fourth EF meeting
- executive summary

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Good Governance tree at VDS/Village level

Example of VDS linkages with other institutions: Nirgudi Village

Background of VDS

During Phase-II of ISPWDK project, 14 Village Development Societies have been established in all the three project areas to take care various development needs of the village. The VDS is a registered society under the Karnataka Societies Registration Act of 1960. It was designed so that all the households of the village and representations from different categories such as social, economical, gender and vulnerable sections were included in the management body of the VDS. There have been considerable experiences of VDS taking the roles and responsibilities for addressing various development issues/activities of the village/watershed. Many elements of good governance have been observed in their functioning, such as transparency, decentralization, accountability, gender and equity concerns, linkages and support to other institutions such as Grama Panchayat (GP), SHGs etc.

Exchange forum on Good Governance

How can the VDS perform a complementary role and show good examples in local governance to influence the constitutionally empowered Grama Panchayat? Deliberations on the “Role of VDS in promoting good governance at local level” were felt necessary. Hence, an Exchange Forum was organized on 27th - 29th October at PIDOW MYRADA Kamalapur. The participants were community representatives; NGOs staff from ISPWDK and IC-NGO KTN programames, PSMU and also resource persons from other development organizations, who were invited to share their experiences.

The process of interactions with the community members, their deep insights and open sharing of their experiences/ideas brought out many dimensions of good governance at the VDS level. The field interactions by the participants in four VDSs (two at MYRADA and two at PRAWARDA) brought out many learning, issues and problems, which were later analysed during the presentation in the plenary. This was helpful in planning further interventions by the VDS and NGOs to strengthen the various elements of good governance, which the participants together listed out at the beginning of the session (link). This was also the basis for interactions, discussions at various levels.

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