Archives: Briefs Reports

In 2014, the Government of India launched the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U) to resolve India’s sanitation bottlenecks and accelerate the development of sanitation markets. Targeting the elimination of open defecation through universal toilet access, over 5.5 million urban toilets have been built till date. Given that two-thirds of urban households were already dependent on On-site Sanitation Systems (OSS), developing the Faecal Sludge Management (FSM) value chain has become both a market and policy priority. To strengthen the evidence-base for sustainable and scalable service delivery models while encouraging private-sector-participation in FSM, the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), with support from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, undertook a study across four cities in India. As a follow up to an earlier study, these case studies were designed to complement supply-side assessments with an understanding of demand dynamics and government interventions. Focusing on four cities with installed fecal sludge treatment capacity through a mix of co-treatment and dedicated technologies, the study found that thriving FSM markets depend largely on ‘bulk’ customers rather than individual households- a learning that will have significant implications for the continued development of Indian FSM markets. Furthermore, as FSM service delivery becomes increasingly centralized and state-driven, per-trip profits and market turnover decrease steeply, crowding out or stifling private sector entry. On the basis of these studies and earlier work, an extensive market-risk assessment was undertaken to identify market risks and mitigation strategies for a range of stakeholders across the sanitation value chain. As the FSM market evolves, it will be crucial to identify mechanisms that adopt different PPP models for varying city sizes, optimal risk allocation and explore possibilities to forge partnerships between market, government and communities.

Unlike some other states such as Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, and Gujarat, climate change has not been a prominent part of the Government of Karnataka’s pronouncements on its future development direction. While senior state bureaucrats have been supportive of developing a plan, there is little evidence that they have championed adapting to or mitigating climate change as a cause, at either the political or bureaucratic levels.

And yet the climate plan in Karnataka is the outcome of three distinct efforts resulting in three parallel documents. In addition, Karnataka is arguably the state with the strongest independent scientific and research capacity on climate change. The presence of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP) and other such bodies confers a capability for analysis and understanding on climate change well beyond most other states. This strong base of ability played an important role in shaping the tenor and content of Karnataka’s action plan through a collaboration by these institutions in the form of the Bangalore Climate Change Initiative-Karnataka (BCCI-K). The association resulted in a scientific assessment of the implications of climate change for the state. The formal plan was produced by Environmental Management and Policy Research Institute (EMPRI), an autonomous body under the Department of Forest, Ecology and Environment, Government of Karnataka. In addition to BCCI-K, another non-governmental body, the Centre for Sustainable Development (CSD) also, independently, produced a state action plan.

Odisha was the one of the first states to begin work on a Climate Change Action Plan in 2009. The plan had the support of the Chief Minister (CM) and was led separately by two senior bureaucrats who put in place very different institutional practices and time-lines. As a result the climate plan seems to be formulated in two distinct phases. The first phase was characterised by tight deadlines with the aim of generating a slew of new ideas for departments to pursue. There were some regional consultations but none in the pre- drafts stages. In the second phase, the process was reined in to accommodate greater civil society participation. Some small but crucial changes were also made to the content of the document, extending the process by over a year.

Odisha was in many ways a pioneer in drafting a climate plan as it had no framework to refer to at the time. The plan as a result, drew on donor agencies and consultants for support and the state did not commission any science-based research on climate change for the region. Much of the initial secondary research was carried by a donor agency as part of the Scoping Report on Climate Change in Odisha. At the behest of state officials however, the plan includes nearly as many mitigation actions as adaptation plans, driven by financial and economic considerations. The resultant document is a sizable wish list with an equally substantial financial allocation.

Notably, in the last two and half years, the state has taken up a number of ‘mitigative’ steps, in addition to putting in place some institutional structures to address climate change in Odisha. While these are predominantly ongoing activities, they reiterate the state’s interest in addressing specific environmental and economic issues, and signal efforts at mainstreaming sustainable development in sectoral planning.

Finally, recent reports – in the aftermath of cyclone Phailin – indicate that the Odisha government has decided to implement the climate plan in its entirely without waiting for financial assistance from the central government.5 The Odisha climate plan, as of January 2014, has not yet been endorsed by the central government’s National Steering Committee.

Sikkim has been engaged in a number of climate related initiatives since 2008. Much of the work has been supported by a Chief Minister (CM) keen to further the state’s green credentials. Sikkim’s climate plan – drafted as an extension of its green drive – was initiated in 2010 and actively driven by senior bureaucrats who were already engaged in climate-based research and writing. The plan, by many accounts, facilitated the commissioning of additional studies, incorporated work by civil society organizations on specific climate issues, and crucially helped scale-up programmes in the water sector using resources from existing schemes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).

Driven by a strong state mandate on a number of development issues, the Sikkim climate plan is largely adaptation based. However, it was firmly guided by the overarching framework set by donor agencies and the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and had limited external participation during the post-draft stages. In addition, the document is uneven in structure and detail owing to varying degrees of ownership and engagement by bureaucrats as well as consultants in charge of different sectoral chapters.

While the Sikkim climate plan takes cognizance of the impact of climate change on hydropower generation given how changes in rainfall and river discharge could impact future production, the document ultimately steers clear of this politically sensitive topic in not offering any substantive measures to address it.

A High Level Committee constituted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests on 29. 08. 2014 has been given the task of reviewing six environmental laws that are several decades old now. During the time they have been in implementation, numerous exercises have been attempted by successive governments to amend their clauses. For example, using the powers vested in it by the Environment (Protection) Act, the Central Government has made dozens of changes to Notifications issued under the Act. However, these exercises have either been piecemeal and in the nature of “tinkering with the clauses”, or have resulted in sweeping changes without any theoretical or empirical basis regarding their positive environmental and social outcomes.

The review by the HLC is an opportune moment to meaningfully assess the performance of environment regulation by examining the state of the environment itself. There are several studies that have come out in the past few years that have recommended major changes in the appraisal, decision making, monitoring and enforcement aspects of India’s environmental regulation. However, a comprehensive framework of principles for environmental regulation that guides the much-needed environmental regulatory reform has been missing so far.

So that local people can use and understand the laws regulating development and the environment of India’s coast, Namati has created a Coastal Regulation Zones booklet. It covers all the information available in the complex official document, but it is presented in a way that ordinary people can understand. The intention is to enrich local people’s existing knowledge of the coastal regulations, while empowering them with tools to protect the coast. This is achieved using maps to show different zones and sketches to visualise possible scenarios, grouping regulations into different sectors and re-framing the content in order to put the users’ understanding first. This draft of the booklet shows all of this in both English and Gujarati.

This brief’s focus is solely on core nutrition specific interventions for pregnant women, lactating mothers, and children under six years of age. These address the immediate determinants of fetal and child nutrition and development. Nutrition-sensitive interventions are discussed where relevant.

The numbers of out-of-school children (OOSC) put out by various official sources in India, show wide variations. The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) survey by Social and Rural Research Institute – Indian Market Research Bureau (SRIIMRB) estimate of this figure is around 6 million, while for the same year 2014, the National Sample Survey (NSS) figure is around 20 million. The problems lie not just in the definitions of OOSC used by each data collector but also in their systems of collecting and collating data as well as the methods of estimation. For instance, all school level information is collected only by teachers who have a conflict of interest in relation to indicators, such as in inflating student attendance for purposes of mid day meal allocations or their own job security. Further, dropouts are estimated on the basis of continuous non-attendance over a period of time that varies from state to state (2 weeks in Karnataka to 3 months in Gujarat). Sporadic or irregular attendance is not taken into account when estimating drop out rates. This calls for a closer look at the attendance patterns of children with special emphasis on sporadic or irregular attendance. With learning outcomes dominating the policy discourse on education, unpacking the links between attendance and learning thus becomes important.

The pilot study of out-of-school children (OOSC) presented here was undertaken to unpack the phenomena of OOSC through an intensive micro-study of enrolment and attendance of all children in a single Gram Panchayat (GP or Panchayat). The emphasis of the study was on providing a methodological framework to understand the phenomenon of OOSC by a) looking at attendance patterns across social groups (caste, gender and migratory families); b) broadening the scope of the definition of an out of school child by including irregular attendance in it; c) highlighting the gaps in the official data system on OOSC; and d) linking attendance with aspects of school functioning such as infrastructure and availability of teachers.

The study highlights the need to examine the issue of the out of school child in greater detail especially its links with irregular attendance and school functioning as they bring to light not just the gap in universal provision of elementary education, but also one of the reasons for poor learning outcomes. It highlights further the need to align methods of data collection and estimation on this important indicator, in order to enable validation of data across sources for research as well as policy.

Human trafficking, a form of organized crime that extends across borders, covers various forms of human rights violations, ranging from commercial sexual exploitation to forced labour and organ donation. Over the years it has taken on more complex and diverse forms making it necessary to reform laws and strategies geared towards its eradication and control. Tragically, the involvement of children, especially girls, has also grown. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in its 2012 Report the share of minor girls trafficked increased from 13% in 2006 to 17% in 2009. The Report also shows that trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation accounts for 57-62% of all victims of trafficking. In order to deal with this growing menace the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime developed the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (2000), to provide the international legal framework through which trafficking could be combatted world-wide. Countries, like India, who have ratified the protocol, are obligated to amend their domestic laws accordingly to deal with the problem at the national level.

The subregional project as a narrative aimed at transforming economic geographies has been raised to the highest levels of rhetorical importance in India’s policy discourse. At the core of this vision stands a series of transborder infrastructure projects that India has initiated in the subregion, part of a larger feel-good narrative of rethinking borders as bridges. India’s connectivity projects have the potential to become effective drivers of subregional integration. But there exists formidable roadblocks to mobility, which needs to be addressed if the subregional vision of a seamless flow of people, goods and services is to be realised. The paper looks in particular at a set of regulatory and institutional roadblocks that India’s transborder transport diplomacy needs to overcome. Many of these challenges will ultimately turn on how India perceives its role in the region and the extent to which it prioritises regional integration as a goal. Is India likely to be a ‘leader of last resort’ interested only in minimalist goals or will it have the inclination to lead the region and invest in the creation of regional public goods? At the end of the day, the subregional project is fundamentally an experiment in co-governance that has to have robust subnational stakeholders as active partners in framing and fashioning subregional orders. This is clearly a road less travelled for Indian diplomacy and its institutional journey is likely to have several forks and bends as it unfolds.