Strategic Aims

On our journey to 2021, we will have two aims. These are:

• Enable vulnerable communities living in priority geographical areas, to build resilience and improve lives
• Developing the capacity of organisations and people who facilitate the above aim(s)

In addition, we have a related aim:

• Advancing through research, understanding of the issues relating to the above aims

We also have a final aim. This is not a primary aim, but supports the other aims:

• Developing PHF itself to be an exemplar foundation, existing in perpetuity

Key shifts from the previous strategy

The proposed strategy evolves from the previous one but also brings to bear a few areas of interest and concern which were not part of the previous strategy.

It is similar insofar that it continues to focus on the most vulnerable communities, continues to suggest that we work on ideas that fit well with the perspective plans of the organisations we support and continues the emphasis on accountability and transparency in organisations.

The new strategy however provides some key new directions:

• It focuses on ‘knowledge creation’ as an important intended outcome of the work that we will support (and have supported)
• It stresses the need to work on enhancing human and institutional capacities within the development sector It rationalises the geographical reach of the Foundation’s work
• It identifies some especially vulnerable groups which require more proactive support and positions the Foundation to provide that.
• It begins to see the growing link between rural and urban development issues and
  attempts to expand the foundations work in urban areas.
• It attempts to go beyond funding work, that has direct impact on vulnerable communities to also proposing to fund at the macro and meta level work that has an indirect impact on the lives of vulnerable people
• It plans to enter into collaborations which help achieve strategic goals.

A detailed description of the five strategic aims follows:

a) Enable vulnerable communities living in priority geographical areas improve their lives

Communities have inherent strengths which are often overlooked when modern development frameworks are used to view them. They have closely knit societies, progressive views and approaches to resource utilisation and sustainability, are extremely conscious of their relationship with the environment and their traditional knowledge has a relevance to modern ways of living. But all is also not well with traditional communities. Attitudes that promote inequality, mostly due to caste, are common; they are strongly patriarchal; and they are not necessarily democratic in their outlook. Opening up of the spaces, development of infrastructure particularly roads, the hegemony of the ‘modern development paradigm’ have all led them to become vulnerable. They are now unfortunately living on the margins and have been excluded in the development process.

The movement, over time, of people to urban centres has transported some of these issues to urban centres. Such a movement is a result of the threat to livelihoods in the rural setting as the major push factor alongside the increasing levels of activity in urban centres. Urban development concerns emerge largely around building a balance between the hugely important roles that migrants have and will play and the ability of urban centres to provide for them. India is expected to change from being a predominantly rural country to one which will be almost 50% urban. A rather large development challenge is to address the concerns of the urban poor. Such experiences are currently limited as knowledge of working in urban centres is far less than similar knowledge for the rural areas.

PHF will focus on working with vulnerable communities living in these areas. It will be our priority to be able to identify such communities and assist NGOs to consciously design and develop programmes which assist them build on their strengths, ensure that their rights and entitlements are not usurped and help them deal with the critical factors that make them vulnerable. Our work would help them evolve a direction for change and improvement.

For such communities to develop, they need a leadership that is forward looking, is able to generate enthusiasm among the community and can lead them towards paths that can help them transform their realities. Leadership can emerge in the form of individuals or community organisations. PHF will fund initiatives that facilitate leadership influenced change processes either by individuals or community organisations. NGO initiatives that support development of community leadership and a better understanding of community concerns and their management would also be supported. Among vulnerable communities we include the following as a non exclusive, indicative list of special interest groups that we will work with in both rural and urban areas:

• Ultra poor families in mixed communities
• Dalit communities particularly those involved with inhumane occupations
• Tribal communities fighting for or dispossessed of their land and resources
• Women
• Disabled people particularly children
• Communities with little or no access to health services
• Communities with little or no access to education
• Unorganised labour

Work with vulnerable communities will be supported only in priority geographical areas.

Priority Geographical Areas

Regional imbalances are significant in India and the less developed areas of the country – both socially and economically – will be chosen as priority geographical areas for work. We will focus on the areas in the central part of the country which continue to remain on the margins of development and which continue to struggle with poor social and economic indicators.

The selected areas form the poorest parts of the country and stretch as a band between the eastern part of Gujarat in the west, to West Bengal and Assam in the east. The states covered will be Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal and Assam. In addition to these states there are certain culturally identifiable regions in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan which experience more challenging circumstances than other parts in those states.

These are as follows:

• Mewar and Hadoti (southern and south-eastern Rajasthan)
• Bundelkhand (Northern Madhya Pradesh and southern districts of Uttar Pradesh
  bordering Madhya Pradesh)
• Dangs (south-eastern Gujarat)
• Telangana (northern Andhra Pradesh)
• Vidharbha (eastern and northern Maharashtra

Following the review in 2016, the Board has decided to also include the seven north eastern states viz. Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram, Tripura and Sikkim.

The poverty in these areas is defined by the perpetuating caste system, the exclusion of tribal communities, an extremely patriarchal society, poor infrastructure and remoteness and lack of social investment particularly in sectors such as health and education. Interestingly these areas are also among the richest in terms of natural resources and are part of an ongoing struggle between local communities trying to maintain their rights on these resources and capitalist forces who are using all possible means to wrest control from them.

Not surprisingly, the area also encompasses what is called the ‘red corridor’ or the part which is affected by violence from left wing groups against the government of India seeking (seemingly) a more equitable distribution of natural resources and better development investments in the area. Work in the priority geographical areas will cover both rural and urban people. We aim to work in the state capitals as they are among the fastest growing urban areas in the states and also in towns with a population of less than 1 million which are classified as a municipality.

Issues of urban poverty such as those caused by industrialisation, migration and the lack of space within such cities for the poor and unorganised labour and others are proposed to be supported. Initiatives would help strengthen the local self-government in these cities. A major challenge in the chosen priority geographical areas would be identifying quality organisations from the small number working there. It will also mean that we may need to make suitable investments in building capacities of organisations that can work with communities in these areas.

All this will be done keeping our concern of supporting credible organisations that are defined by our need for accountable and transparent governance, a sensitivity to community led development processes and a zero tolerance for corrupt practices.

b) Developing the capacity of organisations and people who facilitate the above aim(s).

Experience has shown that while many partners have the essential understanding of the issue that they need to address and mostly have a very good relationship with the community that they would like to work with, they do not necessarily have the capacity to take the work on. Based on an assessment of the capacity building needs of its partners, PHF will provide for funding for selected partners as part of its grant to them, such that they are able to access suitable capacity building support from organisations that can provide it.

Partners will be provided information where possible of training programmes and other capacity building opportunities.

PHF will also facilitate this through the financial audit process which is a combination of the actual audit and training for the finance team of each organisation. PHF will also hold occasional special seminars and workshops which can assist a group of partners on specific themes.

c) Research and Knowledge Creation

With over 200 projects funded over the past 15 years, there is a wide level of experience available within PHF to be able to contribute towards creating resources on rural development. We will consolidate learning on issues that we have funded. We will enter into collaboration with institute(s) to work on creating learning documents/case studies which can add to the knowledge of development studies.

The target for such documentation will be grantees and other NGOs, students, practitioners and policy makers. Initiatives under the head of knowledge creation are being incorporated into the strategy even though we may not even take them up initially. We will however steadily build a portfolio around the theme we want to study and propose to work closely with other projects doing similar work.

d) PHF as an Exemplar Foundation

PHF has been keen meeting service standards on operations and management and developing appropriate levels of engagement with the organisations we fund and/or work with which ensure that the benefits of the work that we support reaches the people that they are intended for. To do this we will:

• Ensure staff and processes effectively support the delivery of our aims
  By effective deployment of human resources, bringing in greater rigour to organisational selection and work planning, controlling internal costs, developing our use of management information systems, developing our use and work with outcomes and outputs of the work we support and an evaluation mechanism that enables better performance measurement of our work and the activities that we support.
• Promote to key audiences the importance and outcomes of the work we fund and the activities we undertake by having an effective communications strategy and supporting partners to take up with sharing of their work with others and where necessary advocacy to promote improvement in policy and practice.