Sa-Dhan Newsletter Volume 4 Issue 2

Community Based Organisations

Networking of SHGs - Concepts, Issues and Practices:

A Workshop Report

-Sa-Dhan In-house Research Team

{This paper is a report of a two day joint workshop organised by Sa-Dhan, the Association of Community

Development Finance Institutions and NIPCCD, Lead Training Agency of Swashakti Project on " Networking

of SHGs - Concepts, Issues and Practices" held on the 24-25th March 2003 at PHD House, New Delhi.

Swashakti is a Government of India Project for strengthening the process that promotes social and

economic development of women, thereby creating an environment for social change to improve their

quality of life. Presently, the Swashakti project covers nine states and a total of 58 district. Bihar,

Jharkhand, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Uttaranchal and Uttar Pradesh are

the states in which the Project is implemented.}

Officers and partner NGOs on different models of networking

INTRODUCTION

of SHGs and also to make the project officials and partner

T

NGOs learn issues concerning their role and long-term

he Swashakti Project is a project supported by the

sustainability. The workshop provides various options available

Government of India and the International Development

for networking of SHGs, so that it can sustain the work

Association and International Fund for Agricultural

undertaken with SHGs, after the withdrawal of the Swashakti

Development for a period of five years to promote "strong

project. Another purpose of the workshop was to develop

Self-Help Groups (SHGs) of poor women and to inform, train

high quality reference material on important aspects of

and equip them so that they can have access to resources,

federation promotion and their sustainability by collating

have control over resources and improve their own lives and

papers prepared for this workshop. Therefore, the workshop

that of their families and communities". The support for this

discussions, group works and presentations were all revolve

project was for a period of five years and now that 12000

around the ways and means by which SHG clusters/federations

SHGs have been promoted and a number of Cluster association

could be made financially sustainable and institutionally

or federations formed. But with only one year remaining for

independent within the local and regional development context.

the project to come to an end, NIPCCD now wants to apprise

The workshop was participatory with technical sessions.

the project staff and its NGO partners on the ground reality,

experience and issues concerning the sustainability of clusters

and federations. The workshop was organised keeping in

The first day of the workshop started with welcome speech

mind this goal. Therefore, the objective of the workshop was

from Dr. Adarsh Sharma, Additional Director, NIPCCD. It was

to build the perspective of the Swashakti District Project

followed by a speech from Sulochana Vasudevan, Project

Ms. Sulochanna Vasudevan (Project Director, Swashakti Project, NIPCCD) Mr. Mathew Titus (Executive Director Sa-Dhan)

Mr. Margaret Alva (Chairperson, Standing Committee on Empowerment of Women, India)

Dr. Adarsh Sharma, Additional Director, NIPCD at PHD House, New Delhi.

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