Your pages title here

Another important core concern of APRLP is equity. Watershed projects tend to benefit only faming community, who own land. The big farmers corner more benefits. In APRLP, several policy provisions made and process instruments are defined to ensure that resource poor families access the benefits of the project. The bench marking data is presented in the following framework to conduct a "reality check" on "equity concerns" in the project processes.

Framework for Equity Analysis of Processes in Watershed Based Livelihoods Projects:

The process designs that address equity concerns are briefly mentioned. The field level observations against these process designs are presented in a structured manner, in the following manner.

Access: How resource poor families (men and women) gained access or could not gain access, as a result of observed process?
Control: How resource poor families (men and women) could control or could not control the process?
Decision Making: How resource poor families (men and women) could decide or could not decide?
Benefits: How resource poor families (men and women) got benefits or denied benefits?

Since many of these processes are already presented in previous sections, this part of the report only presents "process descriptions" that have addressed any one or all of the above parameters. Some equity related issues which reflect gender concerns are explained in gender analysis.

Designed Process at Key Event	During situation analysis, problems faced by resource poor families will be identified and analyzed. The most vulnerable groups in the village will be identified. APRLP makes efforts to address the problems of vulnerable groups.
Access:	Drinking water scarcity (81%), migration (63%), soil erosion and low productivity (56%), irrigation water scarcity (44%); fodder scarcity (31%), health of livestock (31%) are some of the top problems related to natural resources.
Control:	Village leadership, project facilitating teams (WDT and MDT) dominated the process of situation analysis
Decision Making	The role of farmers in problem identification is strong in 50% of cases. This indicates the focus on land development related themes as dominating paradigm of problem analysis. (20 to 40%). It is important to note that women did not play any key role in this process.
Benefits:	Women (50%), farmers, wage seekers/ laborers (44%) are identified as most vulnerable communities of watersheds.
Designed Process at Key Event	Families of resource poor will be identified and formed into institutions
Access:	All categories of watersheds have recognized poor families. Majority of the projects (75% total - all types) recognized wage dependent families.
Control:	Village leadership, project facilitating teams (WDT and MDT) dominated the process of identification of poor (20 to 40% of watersheds).
Benefits	In majority of watersheds (all types of projects), single women and women headed families are recognized. Though they are mainly meant for Watershed + activities, this process created an entry point for women in the project. 38% of projects have organized labor groups, as part of the project.
Designed Process at Key Event	Preference and priority to compact blocks of poor at ridge area for development
Access:	In 38% of watersheds, this process is not followed.
Control:	The selection of first micro watershed is dominated by PIA/ WDT in majority of cases where GO PIA is operating. In other cases, village leaders dominated the selection process.
Decision Making	The involvement of entire village in this selection process happened only in one case. The choice does not particularly reflect the 'priority to resource poor'
Benefits	The idea of experiential learning by developing micro watersheds can not take place if this step itself is incomplete or improper implementation of this step.
Designed Process at Key Event	Planning For Natural Resources: Preference and priority is given to development of assets such as common property resources, assigned lands, livestock that are accessed by poor.
Access:	The significance of common property resources are not clearly pronounced in practice. About 40% watersheds do not have plans on CPRs (either they did not recognize or did not prepare plans). Remaining watersheds prepared action plans for CPRs. Very interestingly, 50% of projects have livestock related interventions (health and fodder) as part of action plans. This dispels the notion that watershed projects neglected livestock related issues. This intervention could be mainly as a result of livelihoods component in the project budgets.
Decision Making	Though drinking water was recognized as an important problem, during situation analysis, only 25% of villages actually addressed this problem through action planning. Remaining, 43% villages did not make any efforts to address this concern.
Benefits	In 38% of projects, drinking water facilities are created as part of watershed plans. Though the drinking water scarcity was identified as a priority in 45% of projects, no efforts are made to address the same.
Designed Process at Key Event	Cluster of Processes - Action Plans for Livelihoods and Productivity
Access:	In 50% of projects, action plans for productivity enhancement are not prepared. In 25% of cases, the action plans for livelihoods are not prepared.
Control:	SHG and VO are involved either in accepting the interventions or during discussions to identify the interventions.
Decision Making	In remaining cases, the action plans for productivity enhancement are prepared in an ad hoc manner involving a top down process.
Benefits	Livelihoods Action Plans are treated as an administrative requirement to get funds. After receiving the funds, the funds are equally shared among all members of groups.
Designed Process at Key Event	Prioritizing works: Village Organization and Grama Panchayati will decide on priorities of works. Preference will be given to development of assets of poor and wage seekers in
Decision Making	In 42% projects, VO played some role in decision making and choice of beneficiaries for the project. Remaining cases, either Village Organization is absent or inactive.
Designed Process at Key Event	User Groups make advance/ genuine contribution.
Access:	Only limited NGO PIAs are able to mobilize genuine contribution from users in both the APRLP and Non APRLP projects. In majority of cases (both APRLP and Non APRLP), contribution is manipulated and not mobilized from users. Deductions from wages, manipulating estimates are other common practices to mobilize contribution (in 75% of watersheds).
Benefits	In 75% watersheds, wage seekers are forced to part with their daily wages for watershed development fund.
Designed Process at Key Event	User groups supervise works and labor groups will execute them.
Access:	Only 19% of projects gave opportunity to labor groups to execute works (Two APRLP and One Non APRLP). UG members and labor groups worked together in another 44% of projects (all categories of projects).
Control:	In 18% of cases, farmers got main wage opportunities. They worked either on common lands or their own private lands. Even the farmers acted as contractors, when they employed laborers for completing works.
Benefits	In 19% of projects, explicit contractorship is followed to execute works. In these works, machines and laborers (mainly non locals) are employed.
Designed Process at Key Event	No contractorship. Minimum and equal wages are paid to laborers. The supervisors of works will not retain part of wage and/or cut wages of laborers. Machines are not allowed.
Access:	Works are executed in contractor mode in majority of watersheds (80%). Contractorship basically makes profit by not only saving on costs but also doing poor quality of works. There are varieties of ways of contractorship in vogue. External facilitators (project authorities) or leaders of user groups themselves operate on profit margin and support the contractor mode of execution of works. In APRLP the user group leader himself acts as a contractor, while in Non APRLP the village leaders act as contractors. In 31% of watersheds, machines are used (both APRLP and Non APRLP). In each watershed, the expenditure on machines is more than Rs 60000/- per year. In some of these villages, this amount is not clear to the communities.
Benefits	Only in the case of committed and development oriented NGO PIAs (both APRLP and Non APRLP), contractorship is eliminated. User groups implemented the works under the supervision of watershed committee.
Designed Processes at	Usufruct rights are given to resource poor families who are attached to a particular common property (natural) resource. This process is expected to yield sustained benefits to the resource poor families.
Access:	In 32% watersheds, works are implemented on CPRs. In 56% projects, works are implemented on CPRs, but rights are not conferred. There is no attempt to address the issue formal rights in these villages. This indicates the health of interventions on CPR (sustained benefits from CPR assets).
Control:	In a single watershed (NGO PIA and Non APRLP), rights are conferred on several CPRs in the village (water bodies, trees and so on).
Decision Making	User groups have decided on collective norms around CPRs in only two villages (where committed NGO functioned as PIA). Remaining villages (90%) did not have any strategy or decisions around norms for CPR management.
Benefits	The rights over assets/ usufruct rights are not conferred formally in majority (70%) of the watershed projects. Informal rights are conferred to trees and water bodies in 30% villages.

Making Processes Equitable...