Feedback Loops in JEEViKA

JEEViKA is a large community driven development project in Bihar, India. This project is managed by the Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society (BRLPS) an autonomous body of the Government of Bihar and funded by the World Bank Group. In 2007, JEEViKA began operations in 6 blocks (sub county levels) of 6 districts (county level) by mobilizing impoverished rural women into a hierarchical system of community based organizations. Today, JEEViKA is operating across all 38 districts in Bihar. Recently, JEEViKA deployed an integrated Decision Support System (DSS) to inform the project’s stakeholders about progress and problems. Key business processes of the project are recorded on paper; some of those paper records are digitized in the DSS. The DSS is designed with a feedback loop that can translate the data into easy, usable information for stakeholders (particularly staff and community members who are in charge of ensuring quality of service on the ground).
To understand how the DSS works, we first need to understand the institutional structure of JEEViKA, including the community level institutions. JEEViKA’s headquarters (SPMU) designs the policies, the district offices (DPCU) coordinate the rollout of interventions in all 38 district and the block offices (BPIU) implements the project in all 534 blocks of rural Bihar. Interventions in every block starts within some villages, by mobilizing women into new Self Help Groups (SHG). Once about 10 to 15 SHGs form in every village, they are federated into a Village Organization (VO). After 30 to 40 VOs form in a region, they are federated into a Cluster Level Federation (CLF).

The following graphic demonstrates how one can broadly categorize JEEViKA into two hierarchical pyramids, along with the relationship between the two.

All levels in the project pyramid are staffed with professionals on the payroll of the project; State/District/Block Project Managers provide the organizational leadership at the relevant levels. Each level in the community pyramid has a rotating panel of leaders chosen from the members. Additionally, each BPIU employs Area Coordinators (AC) and Community Coordinators (CC), to provide management consultancy to CLFs and VOs respectively.

We also need to explore some details of a universal intervention of JEEViKA, to understand the responsibilities at every level in either pyramid to ensure smooth operations. Initial Capitalization Fund (ICF) is the seed money provided by JEEViKA to new SHGs, after they maintain some performance parameters. In a mature block, all fresh ICF envelopes are awarded to CLFs; each CLF disburses loans to VOs, which in turn leverage the amount to lend to SHGs, and finally members. The following graphic illustrates the flow of ICF in a mature block.

Loans are repaid (or supposed to be repaid!) according to the repayment schedule between a member and her SHG, along with interest. Similar schedules exist between an SHG and its VO, and a VO and its CLF. The interest accrued at every level contributes to the income at that level. Once repayments are realized, institutions can repay to the level above and (subject to repayments being on schedule) create fresh lines of credit to the level below. Thus, JEEViKA attempts to build a cycle of credit to address the needs of all members subject to proper realisation of repayments; so that over time, institutions become financially sustainable.

We are now in a position to place ourselves in a position to manage the flow of ICF through JEEViKA’s institutions, and think through the information needed to do a proper job. But consider the challenge here. An ICF envelope for a SHG is about 50000 Rs, or about 800 USD. Given the scale of operations in a mature block, an average CLF needs to track 330,000 USD of ICF across 35 VOs, 450 SHGs and 6000 members. This money is distributed across 3 broad entities, each of whom may have borrowed (and repaid) a different amount. The outstanding principal and interest need to be tracked, so that the incoming funds can be leveraged as fresh credit to other institutions and beneficiaries. Without a clear idea about the performance and delinquincies across all the entities, ensuring smooth performance of ICF is impossible, even at any level in the project pyramid. When one remembers that the management in the community pyramid comprises of a low literacy population, the chances of an institution to stay financially viable is insignificant in the absence of information.

The broad requirements are:
1. Institutions that should have received ICF, but have not received it.
2. Institutions that should have disbursed ICF after receiving it, but have not disbursed loans.
3. Institutions that should have repaid ICF according to a schedule, but have not paid the instalments.
4. Institutions that are not rotating out the repaid amounts as fresh loans.
5. Finally, a progress indicator to see how many dollars have been leveraged by an institution, for every dollar it received from the level above.

We consider the video below to see how JEEViKA’s Decision Support System informs all levels of the project on the first point; that is, we use the DSS to identify institutions where ICF should be sent on a priority basis.