0 Comments IWMI-Tata Blog is now live!

The IWMI-Tata Program blog recently went online. Check it out here. The blog has been created with the objective of widely sharing the 2012 series of IWMI-Tata Highlights and Comments.

ITP Highlights and Comments pre-publications discussion papers developed primarily as the basis for discussion during the Annual Partners' Meet. In the run-up to the forthcoming Annual Partners’ Meet at the Institute of Rural Management Anand (28th-30th Nov), ITP will post more than 30 such discussion papers, 8 of which are already online.

Please visit the ITP blog for regular updates on new material posted. You can also subscribe to the blog by registering your email address on the blog or by sending an email to iwmitata@gmail.com.

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0 Comments Ramon Magsaysay Award for Deep Joshi

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.

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0 Comments Google for Non-Profits…

Another Google innovation, a toolkit for Non-Profits with a simple yet catchy punch line, “You're changing the world. We want to help.”

Google for Non-Profits is a bundle of Google products and services that non-profit organizations around the world can use to enhance their “business” of development. The bundle includes: Google Grants (a non-profit version of Google Ad Words); Google Checkout (to collect online donations); Google Analytics (to understand how users interact with your website); Google Maps & Earth; YouTube; and Google Apps (GMail, Docs, Sites and Calendar). Click on the image links below for tutorials for non-profits.

Here’s a small video that provides a testimonial from a small non-profit organization about the impact of deploying the Google for Non-Profits bundle of products and services.

Unfortunately, some of these services are only available in the US but hopefully, Google is working towards extending these services to every corner of the world.

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