United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

Delhi, with a population of approx. 17 million has been growing at a fast pace. However, the paradox has been glaring. A large portion of the populace (approximately 3.5 million) were not able to access the fruits of development; more than 3/4th resided in unplanned colonies and over 80% worked in the unorganized sector many with seasonal nature of employment and no source of regular income.
To understand the inequities, Government of Delhi commissioned a study in partnership with UNDP and the findings were published in the Delhi Human Development Report 2006. While on the one hand the report applauded the progress the city had made towards becoming a truly global metropolis with one of the highest per-capita incomes and sizable investment in infrastructure development especially in the areas of water, housing and transport, on the other, it also pointed out some statistics that reflected otherwise. For example:
• Delhi had one of the worst sex ratios in the country at 865 females per 1000 males in age group 0 to 6 years in 2001;
• An alarming infant mortality rate despite expenditure on health services being one of the highest in the nation.
• A large part of the population resided in slum-like conditions with limited or no access to basic amenities and around 100,000 were homeless.
This was despite the fact that substantial budgetary allocations were being made for health, education and social welfare (with 21% of the total plan allocation of current Five Year Plan earmarked for these sectors). However, it was realized that the allocations are not based on realistic estimates of demand. High annual influx of about 200,000 migrants and other such indices are not factored in the Budgetary Plan, making the task of equitable development even more challenging.
There were numerous frontline government agencies implementing a large number of welfare schemes and programmes but with limited outreach. With over 45 welfare schemes, the approach to human development was scheme-centric rather than household targeted. Further, the departmental inter-linkages and coordination mechanism were also weak.
In a traditional government set-up where decisions were top-down rather than demand driven and lack of robust outreach strategy grossly limited the reach of government’s welfare measures to the actual needy. In addition, inaccurate estimation of poverty led to unrealistic financial allocation across different schemes. This was one of the most important factors leading to the exclusion of the eligible i.e. the most vulnerable population.
Delhi lacked a strong policy on institutional mechanisms and collaborations to respond to vulnerable groups like homeless, disabled and working children. Government’s endeavours were spread across nine departments, with each department often duplicating the efforts of another through overlapping schemes. The poor were expected to justify their eligibility for schemes and shouldered the responsibility of convincing the government about their poverty/vulnerability. This meant gathering specified documents as evidence of their poverty or five years of residence in Delhi. The rigid documentation criteria, lack of information on schemes and difficulties in accessing these documents further prevented the poor from availing welfare benefits.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
Mission Convergence represents a paradigm shift in governance with concrete steps towards holistic human development with poverty alleviation and women’s empowerment as core objectives. With the aim to make the government accessible and accountable to the people, a policy was designed and implemented in partnership with community based organizations. The Mission has also changed the way we understand and evaluate poverty. Traditionally, income was used to measure poverty which has led to significant inclusion and exclusion errors. To address these issues, a set of non-income criteria was developed and adopted. It was decided to use the criteria of vulnerability — spatial, social and occupational — to identify people who needed targeted intervention. Next, the Mission sought greater community participation by creating a bottom-up implementation structure that currently engages 124 community based organizations alongside government officials in the nine districts in Delhi. These centers have now enabled the government to reach the doorsteps of the vulnerable rather than expecting them to manoeuver governmental machinery to access welfare services. In doing so, Mission has strengthened Delhi government’s rights based approach wherein vulnerable groups are no longer seen as beneficiaries but as entitlement holders who have the right to efficiently receive basic welfare services from the government. Gender Resource cum Facilitation Centres work on information dissemination, awareness generation, facilitation in getting documents needed for availing various schemes, helping applicants fill up the application forms, etc. The other important role that these centres play is in the field of women’s empowerment. They impart skills to the vulnerable women, organize them into Self Help Groups, create micro enterprises, hold regular health clinics, impart non-formal /adult education etc. Poverty maps comprising all the poor and vulnerable areas of the city were developed and door-to-door survey conducted. The survey data now provides an empirical evidence for realistic budgetary planning across all social sector schemes. A sensitive and accountable system was created to break the barriers of access. For convergence at policy level, dynamic mechanisms such as Convergence Forums at state, district and sub-district levels with built-in M&E framework were developed. These Forums with representations from all stakeholders address operational issues on a regular basis through regular meetings and dialogues. A programme of this kind has to be dynamic in nature; therefore special projects had to be developed to meet the unmet needs of different vulnerable categories like the homeless, adolescent girls, rag pickers, etc. • A special project was developed for the homeless with the existing night shelters converted into integrated Resource Centres, starting of community kitchens; special health camps, etc. • A special project for promoting menstrual hygiene among adolescent girls and women was launched, since the lack of awareness on this issue was seen to be a major factor responsible for high incidence of diseases like cervical cancer, Reproductive Tract Infections, etc. • Environmentally sustainable Livelihood projects like production of cloth and jute bags to phase out plastic bags has been worked out and the unorganized rag pickers are being organized into cooperatives.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
The idea of Mission Convergence is a result of a lot of deliberations between the government machineries (such as the Planning Commission of India, Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation of India, Ministry of Labour of India), social sector experts, civil society organizations, community groups, academic institutions of international repute (such as the Indian Institute of Technology, Jawaharlal Nehru University, University of Delhi, Indian Institute of Public Administration), International Development Agencies (such as the World Bank, UNDP, GTZ, USAID) etc. The Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi thoughtfully engaged in an analysis of where the existing resources of the government were going to. It came to the conclusion that proper targeting and effective service delivery mechanism were the biggest challenges. The way forward came from an open recognition of the limitations of policy thinking and implementation arrangements. While engaging with multi-stakeholder collaboration and implementing stand alone pro-poor projects, the GNCTD realized that not only is it important to have collaboration among various government departments and non-government organizations, but also to have a system of convergence for various schemes and services of the government so as to avoid duplicity, minimize administrative costs and smoothen the outreach process. This led to the formation of the Mission Convergence programme under the Samajik Suvidha Sangam, which is an autonomous body of Government of NCT of Delhi. Mr. Rakesh Mehta, the Chief Secretary of Delhi has been the key architect of the idea of Mission Convergence and was first to propose the formation of an independent entity for this initiative. Mr. Harsh Mander and other Right to Food Campaigners, Syeda Hameed from the Planning Commission of India, many Civil Society Organisations, the Deputy Commissioners of various districts of Delhi and others were actively associated in the design. The Mission idea has received constant support from various agencies such as the Planning Commission of the Government of India, NGOs like Aman Biradri, Centre for Advocacy Research, Sarthak Nagrak Samiti, ACCESS Development Services and corporates such as IL&FS, Max New York Life and many others. The learning from the Bolsa Familia programme of Brazil and Oportunidades of Mexico brought conceptual framework of proper targeting, effective convergence and single window delivery of services into focus. Mission Convergence stands for a strong multi-stakeholder collaboration for convergence of physical and technical resources at both policy and implementation levels. For the single window delivery of the services of the government the Mission has successfully established a large network of Facilitation Centres in different parts of Delhi – one at each district level attached with the office of the Deputy Commissioner and others at the community level, closer to the people either in form of attaching Facilitation Centres to existing Gender Resource Centres, opening satellite centres/ extension centres or setting up new Gender Resource cum Facilitation Centres. All such centres are run by credible NGOs.

Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
a. What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
 Adminstrative Reforms: This initiative has moved away from the traditional bureaucratic forms of governance by creating innovative institutional mechanisms. A special purpose vehicle was registered in the name of Society (Samajik Suvidha Sangam) to initiate this change. A model of participatory governance whereby a large network of CBOs in different parts of Delhi has been established. GO-NGO partnership is the core of the programme. Mission Convergence has therefore helped redefine the government’s role from the “regulator” to “facilitator” in area of social sector service delivery.  Redefining Poverty Matrix: Mission Convergence has developed a new criteria based on proxy indicators of income using spatial, social and occupational vulnerability for targeted intervention leading to rationalization and best utilization of scarce resources. Using the vulnerability criteria, a massive household survey was carried out in areas that had large concentrations of vulnerable groups with intensive community participation.  Scheme Rationalisation: Analysis of existing schemes to eliminate duplication leading to a lesser number of schemes with greater impact on the community.  Use of Information Technology: Information Technology is used as the backbone of convergence. The key elements are computerized uniform database on beneficiaries, connectivity of service delivery points with the central database and biometric enabled electronic entitlement cards.  Promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment: By giving special emphasis to the empowerment of the underprivileged women, Mission Convergence helps generate awareness and strong demand for the basic services of the government. a) Vocational Training: The Gender Resource cum Facilitation Centres imparted demand driven short term training programmes in trades that are popular in the community. b) Nutrition Camp: These Centres sensitize women and their families to inculcate healthy eating habits. Monthly nutrition camps are held to provide information on low cost nutritious recipes. c) Legal Aid and Awareness: Awareness is created in the community specially women about their legal rights pertaining to domestic violence, crime against women etc. Delhi Legal Services Authority also offers free legal aid and services to the women to resolve family disputes, out of court reconciliation etc. d) Non Formal Education: Non-formal education is imparted to increase the level of literacy in the community, prevent drop outs and mainstream children to government schools. e) Health camps and clinics: The prime focus of this component is to generate awareness among women towards their health needs and promote health seeking behavior in them through clinics and camps. f) Formation of Self Help Groups (SHGs): Self Help Groups are a symbol of collective power of women. Initiatives have been taken to connect women’s training component with SHGs and with the formal workforce.  Robust Monitoring and Evaluation Framework: Mission Convergence has a concurrent system of Monitoring and Evaluation system which includes involvement of Mother NGOs in monitoring the activities of Gender Resource cum Facilitation Centres. This system is further strengthened by 3rd party audits and evaluations from time to time. The process is supported by checks at local levels of the government.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
The genesis of Mission Convergence can be traced to the Stree-Shakti (Women's Power) Project of the GNCTD initiated in the year 2000. These outreach camps were organized by NGOs in different areas of the city and were mostly health camps targeted towards women’s reproductive health, antenatal and postnatal care and immunization of children. With the launch of Mission Convergence and formation of an independent society called the Samajik Suvidha Sangam an additional function of delivery of various social development and poverty alleviation services was added to the existing Gender Resource Centres(GRCs). The additional wing has been named as Facilitation Centres(FCs). The FCs has been functioning as the arm of the government for the delivery of services. A rigorous selection process of NGOs was initiated by Mission Convergence to have the best organizations on board. Mission Convergence has inherited forty four GRCs from Stree Shakti. As the area of work covered by Mission Convergence increased to cover all the F, G and H colonies of the city the number of NGOs increased. Today there are 124 NGOs working as GR-FCs in the project. A Programme Management Unit (PMU) and District Management Units (DMU) were set up at the State and District level respectively to manage and coordinate the programme. Over and above them State Convergence Forum and District Convergence Forum was established at the State and District levels to deal with policy issues. To facilitate the process of delivery of services, creation of a full-fledged Information Technology enabled platform was envisaged and work in this direction has already started. One of the most important tasks undertaken by the Programme was to conduct a survey of the vulnerable population of the city. The GR-FCs were involved in the survey to have a community ownership of the data gathered. The survey identified 700,000 vulnerable households based on the criteria of spatial, social and occupational vulnerability. After identification of the vulnerable population, a process of community mobilization was started by the GR-FCs to generate demand for the services of the government and facilitating the members of the community to access the services, in helping them fill up the required forms, getting necessary documentation proofs and the final submission. The GR-FCs also undertake women empowerment programmes in form of holding health camps, nutrition camps, Non Formal Education classes for drop out adolescent girls, formation of SHGs, skill training for employment etc. To sum up, within two and half year of its formation, Mission Convergence has identified the vulnerable population in Delhi, advocated before the various line departments of GNCTD and Government of India to recognize the vulnerability dimensions of poverty, created a computerized database of the entitlement holders, established partnership with a number of civil society organizations to deliver the social services to the poor and influenced various social development policies of the government. The approach of Mission Convergence has prepared the ground to pilot a Conditional Cash Transfer initiative in Delhi the way it is adopted by various Latin American Countries.

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
The Mission Convergence initiative has gone through a remarkable process of evolution marked not only with many facilitating elements but also with various obstacles during its journey. The biggest challenge before the Mission was to redefine the poverty matrix in Delhi by moving away from the traditional income criteria of poverty and encompassing the social dimensions of poverty such as spatial and occupational vulnerability. When the Mission decided to do a household survey to identify the vulnerable in the State on the basis of technical criteria suggested by the social sector experts and the civil societies, it faced tremendous opposition from the politically motivated people who demanded that political recommendation be given utmost weightage for inclusion of a certain household in the vulnerability database. The debates around adoption of methodology for the survey consumed considerable time before various stakeholders were convinced about the technical social dimensions of poverty. The Mission has also faced several obstacles since it has tried to challenge the traditional power structure maintained by the community elites. The household survey to identify the vulnerable population has come out with a large database of the social service entitlement holders in the State. The increase in the number of the poor population as recorded in the database demands a corresponding increase in the social sector budgetary allocation. This is a big challenge which the Mission faces even today. Since traditionally the people have felt alienated from the decision making process in the government, it was a big challenge for the Mission Convergence to communicate with and convince the people about the social inclusion and poverty alleviation objectives of the newly evolved Mission Convergence society. Mission adopted various communication strategies like street plays to overcome people’s suspicion and win their confidence about the new initiative of the government. The idea of partnership with civil society organizations and private bodies as ingrained in the Mission Vision came up with the challenge to organize orientation and capacity building training programmes for these agencies before a partnership structure could be defined. For the first time in its history, the role of the Deputy Commissioners of the 9 Districts in Delhi has been redefined from mere administrative and revenue collection heads of the districts to Development Administrators. The levels of understanding of different stakeholders varied and this created administrative bottlenecks. As a result of varied understanding at different levels and difference in preparedness certain coordination problems arose between stakeholders. A community led pilot social audit has been conducted to understand the perception of the community and other stakeholders regarding their understanding of the activities of Mission Convergence programme. Delhi has a high rate of influx immigrant population which poses a big challenge in terms of domicile, identification, housing and provisioning of various government services. To match this pace is a constant challenge before Mission Convergence.

d. What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
The Mission Convergence idea which was a result of introspection on the part of the Government of Delhi to reorient its service delivery mechanism for effectively reaching out to the needy has had political support from within the government coupled with the moral support of the citizens, networking support of the civil societies, and the technical guidance of the social sector experts. This made it easier for the resources to be mobilized at various levels. The overall process of mobilization of the resources of the Government of NCT of Delhi for the Mission Convergence initiative went through various process activities such as review and analysis of social sector expenditures, planning, training and restructuring the modus- operandi of the government functioning. The Mission Convergence initiative received an initial financial support of INR 50 million from the planned budget of the government of Delhi following which the Mission developed a roadmap to mobilize further technical and financial resources from various agencies outside the state government. The Mission also received technical support from various social sector experts; national and international bodies such as the World Bank, United Nations Development Programme, German Technical Cooperation, Indian Institute of Technology, Jawaharlal Nehru University, University of Delhi etc; Civil Societies and private corporate houses from across the State. The Mission has received continuous support from various development practitioners and academic think tanks. The day to day management and coordination support comes from the Mission Director. The Chief Secretary of Delhi oversees the technical, strategic and policy directions of the Mission. Continuous administrative and managerial support is provided by the civil servants in Delhi including the Deputy Commissioners of the 9 districts of Delhi and the officers of 9 line departments. Mission Convergence plays the role of nodal agency for the implementation of some of the flagship programmes of the Central Government such as the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, Swarna Jayanti Shahri Rojgar Yojana for which the Government of India has placed a number of technical experts with the Mission. The Programme Management Unit at the Mission Convergence is thus a judicious combination of civil servants from the government and technical experts in different thematic areas and the consultant advisors. The NGOs in the form of Gender Resource cum Facilitation Centres were brought in and such community based organizations bridged the gap between the needy and the government. Currently around 124 GRCs are working in Delhi but they are not under the direct control of the government for their day to day functioning. Instead, they are being monitored and guided by two Mother NGOs. Such an institutional framework has reduced the huge administrative cost to the public exchequer. The involvement of volunteers from amongst the communities in the survey exercise further reduced the cost per household survey. Use of Information Technology has helped in development of an integrated programme delivery mechanism which in turn reduces the human and transaction cost duplicated which is often by different departments.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
To ensure sustainability, mandates were secured at the highest levels of the Executive machinery of the state. There are four cabinet decisions and more than ten orders issued for ensuring that the new policy directives get institutionalized. The strategy of the Mission has been to use many of the pre-existing structures and institutions, schemes and programmes with some reorientation and restructuring to provide a cost effective mechanism for ensuring improved access to the public services. Building capacity of the community groups has generated a community led momentum which is one of the biggest factors for ensuring that the programme remains sustainable. This initiative is already being considered as a highly replicable model by the Government of India which has taken the initiative to use this as a model for other states. The Planning Commission and the Ministry of Rural Development of India while formulating the new criteria for identification of the poor have used the Delhi’s model. Expert Committee constituted by the Government of India for redefining the poverty criteria has recommended the vulnerability criteria as a way to estimate people who are poor. The Ministry of Women and Child, Government of India has recently announced a scheme for empowerment of women on a mission mode to be taken up in the whole country. The strategy of convergence of schemes and access through single window being demonstrated under Mission Convergence in Delhi has been used by the Ministry for dissemination to other states and in the final operational blue print of the programme. Partnership with civil society organizations at each level is another important area that can be replicated. Convergence of multiple schemes through a single window at the community level which acts as a facilitator to access services is an important shift in governance which can be replicated. Use of technology to ensure transparency, create awareness and fasten delivery process is one of the important components of the programme. This can also be replicated by other programmes and projects in various states. The National UID Programme launched by the Government of India has decided to partner with the Mission Convergence to ride on the database generated by the Mission. Mission Director has been appointed the Registrar for vulnerable population in Delhi by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), Government of India. The ultimate sustainability of the programme lies in the grassroots momentum generated by the community groups especially the women. The Mission has led to the evolution of leaders at different levels who are the ultimate torch-bearers of this social re-engineering process.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
The key elements that made Mission Convergence a success are: Setting-up of Mission Mode Structure: The involvement of the highest levels of the executives including the Chief Minister and the Chief Secretary has been an important factor in giving the drive to bring about the paradigm shift which the mission stands for. A High Powered Committee on Mission Convergence consisting of representatives from the Government and Civil Society has been set-up for fostering participation in policy making decisions. It is chaired by Smt. Sheila Dikshit, Hon’ble Chief Minister, Delhi and consists of senior Ministers of the Govt. of NCT of Delhi, senior bureaucrats and reputed Civil Society representatives. Setting-up of State Convergence Forum and District Convergence Forum at State level and District level comprising all the vital stakeholders have enabled the different voices to be represented in an institutional forum including both government and non-government at the same platform. Engagement of community based organisations: An extensive network of community based organizations (CBOs) has been established for running the GRC - Suvidha Kendra. Presently, there are 124 GR-FCs spread across the length and breadth of the vulnerable areas (slums, un-authorized colonies) of Delhi. These GRCs are monitored by two Mother NGOs namely Modicare & SOSVA, apart from the institutional mechanism of District Resource Centers (DRCs) and District Monitoring Units (DMUs) set-up in the nine Deputy Commissioners Offices of Delhi. Adopting proxy indicators of poverty: Adoption of spatial, social, occupational indicators in place of the income level as an indicator of poverty is a break away from the existing practice of poverty assessment. A census operation in geographical clusters of poverty (in F, G & H colonies falling in the lowest category for tax assessments) and slum clusters, a vulnerability survey brought out a more comprehensive, and often startling picture of Delhi’s poverty and vulnerability. Bottom- up approach rather than Top-Down Approach: The focus of the Mission Convergence has been on assessing the actual number of entitlements holders and then providing the relevant benefits to them. This is a welcome departure from the existing practices wherein quotas were fixed from the top. However, now the number eligible across schemes has been worked out on the basis of survey done by Civil Society, vetted by the government and the actual budgetary allocation is accordingly being sought. Thus, the budget allocation exercise is now Entitlement demand driven rather than budget driven. Involvement of the Civil Society in the implementation of objectives of Mission Convergence has helped in reducing administrative / transaction cost. One of the greatest lessons learnt has been that there is a need for “Distinct pill as per the ill” rather than “One pill for all ills”. This is because the vulnerable group is not homogenous but heterogeneous group (widows, child headed households, homeless, rag pickers, handicapped, girl child etc.). Therefore, there is a need for providing diverse kind of reliefs. Also a radical change has to have a phased strategy. Flexibility has been in-built for the evolutionary nature of the programme.


Institution Name:		Samajik Suvidha Sangam
Institution Type:		Government Agency
Contact Person:		Shyami Sodhi
Title:		Mission Director
Telephone/ Fax:		911123813181
Institution's / Project's Website:
E-mail:		md.sss@streeshakti-sss.org
Address:		1st Floor, B-Wing, Vikas Bhawan-II, Bela Raod, Civil Lines, New Delhi
Postal Code:		110054
City:		New Delhi
State/Province:		Delhi
Country:		India

The Problem

Solution and Key Benefits

Actors and Stakeholders

(a) Strategies

(b) Implementation

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

(d) Use of Resources

Sustainability and Transferability

Lessons Learned

Contact Information