Who Should Be at the Top of Bottom-Up Development? : A Case Study of the National Rural Livelihoods Mission in Rajasthan, India

It is widely acknowledged that top-down support is essential for bottom-up participatory projects to be effectively implemented at scale. However, which level of government, national or sub-national, should be given the responsibility to implement...

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Main Authors:	Joshi, Shareen, Rao, Vijayendra
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English en_US
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2017
Subjects:	community-driven development decentralization self-help groups microfinance civil society CSOs
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/969661488810217801/Who-should-be-at-the-top-of-bottom-up-development-a-case-study-of-the-national-rural-livelihoods-mission-in-Rajasthan-India http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26246

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spelling	okr-10986-262462021-06-08T14:42:48Z Who Should Be at the Top of Bottom-Up Development? : A Case Study of the National Rural Livelihoods Mission in Rajasthan, India Joshi, Shareen Rao, Vijayendra community-driven development decentralization self-help groups microfinance civil society CSOs It is widely acknowledged that top-down support is essential for bottom-up participatory projects to be effectively implemented at scale. However, which level of government, national or sub-national, should be given the responsibility to implement such projects is an open question, with wide variations in practice. This paper analyzes qualitative and quantitative data from a natural experiment in the state of Rajasthan in India, where a large national flagship project that mobilized women into self-help groups for micro-credit and created a women's network for other development activities was implemented in two different ways. Some sub-regions were given to the state government of Rajasthan to manage, while the Government of India centrally managed other sub-regions. The study finds that the nature of top-down management had a large bearing on the nature and quality of local-level facilitation. Centrally and locally managed facilitators formed several groups with similar financial performance. But centrally managed facilitators formed groups that were less likely to engage in collective action, be politically active, and engage with other civil society organizations. These results raise important questions on how responsibilities for participatory development projects should be devolved, and how the nature of management affects the sustainability of bottom-up interventions. 2017-03-08T21:42:56Z 2017-03-08T21:42:56Z 2017-03 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/969661488810217801/Who-should-be-at-the-top-of-bottom-up-development-a-case-study-of-the-national-rural-livelihoods-mission-in-Rajasthan-India http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26246 English en_US Policy Research Working Paper;No. 7996 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper South Asia India
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English en_US
topic	community-driven development decentralization self-help groups microfinance civil society CSOs
spellingShingle	community-driven development decentralization self-help groups microfinance civil society CSOs Joshi, Shareen Rao, Vijayendra Who Should Be at the Top of Bottom-Up Development? : A Case Study of the National Rural Livelihoods Mission in Rajasthan, India
geographic_facet	South Asia India
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 7996
description	It is widely acknowledged that top-down support is essential for bottom-up participatory projects to be effectively implemented at scale. However, which level of government, national or sub-national, should be given the responsibility to implement such projects is an open question, with wide variations in practice. This paper analyzes qualitative and quantitative data from a natural experiment in the state of Rajasthan in India, where a large national flagship project that mobilized women into self-help groups for micro-credit and created a women's network for other development activities was implemented in two different ways. Some sub-regions were given to the state government of Rajasthan to manage, while the Government of India centrally managed other sub-regions. The study finds that the nature of top-down management had a large bearing on the nature and quality of local-level facilitation. Centrally and locally managed facilitators formed several groups with similar financial performance. But centrally managed facilitators formed groups that were less likely to engage in collective action, be politically active, and engage with other civil society organizations. These results raise important questions on how responsibilities for participatory development projects should be devolved, and how the nature of management affects the sustainability of bottom-up interventions.
format	Working Paper
author	Joshi, Shareen Rao, Vijayendra
author_facet	Joshi, Shareen Rao, Vijayendra
author_sort	Joshi, Shareen
title	Who Should Be at the Top of Bottom-Up Development? : A Case Study of the National Rural Livelihoods Mission in Rajasthan, India
title_short	Who Should Be at the Top of Bottom-Up Development? : A Case Study of the National Rural Livelihoods Mission in Rajasthan, India
title_full	Who Should Be at the Top of Bottom-Up Development? : A Case Study of the National Rural Livelihoods Mission in Rajasthan, India
title_fullStr	Who Should Be at the Top of Bottom-Up Development? : A Case Study of the National Rural Livelihoods Mission in Rajasthan, India
title_full_unstemmed	Who Should Be at the Top of Bottom-Up Development? : A Case Study of the National Rural Livelihoods Mission in Rajasthan, India
title_sort	who should be at the top of bottom-up development? : a case study of the national rural livelihoods mission in rajasthan, india
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2017
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/969661488810217801/Who-should-be-at-the-top-of-bottom-up-development-a-case-study-of-the-national-rural-livelihoods-mission-in-Rajasthan-India http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26246
_version_	1764461260722667520

Who Should Be at the Top of Bottom-Up Development? : A Case Study of the National Rural Livelihoods Mission in Rajasthan, India

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