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Background

Over the past three decades Self-Help Promoting Institutions (SHPIs - NGOs, State Governments, CSRs) have focused on organizing the poor into SHGs and SHG federations at the grassroots level. Further, investment is made in developing social capital and capacity building of these institutions to fulfill their members’ financial and livelihoods needs. The SHG Federations offer a number of financial, livelihoods and social services to SHGs and individual members to realize their aspirations. Majority of the SHG federations promoted by government also act as implementing agencies for various government programs. Many of these SHG federations are also engaged in financial intermediation by managing corpus grants & loan funds from the governments, donors, NGOs & banks for on-lending to SHGs. In India there are around 11.2 million SHGs, more than 4.04 lakh Primary Level Federations / village Organizations (VOs) and 30,709 Secondary Level Federations SHG federations / Cluster Level Federations in the country managing a portfolio of approximately Rs.200,000 crores.

As a part of building and protecting their members’ assets, SHGs and SHG federations partner with both public sector and private banks to access financial services for investment in micro-enterprise promotion / development, insurance, pension, etc., to reduce their vulnerability and increase their incomes. To achieve universalization of financial inclusion, the RBI and NABARD have huge expectations on SHGs and SHG federations to act as Business Facilitators and Business Correspondents of the Banks.

While there is a significant progress, the SHG federations need to graduate into self-reliant, sustainable & viable institutions based on the strong foundation of cooperative values & principles by providing valuable services to member SHGs and also meeting their operational costs. These are some of the critical challenges that SHGs & SHG federations face today:

1. Self-Help groups find their financial resources inadequate due to lack of profitable investments and marketable skills amongst the SHG members.
2. Ecosystem needs to be developed to make it more conducive for the SHG Federations to become self-reliant organizations.
3. Role and support of banks and other financial institutions to SHGs and SHG Federations promoted by various SHPIs other than Central / State Governments under NRLM/NULM
4. Inadequate and lack of innovative approaches and strategies to facilitate interface between SHG federations and FPOs to promote sustainable enterprises based on value-chain development.
5. Inadequate focus on the potential role of SHGs and SHG federations in advancing financial literacy and financial inclusion.
6. Absence of long-term & shared vision of diverse stakeholders for SHGs and Federations and processes that will ensure their autonomy, viability & sustainability as business organizations.

In this context there is a need for advocating for an enabling ecosystem with clarity on the role and functions of the SHG federations, the processes which it needs to comply with, the sources from where it can raise capital resources, steps it needs to take for strengthening governance and participation of members, etc. – all these will contribute significantly in strengthening SHG federations into self-reliant & sustainable women managed institutions.

In this context, APMAS, in collaboration with NABARD and other key stakeholders in the sector, perhaps for the first time in India, have announced National Awards for SHG federations to recognize & reward SHG federations that have followed high performance standards, evolved into model SHG federations, that can be emulated by other SHG federations in India. Felicitations and presentation of awards will take place as a part of the ‘National Level Workshop on SHG Federations’ in collaboration with NABARD. APMAS in collaboration with ENABLE network members is organizing a two-day National Workshop on SHG Federations during 29th & 30th November 2021 to bring together major stakeholders working on SHG federations and discuss the role of SHG federations and evolve a shared vision 2030 for SHG federations in India. While the day 1 (29th November 2021) of the National Workshop will focus on brainstorming among the SHG federation leaders on the vision 2030 for SHG federations in India, day 2 (30th November 2021) will have sessions with secondary stakeholders based on day 1 output and to come up with a SHG federations Vision 2030 and the day will conclude with the presentation of the SHG federation awards to the winners and felicitation by Dr. GR Chintala, Chairman of NABARD.

Workshop design:

The workshop offers the right platform to develop a deeper understanding of the issues & challenges faced by the SHG federations in India with active participation of all major stakeholders like Central & State Governments, RBI, NABARD, banks, NGOs, research organizations, producer organizations, private sector and most importantly the representatives of SHG Federations.

Objectives of the 2-day workshop:

1. Key stakeholders of SHG Federations to share their experiences, expectations and learning to gain insights to address key issues & challenges faced by SHG federations in India;
2. To come up with appropriate policy recommendations to enable SHGs, SHG federations to evolve into self-reliant, viable & sustainable business institutions.
3. To plan how SHG Federations can help with the national priorities such as Financial Literacy, Financial Inclusion and Microenterprise Promotion.
4. To facilitate SHG federations and other stakeholders to prepare VISION 2030 for SHG federations in India.

Day 1: 29th November 2021: Workshop with SHG Federation Leaders

Around 40-50 SHG Federation representatives from across the country including the winners of SHG federation awards will be invited to participate in the day-long brainstorming in several facilitated parallel sessions taking into consideration language issues. Few selected secondary stakeholders will also be invited to the event to facilitate & listen to the women SHG federation representatives and to understand their experiences, expectations, needs & aspirations and future course of action.

Day 2: 30th November 2021: Workshop with all the Primary & Secondary Stakeholders

Day 2 of the workshop will have all the participants of day 1 and also some of the sector experts, academicians, researchers, bankers and SHPIs. There will be facilitated presentations & panel discussions on day 2. The output of day 1 will also be presented. Appropriate policy recommendations for the SHG federations to evolve into autonomous, viable & sustainable institutions by 2030 will be developed. In the afternoon of Day 2, the declaration of Vision 2030 for SHG federations by Leaders of SHG movement will be presented to the Chairman of NABARD and other invited dignitaries. SHG federation Awards Presentation Ceremony and the message from the Chief Guest will be held during 2:30pm to 4:30pm on 30th November 2021.

Please confirm your participation to shgfworkshopapmas@gmail.com  at the earliest.

Logistics

Moderate accommodation will be provided on prior intimation.

Venue

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