The Panchayati Raj Campaign

The Hunger Project in India is committing itself to ignite and sustain a co-ordinated, strategic campaign of action for women’s leadership and the success of panchayati raj.

The Hunger Project is beginning this initiative in four states where there has been strong official support for panchayati raj: Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. It intends to expand the campaign to all 11 states where The Hunger Project works.

Four-pronged strategy. The Hunger Project’s Panchayati Raj Campaign initially has four major components: alliance-building, leadership training, increasing media coverage and generating international support. The Hunger Project will identify additional high-leverage pathways for action as the campaign unfolds.

1. Building alliances for advocacy and action. Women’s leadership and panchayati raj are opportunities of such scale and importance that such a campaign can only be carried out by an alliance of organisations in each state committed to this issue. The Hunger Project is working strategically to build strong and active alliances among government agencies, NGOs, self-help groups, academics and media in support of women’s leadership in panchayati raj.

2. Leadership skills training. India is blessed with many organisations providing training to equip women panchayat leaders with key factual information, such as the roles and responsibilities of panchayats, and details of government programmes. What appears to be missing — and what The Hunger Project is in a unique position to provide — is training for these women in fundamental leadership skills.

Elected women representatives have grown up in an environment that tells them, day after day, that they — as women — are powerless. They have had precious few opportunities to develop their leadership skills. The Hunger Project has created a new Women’s Leadership Workshop to enable women to have a breakthrough in their leadership skills, and to empower their leadership over time.

Vision, commitment and action. In the workshop, women discover that they possess the power to actually change conditions they have considered both intolerable and hopeless. They generate their own vision for what they want to achieve, and learn how to inspire others to stand with them to achieve it. After a lifetime of doing only what they have been told, women discover their ability to create their own strategies and action plans. In the months following the training, participants come back together to support each other in achieving their goals.

3. Increasing and improving media coverage. The Hunger Project has held workshops and press conferences to educate reporters about the untold success stories of women in panchayati raj. To enhance and expand this effort, The Hunger Project is launching the Sarojini Naidu Prize for Best Reporting on Women in Panchayati Raj (see box).

4. International support. India’s pioneering work in panchayati raj sets an important example for countries around the world. People in both developed and developing countries need to know about and maintain support for these efforts. Through strategic communications and site visits, The Hunger Project is mobilising its global constituency to put and keep the international spotlight on this historic phenomenon.