Present Research

Present Research

Access to rights & entitlements plays crucial role for fulfilling the basic need to survival of vulnerable communities especially the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups. Mapping exclusion causes, pinpointing delivery mechanism challenges at all levels of various schemes is required to fully address partners’ issues beyond surface resolutions. Documenting challenges and delivery issues facilitates a holistic problem analysis, enabling the exploration of solutions for systemic changes.

CORD has been engaged by Azim Premji to build technical capacity of civil society partners and need based policy engagement to ensure that vulnerable and needy citizens have proper and timely access to rights and entitlements based on their eligibilities. The project encompasses ~50 CSO partners in Jharkhand and Karnataka. The duration of this project is three years.

Key interventions will include the following:

  • Identify most relevant schemes to work on each local context (block wise).
  • Do a process audit to get nuanced details on each bottleneck for identified schemes
  • Train CSO functionaries to build understanding on schemes MIS and action plan for accessing welfare schemes after understanding of exclusion reasons. Provide handholding support to the CSOs as they take this work forward.
  • Organise state level consultation/meeting with departments, along with CSO, to issue guidelines for addressing the exclusions of any specific schemes.

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) is currently undertaking a set of studies on the MGNREGA in the states of Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. We are studying the assets created under the program, in particular, we are interested in studying how the number and type of assets has changed over time, and the role these assets have played in enhancing household incomes and supporting the development of value chain activities.

CORD will collaborate with IFPRI’s researchers to extract, organize and help interpret administrative data from the MGNREGA online monitoring and information system (MIS) on the universe of assets created in the states of Karnataka and Jharkhand over the last decade from 2014.

The scope of the project is August to December 2024.

Introduction of digital technologies by the government to provide services to citizens has increased the gap between governments and beneficiaries. This gap is even wider in the context of tribals who are already detached from the rest of the population due to the inherent challenges presented by their habitation. As a result, tribals are increasingly being excluded from these services and are losing their entitlements.

This work focuses on building up on the work done in the first phase of our work (which was to strengthen the public service delivery in the tribal regions of Andhra Pradesh), and also extending the work to select NFSA schemes. This will be done through collaboration with the Tribal Welfare department and partner organizations towards improved access to RythuBharosa, PMKisan, NREGA, select NFSA schemes and pensions.

The work would involve Document Analysis, Implementor Interviews, Data, Forms & Flows on the MIS, Process Audits, Case Studies, Estimating Scale, Traditional Surveys and will enable partners to tackle exclusions effectively. Strengthening civil society by imparting education on Digital Rights and entitlements will form a new component of our work.

The duration of this project is four years.

This is an Action Research Programme in selected geographies in Jharkhand. The aim is to empower Adivasi and other vulnerable communities to access public service deliveries and claim their entitlements and forest rights by strengthening Gram Sabha and governance structures.This will be part of a collaborative project with partner organizations based in Palamu, Santhal Parganas and other districts and work towards improved access to social security schemes, and build strong civil society network for the intervention.

The Action Research will map the reason and extent of exclusion from the social security schemes and the challenges facing the gram sabhas. The potential social security programmes to focus on are National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), pensions, PM Kisan, PDS and One Nation One Ration Card (ONOR).

The research would map end-to-end delivery issues and challenges, document them for problem analysis and suggest solutions that arise out of the research. This would aid in forming a pan-Jharkhand alliance/network for policy level advocacy with the state.

This is a 16-month project and starts from August 2022.

Recently Completed

Strengthening last mile delivery of welfare schemes and entitlements to tribal communities in Andhra Pradesh: Using government data from websites, and supplemented by rapid surveys and village audits in Paderu in Visakhapatnam, the studies identify bottlenecks in the delivery of MNREGS, Rythu Bharosa and Amma Vodi schemes. These reports are used to monitor the implementation at ground level, and for advocacy with district and state level officials to bring about necessary changes in the implementation processes. Click here to know more
CORD has started the Skye fellowship programme with funds received through donations. The aim of the Skye Fellowship is to support women and men in rural India who are doing good work without institutional support. There is a special focus on any work concerned with people’s economic and social rights, and on India’s poorest states. A team of experts select fellows based on a set of criteria. A mentor is attached to each fellow and a report has to be submitted after the completion of the fellowship period.

The research is part of a larger project conducted bySamaj PragatiSahayog (SPS), Dewas and members of the MGNREGA Consortium. It involves secondary data analysis and primary data collection in a number of states in which CSO partners of the Consortium have been working. The key research question is how well did MGNREGA performits role as a safety net during the COVID-19 pandemic.

For this study, CORD is collaborating with Dr Amit Basole and Dr Rajendran Narayanan of Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. The duration of this study is March – December 2021.

Report: https://cse.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/employment-guarantee-during-covid-19-role-of-mgnrega-in-the-year-after-the-2020-lockdown/

The Fellowship to Improve National Schemes (FINS) is an effort designed to support activists and organisations working to improve NREGA and other public services. We have developed this programme in partnership with the Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) and are collaborating with them in 26 blocks across Rajasthan, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. We are also collaborating with PRADAN in a few blocks of Jharkhand. Fellows will be nominated by the partners and supported by LibTech. To know more, please click here http://libtech.in/fellowship-to-improve-national-schemes/

Lib tech will be supporting village volunteers to ensure early screening and identification of COVID cases, ensuring timely medicines and treatment through PHCs, and also mobilise and motivate communities for testing and treatment and for vaccination.

In ITDA areas working with the government to help sending out audio messages to people using Libtech’s broadcast system and setting up helplines.

Lib tech had earlier helped in setting up helplines to support migrant workers stranded in different locations of the country. They want to continue these helplines in Andhra Pradesh, Telengana and Jharkhand.

Gender Budgeting in Education in India: In collaboration with National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, CORD is doing a study on the extent to which budgeting is sensitive to gender needs and in what ways can public finance be an enabler in bringing about gender equity in education. This study is conducted with and suported by National Coalition of Education in India and its member organizations. It is based on analysis of primary and secondary data of selected states. This issue addresses two important SDG objectives of gender equality and empowerment (SDG 5) and quality education for all (SDG4). We are hopeful that the study would be able to inform policies on gender budgeting at the macro level and at the ground level, both for the Centre and the States.
This is a joint research project under the Innovative Metrics and Methods for Agriculture and Nutrition Actions (IMMANA) grant program involving partners at the University of Texas, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai and the Collaborative Research and Dissemination (CORD), Delhi. This project seeks to advance the understanding of the role of women’s empowerment in mediating the relationship between agriculture and nutrition. Our approach is to combine qualitative data collection and household surveys in three sites: one in Bangladesh and two in India. The data was used to develop a new index, the Women’s Empowerment in Nutrition Index (WENI), a robust metric that will aggregate factors that reflect nutritional empowerment across rural agricultural contexts. The CORD contributes to the design, data gathering and synthesis, and analysis stages of the project. The research study was conducted from September 2015 – February 2019, followed by ongoing publications and other outputs.

Recently Completed

Gender Budgeting in Education in India: In collaboration with National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, CORD is doing a study on the extent to which budgeting is sensitive to gender needs and in what ways can public finance be an enabler in bringing about gender equity in education. This study is conducted with and suported by National Coalition of Education in India and its member organizations. It is based on analysis of primary and secondary data of selected states. This issue addresses two important SDG objectives of gender equality and empowerment (SDG 5) and quality education for all (SDG4). We are hopeful that the study would be able to inform policies on gender budgeting at the macro level and at the ground level, both for the Centre and the States.
This is a joint research project under the Innovative Metrics and Methods for Agriculture and Nutrition Actions (IMMANA) grant program involving partners at the University of Texas, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai and the Collaborative Research and Dissemination (CORD), Delhi. This project seeks to advance the understanding of the role of women’s empowerment in mediating the relationship between agriculture and nutrition. Our approach is to combine qualitative data collection and household surveys in three sites: one in Bangladesh and two in India. The data was used to develop a new index, the Women’s Empowerment in Nutrition Index (WENI), a robust metric that will aggregate factors that reflect nutritional empowerment across rural agricultural contexts. The CORD contributes to the design, data gathering and synthesis, and analysis stages of the project. The research study was conducted from September 2015 – February 2019, followed by ongoing publications and other outputs.

This is a three-year collaborative research project with University of Cambridge and Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives (IDEAS), Pakistan. The project is supported by a grant from Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) /Department for International Development (DFID). The objective of this study is to identify the types of effective teaching practices that can best serve to raise learning outcomes for children who face multiple disadvantages related to disability, poverty and gender along with other characteristics as caste and religion. The focus is on the achievement of the foundation skills of reading, writing, reasoning and numeracy that children are expected to acquire in primary school.

Through its assessment of effective teaching for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, the project will also provides an important contribution to how measures of learning need to be adapted and enriched to include all children, including those with disabilities, who otherwise are likely to be excluded from assessments.

The research was conducted in the period August 2015 – December 2018, followed by dissemination and publication of outputs.

CORD is collaborating with Dr Prachi Srivastava of the University of Western Ontario for this research. The research is being supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Broad Research Programme
The research seeks to examine the development of the right to education in India. In particular, it aims to understand the changing relationships between the state and non-state actors (NSAs) in education provision.
The case of India is instrumental because of its marked macro-policy moments from a post-colonial planned economic polity at independence in 1947, to liberalization in 1991, and rapid globalization post-2000. And yet, the evolution and social consequences of these changes in education are significantly under-researched. This research aims to address that lack given India’s increasing influence, both as a prominent regional player in Asia and rising global power.

Research Objectives and Research Nodes
Each of the research objectives corresponds to a research node that will guide research activities. Research nodes are intended as integrative pillars across which to generate broader insights.

Research Node 1: Institutional Evolution of NSAs and Education

Research Node 2: Implementation of the RTE Act and the Role of NSAs

Research Node 3: Influence of ‘New/Non-traditional’ NSAs in Education

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