Philanthropy

Azim Premji Foundation​’s grant making agency, Philanthropy, works with more than 80 partner organisations to strengthen Local Democracy in India through two approaches: 

  1. Local Democracy Approach: The broad engagement approach under Local Democracy is to work with the Gram Sabha, the CBOs and the elected representative body of the Gram Panchayat together with local youth.
  2. Welfare Approach: To strengthen last mile delivery of welfare schemes (rights and entitlements) to vulnerable communities from the perspective of citizens’ rights.

Outcomes:

Local Democracy: 

  • Through current active grants and through our partners-
  • Reached 1131 GPs across 44 blocks of 35 Districts in 10 states engaging ~ 3.9 million people
  • Worked closely with 15k+ elected panchayat members (with focus on women elected representatives)
  • Regularised 900 + standing committees (meetings) and functioning of these committees improved
  • 1500+ Village Development Plans facilitated where decentralised planning took place with a focus on the needs of the vulnerable sections of the communities.
  • ~ 5k community leaders (with a special emphasis on women and youth) identified and groomed. Many of them who fought panchayat elections have won.
  • The narrative building (video documentaries) work through the CLD has been quite useful for CSO functionaries, bureaucracy and have been watched in relevant training programmes regularly.

Welfare:

  • The current active grants have targeted to reach more than 450k households (~ 2.0 million citizens (This includes the Jharkhand LD-Welfare grants) from most vulnerable communities and facilitating them to access welfare entitlements (including access to work under NREGA) from 2578 villages of 635 GPs in 68 blocks of 51 districts across 9 states. Our grants covered the following areas-
  • Partners and members of the foundation got technical understanding of gaps for exclusion, gaps in end-to-end delivery mechanisms. It has helped partners delineate grassroots engagement strategies and helped us curate Welfare grants more pragmatically.
  • Foundation has supported a network of CSOs in Rajasthan (SR Abhiyan) to train and deploy resource persons to engage with social audits and NREGA. A similar intervention is now designed with a consortium of CSOs in Karnataka to train MGNREGA mates. The CSO networks are working in collaboration with the state governments.

Latest News

Civil Society campaigns for strengthening PRIs in Jharkhand

In Jharkhand, the Azim Premji Foundation is supporting 32 Civil Society Organisations working in 232 GPs to strengthen Local Democracy and welfare rights of citizens.

  • Foundation team based in Ranchi trained 65 Master Trainers from the partners who have trained and mobilized 500 Panchayat Facilitators to support in Gram Sabha strengthening, facilitate GPDP process and to promote entitlements and welfare rights. Lots of tools, protocols, guidelines, processes etc were put in place to brief the partners. 
  • A statewide campaign was conducted (during October 2024 to February 2025), by APF partners, to promote NREGA, Ration and pension etc, especially focusing on the deprived families. Partners decided to initiate this campaign under the banner of Gram Swaraj Abhiyan. 
  • The initiative could make a huge impact as it generated around 50,000 applications for issuing new job cards, application for reinstating deleted cards, application for work demand, ration, pension etc. 
  • For making the campaign successful, Foundation team trained the Master Trainers, Panchayat Facilitators, and the trained partners engaged intensively with the community in their respective area. 3 months long campaigns was organized in all 232 GPs. 
  • APF has initiated workshops with partners and the community representatives who have shared their experience and challenges in ensuring work demand of the villagers who are seeking 100 days-jobs. The programme was attended by the Hon’ble Minister for Panchayati Raj and Rural Development, Ms Deepika Pandey Singh.
  • The partners have also shared recommendations to make the MGNREGS effective for the citizens who need it most.
  • The Minister, Ms Singh, was quite happy to accept the recommendations and agreed on the following:
  1. She has promised to make the GP secretariat and CSC functional 
  2. To operationalize GP level help desks.
  3. She has promised to address the Aadhar card issues linked with entitlements and welfare rights. 
  4. Expressed her interest to visit partners field area to see the work at ground
  5. She has also agreed to continue the dialogue with the CSO partners.