Abhijith Banerjee bats for DCT

Today's Indian Express carries an op-ed by economist Abhijith Banerjee on direct cash transfers.Abhijith Banerjee is at the Jameel Poverty Lab at MIT. He along with Esther Dufelo had come out with a paper sometime last year on microfinance where they challenged the conventional wisdom of microfinance being an effective tool in poverty alleviation.
In this article he talks about UID making DCT much easier. With such support for DCT, I think DCT will be a reality sooner than later!

Success Stories by NGOs

If you are a donor agency, you will receive pamphlets of various types of NGOs for funding requests. The most essential component of that pamphlet would be "case studies of success stories". In fact, one of my batchmates went all the way to Indonesia to document "success stories" of ILO interventions.
In the development world, case studies are preferred over quantitative methods. This is because outcome is as important as output. So you will have "before-after" stories of distressed farmers, widows, and all those of our society who are defined with that derogatory term- "beneficiaries". My strategy Professor, Prof.DPM has a better term. He calls them "community of interest".
Anyway, I was always suspect of such case studies.Many NGOs might just exaggerate benefits provided in order to alleviate donor concerns about how their money is being spent.There are very few donor agencies (SRTT is definitely one) which have a long term approach to poverty alleviation. Most donor agencies are similar to venture capital/private equity investors as far as time horizon is concerned.
I have always been suspect of "claims" made by NGOs. Except large NGOs like BAIF (whose work in Nandurbar I have closely watched for two months), PRADAN, AKRSP and some others, I will always take the "success stories" with a pinch of salt.

Getting Professionals for Development Action.

What would a person with a Masters in Engineering from MIT and a Management Degree from MIT's Sloan School of Management be doing in the field of rural development? But then Deep Joshi is different and has made a difference. He is currently in the news for being awarded the Ramon Magsaysay award which is considered as Asia's equivalent to the Noble Peace Prize.
Founder of PRADAN (Professional Assistance for Development Action), he was recognised for "his vision and leadership in bringing professionalism to the NGO movement in India, by effectively combining 'head' and 'heart' in the transformative development of rural communities," the Board of Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation said in a press statement from its headquarters in Manila.
I first came across Deep Joshi's name in the list of directors' of IRMA. There was no organisation mentioned along with his name. The name came back when he won the Magsaysay award last week. And it has stuck with me now.
His mantra for achieving success among rural communities is ""Civil society needs to have both head and heart. If all you have is bleeding hearts, it wouldn't work. If you only have heads, then you are going to dictate solutions which do not touch the human chord."
His organisation has been able to convince IIM graduates to work for rural development and achieve high levels of satisfaction that no pay packet would have been able to give to young Management graduates. As Kurien said "Go where you are highly needed and not highly paid"
An inspiration to many of us who at some point in time would engage with rural development,Deep Joshi certainly deserves the Magsaysay award.