Transforming women’s lives: lessons from the impact assessment of the Shaurya Dal programme
3ie hosted a special seminar as part of the Delhi Seminar series to mark the International Women’s Day 2018 on 8 March. The theme for the seminar was focused on rural and urban activists transforming women's lives.
In this 3ie seminar, Madhulika Singh (UN Women) talked about the impact assessment of the Shaurya Dal: a government-backed programme that was conceptualised in 2013 and implemented in the state of Madhya Pradesh in three phases from 2015-2017. The Shaurya Dals comprised of men and women selected as per community voluntary participation. The assessment looked at the challenges and the benefits of the programme. Hemlata Verma, technical specialist at International Centre for Research on Women, was the discussant. The session was chaired by Radhika Menon, senior policy, advocacy officer at 3ie.
Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a global problem that affects one in three women in their lifetime. VAWG, particularly in India, is deeply rooted in societal norms and economic dependence. It has been an impediment to achieving gender equality - a critical index for assessing the development of a country.
Although the Dals helped in ending domestic violence to an extent as well as addressing early child marriages through methods of negotiation and mediation, it was found that a there was a serious lack of awareness about the programme among people and police. The speaker noted that Dals (volunteers) were not directly trained by the government and neither were they provided any continuous or refreshment trainings. Even amongst them, only 62% were covered.
Hemlata Verma,(International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW), talked about the Gender Equity in Schools programme, which examines the potential of school-based curricula to promote more gender-equitable norms among adolescents. ICRW developed and implemented a curriculum to engage adolescents to discuss and critically reflect on issues related to inequitable gender norms and violence. She also shared lessons from ICRW’s Promoting Adolescent’s Engagement, Knowledge and Health programme. This initiative enhanced community support to keep girls in schools and promote higher education through delayed marriages, and by creating safe public spaces.
Both the presentation with detailed insight to these schemes led to an interesting discussion highlighting implementation issues and recommendations to address them.
About the speaker
Madhulika Singh is currently working as a monitoring and evaluation analyst with the UN Women’s Multi Country Office for India, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka. Prior to this she has provided technical guidance to NGOs on strengthening their monitoring and evaluation systems. She brings extensive experience of working on issues of gender equality and empowerment of women and has made significant contributions to equity-focused and gender-responsive evaluations within the UN system.
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