Institution Building & Capacity Building

Harnessing Latent Potential of rural poor

NRLM organizes all poor households (women) into aggregate institutions of the poor that provide them with voice, space, and resources. These platforms ‘of the poor’ and ‘for the poor’ would partner with local self-governments, public service providers, banks, the private sector, and other mainstream institutions to facilitate the delivery of social and economic services to the poor.

Universal Social Mobilization

• At least one member from each poor household would be brought under the Self-help Group network.
• Poor people are identified through participatory processes, such as participatory vulnerable assessment. The Gram Panchayat authorizes the final list of poor in the village.
• Special efforts are made to identify vulnerable and marginalized households – SCs/STs, PVTGs, single women and women-headed households, disabled, landless, migrant labour, isolated communities, and communities living in remote, hilly, and disturbed areas.

Building Institutions of the Poor

• The poor are mobilized into Self-help Groups(SHGs).
• The SHGs are federated at the village and higher levels (cluster, block/sub-district, district).
• Existing institutions of the poor are strengthened and integrated into the institutional architecture of the poor.
• The SHG members are trained to manage their institutions, link up with markets, manage their existing livelihoods, enhance their credit absorption capacity and creditworthiness, etc.
• NRLM also promotes livelihoods collectives that help the poor to enhance their livelihoods through deriving economies of scale, backward and forward linkages, and access to information, credit, technology, markets, etc.
• Community professionals, Community Resource Persons (CRPs), and ‘community heroes’ are being engaged in capacity building of SHGs and their federations.
• NRLM invests in building ‘social capital’ – community animators, activists, CRPs, etc., who are crucial in making NRLM community-driven and sustainable.

Building Capacities

• NRLM ensures the poor are provided with the requisite skills for managing their institutions, linking up with markets, managing their existing livelihoods, and enhancing their credit absorption capacity and credit worthiness.
• A multi-pronged approach is adopted for providing continuous capacity building of the targeted families, SHGs, their federations, government functionaries, bankers, NGOs, and other key stakeholders.
• Focus to develop and engage community professionals and community resource persons (CRP) for capacity building of SHGs and their federations and other collectives.
• NRLM plans to use ICT as an important tool for knowledge dissemination and making capacity building more effective.
• The costs incurred on professional support at the block and sub-block levels are considered as program costs not administrative costs.