Publication: On the Frontlines of Scaling-Up: A Qualitative Analysis of Implementation Challenges in a CDD Project in Rural India
Date
2017-04
ISSN
Published
2017-04
Author(s)
Abstract
This paper analyzes four years of
qualitative data observing a large participatory
anti-poverty project in India as it scales up from its first
phase (covering 400,000 households) to its second (covering
800,000 households). Focusing on the frontlines of change --
at the village level, the analysis finds that the key
difference between implementation in the two phases of the
project was that facilitators in the first phase deployed a
discourse that was carefully "co-produced" with
its beneficiaries. Through careful groundwork and creative
improvisation, facilitators incorporated the interests of
multiple stakeholders on the ground while bringing
beneficiaries into the project. However, as the project
scaled up, participants were mobilized quickly with a
homogenous and fixed script that lacked the kind of
improvisation that characterized the first phase, and which
failed to include diverse stakeholder interests, objectives,
and voices. These differences significantly reduced the
intensity of participation and its concomitant social
impacts. The study finds that the work of facilitators was
embedded in a larger shift in organizational priorities
within the project, which in turn was responding to a shift
in the political climate.
Citation
“Majumdar, Shruti; Rao, Vijayendra; Sanyal, Paromita. 2017. On the Frontlines of Scaling-Up: A Qualitative Analysis of Implementation Challenges in a CDD Project in Rural India. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8039. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26478 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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