supporting enterprise - RBS · PDF fileRBS FOUNDATION INDIA SUPPORTING ENTERPRISE ANNUAL REPORT | 2013 - 2014 2 As a responsible stakeholder in the community, RBS is
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As a responsible stakeholder in the community, RBS
is keen on making a significant positive impact for
the society. Our focus is to address specific needs of
the underprivileged communities through strategic
engagement initiatives, offering them solutions that
are backed by grants and our skills, enabling them to
be integrated into the mainstream economy.
An excellent reflection of this positive impact is the
work being undertaken by RBS Foundation India. This
report is a testimony to the significant impact on the
community through the Foundation’s work, and
specifically its focus on enterprise development as a
means to facilitate financial inclusion. We firmly
believe that real empowerment provides the
excluded sections of our community the ability to
sustainably change their social and economic
conditions. Through the structured ‘Supporting
Enterprise’ program, the work carried out by RBS
Foundation India has resulted in integrating a
number of households into the mainstream economy
– a feat definitely desirable yet not easily attainable.
Our endeavour is to enable our people to become
active agents of sustainable and equitable
development by leveraging the infrastructure of the
organisation to promote, facilitate and implement
positive change in society. This, complemented
with the motivation of being a socially responsible
business keeps sustainability at the heart of RBS
and is well reflected in our engagement with the
community through RBS Foundation India.
peace by piece
the world is getting smaller
and its breaking into bits.
let’s put it back together.
peace by piece
the puzzle fits.
repairs can all be tended
by the tiniest of friends.
as working all together
peace by piece
the puzzle mends.
- Celia Berrell
message from the
country executiveRBS N.V., IndiaBrijesh Mehra
1
RBS FOUNDATION INDIA
SUPPORTING ENTERPRISE
At RBS, we are very clear on the need to be a
sustainable bank in a sustainable world. We have
defined our sustainability programme to be about
much more than just environmental concerns, as
important as they are.
Economies and communities are being impacted by
a number of truly global trends such as shortage of
resources, environmental damage, population
growth and social inequality. Our efforts now are
therefore to integrate sustainability considerations
into our core processes as a bank, while also leading
the way in developing the communities in which we
operate. We need to ensure that the way we run our
entire business supports the new set of international
targets that will replace the UN’s Millennium
Development Goals.
Our businesses are working on these issues but we
know that many of our employees too are passionate
about promoting the bank's commitment to the
community. This is reflective of the work being
undertaken by RBS Foundation India, who through its
Supporting Enterprise program is encouraging the
economic development of communities as it strives
to include a significant section of the community in
the mainstream economy.
Embodying the RBS’ values of ‘Thinking long term’
and ‘Doing the right thing’, the work of RBS
Foundation India is helping RBS to achieve its goal
of becoming the ‘Most Trusted Bank’ by 2020, and
I commend the Foundation’s work wholeheartedly.
message from the
chief sustainability officerRBS PLCAndrew Cave
I have been fortunate to witness how the ‘Supporting
Enterprise’ program has visibly impacted the
development of communities across rural India. Over
the years, RBS Foundation India has helped create
sustainable livelihoods for over 87,000 households
across hundreds of villages in our country by
partnering with local NGOs and leveraging our
skilled resource-pool of employees who
wholeheartedly support volunteering initiatives like
‘Magic Hands at Work’. With each visit to our
Foundation sites I get to learn more, but more
importantly I see the power of rural India.
I take immense pride in the work that is being done
by RBS Foundation; it reinforces our commitment, as
a socially responsible bank, to our community.
message from the
chairpersonRBS Foundation IndiaPankaj Phatarphod
ANNUAL REPORT | 2013 - 2014 43
RBS FOUNDATION INDIA
SUPPORTING ENTERPRISE 6
ecosystems - the forests, rivers, wetlands, grasslands,
and coral reefs also form the repositories of our
water and food security.
In working towards the sustainability agenda of RBS,
through the ‘Supporting Enterprise’ program, RBS
Foundation India implements several projects that
strive to make the markets work for the community
and environment - India’s natural ecosystems that
are rich in biodiversity and wildlife and of course our
life sustaining water and food sources. As a strategy,
the Foundation adopts a two pronged approach
which begins with the recognition of the inextricable
interlink between such critical ecosystems and the
communities that are dependent on them.
The strategy draws from the findings of the studies
carried out by World Bank, IUCN, MoEF and their
various research and policy documents that
demonstrate how natural resources are not only the
basis of subsistence for these communities but are
crucial for sustained economic growth. Thus,
implementing poverty reduction strategies that work
in tandem with the efforts towards protection and
sustainable management of natural resources is a
logical course in saving such critical ecosystems. A
good analysis of the community dynamics along with
prevalent subsistence practices, existing gaps and
the local supply chain helps us identify key
livelihood interventions and enterprises. This helps
create value chains that are required to reduce their
level of dependence on these ecosystems while still
enhancing their income levels.
The adaptive approach begins with the creation of
community based institutions (Gram Sabhas) that
strive to set up governance around the communities,
their livelihoods and the extent of natural resource
extraction. This is followed by building capacities of
individuals and institutions so as to enable them to
not only adopt the key livelihood interventions
needed to increase their incomes but also to work in
consonance with the state government plans aimed
at enhancing ecosystem, resilience through soil
moisture conservation, reforestation and adoption of
improved agricultural and horticultural practices.
Cumulatively, these projects have touched 87,000
families across the country and managing a program
of this magnitude would not be possible without the
support of willing hands from volunteers through the
‘Magic Hands at Work’ program. In 2013, volunteers
contributed 12070 hours at these project locations
to undertake volunteering work that included
teaching school children, preparing marketing
strategies, finding technical solutions to in-field
problems and gathering baseline, monitoring and
evaluation data by conducting surveys.
Our interactions with volunteers show that the
‘Magic Hands At Work’ programme works in two ways
- it makes a difference to the lives and experiences
of the community and affords the volunteers an
opportunity to offer their time and skill through
structured engagement providing them a window
into the ‘India’ that we do not normally experience at
our workplaces or even our holiday destinations. We
look forward to many more ‘Magic Hands At Work’
volunteers at the ‘Supporting Enterprise’ projects.
“As a financial institution with a strong presence in India, RBS strives to play its part in addressing the key challenges that dominate contemporary Indian society, viz. equitable growth, financial inclusion, women empowerment, environmental and ecological balance among others through its program of ‘Supporting Enterprise’ implemented by RBS Foundation India (RBS FI).”
In the last few decades, the country has seen much
debate between the ‘Greens’ and the ‘Growth’. While
empirical knowledge suggests that economic growth
has to be equitable and tempered with
environmental balance so that such growth can be
sustained for long term, the society is still faced with
the challenge of finding solutions to making the
market work for people and the environment.
The United Nations’ various protocols on
sustainability viz, the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change, UN Convention on
Biological Diversity, UN Millennium Development
Goals etc., emphasise the importance of tropical
forest ecosystems (such as the forests in India) as
major sinks of CO for mitigation of the impacts from 2
global warming, and as major repositories of bio-
resources (plant, fungi, animal that are used in food,
medicines, industry…) which form the bedrock of
economies while recognising the needs of the
community that are directly dependent on them for
food, fuel, fodder and cash incomes. Our natural
message from the
director & headRBS Foundation IndiaN Sunil Kumar
ANNUAL REPORT | 2013 - 20145
RBS FOUNDATION INDIA
SUPPORTING ENTERPRISE
about the foundation . . .
RBS Foundation India Supporting Enterprise
The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is a large
international banking and financial services
company. Headquartered in Edinburgh, RBS serves
over 30 million customers worldwide. As part of its
sustainability mandate, RBS believes in inclusive
growth and demonstrates it by supporting local
communities in the countries in which it operates.
RBS implements several programs to promote
enterprises, with a special focus on livelihood
generation, youth and women.
RBS India in line with the global objectives works
towards economic inclusion for those excluded from
the mainstream economy. By identifying the long
term challenges that are faced by the communities, it
strives to create platforms that would enable
economic empowerment and facilitate social
inclusion. This is carried out through RBS Foundation
India. (Referred as the Foundation in this report.)
In India, our commitment to the communities started
in September 2003 - with the launch of our
MicroFinance business. After three years of lending,
and establishing ourselves as industry leaders in
India, we felt the need to support MicroFinance
Institutes in the under served regions of India i.e.
North and North East. This led to the launch of a
three year MicroFinance Technical Assistance
program wherein 37 small MicroFinance Institutes
were supported, improving their operating
efficiencies, governance, systems and processes thus
enabling them to scale up their operations and
benefit many more lives. The program came to a
successful closure in 2010.
Our interactions with the community helped us
understand that while access to credit is important, it
is not sufficient to eliminate poverty. A poor
household is faced not only with lack of access to
finance, but also lack of access to markets and
technical knowledge to improve production or adopt
ways to improve vocational inefficiencies or simply
even develop an alternative vocation. These issues
are further aggravated for those who live in remote
geographical locations that keeps them away from
mainstream markets and society - primarily forest
dwelling communities that are dependent on natural
resources such as water and forest resources. These
findings led to the launch of the ‘Supporting
Enterprise’ programme in 2007. The aim of the
‘Supporting Enterprise’ programme is to facilitate
enterprise development for those that are
dependent on the resources of the country’s critical
or important ecosystems.
The RBS Foundation India, Annual Report 2013-14 is
a comprehensive representation of the work being
undertaken through the ‘Supporting Enterprise’
programme and its impact on communities we
support.
Why Enterprise?
In the last two decades, India has seen phenomenal
economic growth making it the 10th largest
economy in the world. Economic liberalization,
expansion of service industry, rise in private
consumption and the large working population are
said to be key drivers for the growth. However the
outreach of the economic growth has been skewed;
significantly large portions of the population
continue to remain economically excluded i.e. they
are neither the contributors nor the direct
beneficiaries of the country’s economic growth. For
economic growth to sustain its growth trajectory, the
working age population needs to be economically
active. The excluded population primarily comprises
those who are economically inactive and is
characterised by subsistence means of livelihoods,
lack of access to capital and education.
The Planning Commission in its report of March 2012
on poverty estimates that 29.8% of India’s
population live below poverty line, largely residing
in rural India. The major causes for poverty, both
individuals and communities, are lack of access to
productive assets, markets, financial resources and
technology. High levels of illiteracy, inadequate
health care and limited access to social services
further add to the overall cause. To add to, poverty is
deepest amongst those that depend directly on
natural resources as a means for livelihood. An
interesting pattern emerges when the country’s
forest cover map is superimposed on the poverty
map - there is a significant overlap between poverty
and ecologically important forests landscapes. Rapid
environment degradation, loss of bio diversity and
loss of entitlement to resources further augments
poverty.
The factors impacting poverty are inter related, multi
dimensional and influenced by the diverse socio-
economic factors, resulting in a vicious cycle. Efforts
towards poverty alleviation can be sustainable if
economic inclusion strategies work in tandem with
enterprise development. These should focus on
enhancing production through improved natural
resource management and enabling market access.
Creating financial awareness thus enables them to
manage their thrift profitably, save to manage life
cycle risks and efficiently consume for better quality
of lives. A basket of livelihood activities are needed
to be developed for the household to ensure food
security, regular cash flow and help mitigate the risks
inherent to their livelihoods.
Why support communities dependent on critical
ecosystems?
Our natural capital i.e. land, water, forest, wetland,
coral and other ecosystems along with their
biodiversity and natural resources directly and
indirectly support the foundation of a society and it’s
economy. In India more than a 100 million people
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RBS FOUNDATION INDIA
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are unsustainably dependent on the resources of our
forest and wetland ecosystems. It is a known fact
that the world’s ecosystem is under threat and most
types of natural habitats are showing signs of severe
degradation, thus affecting their ability to deliver the
ecosystem services efficiently. In 2005, the UN
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment found that 60%
of essential ecosystem services are being gradually
degraded or are being used unsustainably. This has
resulted in the incapacity of the ecosystem to
deliver the services, the impact of which is
disproportionately borne by those communities
who are poor and disadvantaged. This decline
also results in barriers to meet the Millennium
Development Goals and poses severe threats for
future generations.
It is therefore imperative to base livelihood
development on strategies that focus on
implementing appropriate natural resource
management practices and help enhance the
ecosystems resilience against the degradation being
imposed on them. Natural resources are the basis of
subsistence in poor communities and their
livelihoods are directly dependent on its
ecosystems. Poverty reduction strategies working in
tandem with the efforts toward protection and
sustainable management of natural resources is
therefore a logical and essential course for
sustainable development.
Our approach
We build our projects on a platform of collaborations
and partnerships between stakeholders, keeping the
community at the core and leveraging resources
from each of the stakeholder to augment enterprise
development. We have learnt that this approach
helps build up community’s ownership for
development and concurrently paves the way for
other developmental needs in a more integrated
manner.
£ At the onset of project design and development
phase, we partner with an NGO having requisite
domain knowledge, subject matter expertise,
experience of establishing Community Based
Organizations (CBOs) and understanding of the
applicable law / policy of the land.
£ Next, a detailed analysis of the prevalent socio-
economic conditions, community needs and
aspirations leads to identification of a set of
income generating interventions that include
both farm and non-farm activities. These are
designed keeping in mind the existing technical
and value chain gaps and form an integral part of
the project design. Local partnerships are
fostered with an understanding that the
partnership would bring in complementing
expertise and necessary resources during the
duration of the project.
£ A project steering committee comprising
representation from each stakeholder group gets
constituted which drives the project
implementation strategy locally, evaluates the
outcome of the project and brings in course
corrections if required.
£ We believe, implementing a development project
is a dynamic and evolving process and we strive
hard to create an environment that is conducive,
flexible and facilitates constant progress. This
approach requires knowledge and experience
based decision making that we bring in through
the stakeholder approach.
We believe each person and organization is a
stakeholder in the process of development and
continue our engagement with them at multiple
levels through a consultative process. We engage
with the Government through the Ministry of Rural
Development, Ministry of Environment and Forest,
National Biodiversity Authority; with financial
Institutions like NABARD, Reserve Bank Of India,
Indian Bank’s Association, industry bodies like FICCI,
CII, TERI, and NASSCOM; with educational institutions
like IIFM, XLRI, IRMA, XIMB, NMIMS, Symbiosis; with
multilateral organizations like Convention on
Biological Diversity, International Elephant Congress,
IUCN; Research organizations like Centre for Wildlife
Studies, Bombay Natural History Society, Wildlife
Trust of India, Wildlife Institute of India and
independent practitioners.
Continuous engagement with the stakeholders has
helped strengthen our strategy and implementation
process and infield learnings have been useful for
the stakeholders in their respective areas of work.
What are Ecosystems and Ecosystem Services?
An ecosystem is a dynamic complex of plants,
animals, microbes, and physical environmental
features that interact with one another. Ecosystem
services are the benefits that humans obtain from
ecosystems, and they are produced by interactions
within the ecosystem. Ecosystems like forests,
grasslands, mangroves, and urban areas provide
different services to society. These include
provisioning, regulating, and cultural services that
directly affect people. They also include supporting
services needed to maintain all other services.
Some ecosystem services are local (provision of
pollinators), others are regional (flood control or
water purification), and still others are global
(climate regulation). Ecosystem services affect
human well-being and all its components,
including basic material needs such as food and
shelter, individual health, security, good social
relations, and freedom of choice and actions.
- Source www.unep.org
Supporting Enterprise continued ...
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project footprint
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Map showing RBS Foundation Indiaproject locations.
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Ongoing projectsS. No.
Livelihood enhancement through Participatory Natural Resource Management in Gujarat
Livelihoods in Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan
Livelihoods in Ladakh
Integrated Livelihoods in the hills of Uttarakhand
Livelihoods in Umaria, Madhya Pradesh
Livelihoods in Simlipal, Odisha
Eco tourism in Manglajodi, Odisha
Livelihoods in Kanha - Pench Corridor, Madhya Pradesh
Livelihoods in Srisailam, Andhra Pradesh
Tribal Craft Development in Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu
Amchi Livelihoods in Thane, Maharashtra
Kolkata
RBS FOUNDATION INDIA
SUPPORTING ENTERPRISE
livelihood enhancement through participatory natural resource management in gujarat
13 14
this view, RBS FI has partnered with Development
Support Centre (DSC) to increase the equity of
farmers in the agro value chain. It builds upon the
Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM) system
established and managed by the combined efforts of
DSC, Gujarat State Government and National Dairy
Development Board (NDDB) for 40000 farmers in 4
districts of Gujarat.
The phase I of the project was implemented from
2008 to 2011. It focussed on a) Increasing
productivity, b) Reducing costs, c) Mitigating risks,
d) Creating access to markets and e) Value addition.
Several pilots that demonstrated improved practices
included soil testing, use of improved variety of
seeds, practice of System of Root Intensification
(SRI), and measured use of water and fertilizers for
variety of crops. Measures like Crop diversification,
micro irrigation systems, reintroduction of organic
manure and horticulture were initiated for risk
mitigation. The pilots were successful and the
learning’s from these pilots were systematically
disseminated through site visits, farmer to farmer
discussions, local radio talk shows, road shows,
theatrical groups, local magazine, literature etc.
At the end of Phase I, the outcomes were:
a) Increased productivity in the range of 23% to
167% for crops like paddy, wheat, cotton, maize,
castor, papaya, watermelon, musk melon, chilly,
capsicum, groundnut, pulses and spices b) Reduction
of input cost from 25% to 50% on account of
rationalized use of seeds, fertilizers and water. Also,
the adoption of improved practices resulted in a net
increase in income, in the range of INR 10,000 - INR
20,000 per hectare. Another notable outcome was
the emergence of women as key stakeholders in
agriculture and several small enterprises set up by
women SHG’s for producing organic manure and
value additions like spice and pulse processing. Yet
the challenges of price discovery and direct access
to markets remained.
Phase II of the intervention was initiated in 2012.
This phase focussed on formalising a primary goods
producer owned collectively in the form of a
producer company, the benefits of which were
shared by the producers in an equitable manner. The
producer company would aggregate the demand for
input supply, aggregate products and establish
market linkages, in addition to this, credit and
channelise government programs to the producers.
Also, an IT network to disseminate weather,
technology and market information is being
established to ensure the information reaches
farmers on time.
This model has gained recognition and is being
implemented by DSC in other PIM areas of Gujarat
and Madhya Pradesh.
Agriculture is the primary occupation of 60% of
India’s population. It is an occupation whose
financial viability is interrupted by a series of factors
such as reduced land holdings, low productivity of
land, increasing cost of cultivation, dependency on
monsoons, and lack of access to credit. This problem
is acute for small and marginal farmers.
Since the first 5 year plan, there have been
technological advances in terms of agriculture input
supplies including introduction of high yielding
seeds, improved irrigation facilities and access to
finances - yet the resultant impact on small and
marginal farmers has been limited. This can be
attributed to the lack of access to information and
technology to small and marginal farmers, who
continue to rely on the traditional farming practices.
Further, the advances in agriculture sector continue
to be driven by input supplies with inadequate focus
on transfer of technology and scientific knowledge,
with little emphasis on creating access to markets.
Increasing the participation of farmers in the agro
value chain is thus seen as an opportunity in
ensuring the long term viability of agriculture. With
NGO: Development Support Centre
Location: District Mehsana, Sabarkantha, Amreli
and Ahmedabad, Gujarat
Duration: 2008 - 2015
Outreach: 40,000 farmers, 180 villages
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SUPPORTING ENTERPRISE
livelihoods in sawai madhopur,rajasthan
15
and its long term sustainability, measures like
optimisation of inputs (natural resources), better
technology, developing a basket of livelihood,
developing vocational skills, and social inclusion for
management of natural resources are necessary.
Sawai Madhopur is a peri urban district; most of it
covered by reserve forest and protected area. About
90 villages with a population of ~ 1.5 lacs are
directly dependent on the forest for livelihoods and
survival. The communities continue to practice
traditional methods of income generation like
agriculture, dairy, NTFP and firewood collections,
thus further aggravating degradation and thereby
compromising on future livelihood security. We
currently partner with Ranthambore Foundation to
create a model that develops options for creating a
basket of livelihood activities and promote
sustainable agriculture. These activities include
vocational training that enables youth to seek
employment in the local service industry, training
youth in ‘Ranthambore School of Art’ - an
economically viable medium of art and small women
led enterprises such as carpet weaving centres and
tailoring units. While carpets are exported to Jaipur
and other nearby towns, the stitching units earn from
the local interest and demand. These alternate
livelihoods gradually help the community build a
small but usable capital base, improve agriculture
productivity and gradually build resilience to risks
that are often associated with natural resource based
livelihoods. Over a period of time it has been
noticed that the community is able to optimise and
reduce the dependency on natural resources.
Having established a functioning model, the phase II
of the project will focus on scaling up of the model.
This will result in including several more villages and
its households into the project fold to achieve
impact at a district and landscape level.
Economic exclusion is one of the main causes for
financial exclusion. There are several other factors
that also contribute towards economic exclusion -
social exclusion, lack of enterprise, limited access to
markets and formal credit sources, low skills, low