Advancing development - Towards sustainable livelihoods - Madurai Symposium - DHAN Foundation - September 14-18 ( 2011)

The Madurai Symposium organised by the DHAN Foundation is a development platform that encourages development stakeholders, community institutions, civil societies, the government, non-government organisations (NGOs), financial institutions and academia to share and learn from each others' experiences through conventions and conferences. Four biennial symposiums were organised between 2003 and 2009, each attended by over 15,000 participants. The 2011 symposium focused on urban, rural, tribal and coastal livelihoods. Two people from the IWP team participated in the 2011 symposium for the first two days.

The purpose of the 2011 Madurai Symposium included:

• Building knowledge on the best practices for livelihood promotion including approaches, frameworks, and models
• Promoting networks among the development players
• Fostering collaborations for action
• Sharing opportunities for resource mobilisation
• Identifying leads for action in relation to policy areas and field practice

The symposium themes included:

• Rural livelihoods
• Urban livelihoods
• Coastal and marine based livelihoods
• Tribal livelihoods

We attended the first two days of the symposium. When we went there, what actually struck us was that the venue looked quite unlike the typical conference venues that we have, with an open ground with an exhibition like look with shamianas/tents installed inside the venue, housing a number of activities such as health checkup camps, village handicraft displays, some stalls displaying agricultural plants, posters on agricultural activities etc.

The other striking feature was the overwhelming presence of a large number of people from villages, mainly farming communities who had come in huge numbers in trucks and buses for the symposium. Infact, the welcome was also a traditional one, like that in marriages, with village women putting on the haldi kum kum, handing us flowers and giving us a piece of jaggery as a sweet, to welcome us to the venue.

The inauguration ceremony was conducted in a big hall in one side of the ground, and  included a welcome address, highlighted the background for the symposium and the activities of DHAN foundation and dwelt on the need to address:

• The needs of populations in villages and specifically, the farming communities
• The importance of ensuring sustainable livelihoods
• Importance of conserving water resources
• Importance of experience sharing and knowledge sharing among scientists, researchers, agriculturalists and the people at the ground level, the farmers, villagers, who can share their experiences and the wealth of practical knowledge they have.

The inaugural ceremony was followed by the workshops/conventions; there were conventions on five topics, which were conducted simultaneously in different partitioned shamianas/ tents inside the venue. The details of the workshops conducted on each day are given below.

Day 1: 14th September 2011   

Tank farmers convention on tank based livelihoods: Launching of the Thirumangalam Vayalagam Federation for Tank Based Livelihoods

People convention on impact of financing livelihoods

Visioning and future search in people institutions of RFDP

Natural resources based livelihoods development: DVTFs experiences of implementing UPNRM programme of NABARD

Climate change adaptation for sustainable agriculture

The presentations and discussions highlighted the following points:

• Increased GHG emissions have led to increase in temperatures affecting patterns of monsoons and have been found to lead to floods and droughts
• Climate change has led to change in rainfall patterns with an increase in total rainfall, but the distribution of the rainfall is becoming increasingly erratic.
• The importance of rainwater harvesting in the context of these erratic changes in rainfall patterns was also referred to in the consequent discussions
• The discussions also dwelt on the wetland and upland agricultural interventions needed and the climate resilient farming systems that needed to be developed to enhance livelihood security of farmers, in the context of these climate changes. The integrated farm lag system (IFS) of rice, fish and poultry was also referred to in the discussions

The presentations were followed by an interactive discussion session that encouraged knowledge and experience sharing among scientists, farmers and academicians and aimed at discussing and finding practical and appropriate solutions to improve agricultural output. At the end of the discussions, panelists and the participants highlighted the importance of the need for scientists to communicate more with farmers and to recommend and share suitable practices to improve agricultural productivity.

The discussions also made other recommendations such as enlarging the earth’s green coverage by planting of trees, implementing of different strategies such as mixed cropping, intercropping, and organic farming to improve their condition. The discussion also highlighted the importance of traditional practices that were adopted during floods, droughts and epidemics, which needed to be studied and documented, the best practices identified and disseminated as climate change adaptation strategies.

People living with HIV (PLHIV) and livelihoods

Conservation of water bodies and sustainable livelihoods

Case studies on water and wastewater

Microplanning in local self government institutions for livelihoods development

Safeguarding livelihoods of poor through health insurance under the universal health insurance scheme

Even though UHIS covers wage loss compensation along with existing illnesses and personal accidental claim of the health of the family, its overall claim ratio at the national level in all public sector companies is only 47% for the last seven years which is very low when compared with the similar hospitalization medical claim ratio that includes coverage of middle class and rich people. The workshop hoped to spell out the ways and means of making this scheme  more effective by suggesting appropriate pro-poor systems and pro-poor features.

Securing water in tank cascades for agricultural livelihoods in Gundar Basin, Tamil Nadu

Showcasing best practices on converging microfinance and tribal livelihoods

National Convention on Skill Building for Sustainable Livelihoods of Self-Help Group Federations

National Conference on IGNOU Community College Initiatives for Sustainable Livelihoods

The workshops on Day 3 included:

Convention on Medicinal Plants for Sustainable Livelihood

People Convention on PRI and Livelihoods through MGNREGA

National Workshop on Safeguarding Livelihoods for Poor through Life Insurance under Janshree Bima Yojana

Health Intermediation through Community Centred Behavioural Change Communication

Inland Fisheries and Livelihoods: Learning from Grassroots - Status, Potential and Challenges for Scaling Up

Tourism based Livelihoods: Emerging Opportunity

Sustainable Livelihoods: An Experience of SKDRDP

Sharing Best Practices of Social Security Programmes

Coastal Livelihoods: Challenges and Opportunities

ICT and Livelihoods

Workshop on Micro Justice and Livelihoods

IWMI-TATA Water Policy Research Programme - 'Technologies Tested and

Promoted in Project Areas

reening Urban Development and Livelihoods

Workshop on Youth and Livelihoods