Hunger

The Hunger Project Online Briefing Program  THP in India - Empowering Women Panchayat Leaders  Page 4 of  23

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In Unit 2 and Unit 3, we explored some of the large scale interventions that have attempted to end hunger and poverty in India. This section revisits some of the progress and setbacks of these programs.

• Since India's independence, its government and the international community have taken large scale actions to address the issues of hunger and poverty.

• At the national level, government engages in "top down," central planning: the design of programs at the national level, which are then implemented at the local level.

• Central Planning may include activities such as government-sponsored development programs, technical assistance, foreign aid for disaster relief, or provisions of health or education by a non-governmental organization.

• An example of successful Central Planning strategies are India's Water and Literacy missions, government programs which enabled India to dramatically increase access to safe water, and improve literacy rates by more than 3 times since independence.

• Research breakthroughs may also be introduced in a top-down manner, throughout society.  Through the agricultural advances of India's Green Revolution, many parts of India were able to become self-sufficient in food production.  

Hunger Project leaders meet with the Planning Commission of the Government of India.

• Despite successes, central planning has major shortcomings.

• In a country with more than 1 billion people, it is hard for top-down approaches to be sensitive to local realities.

• There is a tendency for large bureaucracies to consume many resources at the center. India's former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi once said that only 15% of government spending actually benefits the poor. Some observers called this figure optimistic.

• In some cases, national accomplishments - such as the progress of the Green Revolution - do not benefit the poorest of the poor, who have little access to resources and infrastructure.  

• Top-down programs also create an opening for corruption, which now reaches throughout all levels of Indian society.

• Most important, service-delivery programs create a mindset of dependency among people, rather than focus on people's own creativity.

• Many local people feel alienated by central planning, which gives them little say in initiatives as they are developed.

Hunger

The Hunger Project Online Briefing Program  THP in India - Empowering Women Panchayat Leaders  Page 4 of  23

People