In this Issue…

Women leaders took active part in group activities and presentations. Women leaders enjoyed and appreciated this workshop and said that it was an enlightening experience to be acquainted with the natural and socially constructed differences for women

Training of Scheduled Caste Panchayat Representatives, Bihar

A two day "Anusuchit Jati Ke Panchayat Pratinidhiyon Ka Prasikshan" (Training of Scheduled Caste Panchayat Representatives) was organised by PRIA, Patna in association with Prayash Gramin Vikas Samiti, Patna, at, BVHA, Patna on 11-12 November 2008, where 30 Panchayat Representatives (23 Male & 7 Female representatives) of six panchayats of Phulwari Shariff Block, Patna, participated. The objective of this training programme was to strengthen the Scheduled Caste (SC) leadership in panchayati raj and to enable them to participate in the decision making process at the grassroots level of the country.

After the initial introduction, all the participants were told to identify their own group by the colour of the chocolate they had chosen out of three different kinds of chocolates provided. After that, all the participants expressed their expectations from this training programme. All the representatives wanted to know about the functions and power of the gram panchayat; role of the panchayat representatives; roles and responsibilities of the gram sabha; etc. During the sessions on panchayati raj, it's functioning and the role and responsibilities of the panchayat representatives was explained by the help of presentations. The participants were asked to prepare a plan for their villages, prepare notices for the panchayat meeting and gram sabha and write the proceedings of the gram sabha. After that, they also made presentations on it. Role play of gram sabha and panchayat meeting helped them understand the process and also to form opinions about the procedural problems and their solutions.  

Discussions about the role of women in society in general and the significance of women's involvement in every sphere of the decision making process in the country and about the Scheduled Caste Sub Plan and the gaps in its proper implementation were very useful for the participants. The programme ended with the preparation of an Action Plan to execute the learnings of this training and organising some more capacity building programmes on micro planning, government schemes for scheduled castes, etc.

PRIA representatives Kamleshwar Singh, Sadanand Bag from Delhi and Om Prakash, Amitabh Bhusan from the Patna office facilitated and attended the programme.

Second Social Accountability School (SAS2), Phnom Penh, Cambodia

The Second Social Accountability School (SAS 2) was held from the 17th to 28^th November 2008 at the World Vision Centre, Phnom Penh. As part of the World Bank's Programme to Enhance Capacity for Social Accountability, it was organised in partnership with SILAKA, Cambodia, PRIA, India and Ateneo School of Government, Philippines. 70 participants, 60 from civil society and 10 from the government, attended this eleven day workshop. There were 22 women and 35 participants from 14 provinces of Cambodia, while the rest were from Phnom Penh, the capital city. The theme of the School was social accountability in the context of decentralisation and deconcentration in Cambodia. Comprising of three main modules, the workshop gave in-depth insights into the concepts and tools of social accountability and decentralisation in the global scenario relating it specifically to the Cambodian context. The introductory module covered the importance and need for decentralisation, good governance and social accountability. The next module covered five social accountability tools like social audit, citizen report cards, participatory planning, expenditure tracking and local grievance mechanisms. The last module focused on building their comprehension and skills in formulating project proposals relating to social accountability. The resource persons for this workshop were civil society practitioners and government representatives from India, Philippines and Cambodia. Practitioners from diverse backgrounds were used as resource persons to give a wider understanding of social accountability in the Indian context. Kaustuv Kanti Bandyopadhyay,  Manoj  Rai, Purvi Dass, Namrata Jaitli, and Julie Thekkudan from PRIA along with Binoy Acharya from  UNNATI, Ashok Singh from SSK and Meena Nair from the Public Affairs Centre  (PAC) Bangalore were the resource persons for this School. The participants were very enthusiastic about implementing some of their learning in their current work despite the existing constraints in the Cambodian governance context.

FICCI - Higher Education Summit 2008

PRIA Continuing Education is a member of FICCI-Higher Education Network (FICCI-HEN) since the last three years. FICCI-HEN organises Summits on Higher Education.  This year the theme for the Summit was   "Higher Education at the Crossroads: Imperatives for Policy & Practice" and at the Plenary Session I titled "New Providers, New Initiatives and New Forms of Delivery" PRIA's President, Dr. Rajesh Tandon spoke on the theme "Higher Education: Challenges for Human & Social Development"   on November 25, 2008 at FICCI, New Delhi. He emphasised on harvesting knowledge residing in multiple sites and institutions of society. He very successfully advocated the professional preparation and up gradation of the social development sector, youth and others. The response to his message was overwhelming.

Meeting on Social Audit under NREGS, Chhattisgarh 

A two day meeting on sharing the experiences of social audit, which came out during the process that took place to facilitate and strengthen the process of social audit in Chhattisgarh was organised at, Janjgir, Chhattisgarh on November 27, 2008. During this process, PRIA facilitated two social audits in the Madwa and Karmanda Gram Panchayats of Janjgir. The session proceeded with the sharing of the present context of NREGS and the latest happenings under social audit across the states where PRIA is working. A documentary on social audit prepared by PRIA, Chhattisgarh was shown to the participants for a better understanding of social audit.

It was discussed that earlier people were interested in social audit, but because of the lack of interest shown by sarpanches and government officials, the exercise of social audit remained only on paper. It was realised that in some of the gram panchayats, a few things were on track, but in most panchayats, people were dissatisfied with the functioning of NREGS. PRIA representatives Rajesh Sinha from Delhi and Suvigya Pathak from Janjgir facilitated the process.

Panel Discussion on Corporate Sector and Civil Society Interface: Challenges and Prospects, West Bengal

A one day panel discussion on "Corporate Sector and Civil Society Interface: Challenges and Prospects" was organised at Kolkata, West Bengal on 28^th November. Focusing on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the discussion featured eminent panellists, Viraf Mehta of Partners in Change, Dipak Basu of Anudip Foundation and NetHope and Rajesh Tandon of PRIA.

Mr. Viraf Mehta, Chief Executive, Partners in Change was the first of the panellists to present his views. His presentation comprised of the key developments in the field of corporate responsibility with a focus on human rights and business agenda and civil society's response to business-NGO partnerships and collaborations. Mr. Mehta spoke of the corporate sector's contribution to development, highlighting its role in social investment and philanthropic activities, core businesses as well as policy dialogue and advocacy.

Mr. Dipak Basu, Chairman, Anudip Foundation spoke at length about four organisations, which he felt have exhibited outstanding corporate responsibility. He highlighted the approaches of CISCO, Google, Microsoft and the Tata Group of Companies as being exemplary and held them up as role models. Mr. Basu spoke of the contribution of each of these companies and their deep commitment to social responsibility. He concluded by pointing out that often successful CSR programmes owe their effectiveness to their far thinking and socially committed company heads and in this context mentioned the founders of each of the four companies. 

The floor was then thrown open to the house and several questions were raised by the participants. These ranged from queries regarding the amendment to the Land Acquisition Act, strategies for changing the approach of Indian companies to social responsibility and ways of engaging the World Bank in improving NGO-corporate sector interaction and bringing it on a more equitable footing. Some participants questioned the philanthropic approach of traditional companies while others felt a more caring attitude was called for.

The session was concluded by Dr. Rajesh Tandon, President, PRIA who took the audience back to the renowned baby food campaign, which was internationally one of the first to hold a large corporation accountable for its actions. He also highlighted other campaigns that have been successful in improving the corporate sector's social responsibility. Dr. Tandon shared his observations on the current financial melt down and the impact it is likely to have on the development sector. He pointed out that social responsibility extended equally to small and medium businesses, which far exceeded large corporations in number and encouraged the audience to engage such businesses, to not only help the poor and needy, but also to comply with legal and municipal requirements. Dr. Tandon called CSR a misnomer, preferring to use the term corporate citizenship as he felt that the sector was increasingly being viewed as a responsible citizen rather than a do-gooder. Dr. Tandon concluded by saying all businesses, large and small had to be held accountable as they each had some impact on society.

PRIA representatives Saradindu Banerjee, Anita Boral, Jhilam Roy Chowdhury, Tapan Kumar Jana, Taranath Dhamala, Jamal A Khan from the West Bengal office were present during this discussion.