Today is Rakhee, a festival of the Hindus in which women tie rakhees on the wrists of their brothers asking them to protect them in times of trouble. However, in recent times women have become quite capable of protecting themselves and taking a lead in economic, social and political matters. Especially so since the passage of the 73rd
Constitutional Amendment, 1992 in India mandated one-third reservation for
women in the three tiers of
the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) which has since been hiked to 50 per cent. Women have overcome adverse societal structures such as, gender discrimination, caste
dynamics, low literacy and patriarchy, amongst others and become politically empowered as a consequence of this opportunity that they have got. However, this process is not smooth and it also requires training of the women. There are many organisations engaged in providing training to the elected women representatives (EWR) of PRIs to overcome the challenges that face them in the performance of their duties. The Hunger Project India (THP) is one of them. It aims to "strengthen the role of elected women
representatives in grassroots’ governance so that they are able to exercise
leadership within their constituencies and practice gender responsive
governance and transformative leadership based on the principles of human
rights and social justice".
Despite over two and a half decades having elapsed since the passage of the constitutional amendment there are very few large scale impact assessment studies of the performance of the EWRs. I had the privilege of being associated with one such study commissioned by THP where I designed the assessment and did the analysis and report writing - "The aim of this outcome assessment study, has been to measure
key capacities like the leadership of the EWRs, gained by the training and
capacity building provided by THP, through the five years of their tenure. The
study, has been conducted in the state of Madhya Pradesh, one of the seven
working areas of THP that received consistent funding from
2009-2014.The logic underpinning this assessment is that the increased capacities
of the EWRs as a result of the trainings received from THP should help them
in performing effectively within their constituencies. In-depth interviews have
been conducted with EWRs, who have been active members of THP’s intervention
through the entire project cycle. One of the major contributions of the study
has been the designing of a multi-dimensional Composite Capacity Index (CCI)
that measures the capacities of EWRs, in the five domains of leadership
abilities, confidence, status in households, knowledge regarding their roles
and responsibilities and issues that they have taken up in the tenure. Along
with that, the study also analyses the performance of the EWRs in terms of the
benefits secured by them in their respective constituencies. A control group of EWRs
have been selected for the purpose of the study to compare the performance of
THP trained EWRs, in these aspects. Finally, the study also calculates a Return
of Investment from the trainings conducted by THP in the state, through the
entire election cycle".
The study shows that the comparative performance of the THP trained EWRs with
the control group provides evidence of the fact that training and capacity
building form an important part of the functioning of the PRI representatives.
With the training that is disseminated by THP through the entire five
year tenure, the THP trained EWRs not only report higher values of capacity
indices but also have benefited a larger percentage of households within their
constituencies. Thus, not only have the women demonstrated enhanced leadership
qualities, but also have been able to channelise these abilities towards the empowerment
of the community.
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