Democratizing Governance of Public Institutions

Activating Participatory Governance Platforms

Fostering Voice And agency In Stakeholders

Making Participatory Governance Happen

OUR VISION

A world where everyone has the power to speak up and shape decisions impacting their future.

OUR MISSION

Enable access to public services by sustained participation of communities in governance.

What- The Crisis

The governance of our public institutions is opaque, non participatory and undemocratic.
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How- Our Approach

Our approach is designed to bring long term, sustainable, systemic change
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Where- Our Reach

Over the years, we have worked with many communities in different geographies
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THE CRISIS

The governance of our public institutions is opaque, non participatory and undemocratic. Poor governance inhibits the capacity of these institutions to deliver on their intended outcomes. After 10+ years of its implementation, 75% of Indian schools are not complying with norms & standards given in the Right To Education (RTE) (UDISE Date 2019-20).  The RTE mandates the constitution of equitable local governance platforms for government and aided schools and details the functioning of these bodies. In their research, Karthik Muralidharan and others highlight the cost of weak governance in the context of public education. In a nationwide representative sample of public schools in rural India they found a teacher absence rate of 23.6% . They estimate the salary cost of unauthorized teacher absence is $1.5 billion/year. Similar to this issue, learning outcomes, parent engagement, instructional practices and attendance rates are also areas which get adversely affected due to weak governance. In our understanding, based on our on ground experience of working with communities, partner organisations and government(s), poor governance is often a result of:

1. Lack of Active Platforms

2. Lack of Voice and Agency in Stakeholders

Our Solution

Our hypothesis is that well governed institutions are more likely to deliver on their intended outcomes than poorly governed institutions. Furthermore, having inclusive and representative platforms which allow for collective dialogue and action is a basic facet of good governance as suggested by United Nations, Prerna Goswami (2013), and International Association For Public Participation.

So far Samarthya has worked primarily towards strengthening the governance of public schools. Our approach to work on this crisis of poor governance has two major components: Activating Platforms and Fostering Voice and Agency

Activating Platforms

We work on fostering and activating new and existing platforms which allow for local collective dialogue and action around public institutions. We work with the government and/ or the communities to help calibrate the process of structuring/ designing and/ or constituting platforms for collective dialogue and action. The objective is to increase awareness, engagement and participation of stakeholders in such local platforms. A lot of our work focuses on co-designing processes to support state governments in the formation and working of existing platforms such as School Management Committees (SMCs) in government run and aided schools. The Act envisions the SMC as part of a decentralized governance model and empowers the members of the committee to support and monitor the functioning of the schools and oversee that the school grants are used effectively. We also work on other platforms based on the needs and contexts of the stakeholders we work with.

Fostering Voice and Agency

We foster voice and agency in stakeholders to identify and express their interests and concerns. This is done by conducting capacity building sessions directly with the stakeholders on the grassroots or/ and with the people who interact with them regularly.

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The best way to preserve our democracy is to practice it