Focus on rural livelihood

- World Bank to provide $144 million to generate jobs


Guwahati, July 15: The World Bank is providing $144 million to improve rural livelihood, especially that of women and unemployed youths, to four states in the Northeast.

Sources said the bank is expected to clear the project, christened the North East Rural Livelihoods Project, by September last.

The four states to be benefited are Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Tripura.

These states were selected because they were not included in the earlier North Eastern Region Community Resource Management Project for Upland Areas project, which was supported by International Fund for Agricultural Development. The project ended in 2008.

The livelihood project will be for six years.

An official of the North East Rural Livelihoods Project, the implementing agency of the project, said the areas that need to be addressed were effective skill development for youths, linking community-based organisations with wider markets, improving communities’ access to credit and other financial services.

Forming sustainable institutions of the poor and convergence with other government programmes would enable this.

The project aims at benefiting approximately three lakh households in 1,624 villages under 58 blocks across eight districts in the four states.

The project districts are Aizawl and Lunglei in Mizoram; Peren and Tuensang in Nagaland; South, West and 15 panchayat wards of East district in Sikkim, and West and North in Tripura.

The argument put forward for moving the project is to put the Northeast on track for economic growth.

There is a need to revamp efforts to improve the natural resources management and revitalise the local economy in a bottom-up approach so as to make the intervention responsive to the people’s needs.

The project information document of the project states that the core of the project is on building strong grassroots institutions of the poor — community development groups, women self-help groups, self-help group village federations, producer organisations and youth groups of men and women.

It will increase opportunities for livelihood by improving agriculture for food security and income enhancement from farming and allied activities, by developing employable skills of youths.

It will also involve establishment of self and/or group-managed enterprises, and creating access to finance through linkages with banks and other financial institutions. The main strategy in developing community institutions is to provide the underprivileged with the voice and the scale required to more effectively engage themselves in the decision-making process and to address their needs for economic empowerment.

The project will be under the overall governance of DoNER while the North East Livelihood Promotion Society will be the primary agency responsible for its implementation.

The society will be based in Guwahati and will oversee the overall implementation of the project. It will provide policy and strategic guidance to the project.

Despite the relatively high literacy rate, the region also suffers from alarmingly high youth unemployment rate at 14 per cent.

The project will comprise four components — social empowerment ($28.6 million), economic empowerment ($86.9 million), partnership development ($14.3 million) and project management ($ 14.6 million).