Market Development and Enterprise Promotion for Poor Women

BACKGROUND

The project is in the state of Madhya Pradesh and the catchment area are expected to be the tribal districts of central and eastern MP. The eastern region of MP is recommended by the MP Human Development Report for special focus to increase income-earning opportunities for the poor from land, forests and non-farm activities. Eastern Madhya Pradesh districts are some of the poorest in the whole state. Poverty is endemic. The main problem in the area is the inadequate livelihoods of the largely tribal people who are dependent on natural resources, agriculture, labor and forests products.  Public investment in irrigation is low and incidences of private investment in groundwater development are few and far between. Agriculture is primarily rainfed and relies on monsoon, with large annual fluctuations. Farming is characterized by low technology, low yield and low value. Population led pressures lead to several problems in both agriculture and forest sectors – depletion of forests and loss of bio-diversity; and low productivity of land. Agriculture is predominantly rainfed in most tribal areas of the region.  Moreover, the land is undulating and the soil quality is poor—all combined lead to very poor agricultural productivity. Farming is done for self-consumption, and the produce suffices only to feed the family for five to six months of the year.  This leads to food insecurity, distress migration by males (and often entire families) for almost half the year. Agricultural productivity being very low, this has led to great and increasing pressures on the forests resulting in loss of bio-diversity in one of the highest forest density areas in the state of Madhya Pradesh. On the social front it has resulted in food insecurity, disruption of family life, neglect of children, among others. Collection of Non-Timber Forest Produce (NTFPs) from the forest for sale provides employment for about 30-45 days in a year.  Despite policy changes, which were aimed at providing better and assured returns to the collectors, the forest continues to be an ‘unregulated common’ to the collectors of NTFPs.  This fact has led to unsustainable and often irreversible practices of collection and extraction of NTFPs.  The result is that yields of NTFPs from the area have steadily being going down.  Thus, the actual support that gathering of NTFPs provides to tribal livelihoods is much less than the potential.  Together with rising population pressures, this exacerbates livelihood insecurity.

• • Participation of women in all economic activities is an important aspect of tribal life in the area and women are active participants in the two most important productive economic activities in the district, agriculture and NTFPs. They are mainly illiterate and have poor health status. The NTFPs in the district include Mahua flower and fruit, Chiraunji and Aonla. Women are also involved in subsistence agriculture but its seasonality is a constraint. Women face a variety of problems relating to markets. There are policy constraints with government controlling the access to forests and sale of forest produce. Where such open sale is permitted, women cannot break the intermediaries link due to mobility constraints and lack of understanding of value chain. Owing to lack of capital and storage facilities women sell their products immediately after harvest and for very low prices. Awareness level of the collector regarding mature plucking of NTFPs that will improve the value of the product thus benefiting all in the value chain as well as help to regenerate the forest is low. Other problems are that full market potential of NTFPs is not really known because of lack knowledge of values and players along the chain from supplier to buyer, product development and diversification potential, and market reach.
  • The Self-Help Group (SHG) initiatives started by many NGOs have helped poor women save and engage in internal lending in such resource poor areas thus increasing their understanding of financial management and providing them access to small funds. But use of these funds, as well as bank funds they can leverage, for productive investment is limited because of lack of additional business development services for technical feasibility and market-led operations. Many women, although willing to initiate some kind of enterprise, are constrained by their lack of knowledge and exposure to the nitty-gritty of an enterprise. Some of them start but fail due to lack of training and other linkages.
  • It is therefore important for initiatives in livelihoods to strive for growth-oriented opportunities involving the markets—present and potential; for surplus generation; and for poor women to build capacity not just to remain at the subsistence level but also to participate in an informed way along the value chain. Subsistence-oriented poverty alleviation strategies can still have an impact if they are exclusively targeted at the producer level. Growth-oriented poverty alleviation strategies, however, may not produce the desired level of impact if it is only producer-targeted. Such strategies must include support services for entrepreneurs along the value chain, for their improvement as well since their economic behavior and operations have positive and negative impacts on producers. Growth is possible with volumes and larger numbers that will attract market players and help women to have greater control over pricing and sales. This will require greater outreach than has been possible so far and involve new producers, intermediaries (other NGOs and market players), buyers, technical institutions for product development and feasibility assessment, banks etc. in strategic linkages around particular products and services that can generate surpluses and get greater income for poor producers, technical and market understanding and assessment for particular farm, forest and non-farm products; mapping of the catchment area containing producers for market linkage that the organization will make following its market assessment findings; widen its repertoire of services and mostly offered as a package to help clients establish, operate and monitor their local businesses; increase its outreach; increase number of providers delivering services (especially from the grassroots) and build their capacity; increase range and quality of materials and delivery mechanism.

TARGET GROUP

• • The project seeks to reach the tribals (Gonds and Baigas). This group was selected because of their extreme poverty situation and dependence on natural resources for the livelihoods.
  • The tribals own land but their land produces only one main crop, which is rainfed. They do not have alternative sources of income or skills for other activities.
  • The project’s ultimate beneficiaries will be women. They work on the land and collect forest produce. They also migrate. The project seeks to address the poverty of men and women through livelihood initiatives that benefit both since; overall, the tribal household is the poorest among households in general. The services will benefit intermediaries and ultimate clients (mainly tribal women) who are linked economically and in other ways to intermediaries.
  • The target group being served may be organized or unorganized since they will include the following: producers mobilized by other NGOs, government departments; producers mobilized by implementing organization; individual members of producers’ federations; market intermediaries/unorganized micro and small entrepreneurs; organized associations of entrepreneurs.
  • The tribal women will also be involved in testing new products of NTFP and agricultural operations proposed in the project.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVE

GOAL:  is to establish the implementing organization as a key business development service (BDS) provider for poor women’s microenterprises in MP.

OBJECTIVES (for realization at the end of a three-year project grant) are to:

• • Have a range of business development service packages to help clients (NGOs, local entrepreneurs, government staff, SHGs, producers) to establish, operate and monitor their local business.
  • Establish a wide client base that includes producers, entrepreneurs, NGOs, government, and donors.
  • Have BDS centers as ‘market for livelihoods hubs’ with identified and researched growth potential in particular sectors around which new producers can be mobilized.
  • Demonstrate capability for service provision by BDS providers already selected and being trained in service provision.
  • Ensure that revenue is as envisaged in the business plan
  • Ensure that BDS centers have adequate numbers of quality service providers to meet the demand.
  • Ensure that range and quality of materials and delivery mechanisms are consistent with service quality and necessary customization; the organization is recognized as a BDS facilitator such that there is demand for the organization to open new centers
  • To have value-added products and services developed and tested at the grassroots level in Mandla; to strengthen the Mandla program “laboratory” for scale-up and capacity-building of women.

 ACTIVITIES

• • Establishment and equipment of BDS centers in MP and Chattisgarh
  • Hiring of qualified staff for the centers
  • Identification of services to be provided and development of business plans
  • Training programs in BDS provision for staff
  • Development of a marketing strategy for each center for BDS provision
  • Marketing of BDS centers
  • Capacity-building for grassroots BDS providers
  • Development of appraisal. M&E systems for the centers
  • Consultations with small entrepreneurs in the value chain of sectors
  • Support to small entrepreneurs
  • Identification of and linkages with NGOs who can increase its scale thus getting themselves linked to the market
  • Training materials research and development (case studies, best practices, manuals, interactive materials etc.)
  • New product development and productivity improvement in agriculture
  • Organization development and capacity building for the organization for effective implementation of initiatives noted above

PROJECT IMPACT

Impact

• • Women will understand and act in ways that will promote enterprises with growth prospects, rather than only subsistence activities
  • They will understand markets, market functioning and marketing – all aspects of business operations that women have not traditionally been part of because of their isolation
  • They will appreciate the value of business service provision for other women like themselves rather than only production
  • A variety of stakeholders will be beneficiaries of the BDS services. The idea of intervening along the value chains is to help the sector to achieve growth and for stakeholders in various positions in the chain to contribute strategically and benefit personally (economically and socially).

Impact monitoring will be done by a person who will be responsible for process and impact monitoring of all BDS centers run by the implementing organization. The process monitoring will track the business plan achievements and strategy implementation of business services and impact monitoring will be linked to a particular service that will have its own impact indicators and time frame for achievement. The impact will inform a strategy shift, if necessary.  For example, in management training, an impact indicator will be changes in the business operation of a client that has followed training. This could include a formulation of a business plan by a client who had previously not formulated such a plan and did not know how to go about it. The impact monitoring of the field program will be done in tandem and will assess the impact of training on women, the impact of new product development and agricultural improvements on the incomes of tribal women.

SUSTAINBILITY

In the arena of BDS provision, its expansion of the work to state level for focused in-state support (programmatic rather than one-off and full-business support rather than only business training) will also ensure a greater outreach and longevity. BDS centers are the research, learning, best practices replication, and expansion drivers of organization’s business services. Additionally, since the services will be provided for fees rather than be grant-funded, the revenue generation aspect is also being given importance. A business plan will frame the activities and revenue generation