Enlisting Government

Government agencies in India play a key role in rural economic development. In terms of livelihood promotion, government programs sought to aid microenterprises in a variety of areas and SF worked to align these programs with its efforts.

SF reported that it had very good relationships with government officials in the areas where it worked. The government and SF had similar aims in terms of promoting livelihoods in rural areas and played complementary roles to one another. Government agencies brought financial resources and staff to bear on developing rural microenterprises. However, government’s large size and diffuse operations could also impede its work.  Bureaucracies move slowly; policy mandates were broadly written, and government officials could be quite removed from village life. On the other hand, SF had direct contact with community organizations, technical enterprises, and microenterprises.

In addition, SF’s process of creating interventions required time and expertise unavailable to government agencies. The Foundation could take new ideas, test them, adjust its programs, and then try again. SF believed that this slow process was essential to successful interventions, but it was one government agencies could rarely undertake. And yet, government officials needed interventions to be successful and scalable in order to fulfill their mandates.

Fine-Tuning Policy

One key policy area where SF often worked with the government was in the financing of microenterprises. The government had mandates to help rural enterprise through various financing schemes. The government could promote loans for microenterprises through government-supported banks or provide direct subsidies. SF provided advice on how to translate these programs into specific transactions that would help microenterprises.

Government agencies often had broad mandates for economic development. SF would advise agencies on how they could achieve their targets through DRE. For example, the government could have a mandate to promote the sale of rural produce in urban markets. SF would advise the government that a key technology to support to achieve this policy goal was the development of cold storage units located in villages and that furthermore, these units needed to be powered through the use of solar panels and batteries – or otherwise the units would fail. Then SF and policy makers could strategize what mix of loans, tax breaks, and subsidies would provide the most effective level of support not just for the immediate realization of the program, but toward the long-term goal of building a sustainable industry.

SF played a similar role in helping the government structure training institutes. Many of these institutes were offered with the aim of instructing rural youth on starting microenterprises. SF’s expertise in rural livelihood development informed the creation of these programs, with SF aiding in building the curriculum. The government also supported various technical institutes and think tanks whose mission was to design and invent new devices that could aid in rural development. SF provided useful information to these innovators as to the needs of rural inhabitants as well as what ideas had already been tried.

Access

In terms of policy work, SF’s unique position within the ecosystem gave it the ability to span a gap between on-the-ground realities and policy establishment.  SF had relationships with local actors, particularly small grassroots civic organizations and modest technical enterprises that worked directly with microenterprises, who would not otherwise have entrée to government. And the government’s work was enhanced by finding avenues for providing aid to the people and enterprises that they were tasked to support.

SF staff also played a role in coordinating government programs across various agencies. Government officials could become siloed, with each department overseeing a narrow program. SF staffers working across disciplines (e.g., infrastructure, livelihoods, energy access) could use their knowledge of how a particular intervention could help fulfill a number of mandates at once. For example, funding in support of a certain kind of microenterprise would also accomplish important goals in terms of renewable agriculture, if the right enterprises were targeted with the correct incentives.

In addition, SF’s policy work provided its partner organizations with the knowledge to help its local-level partners access the appropriate government resources. In many of the rural areas in which SF worked, inhabitants and civic organizations had little or no relation to national institutions and agencies. SF could help translate government policies and guide local action to provide access to these resources.