fourth EF meeting
- executive summary

... continued

Participation

The participation of community members was good; and especially, the women participants were much more confident as they strongly put forth their views in the discussions. Our reflections are that this change is due to the interventions made by the project focusing on women empowerment.

There was a good participation from a Gram Panchayat member from Kodli village, who shared a lot of internal aspects of GP’s functioning and suggested how the VDS could build synergies to influence the GP to function in a transparent manner with greater accountability, responsibility and gender sensitivity. In the process of interaction with VDS and with the GP member, many aspects of influencing factors came to light through the VDS and its democratic and transparent functioning in certain villages. It was found out from the interactions that there are powerful & powerless villages in the context of more representatives from that village in GP and other influencing factors.

Learnings

The key learnings from the workshop was that:

• The VDSs can come together on a common platform at Grama Panchayat level to bring in a lot of transformation in the outlook and the functioning of the Grama Panchayat.
• The VDS could set the path of good governance in the project villages.
• There was a common consensus that the VDS and the NGOs should plan certain interventions to establish good linkages with the Grama Panchayat, which will benefit them mutually.
• Already some VDS supports the GP’s initiative, but it is one-sided interaction at the moment and it was felt that it should be a two way process.
• A draft framework for Good governance at the VDS and local level was together developed in the form of a tree and shared with the participants, which they felt it very useful and communicates better.

more ...

... back to the executive summary page