Process Documentation Research and Impact of Community-Driven Development Grants Research in Rural India, Socioeconomics Discussion Paper Series 34

In 2011 ICRISAT gave experimental grants to six dryland villages targeted by the “Village Dynamics Studies in South Asia” (VDSA) project. Two villages were located in Telangana state (undivided Andhra Pradesh) and four in Maharashtra state. A grant of USD 7,000 (Rs. 315,000) was given to each villages to assess the role of local governance and institutions on agricultural performance, and to evaluate development pathways. The community was free to decide where and how to use the grant. Using the Process Documentation Research (PDR) framework, this report documents the activities of the ICRISAT-VDSA project team and the community implementation committee in using the grant, and lessons learned in the process. We also estimated the number of beneficiaries and the economic benefits from the grant. In two villages, the annual economic benefits from the grant were almost equal to the total grant expenditure. In five villages, the cumulative benefits over the last four years exceeded the total value of the grant. Unlike other publically-funded projects, large numbers of households from minority and socially weaker sections also benefited. The results suggest that, given the opportunity, local communities can effectively execute local infrastructure development projects through need-based collective action, while lowering the transaction costs of community action. By involving local community members in planning and implementing projects, the village grant provided benefits to a large number of households and generated substantial economic benefits. The experiment provides useful lessons for scaling-out village grants to other project villages, and for rural development agencies in India and elsewhere

Studi di Storia

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