Western Orissa Rural Livelihoods Project (WORLP)

Western Orissa Rural Livelihoods Project (WORLP), a joint venture between the Government of Orissa and DFID, is aimed at reducing poverty by promoting livelihood initiatives for the poorest sections of the community. The overall goal of WORLP is "More effective approaches to sustainable rural livelihoods adopted by government agencies and other stakeholders in the Kalahandi, Bolangir, Korapur (KBK) districts (of Orissa) and elsewhere." It focuses on protecting and strengthening sustainable livelihood options based on existing individual strengths and resources through an informed dialogue to facilitate decision making. Inaugurated by the Hon'ble Chief Minister Shri Naveen Pattanaik, the project commenced in October 2001 and recently concluded in March 2011

NRMC, was engaged as a consortium partner through the entire project tenure and has been responsible for providing technical and managerial services for its successful implementation. NRMC worked both as an advisor and an implementing partner to ensure specific outcomes in agreed areas.

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The Project Management Services provided by NRMC towards WORLP include:

This project was carried out in Bargarh, Balangir, Kalahandi and Nuapara districts of Orissa. Poorest in India, these districts face challenges of ill-health, shortage of safe drinking water and recurrent droughts. Inequitable social structures, distorted land distribution, indebtedness, gender and other inequities contribute additionally to the prevalent widespread poverty in these districts of Western Orissa.

In 2008-09, DFID commissioned a third party impact assessment study to assess the effectiveness of the interventions with specific comments on long term sustainability and economic efficiency of the project. The results have been very encouraging. They have been classified under various impact outcomes as follows:

a) Movement Out of Poverty

The relative measure of movement out of poverty suggests 31% poor moved to Medium and Well Off category on the Well-being Ranking (WBR) in the project districts. In absolute terms it is established that 27.6 % of the households in the BPL category (approximately 72,000 men and women) now have income above poverty line.

To consolidate the measures of impacts on poverty, change in levels of livelihood assets and key Development Indices viz. access, asset and wealth were analysed.

Key indicators defining movement out of poverty

b) Improved Socio-economic Impact Indicators

Livelihood protection, strengthening and augmentation are at the core of WORLPs interventions. Augmentation of the livelihood assets of poorest households forms the core project strategy. Of the total households assessed in the project villages, almost 97 % of the poor and 98 % of the very poor household have reported increase in a livelihood asset. Almost 45 % of households also show increase in physical capital, which primarily hinges on land based interventions and acquisition of other household level physical assets.

There has also been a sharp decline in the rate of overall migration as well as distress migration amongst poor households. The distress migration has reduced from 47% to 15% of total migration among the poor. The project also resulted in an overall decrease in the incidence of lean season food shortages days with only 5.8 % (as against 8.7 % in control villages) of BPL population identifying that there have been days/times where it was not able to arrange for food even after using all your resources. Almost 75% of the marginal farmershave displayed better disaster coping capacities.

c) Institutional Strengthening

WORLP has succeeded in fostering a new approach of natural resource governance that brings the communities to the forefront of management. Much thought has gone into its conceptualization, design and in supporting it with various enabling and capacitating services with the role of secondary stakeholders (OWDM, PIAs) being facilitators to enabling conditions. It has been successful in putting in place institutions, organizational practices, systems and procedures necessary for communities to be at the centre stage of management and address issues of inclusion and equity

d) Women Empowerment

There is a high level of awareness of the gender dimensions and hence women's empowerment has received focus. The project has maximum number of female staff at the ground level, which helps in connecting with women and facilitating better contact. There is enhanced access to resources by the women of the project watersheds and their role in household decision-making especially economic decision-making has been enhanced with mobilization of women in organized collectives as SHGs.

Going further, basis the economic inputs and outputs, the economic rate of return (ERR) for the project has been calculated. It stands at 20.8% as against the global average of 17-20% for projects of similar nature focusing on watershed development and group-based investments. The ERR is higher than the opportunity cost of capital or the real rate of interest on long-term investment, and therefore the project is very high on economic efficiency.

For more details on the project please go to : http://www.worlp.com/