Putting ICTs in the Hands of Women of Kanpur and "Chikan" Embroidery Workers of Lucknow

Excerpts from the Executive Summary follow:

"This report document is based on a field trip by Dr. Janice Brodman, which aimed to help Datamation Foundation (DF) ensure that their evaluation instruments provide information/data needed to measure project achievements against objectives, and also introduced the infoDev Framework to the DF evaluation team...

Brief Overview of Project Activities

The Project "Putting ICTs in the Hands of Women of Kanpur and 'Chikan' Embroidery Workers of Lucknow" has successfully established centers in several poor communities in the Lucknow/Kanpur area. Extensive outreach and strategic partnerships with local opinion leaders have attracted the two target populations of women - those involved in the informal sector and those involved in "chikan" embroidery production - including a significant proportion of Moslem women. The centers are providing training in the target skill areas: computer skills, handicrafts skills, and health knowledge. The project aimed to address three key questions:

• Can ICTs [information and communication technologies] improve the capacity of women engaged in the informal sector to increase their incomes and/or enable women to enter the informal sector and generate sustainable livelihoods?
• Can ICTs improve the capacity of women engaged in handiwork trades, such as "chikan" embroidery, to increase their incomes?
• Can ICTs improve the capacity of "chikan" workers to engage in alternative sources of livelihoods within either the informal or formal sector, thereby improving their ability to achieve sustainable livelihoods given the over-saturation of workers in the "chikan" industry and the associated declining returns?

Field observation suggests that this project is at a watershed. The project's successes heretofore have created new opportunities to move beyond its original objectives and provide a very powerful and innovative model for creating a significant shift in the market potential of the chikan workers. In order to take advantage of these opportunities, the project requires additional technical assistance, most importantly in the form of industry-specific international marketing expertise.

Review of Evaluation Instruments

Project evaluators use several instruments to obtain quantitative and qualitative monitoring and evaluation (M&E) data. There are opportunities to strengthen the data-gathering effort to ensure requisite data are collected and that the data are consistent and relatively easy to analyze....The Evaluation Team reviewed the Framework and found it very useful. They also provided recommendations for making the document even more useful to them and to other project evaluation teams. Most suggestions involved adding examples of evaluation instruments that are useful for various types of evaluation objectives. The team also identified an applied research question they would like to address. Brodman explored the use of an abbreviated Critical Success Factor [(CSF)] method to address the applied research question, which appeared to work effectively.

Excerpts from Section III of the document follow:

...Although this report focuses on the evaluation methodology and a separate report will provide a preliminary analysis of project outcomes, a few observations regarding outcomes are worth noting here:

• The project has done an impressive job of attracting women from both Moslem and Hindu communities. In the case of the former, the obstacles are daunting, and the level of participation from women in the Moslem community, as well as their response to the center, reflects exceptional commitment and skill on the part of the project team. This effort appears to provide a valuable model for other activities aiming to serve women, especially those from communities that severely restrict women's physical movement and revenue-generating opportunities.
• The project has demonstrated its ability to achieve its goal: to provide the participants with skills that will enable them to generate revenue, despite the obstacles they face. The longer-running centers have already developed teams of women who are generating revenue about which the women are excited, and which appear to have the potential to enable the women to achieve sustainable livelihoods, on their own if necessary. The result appears to be not only greater self-confidence, but also determination on the part of the women to develop sustainable livelihoods.
• Although the achievement described in the previous bullet is significant, it appears that these women continue to be quite dependent on the project staff and need considerable additional support in developing management skills if they are to become self-sufficient in conducting their business activities. Experience in other projects, in other countries, testifies to the challenges involved in developing management skills among new entrepreneurs. The project will need more time and resources to build the requisite level of management skills among the majority of the women.
• The project...has demonstrated success in attracting women from very poor communities and in developing the skills and self-confidence they need to create sustainable livelihoods. With regard to women in the "chikan" industry, the project has utilized several strategies. In the face of over-production and declining demand for "chikan" products, the project has sought to strengthen the capacities of existing operations. For example, the project plans to establish an ICT Center within the [Self Employed Women's Association, or] SEWA/Lucknow facilities to give the women access to ICT applications and modules.

The project is also exploring a partnership with the Lucknow Association of Clothing Manufacturers (representing 650 companies), which currently has limited opportunities to explore markets in other parts of the country. The project will introduce the Association to the use of ICT to support a systematic, innovative, "personalized" approach for expanding the domestic market. The intention is to increase demand and returns, which will in turn increase pay scales for the workers.

In addition, the project has worked with IIT [Indian Institute of Technology] to develop software with an engraver, which enables workers to develop low-cost molds quickly. The aim is to explore - and perhaps create - new markets. For example, rather than use only traditional patterns, the women can create new, more modern patterns and tailored patterns.

With the project's successes come important new opportunities. One is the opportunity to make a quantum change in the livelihoods and well-being of the target population. The project, and its partners, can be linked directly with the international market to create new opportunities for women producing chikan embroidery to raise their incomes significantly. The IIT software developed for the project could help the women enter key market niches that require fast turn-around, design modifications and tailoring.
In order to exploit these opportunities, the project will need industry-specific international expertise that can help establish specific links with international buyers and can help the women to formulate formal, well-devised and sustainable business plans. With that additional technical assistance, this project could move beyond its original objectives and provide a very powerful and innovative model for creating a significant shift in the market potential of the chikan workers.

There is also an opportunity to identify women with unusual talent for computer-related work, and to provide them with entirely new options for income generation. For example, some of the women appear to be particularly talented and may be able to develop advanced computer skills. In one center, the "star" computer user is a young woman who failed fifth grade. It would be extremely interesting and exciting for this project to partner with an advanced training program, such as the Cisco Academy, to provide opportunities for the project participants, who come from such economically depressed communities. The women will need further capacity-building to become eligible for such programs; however, the Datamation Foundation project appears quite capable of arranging for provision of such skills strengthening.

Moreover, the project offers valuable guidelines relevant to other countries and markets in which women face obstacles due to low incomes, low levels of literacy and numeracy, highly circumscribed physical mobility, low self-esteem, and other constraints associated with gender. Given the difficulty many development efforts have experienced in their efforts to engage women in such circumstances, the lessons learned from this project are important to share and the project managers constitute a valuable resource...

Recommendations

A. Recommendations Related to Project Activities

This project has the potential to serve as a model for making a significant shift in the revenue-generating opportunities for poor women, including those in Moslem communities. It would be worthwhile for infoDev and other donors to consider providing the resource support needed for the project to achieve that shift. Most important among those inputs would be industry-specific international expertise on EU and US markets, including marketing experts who can identify specific shows, buyers and approaches to using ICT that chikan producers can use to compete in these international market niches.

B. Recommendations Related to Project Monitoring and Evaluation Instruments

1. M&E Instruments

Based on discussions with the evaluation team and a review of all project M&E instruments, a number of changes and additions to the project evaluation instruments are recommended to the project evaluators:

• Use a simple pro forma template (using Excel) to capture "business case" data: sales (units sold and price per unit), expenses, net profit
• Use a simple "business case" outline to capture the market situation and other business issues...
• Narrow the aspects related to socio-economic conditions:
  
  • pre- and post-tests on only 1-2 health modules
  • eliminate education (the timeframe of this project will not permit an impact on education)
  • focus primarily on changes in income and changes in product sales
  • Add questions regarding extent of control over new income, changes in tension within the family due to the women's increased economic activity, changes in women's feelings of self-confidence and perceived changes in respect from other family members...
• Focus evaluation of technology impact on three interventions:
  
  • Multimedia Modules: For selected modules (e.g., 1-2 health and 1-2 vocational skills module), conduct pre- and post-tests of knowledge. The project has conducted a pre-test utilizing a focus group method, which will be adequate as the women had no knowledge of the content of the modules and these modules are not the key element of the project. A "post" focus group will be used to determine the increased level of knowledge from the modules. An end-of-project self-assessment questionnaire regarding extent to which behavior has changed should be distributed.
  • IIT program: Delays in IIT's development of the ICT application for the Chikan workers have delayed introduction of the application into the project activities...
  • Generic IT programs (Word, Excel, Internet access): Focus on the ways the beneficiaries use the general ICT programs, and the benefits perceived by the beneficiaries, e.g., Excel to keep financial records, and provide relevant pro forma templates and training, as well as encouragement for women to use the programs as a regular part of their revenue generating activity.
• Reduce the frequency with which field notes are submitted (to once a week or every two weeks), and provide a structure to limit the breadth of the field notes, i.e., Activity Highlights, Problems/Issues, Recommended Steps to Address Problems/Issues...

2. Answering the Project Applied Research Question

This project can make an important contribution by addressing the applied research question that project evaluators posed: Could this project be scaled up in other communities, especially Moslem communities, within and outside India, and, if so, what critical success factors are necessary to improve likelihood of success and of sustainability? The abbreviated CSF methodology...can provide a simple yet systematic approach to addressing this question. It is recommended that project managers consider whether it is possible to undertake this effort within the current project resources..."