RFP-Technical Resource Agency- Livelihoods Support (TRA-LS)

The project will impact the lives of 1.2 million women and their families through strategies that include – (i) promoting  social  inclusion  by  forming  and  strengthening  women’s  groups  and  building  capacities  of  at least 250,000 self-help group members, (ii) supporting women owned and managed enterprises, building financial  and  market  alliances  and  facilitating  availability  of  resources  and  services  to  enable  sustainable economic  activity  thereby  augmenting  incomes  of  at  least  150,000  women  by  20-30%,  (iii)  enhancing women’s political participation in the local governance system by training at least 10,000 elected women’s representatives on transformational leadership and creating awareness among 1 million women and men on  voter  rights,  nominations  and  electoral  processes,  (iv)  facilitating  legal  empowerment  by  enabling women to access and secure justice through the development of a cadre of 500 Para legal workers who will generate  awareness  about  laws,  rights,  entitlements  and  also  facilitate  institutional  response  to  human rights violations.  

The local Economy of Jaunpur, Mirzapur, Sant Ravidas Nagar and Sonbhadra is primarily agrarian. Jaunpur lies in the eastern plain region with agriculture and livestock as predominant occupations whereas Sonbhadra and Mirzapur have significant forest areas (75% and 25% respectively) making communities dependent on non-timber forest produce, timber and charcoal production. Sonbhadra in particular has large mineral deposits and is an industrial belt for steel production. Sant Ravidas Nagar leads in carpet manufacturing and employs a large workforce both at household and industrial levels.

On the economic front, women's work is seen as less visible due to their predominant involvement in subsistence production and domestic activities. Very few women’s enterprises exist in the project area aside those initiated by the project. A situational analysis conducted in 2009 indicated that only 0.3% of women operate enterprises and only 1.3% Women SHGs run enterprises mainly centered on goat-rearing, general shops, horticulture and floriculture were found to be the major trades. Economic deprivation is compounded with limited knowledge and access to markets, which compels them to be price takers as determined by middlemen and traders. Due to such inefficiencies in the value chain, primary producers in the villages get marginal benefits. Thus for visible change to be seen on the economic front, sustained effort is required to move women up the production chain and link them to viable businesses and wider markets.