The three-day national conference organised by the Management Consultants of the PACS Programme was the last major event to be held under the aegis of the programme.

Over 700 participants from different parts of the country, including heads of CSOs supported by the PACS Programme, consultants associated with the programme, and a number of renowned experts attended the conference.

Addressing the gathering, Development Alternatives (DA) Chairperson Ashok Khosla said that while the programme had recorded the sort of gains he had not experienced in his involvement of around 40 years in the development field, there was still a lot to be done.

The entitlement demand and realisation process started by the programme had to be taken to the stage where it became a permanent, people-led effort, he said. All those involved in the programme had the responsibility of ensuring that this happened.

While DFID has announced its commitment to support a second phase of the programme (PACS-II), DA is also talking to a number of donors to form a small grants consortium that will help increase the programme’s impact, both in terms of entitlement realisation as well as coverage, he disclosed.

Earlier, on December 5, DA convened a meeting of around 70 donors, including Indian corporate houses, to elicit their support for a proposed ‘Bharat Empowerment Foundation’; their response was extremely encouraging.

It would however take some months for all the formalities of PACS-II to be completed, and programme partners have the important responsibility of continuing to maintain close contact with communities during the transition period, Khosla said.

Speaking in a similar vein, earlier, NAB Chairman A K Basu urged programme CSOs: “Don’t lose the confidence and respect you have built over the last few years.”

He urged both the Management Consultants of the programme as well as its donor, DFID, to plan for the transition phase till the launch of PACS-II. It would also be useful if DFID disseminated at least the basic principles and broad outline of PACS-II, he added.

Whatever the shape and form of PACS-II, it cannot lose sight of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that formed the basis of the PACS Programme, he said.

While the current phase of the PACS Programme reached millions of poor people who had never been reached before by government or civil society, the attainment of MDG targets was still a long way off, he noted.

He made the following specific suggestions for all those who would be involved in PACS-II:

• Poverty should be quantified and specific poverty alleviation targets should be set. It should be understood that entitlement realisation alone is not enough to alleviate poverty as the entitlements of the poor are also “poor”. The poverty alleviation targets should be above the “minimum” standards implied in poverty determination parameters used by government and international agencies. Attainment of targets would require innovation in “every place, every time”. It would also require a deeper understanding of poverty-related issues, which can be enabled by setting aside some funds only for research.
• Group-formation should be seen as the start and not the end of a process of mobilisation and empowerment. There is a need to go beyond standard SHG-formation and training methods and inputs that have not changed over the last few decades. Income-generation by women members of SHGs should help the entire community grow.
• Efforts should be made to initiate “sustainable community responsibility” processes to support the absolutely destitute -- such as aged widows -- who form around 7% of the rural population.
• CSOs should also focus on “volatile” rural youth who have much higher expectations than the older generation.
• From improving community participation in panchayati raj institutions, the emphasis should shift to improving the decision-making abilities and powers of these institutions.
• All the above implies that frequency of CSO contact with communities will have to increase.
• Clear parameters are required to determine enhanced capacity of CSOs.

Later, DFID-India Development Advisor Arundhati Roy Chowdhury said that the organisation would “rely on people’s knowledge” in drafting PACS-II. She said DFID had learnt a lot from the three-day ‘What it takes to eradicate poverty’ conference, which had intensive discussions on PACS Programme experiences in the thematic areas of women’s empowerment, livelihoods, social exclusion, local self-governance and networking and partnerships.

Responding to the various concerns and demands expressed during the deliberations, Chowdhury said: “What you expect will be reflected in PACS-II.”

Proposing the vote of thanks, DA President George Varughese complimented all the CSOs and consultants who had put in enormous effort to make the PACS Programme a success, and independent bodies like the NAB and the Projects Selection Committee that ensured that the integrity of the programme was maintained.

He also complimented DFID for giving the Management Consultants the kind of freedom and opportunity that has not been matched by “any funding agency in the world”.

The valedictory session of the conference ended on an emotional and celebratory note with all those present dancing and cheering to the beat of a song specially composed for the occasion by Palash Sen of Euphoria.