While India has made huge strides in alleviating poverty and pulling millions above the economic poverty line, 270 million of her citizens continue to live in extreme poverty. Poverty rates in rural areas (25%) are much higher than in urban areas (14%). Female labor force participation has been falling. Nearly, 80% of our farmers are small and marginal landholders and they live under many vulnerabilities. Rural poor also own far fewer assets than the urban poor.
While there are challenges, India also has made huge strides in its rural development agenda. We now have 6 million self-help groups that have put women at the center of development. In addition, the private sector and development sector are making progress towards alleviation of poverty for our rural households. To achieve this goal, we have to build on this progress and build on the strength of our institutions, the support of governments, non-profits and the private sector.
Because of the covid-19 crisis, millions of rural India's returned home or are still in urban destinations of employment awaiting productive employment and battling insufficiency of food, health and other basic services. Those who had always been in India's rural areas, especially women, children and elderly, face crises too.
hope fund will bring together India's most credible non-profits and fund them so that they can rebuild the lives of India's extreme poor households by leveraging India's growing government welfare allocations, subsidies, schemes and credit sources for the poor.
While India has 270 million living in extreme poverty, about 65 million of them live in ultra poverty. It has been widely agreed that traditional development solutions and market based solutions cannot address ultra poverty and break their poverty trap. Globally, the 'graduation approach' or the 'targeting the ultra poor' program has been widely recognized as a definitive, time-bound and evidence-based method to pull households out of ultra poverty. Its carefully sequenced and multifaceted interventions gradually pull the ultra poor out of their poverty into a virtuous cycle of growth.
The good news is that this model is increasingly gaining recognition in India. We started our action research in Jharkhand 2 years ago and our goal is to help governments adopt and scale this program across the country
While India has 270 million living in extreme poverty, about 65 million of them live in ultra poverty. It has been widely agreed that traditional development solutions and market based solutions cannot address ultra poverty and break their poverty trap. Globally, the 'graduation approach' or the 'targeting the ultra poor' program has been widely recognized as a definitive, time-bound and evidence-based method to pull households out of ultra poverty. Its carefully sequenced and multifaceted interventions gradually pull the ultra poor out of their poverty into a virtuous cycle of growth.
The good news is that this model is increasingly gaining recognition in India. We started our action research in Jharkhand 2 years ago and our goal is to help governments adopt and scale this program across the country
The scale of COVID-19’s impact is on the rural poor is larger than ever. With high indebtedness, lost livelihoods & jobs and worsening malnutrition & health, the poor will recover the slowest. We need to focus on both near-term relief and long-term sustainable rural livelihoods. And to serve the poor at scale we need to partner with government, private sector and non-profits.
Asha Kiran has been running sizeable pilots in Uttar Pradesh since the first wave and has brought together strong partnerships. Now, with the understanding of local needs and with strong partnerships and a committed giving collective, Asha Kiran is scaling its interventions.
The goal of the TASF team is to enable this vibrant agricultural ecosystem to serve small farmers. A key part is to work with players who are interested in the smallholder farmer to develop and refine business models that allow serving the smallholder farmer while being commercially viable. This could include collectivization models, local entrepreneurs, bundling of products and services, etc. We will actively identify such models, do action research to understand their effectiveness and what can be done to improve them. As robust models start emerging, given their commercial viability, organizations will start deploying them and our focus will shift to making a more facilitative ecosystem.
LEARN MOREWhile India has made huge strides in alleviating poverty and pulling millions above the economic poverty line, 270 million of her citizens continue to live in extreme poverty. Poverty rates in rural areas (25%) are much higher than in urban areas (14%). Female labor force participation has been falling. Nearly, 80% of our farmers are small and marginal landholders and they live under many vulnerabilities. Rural poor also own far fewer assets than the urban poor.
While India has 270 million living in extreme poverty, about 65 million of them live in ultra poverty. It has been widely agreed that traditional development solutions and market based solutions cannot address ultra poverty and break their poverty trap. Globally, the 'graduation approach' or the 'targeting the ultra poor' program has been widely recognized as a definitive, time-bound and evidence-based method to pull households out of ultra poverty. Its carefully sequenced and multifaceted interventions gradually pull the ultra poor out of their poverty into a virtuous cycle of growth.
The good news is that this model is increasingly gaining recognition in India. We started our action research in Jharkhand 2 years ago and our goal is to help governments adopt and scale this program across the country
The scale of COVID-19’s impact is on the rural poor is larger than ever. With high indebtedness, lost livelihoods & jobs and worsening malnutrition & health, the poor will recover the slowest. We need to focus on both near-term relief and long-term sustainable rural livelihoods. And to serve the poor at scale we need to partner with government, private sector and non-profits.
Asha Kiran has been running sizeable pilots in Uttar Pradesh since the first wave and has brought together strong partnerships. Now, with the understanding of local needs and with strong partnerships and a committed giving collective, Asha Kiran is scaling its interventions.
The goal of the TASF team is to enable this vibrant agricultural ecosystem to serve small farmers. A key part is to work with players who are interested in the smallholder farmer to develop and refine business models that allow serving the smallholder farmer while being commercially viable. This could include collectivization models, local entrepreneurs, bundling of products and services, etc. We will actively identify such models, do action research to understand their effectiveness and what can be done to improve them. As robust models start emerging, given their commercial viability, organizations will start deploying them and our focus will shift to making a more facilitative ecosystem.
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