Forty-two per cent of children under five are malnourished in Madhya Pradesh. Having not received proper nutrition , they are either stunted or short for their age and deep in tribal areas the numbers only get worse. The government of MP in partnership with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) proposed two inexpensive and ingenious ideas to encourage women to cook balanced meals.

The first is called the ‘7 days 7 plots’ programme, where women from the village are taught how to grow different vegetables in their own gardens, seven to be exact, one for each day of the week. By the end of the week, the first plot is ready to be harvested again. This way, families get to eat fresh, affordable vegetables that they can consume for longer and in greater quantity, as against buying from the market, and so reduce sickness.

This scheme is an adjunct to the Tejaswini Rural Women Empowerment Programme implemented by the UN-affiliated IFAD in Balaghat, Dindori, and Mandla, three districts from the tribal-dominated south-east which is the poorest part of MP, and Panna, Chhatarpur and Tikamgarh of the northern parts where gender-inequality is high.

Secondly, to encourage a more balanced meal, the project introduced the concept of the “Tiranga Thali”, where each plate contains ingredients of the three colours from the Indian flag. Saffron — all pulses like yellow split peas, pigeon peas, and split red lentils representing proteins; white — rice, milk and roti representing carbohydrates; and green — leafy vegetables representing vitamins and minerals.

The project has helped over 110,000 families in remote areas of Madhya Pradesh to cook and eat healthy meals for their children and themselves.

IFAD background

For over four decades, IFAD has focused on the smallest unit of the society — the small family farmer — who also actively participates in the formulation of project designs and implementation. More importantly, the beneficiaries get to see the results of the interventions firsthand through higher incomes, better yield, nutrition and a higher standard of living.

IFAD has so far financed over 27 projects in India through 31 loans totalling to a portfolio with an estimated cost of around $2.6 billion. This makes India the largest portfolio of IFAD-supported operations.

Quality Assurance Group

IFAD’s Independent Office of Evaluation undertakes comprehensive impact assessments as simply comparing the results “before” and “after” implementation of a project. But even before a project takes form on the ground, an important step is designing the project so that it is beneficial to all stakeholders.

For this very reason, the Quality Assurance Group (QAG) was created in IFAD’s Office of the President and Vice President, which provides “arm’s length” reviews of strategies and projects in order to bring to attention systemic issues and lessons from design with the overarching aim of improving quality.

The first Director of IFAD’s Quality Assurance Group since July 2019, Ashwani Kaul Muthoo, noted that “arms-length quality assurance of the design of strategies and projects is fundamental to ensure the technical and operational robustness of development interventions, to ensure desired results on rural transformation and sustainability of benefits”.

The function of the group has evolved over time from strengthening IFAD’s design of operational activities to taking on a greater role in helping advance IFAD’s development objectives and making further contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals. I had the opportunity of seeing this firsthand when I was an intern over summer.

We have been hearing for too long that the same farmer who puts the food on our plates struggles to feed his family a proper meal. IFAD’s work reminds us that investing in rural areas is the only long-term solution, and that we must empower them to decide their own future through people-centred programmes.

The project in MP does exactly this, they provide seed kits and train women to irrigate their plots with household waste water. There are nearly 3,000 such trainers, one for each village, who speak passionately about the importance of nutrients like protein and iron. This gives them the power to decide, implement and be active stakeholders.

The writer is a post-graduate student at Paris School of Economics

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