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Women, Wisdom and Well Being: Documentation, Dissemination, Value Addition and Networking of Knowledge System of Women (Phase-III) Background: |
| SRISTI was set up in 1993 to provide institutional support to Honey Bee, a network of Grassroots innovators, activists, policy makers and others. The network was launched by a few individual volunteers in 1989 who strongly believed in the strength of creativity and innovations of local people. Over the last six years, SRISTI has succeeded in making a significant impact at both micro and macro levels within and outside the country. Recently, it helped the Government of India set up a national foundation for scouting, disseminating, value addition and scaling up of grassroots innovations with an initial funding of Rs 20 crores (US $ 5 million). On a smaller scale, GIAN (Gujarat Grassroots Innovations Augmentation Network), a similar initiative, was launched by Government of Gujarat State in January 1997 as a follow up of the International Conference on Creativity and Innovation at Grassroots organized by IIM-A. Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) acknowledged the collaboration with SRISTI in mobilizing resources from Technopreneurial Promotion Program (TePP) to scale up the grassroots innovations through GIAN. We greatly acknowledge the financial support provided by IDRC, Canada in supporting various activities which led to such major policy interventions at state as well as national levels. While taking initiatives for generating incentives for conservation and augmentation of biodiversity and other natural resources, some weaknesses have indeed remained in our work. This proposal seeks to overcome these gaps. One major area of limitation has been the documentation of a small number of innovations by women. SRISTI supported the first post-graduate thesis on innovations by women and guided more than one hundred undergraduate theses on documenting local ecological and technological knowledge of women (see Box 1). However, little has been done to recognize or disseminate this information, add value to women’s innovations or to reach out to women innovators. |
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BOX 1: Results from undergraduate theses work undertaken by the students of Mahila Gram Vidyapith, Nardipur from Phase I & II: Animal management, health and nutrition are areas where women play an important role, in contrast to the institutional aspects of animal husbandry, which are mainly associated with males. For instance, price fixation and partnerships in livestock management, local or indigenous animal cure experts (though female experts are known to exist) are areas in which males play an important part. Regular feeding of animals, feeding of calves, care of pregnant animals, storage of fodder, milk products and housing are associated with women. The work of the students has led to a sharp identification of these areas, and to a greater awareness about the division of areas of expertise between men and women. This will help in identifying the less-recognized contribution of women who may be experts in ‘male’ areas, for instance, curative knowledge. A second feature is that most of the areas associated with men do not involve regular transactions, but they do involve financial control and decisions, exercise of recognized ‘expertise’ and wide social interaction, all of which carry a certain power and prestige. For instance, partnerships, selection of animals and breeding stock are undertaken only during specific seasons of the year, or when there is a need, but involve dealing with a wide range of people like intermediaries, people from other villages etc. On the other hand, feeding of animals and caring for unproductive or pregnant animals involve regular, local and systematic involvement and a higher degree of manual labour. Discussion of these issues during the study, at the villages, has led to a better recognition of the need to incorporate women’s perceptions of, and insights into, those areas which are not regularly handled. The fact that women students have been studying areas which in practice are perceived as ‘male’ (for instance, monetary transactions in animal husbandry) has itself served to highlight the gender-related identity of certain areas of knowledge. Similar exercises in other institutions and other streams of knowledge, that may be undertaken under the proposed project, may serve to highlight the gendered nature of knowledges and the valorization of some at the expense of others. This issue is particularly relevant in the light of the Nardipur study’s emphasis on the empowerment of the deprived and on recognizing alternative knowledge systems as sources for curricular reorientation. (See Appendix 1 for details on specific areas of knowledge identifed by a sample of the theses.)
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This proposal aims to expand some of the on-going activities of SRISTI to address these gaps and to provide institutional support to new initiatives taken up by policy makers and other network members at a national level with particular focus on gender based approach to knowledge, innovations and practices for conservation. During Phase I (IKIN) and II (GISNRM), SRISTI achieved many tangible outputs including the development of the world’s largest database on grassroots innovations, establishment of a strong network of local versions of Honey Bee newsletter to disseminate innovations, development of sustainable technologies for agriculture and non-farm activities, transfer of three veterinary medicines to a private company for generating resources for strengthening work with local communities, development of an indigenous herbal veterinary kit for four ailments by pooling knowledge of 32 local farmers, development and large scale trials of two herbal pesticides and two growth regulators, establishment of GIAN for scaling up of innovations etc. We have honoured more than 100 innovators as well as students from all over the country. We also provided financial assistance to several of them for continuing their research. The work of SRISTI in collaboration with IIM-A on IPRs has been recognised at international level by the CBD (Convention on Biological Diversity) and WIPO, as well as at the national level as key participants in the National Biodiversity Working Group. Several successful workshops, conferences and seminars were arranged to disseminate the participatory approaches developed by SRISTI to learn and build upon indigenous knowledge systems. Results are explained in more detail in the proposal as well as the progress reports form the second phase. One limitation of this phase was, as said above, that we could not document, disseminate and add value to the innovations developed by women innovators on a large scale. Though we have consciously changed our strategies and methodology to reach women innovators for last few years, much more needs to be done. This proposal is aimed at correcting some of our limitations and replicating some of the successful experiences in other regions. The establishment of the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) by Government of India presents a unique opportunity to influence gender aspects of the development of this program and related policies, as well as replicating experiences and innovations at a national level. The proposal is divided into three parts: I) documentation of women’s knowledge and innovations of biodiverse plant resources; II) conservation, sustainable management and enhancement of biodiverse resources; and III) knowledge networking. Specific objectives, expected outputs, lessons learned from the previous phases, methodology, activities to be pursued and indicators of evaluation for each module are explained in the proposal. SRISTI plans to provide institutional support to the new National Innovation Foundation (NIF) during this phase with the aim that gradually it will take over the responsibility of some of the activities like documentation and dissemination at national level at the end of the project. Society then will have to judge whether to force us to move in more and more commercial direction to become self sustainable or continue taking risks, and pursue uncharted knowledge and action territories which may need external funding on an ongoing basis. Unless corpus contribution can be raised in the meanwhile, this dilemma will remain with us for some time. Administrative Information: Research Leader: Anil K Gupta Professor, Indian Institute of Management and Co-ordinator, Honey Bee Network & SRISTI
Postal Address: Indian Institute of Management Vastrapur, Ahmedabad-380015 Gujarat, INDIA Fax: 91-79-6306896 Tel: 91-79-6307241 (O) E.mail: anilg@iimahd.ernet.in Homepage: http://csf.colorado.edu/sristi/ Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) Vastrapur Ahmedabad-380015 Gujarat, INDIA
2. Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions (SRISTI) Post Box: 15050 Ahmedabad- 380015 Gujarat, INDIA
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Project Administration This is a collaborative research project between IIMA and SRISTI. Prof. Gupta will be the co-ordinator from both the organizations Programme Details: Introduction: The role of women in survival of disadvantaged households in high risk environments is well recognised. However, what is less well noticed and appreciated is the inventive and innovative contribution women make in coping with the stress, conserving diversity and using natural resources and pursuing off-farm enterprises. Literature on action research and other projects on biodiversity conservation as well as rural development demonstrates a serious lack of attention to the local knowledge systems and grassroots innovations. In marginal environments, given the limited scope for local employment, large number of families experience emigration of mainly male members. This results in preponderance of women headed or managed households in such regions. The experience of several women based NGOs such as SEWA (Self Employed Women Association) shows that among women the one with young children or of advanced age suffer more than others while eking out their survival. Our earlier studies have documented three kinds of coping strategies: household level (intra household, inter household); collective activities; and reliance on public relief or other employment activities. Within each of these, depending upon the resource in question, a variety of survival strategies are evolved. Most of these work sub-optimally given limited access to factor and product markets. In this project, our focus is to identify the creative and innovative ways in which women have tried to cope with various stresses individually or collectively and through technological or institutional solutions while conserving biodiversity and other related natural resources. In some cases we will induce innovations through existing network of innovators. Traditionally, blacksmithy and carpentry were not professions pursued by women. Innovations requiring these skills suffered either because the traditional male artisans did not pay adequate attention to women’s problems or women themselves did not articulate the limitations of the existing technologies. In either case, the inefficiency and consequent inequity continued. We propose therefore to harness not only the innovations that women have already developed but also forge experimental groups to collectively brainstorm on creative ways of solving continuing problems. We also realize the need for an active dialogue between the women and the men innovators. And, just as in the earlier phase, we recognized the limitation of the institutional scientists in responding to the needs and concerns of grassroots innovators, we anticipate continued challenges in the coming phase. The project proposes to create knowledge networks of women and men innovators in such a way that cultural barriers to articulation, value addition and dissemination of women based innovations are overcome through effective and innovative mediating strategies. Many times struggles for overcoming stresses in one place and time do not eliminate the similar struggles elsewhere. The replication of innovations may be facilitated by the multimedia, multi level, multi node and multi language knowledge network. However, this will not be sufficient; policy and institutional changes are also needed. Project results will be specifically packaged and targeted to reach policy makers at multiple levels. In-house capacity building both of SRISTI staff and of innovators is essential for the ongoing sustainability of SRISTI. We need to plan this aspect of our portfolio systematically during this phase of the project to ensure that staff have opportunities for short term training programmes within and outside the country. Goal: To scout, document and encourage primarily grassroots woman innovators (but also others) to augment their knowledge systems to conserve biodiversity and other natural resources and generate sustainable livelihood options. Specific Objectives:
Programme Design and Plan: The research program designed to achieve above goals is explained in following three components.
I) Documentation of Women’s indigenous knowledge system Key results of Phase I & II: The most outstanding achievements of the phase I & II were the successful establishment of the local versions of the Honey Bee and development of unique database on grassroots innovations. More than 9000 innovative practices from different parts of the world are registered in this database with name and addresses of the innovators. The contribution of the project in developing methodology for scouting and documentation of innovations for participatory learning has received recognition at global level. Information about knowledge, innovations and practices was shared very widely through local language versions and various other media across the language, regional and cultural boundaries. Government of India is also actively considering the proposal on INDIA Innovates - a television serial of 26 episode on national television. We have also developed a prototype of multi-media database on creativity and innovations. One of the limitations of both the phases was that we could document very few innovations developed by women. Hence, the main focus of this next phase will be to scout, document and disseminate women’s indigenous knowledge system. In addition, the process and methodologies used will be documented and evaluated. Specific Objectives:
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Activities and Methodology: SRISTI and Honey Bee Network have extensive experience in developing location specific methodology for scouting and documentation of innovations. However, we are changing our strategy to scout women innovators as earlier approaches have not been so effective in reaching women innovators. We would use those approaches developed during phase I & II with some modifications. These approaches include: (i) Survey of odd balls through girl students of Gram vidyapiths and innovators. (ii) Organizing competition for scouting of innovations among students of rural vidyapiths, grassroots functionaries of various government departments and development workers various NGOs. (iii) Organizing Sodh-Yatras (a walk in rural areas) for 10-15 days. (iv) Setting up stalls in various religious, agricultural and educational fairs. (v) Organizing biodiversity contests in schools. (vi) organizing workshops and travelling seminars. (vii) scanning of old literature. (viii) dissertation through under graduate women students etc. Through this next phase, we will draw upon these methods and adapt them to more gender sensitive approaches, as well as investigating new approaches that we plan to use for exploring creativity of women could include:
State-wide searches for women's innovations will be launched with the help of self-help women groups supported by various programmes implemented by NGOs like SEWA and other government agencies. Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh State Governments have already showed interest in organizing such a state-wide conference through their functionaries. This phase will encourage innovators to launch a self sustained movement for scouting innovators in society. It will also provide capacity building support to innovators to upgrade their skill for scouting documentation of innovations. An emphasis will be placed on improved understanding of women’s knowledge of local germplasm of vegetable crops, less known uncultivated food and medicinal plants. This information will be collected along with the cultivation practices followed by women in their homestead gardens, farm boundaries, and marginal environments. A catalogue of seeds and other propagating material of these plants will be developed in local language and distributed widely to encourage the exchange of germplasm. SRISTI will promote the understanding of these local innovations the formal educational curricula. Girl students of various under-graduate as well as graduate schools will be encouraged to write their theses on various aspects of women's indigenous knowledge system. SRISTI has already guided more than 125 undergraduate theses written by girl students of a rural college based on Gandhian principles of education. Building on this momentum, we will try to involve more educational institutions that are offering graduate courses for women in home science, agriculture, and rural studies. Systematic case studies of some of women innovators will be pursued to study the diversity existing in their ecological, technological and institutional knowledge related to use of uncultivated foods, recipes, human and animal health, medicinal plants, crafts and other non-farm enterprises. Notably, in previous SRISTI activities, we have found that the process of public recognition of these innovators is invaluable, in terms of both actively disseminating the innovative technologies or knowledge, and also of raising the person’s self-worth. Special attention will be given to activities which recognize the value of the innovations – and especially the innovator. Dissemination of innovations developed by women innovators will be conducted through community outreach, various publications, computer database, various media programmes like India Innovate (a TV serial), radio, and a mobile museum of innovations. Opportunities for value addition to some of these innovations will be explored as outlined in the next component. One innovative approach to documenting children’s ecological knowledge was the biodiversity contest in schools. On a particular day children bring plant specimens, and during the contest make a list of the plants and their uses that they know about. After quizzing them about their knowledge, a panel of judges award prizes to the best children. Such contests improve the interaction between the children and their elders. Notably, however, there was less participation of girls and differential knowledge among the two genders. Education policy can reverse these two trends: erosion of localk knowledge systems and the associated resources, and a widening gender gap in biodiversity knowledge. One SRISTI staff member is exploring these issues in more detail through doctoral studies and in particular understanding the various instruments and incentives that can encourage youth to sustain their interest in conservation and reproduction of both natural resources and associated local knowledge systems. Local knowledge needs to be integrated into formal schooling, and pedagogical processes and methods in schools systems need to address gender differentials.
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OBJECTIVE |
ACTIVITIES |
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1. To develop and implement new methods and approaches for the documentation and dissemination of women’s knowledge and innovations of biodiverse resources
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SRISTI will employ a range of methodologies to engage in the activities above and will work directly with SEWA (Self Employed Women’s Association) to scout local women’s knowledge and innovations regarding biodiversity. Significant attempts will be made by SRISTI, and in collaboration with other women’s organizations, to identify creative approaches to reach, identify, and support the documentation of women’s knowledge, practices, and innovations related to the sustainable management of biodiversity. There is a dirth of information on methods and materials in this regard, especially in the South Asian context, and the approach and methods used will be documented by SRISTI, perhaps in a methods ‘manual’ or multi-media product. Likewise, linkages are being forged with other women groups in hills and plains of UP and Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, etc. SRISTI will also work with a group of women teachers to assist in the process of dealing with documentation of women’s knowledge and practices. Thus while the women teachers themselves will reflect on their own practices, individuals will provide nodal points to organize women innovations in their respective regions. Outputs: We expect following outputs at the end of the project: a) Publications (textual as well as in electronic form (CD ROM )) in English and two other regional languages on various aspects of women's indigenous knowledge system. b) A multi media as well as text based database highlighting grassroots women's innovations. c) Report (multi-media and/or text based) on innovative methods and approaches for the documentation and dissemination of women’s knowledge and innovations of biodiverse resources in India. Indicators of Evaluation: 1) Percentage of women's innovations documented in the database during next phase. 2) A self sustaining network of innovators for documenting and disseminating grassroots innovations developed in collaboration of scientists, students, NGOs, educational institutions and Government programmes (Two to three years is too short a time to evaluate sustainability, but efforts will still be made). II. Conservation, sustainable management and enhancement of biodiverse resources. In high-risk regions, the number of women managed households is high as emigration of males from these regions is very high. Most of these women depend on natural resources like common grazing lands, non-timber forest products like gum, amla and medicinal plants collected from the common forest or other lands. Sustainability of these resources is crucial for supporting the livelihoods of women managed houses. It is obvious that women have developed technological as well as institutional innovations about use, conservation and maintenance of these natural resources. Conservation of natural resources is very difficult unless the knowledge about these resource is conserved. In phase I & II of the IDRC project, allocation of resources and efforts were concentrated more on documentation and dissemination of innovations in comparison to adding value to these innovations. Though it was an appropriate strategy to begin with, there is a great need to intensify value addition research to increase benefit to local users. Exchange of information becomes meaningful and sustainable when new value is added to it at every stage of the process through research. Continuous incorporation of new ideas, thoughts and initiatives is important for generating contemporary innovations. Notably, scientists, extension agencies, policy makers and funding institutions have placed little resources in the development and dissemination of low cost technologies especially required by women for various agricultural and non-farm activities. For instance, the design of the pulley used for drawing water from open wells has not changed over hundreds of years in spite of a significant reduction in ground water table in rural areas. Great potential exists to develop new technologies by building upon indigenous knowledge system for sustainable extraction of natural resources as well as non-farm enterprises managed by women. This phase will focus on developing energy efficient user friendly technologies for various sectors being managed predominantly by women in high risk regions. Sometimes simple characterization of natural products may add value to them by either generating new demand or meeting existing demand in a cost effective way. For instance, most of the farm products in dryland regions are natural or organic by default. It could be because of various reasons like low response of dryland crops to external chemical inputs, lack of input intensive technology, inability to afford inorganic inputs or superior eco-ethics of not killing the pest and disturbing eco-systems etc. In dry land regions women are trying hard to add value to their local products by processing, packaging etc., so that the maximum return can be achieved on whatever little surplus they have. For instance, dried `ber', `ryan', edible gum, pickles of various less known fruits like `kerda', `billi' etc. Most of the raw materials being used are chemical free because these are brought from their unirrigated farm land or harvested from the forest. Certifying or labelling such products as organic or eco-friendly may help in fetching higher prices in the niche markets and may encourage farmers to conserve their unique eco-systems even at the lower level of production.
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Output of the Phase I & II: Some of the milestones achieved during this phase are as under: i) Several technologies were developed with the help of innovative artisans and entrepreneurs for rural women, for instance; two models of pulley which requires less energy and has provision of taking rest while drawing water, a simple device to fill nursery bags for raising seedlings. ii) A herbal kit for various animal diseases, special feed for increasing milk production were developed with help of innovators and local entrepreneurs. iii) Two low cost herbal pesticides and two growth promoters were developed for various insect pest and diseases in cotton and other crops. iv) On-farm and on station as well as laboratory experiments are under progress to validate some of the innovative practices and also to develop alternative pesticides and growth regulators, veterinary and human drugs. v) Three formulations of veterinary drugs were developed and transferred to a private company for scaling up with a royalty sharing agreement. vi) A variety developed by Thakarshibhai Savaliya - an innovative farmer from Saurashtra is being evaluated under all India co-ordinated trials by ICAR, Some of the technologies and products developed by SRISTI have been transferred to GIAN (Gujarat Grassroots Innovations Augmentation Network) for further scaling up through commercial or non-commercial channels in close collaboration with Government of Gujarat. In addition, a significant outcome of the first phase of the project was the Gyan Vana (Knowledge Forest) - an innovative initiative concept for in-situ conservation of local biodiversity and germ plasma. In Gyan Vana primary importance is given to the dissemination and conservation of knowledge about various species. All the information about cultivation, use, propagation, cultural practices about sixty local species was collected from people in that regions as well as formal science and displayed on the boards placed near each species in the Gyan Vana. We have also collected local germ plasm of cereals, vegetables and other less known food crops from various parts of the Gujarat. Catalogues are being developed to encourage the exchange of seeds among farmers. We have organised several biodiversity contests in various primary and secondary schools to facilitate intergenerational transfer of knowledge. This also helps in evolving local village agenda for the conservation of local biodiversity. Specific objectives: II) To support technological and institutional solutions to support women to sustainably manage biodiverse resources, including the validation, characterization, improvisation, and scaling up of innovations/technologies used by women. Activities and Methodology: Various technologies for sustainable extraction and adding value to raw products may reduce the pressure on natural resources. For instance, people are using normally water based crude extract for preparing herbal medicines. If a new of method or solvent for extracting active ingredient from raw plant parts can be developed, it can reduce the requirement of raw material. Also, in the absence of lack of technology for collecting gum from the tree trunk, lots of dried gum gets lost either before collecting or during collection operation. Many times such practices destroy the resource itself. Technological solutions developed for preventing loss of gum while collection and harvesting will reduce the pressure on gum producing trees. On-station and laboratory experiments will be conducted with the help of various scientific institutions like Gujarat Agricultural University, Gujarat University, South Gujarat University, CSIR and various state agriculture Universities. In collaboration with All India Coordinated Research projects on various crops launched by ICAR, efforts will be made to organise multi location research trials on various crop specific technologies such as variety developed and or cultivated by women farmers. Such trials will not only help in improvising the technologies developed by farmers but would also help in boosting the morale of farmers to innovate new things. A network of experimenting farmers (Sodh-sankal) will be activated to take up on-farm experiments on farmers' innovative practices. Gender as well as regional balance will be maintained in the selection of practices as well as farmers for on-farm research. Special emphasis will be given on technologies required by women such as pulley, animal feeds and fodder, veterinary medicine etc. Exchange visit of experimenting men and women farmers will be organized in Gujarat, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Brain storming workshops and consultations will be organized to identify technological gaps, preferences and other constraints related to technologies developed or used by women. Time bound research projects will be developed for fulfilling those needs. Technical as well as financial support will be provided to innovators as well as scientists to pursue research problems in collaboration with women innovators and clients. Women innovators will be encouraged to take up such challenges and institutional support will be provided to them. Improved understanding is needed of what are the optimal conditions for women to take up innovations as well as identifying barriers and constraints. An innovation promotion fund will be set up for women innovators and entrepreneurs for experimentation, adoption and scaling up of new technologies. Linkage between innovators, entrepreneurs and investors is very important for setting up of self-sustaining model of technology development as well as dissemination. This promotion fund will nurture such linkages for the technologies required by rural women. On-going research in some of the R & D institutions will be analysed from the perspective of gender. The outcome of the gender sensitive participatory research approaches will be communicated to research managers, policy makers and scientists. Different types of incentives like benefit sharing through royalty, trust funds, honours and award will be developed through action research. Experience of previous phases in this regard will be very valuable. Efforts will be made to set up a system of honouring and rewarding women innovators (already we have been doing this at small scale). Non-material incentives for women may include opportunity of networking with others of their kind, honour with `sristi samman’, literature in local language for literate members of innovators network, multi-media data base for illiterate women through kiosks (to be set up through Infodev project recently sanctioned by Infodev division of World Bank), and filing of patents in their name.
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OBJECTIVES |
ACTIVITIES |
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2. To support technological and institutional solutions to support women to sustainably manage biodiverse resources, including the validation, characterization, improvisation, and scaling up of innovations/ technologies used by women. |
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OUTPUTS: 1) On-farm experiments will be conducted on at least 25 innovative practices of farmers, with an emphasis given to women’s innovations. 2) Energy efficient low cost technologies like pulley for drawing water, scraper for collecting gum, processing technology for preparing animal feeds will be developed and/or diffused to reduce the drudgery of women. 3) Value added products like four herbal pesticides, two growth regulators and four herbal kits for various animals diseases will be developed and transferred to GIAN and other NGOs as well as entrepreneurs for decentralized testing before scaling them up for wider use. |
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1.New models of gender sensitive benefit sharing will be developed.
Indicators of evaluation: 1) Number of women innovators involved in on-farm experimentation and technology development process. 2) Number of technologies developed and disseminated for meeting the technological need of rural women . 3) A system for ensuring quality of various value added products produced by women entrepreneurs. 4) Feedback from communities about various gender sensitive models of incentives experimented and developed during the project. III. Knowledge Networking: Several useful insights for converting innovations into final technology and products were learned during the last two phases of the projects. A network of innovators, scientists and entrepreneurs based on the strengths of both formal and informal knowledge systems has emerged. This will expedite generation of sustainable technologies in both the knowledge systems and may even extend the frontier of sciences in some cases. Through the Honey Bee Network, whatever we learn from the people is, as a matter of principle, shared back with them in their own language. Hence large number of small farmers, artisans and pastoralists in dryland, hilly, flood prone regions will get value-added information about sustainable technologies. Attempts will be made to highlight the achievements of women innovators to influence policy makers to provide conducive policy environment and other support to them. Capacity building programmes will be organised for grassroots innovators so that they can organise and network themselves to bring policy change. If a separate budget can be mobilised, an international workshop in 2002 on Women's Indigenous Knowledge Systems will be organised to influence policy makers and scientists. Capacity building of SRISTI staff as well as grassroots innovators is very important for developing second line of leadership to sustain such initiatives in future. This project will provide financial support to colleagues to attend capacity building programmes, in particular pursuing PhD or Master programmes for improving their skill and knowledge as described in Section 1. Some of the grassroots innovators who will be sharing responsibility of SRISTI administration and research in future would also use some of these resources for their capacity building to support this cause. The role of SRISTI as a fountainhead of new initiatives, innovations and institutions will continue to exist and expand.
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3. To promote dialogue and linkages between women, men, scientists, entrepreneurs and innovators |
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Summing up This phase is specifically focused on women innovators. It will help them to solve various problems faced by women innovators, entrepreneurs and self help groups in the process of earning their livelihood. The policy support and attention from peers as well as civil society will bring them self respect and in their own knowledge system and natural resource base. The project also aims to influence young generation to acquire skills and knowledge from their parents, relatives and society about sustainable natural resource management. This will help in keeping the ethics of experimentation and conservation alive in the society. Another group of beneficiaries includes individuals and institutions that are the members of the network and are involved in research and development work in biological sciences. The policy changes triggered by the project will help knowledge-rich, economically poor people in so called backward areas. It will also facilitate linkages between innovators, entrepreneurs and investors thus may contribute to local economy. The findings of the research will also be included in the educational curricula. The proposed project will also help in capacity building of the staff and other volunteers involved with the SRISTI. The success of the programme depends on mutually reinforcing effects of all the components as they are organically linked with each other. It is impossible to draw a very sharp line between the activities proposed under different components of the project as they complement each other. As it is apparent from the goals set for each component, we are quite ambitious, as was the case in earlier two phases. It is quite possible that we may not achieve similar success on all counts. However, the experience of achievements in the earlier two phases indicates that policy and implementation impact at national and international level is likely to be substantial. As it is well known, despite millions of dollars having been spent on women development activities, their knowledge richness has not still become the fundamental building block of the development processes. This project intends to make a dent on this situation.
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