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THEME:
Federations of women's groups can be beneficial to women and their
communities.
 More
than 5 000 women's self-help groups were established under the IFAD-supported
Tamil Nadu Women's Development Project in India between 1990 and
1998. Of these, some 80% were still surviving at the time of the
1999 IFAD completion evaluation of the project. Among the existing
groups, an estimated 75% had been formed into cluster-level federations.
It is foreseen that eventually the women's groups can be federated
at block, district and even State levels. The evaluation developed
some practical lessons on the establishment of such federations
of women's groups that potentially have wide relevance, including
to other countries and regions.
The
recognized advantages of federations of women's groups in
Tamil Nadu are:
- Federations can progressively take over some of the supervisory
functions of the NGOs (who were responsible for field-level support)
and therefore permit the phase-out of this element of the project, thus
contributing to the self-reliance and sustainability of the women's
groups.
- Federations can contribute to strengthening savings and loan activities,
including the improvement of loan recovery, help to resolve instances
of financial mismanagement and, in some cases, even act as financial
intermediaries for the cross-group lending of saved group funds.
- Federations can have the power to lobby for women's rights
(such as women's representation on the local government councils).
- Federations can undertake larger and more significant projects
(such as roads, markets, irrigation) if problems or needs are shared
among a number of groups and villages, are beyond the power and capacity
of a single group,or where joint efforts permit economies of scale.
- Federations will allow women to become involved in the promotion
of longer-term social and policy changes (for instance, dowry payment
and female feticide and infanticide issues).
- Federation membership provides women with a sense of belonging to
a larger and important organization, which also helps to sustain active
membership.
- Federations can reduce overall transaction costs for a project.
The evaluation also provides some guidance on the setting-up
of such federations to ensure their efficient and effective functioning
and duration:
- The development of federations should be based on need. That
is, the demand for federating should exist among the women's groups.
It should not come just from the implementing agencies of the project,
which may see it as a way of reducing costs and workload.
- The formation of group clusters should be undertaken only once
groups have been trained and operated for a while. If federation
is undertaken too soon, it can be counterproductive and ultimately fatal,
both to the federation and to the groups.
- Federations of groups will be stronger if their member groups have
democratic and efficient decision-making processes, and sound and
equitable operating procedures. These will be reflected in the operations
of the federation itself.
- Where possible, groups of similar maturity should be clustered
together, in order to avoid domination of the weaker groups by the
stronger and more established ones, particularly in terms of access
to power and resources.
The lessons from the Tamil Nadu project highlight the
potential of carefully established federations of women's groups. In practice,
setting up such federations may not always fit within a single development
project's time frame. However, the project can lay the basis for future
federation.
Adapted from:
IFAD/OE. 2000. The Republic of India: Tamil
Nadu Women's Development Project: Completion Evaluation, Report 340-IN.
Rome, April.
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