Action Aid India is part of a global federation and a full affiliate of ActionAid International that has presence in over 40 countries of Asia, Africa, Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific with its head quarters in Johannesburg, South Africa. Since 1972, the poor and the excluded have been at the centre of our discourse and actions in India.

Together with the people, we claim legal, constitutional and moral rights to food and livelihood, shelter, education, healthcare, dignity and a voice in decisions that affect their lives.

We are an agency that is:

• Working in partnership with formations of excluded people, mass movements, knowledge institutions and civil society organizations

• Standing with people in their struggle towards a world free of poverty, exclusion, patriarchy and injustice,

• Rooted with communities and social formations, learning from people’s actions and building on alternatives,

• Promoting a critical yet constructive engagement with the state to advance and promote peoples’ action for claiming rights,

• Engaged in varied roles, as a support and an implementing agency, which requires us to continuously learn and evolve

Target Group

A world without poverty, patriarchy and injustice in which every person enjoys the right to life with dignity.

Mission

To work in solidarity with the poor and excluded in their struggle to challenge and resist dispossession, eradicate poverty, patriarchy and injustice

The action focuses on addressing the gap between community action for rights and entitlements and the ability of the local state to provide an effective response, both through provision of information and improved services. The long term outcome will contribute to reducing poverty and social exclusion by increasing and improving the numbers of poor and marginalized groups – Dalit, Tribal and Muslim, with a focus on gender equality across all groups- who are able to access government services and to ensure their participation in local governance aimed at improving the quality and delivery of those services.

The project will build on ActionAid Association’s (AAA) previous projects to enhance capacity of local groups (both women and men) to access government entitlements for the most marginalised communities. This experience showed that while mobilizing the community certainly increases knowledge of their rights and their demand for seeking those rights, yet delivery of services by the government is not ensured. This project goes one step further and seeks to bridge this gap between the demand from community and actual delivery from local government structures.

On the demand side, we aim to reach at least 30,400 households in 234 villages in 6 Districts spread over five states: one each in Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and 2 districts of Uttar Pradesh. Their marginalization is ethnic, caste or religion based with women experiencing double discrimination due to their gender. We will enable targeted groups to know their entitlements to a complete range of government schemes available; participate in planning of village development needs and engage in monitoring the Panchayat delivery of public schemes. This will increase transparency and speed up the response of local government to community needs. Following on from this, we expect that targeted households will have applied for and accessed schemes.

On the delivery side we will enhance responsiveness of Panchayat through increased engagement with the community. As a result of training and support through this action, we will ensure that local government officials understand their duty to provide information on government schemes, are more responsive to the needs of the communities they serve, will support the community planning processes facilitated by the action, build community monitoring mechanisms and ensure access of the poorest to community services. Principles of transparency and accountability will become part of their standard practice and ultimately services will be better targeted, and delivered in timely and correct manner. In this, the project is complemented by the Government’s Backward Region Grant Fund (BRGF) programme and its guidelines.

Objectives

Overall :To increase and improve the access, delivery and quality of public services aimed at reducing poverty and social exclusion

Specific:To improve access to public schemes and services for poor and marginalized by identifying the gap between community action for rights and entitlements and local state’s ability to respond to them effectively through timely information and systems in 6 backward districts of North India

Target Group

Dalit, Muslim and Tribal.

Final Beneficiaries

30,400 households in 234 villages in 6 Districts spread over five states: one each in Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and 2 districts of Uttar Pradesh.

Estimated Results

• Increased capacity and responsiveness of local administration and Panchayat Raj Institutions in providing information and access to public services to poor and marginalized.

• Increased awareness and capacity of poor and marginalized communities to demand and access information and public services.

• Community based planning, monitoring, transparency and accountability practices are established to provide information and review performance of public services and schemes with active participation of organisations of poor and marginalized.

• Civil society organisations are actively participating in advocacy efforts based on action research and documentation of good practice

Sion Kongari
National Coordinator

Shalini Garg/Makan Singh
Representative of Institutional Partnership Development

Address of the Head Office
R-7, HauzKhas Enclave,
New Delhi 110016.