South Asia Agriculture and Rural Growth Impact Note Series OCTOBER 2019 Enhancing Women’s Empowerment Evidence from Tamil Nadu 2 This note is based on the paper A Retrospective Impact Evaluation of HIGHLIGHTS the Tamil Nadu Empowerment and Poverty Alleviation (Pudhu Vaazhvu) Project authored by M. Khanna, N. Kochhar and N. Palaniswamy.1 Can targeted participatory community rural livelihoods programs that work in partnership with local governments improve the welfare CONTEXT of the poor, empower women and improve public action? Tamil Nadu is India’s seventh largest state with a population of 62 million. In the 1990s, the state had made significant progress on development • An impact evaluation of one such program outcomes, with faster economic growth and reduction of urban and in rural Tamil Nadu targeted at vulnerable rural poverty in comparison to the national average. While the state groups (historically disadvantaged castes, ranked 6 (out of 15 major states) on per capita income, inequality landless households and women) shows within the state was higher than the all-India average and 20% of people significant increase in consumption still lived in poverty (including higher rural poverty rates). expenditure and skilled employment within these groups. The state’s agricultural growth and productivity was higher than • Across the project area, the program the national average with 44% of the rural population employed as significantly reduced the incidence of high agricultural laborers (mostly landless). However, the dependency on cost debt and improved diversification of rainfall increased household’s vulnerability to drought and had devastating the household livelihoods portfolio. consequences for marginal landholders and landless laborers, increasing their vulnerability through income variations. • Women’s empowerment within the household, measured by the ability to Inline with the Government of Tamil Nadu’s (GoTN) Tenth Five Year influence intra-household decision making, Plan, which identifies “improvement in quality of life of rural poor” as improvements in PVP areas and self-reports the prime goal of rural development, the state allocated about 30% of by women of a greater say in decisions it’s planned budget to social welfare and rural development programs such as purchase of household durables, towards assisting vulnerable groups. Building on GoTN’s existing children’s education and livelihoods programs and good practice initiatives, the Tamil Nadu Empowerment activities. and Poverty Reduction Project (TNERP) was setup in 2005 as a • The program also improved women’s multidimensional project to empower the rural poor (particularly political participation in gram sabhas (village assemblies) and increased 1 The original paper is available at https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2015.1028538. interaction with local government. Impact Note 2: OCTOBER 2019 designed as the core institution and comprised federated SHGs whose representatives were democratically elected. While the VPRC’s core mandate remained credit and livelihoods support for SHG women, PVP would facilitate linkages with local governments (VPs) to improve access to welfare benefits and improve local accountability. A three-tiered project structure - district, block and cluster (of villages) – was instituted to support the implementation of the project. Lastly, a Social Audit Committee (SAC) comprising 3-5 people nominated by the village was setup to monitor all project activities. Figure 1: PVP's Institutional Model and Integration with Local Governments Functions Mavatta District Level Magamai District Federation Four sub-committees to monitor and supervise the following: Sub-district Vattara Magamai Cluster 1. Savings and credit Level (Federation) Forum 2. Institutional strengthening 3. Livelihoods 4. Community Professionals Local Government - Village Level SAC & VPRCs Monitoring and decision making integrated with the PLF CLG local government VPRC (Federation) (Federation) women and other disadvantaged groups), Livelihoods Groups improve their economic welfare and facilitate Common-interest public action by investing in the social capital livelihoods activities of communities and working in partnership SHGs and PLFs Social Audit Savings Savings Liveli- Liveli- with local governments to improve the pro- Bank linkages and Committee Groups Groups hoods hoods poor development. savings (SACs) (SHGs) (SHGs) Groups Groups INTERVENTION EVALUATION DESIGN Self Help Groups (SHGs) have been a major The evaluation of this program was carried out between December 2012 aspect of programs for rural women in Tamil and March 2013. The approach used a propensity score matching method Nadu since the early 1990s under various to identify a counter factual for estimating the impact of the project central, state and donor initiatives. However, and covered 10 PVP districts to ensure representation of the different while most initiatives were successful in geographic regions. A two-step matching procedure (block and village) mobilizing and forming SHGs of the poor and was followed and the sampling strategy tried to replicate the final block empowering village institutions, there were selection as closely as possible based on 2 factors: the program population challenges of exclusion of the truly poor and criterion2 as well as deviations3 from this by using infrastructural variables disadvantaged along with the ability of these groups to sustainably reduce debt and support livelihood diversification. Box 1: CASTE DISTRIBUTION IN SAMPLE - % OF household To address this exclusion and existing 40 economic inequality, the GoTN envisaged 35 the development of village level organizations 30 that represented the poor and worked 25 Non-Project synergistically on shared development goals 20 Project within the framework of the gram sabha. In this 15 Sample context, the TNERP “Puthu Vaazhvu” Project 10 (PVP) was rolled out in 16 selected districts. 5 To implement the various interventions, the 0 Scheduled Scheduled Most Backward Forward village organization – the Village Poverty Caste Tribe Backward Caste Caste/ Caste Other Caste Reduction Committee (VPRC) - was 2 A backwardness score equally weighted for SC and ST population proportions and the number of below poverty line households. 3 Deviations reflect a policy decision to implement in certain blocks not identified by the original population criterion and capture truly disadvantaged blocks. Impact Note 2: OCTOBER 2019 based on available census data. SC and ST households were over sampled to capture the emphasis of the program on poor and very poor households Women’s empowerment Box 3:   that were identified through the participatory identification process. within the household were captured through a series of vignette-based KEY FINDINGS questions related to intra- PVP resulted in a large and significant reduction in high cost debt4, with a household decision-making 29.26% decrease in the number of high cost loans and a 23.45% decline in as illustrated below the amount of high cost loans.The program’s special emphasis on targeting Kavitha stays in a nearby village. She disadvantaged households showed an additional 5% decline in high cost often has to make some decisions in her debt for SC households in treatment areas. In line with the focus on day-to-day life. I will now describe the improving livelihoods, a movement towards more productive loans was decisions she might have to take. Please also observed with more households (53.37% increase in number of loans) suggest what Kavitha should do when she reporting borrowing for non-farm livelihood purposes in project areas. is taking these decisions. An increase of 4% in skilled labour was also recorded for landless A new garment factory has come up near households, which is critical given that these households are largely Kavitha’s village. She wants to work there dependent on agriculture for employment - leaving them extremely instead of working in the village as an vulnerable and susceptible to income variations. agricultural labourer. She will get better wages too. The factory is a little far and she An asset index of 29 consumer durables was constructed using the first will have to travel everyday for an hour to component of principal component analysis. This index was 0.23 units get to the factory. Her husband does not higher in PVP areas. While no significant difference in the per capita want her to go out of the village for work. total expenditure between program and control areas was recorded, What in your opinion should Kavitha do? the direction of the trend is positive. Higher per capita consumption • Take up the job at the factory expenditure was noted for SC households in treatment areas (9%) suggesting that the program targeted the right people and reached the • Do not take up the job at the factory more vulnerable households. How do you think Kavitha should take this decision? Households in project areas spent 23.35% more on house construction and repairs in the past one-year before the survey. These expenses usually • Decide herself represent relatively large outflows of cash or credit and could be indicative • Let her husband decide of improvements in economic welfare. However, no significant difference • Have a discussion with her husband and in housing quality indicators or change in housing quality was noted. decide • Discuss with husband and convince him The program improved women’s agency5 on multiple dimensions with more to agree with her women reporting a greater say in intra-household decisions. 9.79% more women reported making decisions on purchase of household durables in project areas and 10.74% women reported a greater say in decisions on 12% increase was observed for women from children’s education. For proportion of women reporting that females in SC households in treatment areas implying the household take decisions regarding their own livelihood activities, a that the program had reached the truly 21.01% increase in reporting came from treatment areas. An additional disadvantaged groups. PVP increased women’s participation and Box 2:  intra-household decision-making* interaction with the local government. 60 19.38% of the women attended the last gram sabha in treatment areas, which 50 was 65.48% higher compared to non-PVP 40 areas. Interestingly, fewer women reported Control independence on political decision-making 30 Treatment in terms of whom to vote in elections in 20 treatment areas (3.54% lower). 10 The program lowered the likelihood of 0 inaction on public service problems, family Purchase of Education Respondent's disputes and local law and order issues6 by Household Durables of Children Livelihood Activity 25% in intervention areas. For issues related * % of women reporting females in the household make decisions to public service delivery, 68.55% women 4 High cost debt is defined by loans with an annual interest rate of more than 50%. 5 Women’s agency is defined as decisions taken by women, either by the respondent or by other female household members. Impact Note 2: OCTOBER 2019 in program areas said they would approach the gram sabha or pradhan (village president) as the first port of   t the close of the project in 2017 Box 4: A call; with a 9% additional increase for SC households in 1. Poor women mobilised into 36,140 new SHGs (and treatment areas. 71,159 existing SHGs), covering 917,173 households. Overall, the program’s call to action and effects on political 2. 92% SHGs received multiple doses of credit with a participation extended beyond the core target group of total amount of INR 57,201 million mobilized. women, with a 31.43% increase in gram sabha attendance 3. Percentage of women who attended gram sabha and an additional increase of 3% for landless households in meetings was 65.5% higher. treatment areas. 4. Intra-household decision making for women was 9% higher on purchase of households durables, 21% POLICY LESSONS higher on choice of livelihood activity. Tamil Nadu Empowerment and Poverty Reduction: Source:     The project design continues to remain relevant in Implementation Completion Report Review. geographies where high levels of social exclusion, poverty and inequality exist. Further, the theory of change behind the project has been adopted by similar rural livelihoods delivery. The program design also remains relevant in projects in other states of India and has seen positive results. geographies plagued by weak local governance and public The project contributed to the design and scale up of the service delivery. National Rural Livelihoods Program, which pitched the local government as a front-runner in providing social and economic opportunities to the poor women, vulnerable and CONCLUSION marginalized communities. The Tamil Nadu Empowerment and Poverty Reduction There is a need for a more intensive and long-term strategy for Project (PVP) was successful in reducing the incidence engaging with vulnerable groups on certain aspects of community of high cost debt as well diversification of the livelihoods, rural livelihoods programs.Targeting needs to be more focused which is a key constraint faced by poor rural households. and interventions tailored to evolve with community needs as PVP was designed to target ultra-poor women - the most highlighted by the minimal impacts on these certain aspects of vulnerable and marginalized - who were previously excluded livelihoods interventions in the evaluation. by other projects. The targeted and tailored approach of the interventions, were successful as seen through higher Lastly, PVP was successful in improving participation in local expenditures and a shift towards more skilled livelihoods government, and promoting public action that leveraged the within these key target groups. Overall, the program strengths of the existing panchayati raj (local government) contributed to more general changes in economic welfare at setup in Tamil Nadu to address issues of social inclusion, the household level and improved women’s empowerment promote livelihood activities and improve public service and political participation. 6 As captured through a set of vignettes describing hypothetical problems typically faced in a village on public service delivery, family disputes, local law and other conditions. ABOUT THE Impact Note SERIES This note is part of the South Asia Agriculture and Rural Growth Impact Note Series, that seeks to disseminate research and analysis focused on World Bank financed rural, agriculture and food systems programs in India. Series editors: Abhishek Gupta and Gayatri Acharya. Photographer: Ritayan Mukherjee. We are grateful for the generous support from The South Asia Food and Nutrition Security Initiative (SAFANSI), Gates Foundation, Ministry of Rural Development and various state rural development departments. This note was prepared by Alreena Pinto (Consultant,World Bank) and published by the Food & Agriculture Global Practice at The World Bank, 1818 H Street, NW Washington, DC 20433 USA. Website: www.worldbank.org. For further information or copies please e-mail: galex2@worldbank.org. Disclaimer: T   he findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this note are entirely those of the author(s) and should not be attributed in any manner to the World Bank, to its affiliated organizations or to members of its Board of Executive Directors or the countries they represent. REFERENCES Khanna, Madhulika; Kochhar, Nishtha; Palaniswamy, Nethra. A Retrospective World Bank Document. Tamil Nadu Empowerment and Poverty Reduction: Impact Evaluation of the Tamil Nadu Empowerment and Poverty Alleviation Implementation Completion Report Review. June 29, 2019, Report No. (Pudhu Vaazhvu) Project, The Journal of Development Studies, 51:9, 1210-1223, ICRR0021253 DOI:10.1080/00220388.2015.1028538, 2015 See: J. Hancock, M. Penumaka and M. Takada- Note 1, Main Findings of World Bank Document. Project Appraisal Document on a Proposed Credit Implementation Completion Review Report—Lessons from a Decade of in the Amount of US$120million to the Republic of India for the Tamil Nadu Implementation of BRLP in M. Takada and M. R. Choudhury. Ed. A Decade of Empowerment and Poverty Reduction “PuthuVazhvu” Project. June 7, 2005, Rural Transformation, Lessons Learnt from the Bihar Rural Livelihoods Project – Report No. 31806 JEEViKA, JEEViKA Learning Note Series, No.1, World Bank Publications, 2017