ENDING POVERTY IN SOUTH ASIA 38287 Ideas That Work Public Disclosure Authorized e a s Th at Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Edited by Deepa Narayan Elena Glinskaya Public Disclosure Authorized Ending Poverty in South Asia Ending Poverty in South Asia Ideas That Work Edited by Deepa Narayan Elena Glinskaya © 2007 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank 1818 H Street, NW Washington, DC 20433 Telephone 202-473-1000 Internet www.worldbank.org E-mail [email protected] All rights reserved. 1 2 3 4 :: 09 08 07 06 This volume is a product of the staff of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Develop- ment / The World Bank. The fi ndings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this volume do not necessarily refl ect the views of the Executive Directors of The World Bank or the govern- ments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. 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All other queries on rights and licenses, including subsidiary rights, should be addressed to the Offi ce of the Publisher, The World Bank, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA; fax: 202-522-2422; e-mail: [email protected]. ISBN-10: 0-8213-6876-1 eISBN: 0-8213-6877-X ISBN-13: 978-0-8213-6876-3 DOI: 10.1596/978-0-8213-6876-3 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for. Contents v Contents Foreword vii Acknowledgments ix Contributors xi List of Abbreviations xvi List of Tables, Boxes, Figures xx 1. Overview and Lessons Learned 1 Deepa Narayan and Elena Glinskaya 2. India’s Milk Revolution 37 Investing in Rural Producer Organizations Verghese Kurien 3. Collective Action by Women Workers 68 The Self-Employed Women’s Association, India John Blaxall 4. Empowerment through Self-Help Groups 104 Andhra Pradesh Shows the Way in India Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar, Deepa Narayan, and K. Raju 5. Scaling Up Rural Support Programmes in Pakistan 136 Stephen F. Rasmussen, M. Mujtaba Piracha, Rashid Bajwa, Abdul Malik, and Aadil Mansoor 6. Afghanistan 169 vi Contents Integrating Community-Driven Development with Governance Reform Abi Masefi eld 7. Microfi nance in Bangladesh 199 Growth, Achievements, Lessons Hassan Zaman 8. Computerizing Land Records for Farmer Access 219 The Bhoomi Initiative in Karnataka, India Subhash Bhatnagar and Rajeev Chawla 9. E-choupals and Rural Transformation 244 Web-Based Tools for Indian Farmers Kuttayan Annamalai and Sachin Rao 10. A School for Every Village 277 The Education Guarantee Scheme in Madhya Pradesh, India Vimala Ramachandran 11. Expanding Access to Education in Bangladesh 304 Naomi Hossain 12. Addressing Urban Infrastructure Needs of the Poor 326 Public–Private Partnerships in Tamil Nadu, India Sameer Vyas 13. Citizen Report Cards in Bangalore, India 347 A Case Study in Accountability Samuel Paul 14. Commentary 378 A Framework for Scaling Up Poverty Reduction Shantayanan Devarajan and Ravi Kanbur Glossary 389 Index 391 Foreword vii Foreword The last two decades saw substantial change in the countries of South Asia. All countries of the subcontinent experienced more rapid growth than in the earlier decades and also saw a defi nite reduction in the incidence of poverty, resulting in the improvement of the lives of hundreds of millions of poor people. The extent of improvement in growth performance varied across countries and different factors were involved in different countries, but a common element was the adoption of broad based economic reforms involving rethinking of earlier approaches to development. The reforms in South Asia were notable in that they were homegrown, gradual, and accompanied by continual redesign and fi ne tuning. Greater openness of economic policies was one common factor in the reforms in the countries of South Asia and it was accompanied by openness to new ideas. One of the new elements was a willingness to create space for innovations, fresh thinking and experimentation, with greater scope for decentralized initiative. This allowed visionary individuals from all segments—civil society, government, and the private sector—to undertake experiments designed to help poor people improve their lives. This book is about twelve such experiments in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. We have always had visionaries in South Asia. Some of their visions have been translated into action. But never before have so many of these innovations been ‘scaled up’, to benefi t whole communities, districts, states, and even countries. What they did and how they did it is the subject of this book. The book offers no pre-cooked blueprint for replication. Rather, it offers readers a look at what has worked in practice and suggests a framework for distilling the common elements across these case studies. The lessons are complex, and applying them will undoubtedly require redesign and fi ne-tuning to fi t the initiatives to the local context. What is important, however, is that the experience of the last two decades shows us that reforms viii Foreword and scaling-up innovations can work in South Asia—and if these examples can be strengthened and expanded in the coming decades, we may realize our dream of a subcontinent free of poverty. March 2006 Montek Singh Ahluwalia New Delhi Acknowledgments ix Acknowledgments The case studies in this book were developed as part of a year-long learning process initiated by the World Bank in 2003–4 to examine large scale poverty reduction programs in a wide range of developing countries around the world. The process was inspired by Jim Wolfensohn, then president, led by Frannie Léautier, vice president of the World Bank Institute, and managed by Blanca Moreno-Dodson and Michele de Nevers under the guidance of a steering committee made up of several World Bank vice presidents and then-chief economist Nick Stern. Without their efforts and guidance, none of the case studies would have been prepared. The learning process culminated in a workshop in Shanghai in May 2004, hosted by the Chinese government, with additional fi nancing from donors, foundations, and the private sector. At the workshop, 105 case studies with policy implications were discussed by policy makers, practitioners, civil society representatives, and academicians from 83 countries around the world. This volume presents 12 of the case studies from South Asia. Deepa Narayan, one of the editors, coordinated all the case studies from India, under the helpful guidance of Michael Carter, former country director for India, Gobind Nankani and Danny Leipziger, former and current vice presidents for the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management network (PREM) at World Bank headquarters, and John Page, who was then director of the Poverty Reduction Group. Elena Glinskaya, the other editor, coordinated the remaining case studies from South Asia, under the overall direction of Praful Patel, vice president for the South Asia Region, Shantayanan Devarajan, chief economist for the South Asia Region, and Sadiq Ahmed, South Asia PREM director. Thanks are due to Luca Barbone, director of the Poverty Reduction Group, and Shantayanan Devarajan, chief economist for the South Asia Region, who supported the additional work needed to turn the original case studies into this book. We also thank all the authors of the case studies x Acknowledgments for updating and revising the workshop papers for publication, and their organizations for providing additional information for finalizing the case studies. We acknowledge the invaluable contribution of the Poverty Reduction Group staff based in India, who provided research assistance and helped coordinate the work of authors, editors, and the publisher; the team included Sunila Andrews, Kaushik Barua, Molly Kinder, Divya Nambiar, and Soumya Kapoor at different stages of the production process. We are deeply grateful to Cathy Sunshine for her editing skills. Finally, our most profound gratitude and admiration are due to the visionary individuals and their dedicated associates whose work is reported here. We hope their example will provide both inspiration and guidance to all those seeking to end poverty and destitution in South Asia. October 2006 Deepa Narayan Elena Glinskaya Contributors xi Contributors Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar is consulting editor of the Economic Times of India and a consultant to the World Bank, based in New Delhi and Washington, DC. He was previously editor of the Economic Times (1992–94) and the Financial Express (1988–90), and has served as India correspondent for the Economist. His work for the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank has focused on topics such as community-driven development, the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative, industrial liberalization, and the impact of reforms on poverty in India. He is the author of Towards Globalisation: The Case for Foreign Investment (Sangam Books, 1992). Kuttayan Annamalai works as a management consultant for Deloitte Consulting LLP, based in Dallas, Texas. His consulting experiences include developing customer and market strategies and creating operational process improvement for clients across several industries, including retail, telecommunications, technology, and financial services.