, business development, strategic gender concerns etc.

• Convergence over multiple sectors – health, education, sanitation, waste management, livelihoods, social entitlements, strategic communication etc.

• Resilience for disaster management and climate adaptation

• Destitute rehabilitation and protecting interests of the marginalized including the disabled and the migrant communities

• Action for child rights and empowerment, attention to geriatric care and support through community interface