Deep Joshi, co-founder of PRADAN (Professional Assistance for Development Action), has been selected for the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award 2009. 
for his vision and leadership in bringing professionalism to the NGO movement in India, by effectively combining ‘head’ and ‘heart’ in the transformative development of rural communities.
I think recognizing Deep’s efforts and more importantly, the exceptional approach adopted by PRADAN to “development” is simply wonderful. I have had the privilege of working with Deep when I was working for the IWMI-Tata Water Policy Program (ITP) in India and I have always admired him not just for his intellectual and professional qualities but also for his humility and approachability.
My first association with Deep was in 2003 via the Central India Initiative (CInI) – a collaborative action-research program – the seeds for which were sown by a concept note penned by Deep. 
CInI was one of the highlights of my work at ITP and the research results were published in the form of a book titled “Mainstreaming the Margins: Water-Centric Livelihood Strategies for Revitalizing Tribal Agriculture in Central India”. (Click here to read more about the book).
The research initiative ended in 2005 but it became the cornerstone of Sir Ratan Tata Trust’s ‘Rural Livelihoods and Communities’ portfolio. ITP hosted and incubated a dedicated CInI Cell, which is now working as an independent nodal agency for CInI projects in the tribal belt of central India.
In 2005, Deep was a member of the three-member team – along with Jacob Burke (FAO) and Ravi Chopra (People’s Science Institute) – that reviewed the work of the IWMI-Tata Water Policy Program. During an informal interaction with some of us, Deep and Ravi went down the memory lane and talked about their days as young students at MIT. I never imagined “evaluations” could be so much fun! Click here for the full evaluation report; and here’s an excerpt from the summary on CInI.
The research studies and reviews fashioned as Central India Initiative (CInI) have extended research into the water-livelihoods nexus (and more generally, the management of natural resources-livelihoods nexus) as it affects the tribal communities, largely ignored by policies and action. This presents an opportunity for breaking new ground in both conceptual and policy terms, affecting some of the poorest and socially most vulnerable people in the country and a large geographic region.
Anyway, a well deserved award for Deep and for PRADAN, and an excellent choice made by the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation. Here’s the complete citation for Deep and the list of awardees.
