Neighbourhood Parliaments-- A Process towards Universal Inclusion

1. Neighbourhood Parliaments-- A Process towards Universal Inclusion

2. A story of a movement in India that creates an enabling environment towards achieving the aspirations of …. Neighborhood Parliaments

3. ‘To live together in peace with one another as good neighbors’ (Charter of the UN) 'A society for all is one in which people play an active role in peace and development’ ‘Using participatory processes that involve all stakeholders’ Neighborhood Parliaments

4. 'People’s participation' 'People must have power to make decisions that affect their lives' 'Bottom up approach' Neighborhood Parliaments

5. 'Participation of marginalized groups whose voices have not, or have hardly, been heard’ 'Placing people at the centre of sustainable development efforts' Neighborhood Parliaments

6. Background • 1970s - Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh started the Grameen Bank • Micro finance emerged as a prominent financial service. • provided financial services to the people living in poverty, long excluded by mainstream banking and financial market.

7. Micro Finance & Self Groups • Today micro finance has emerged as an industry • big multi-national and national commercial banks are interested • the people living in poverty and their collectives have been excellent in prompt repayment

8. 1980s - National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, (NABARD) India took the initiative of group lending by promoting self-help groups. INDIA Kerala Tamil Nadu

9. 1990s Kerala government ‘a women-oriented antipoverty programme’ built on the concept and strategies of micro finance http://www.kudumbashree.org/ NABARD, the UNICEF, and the urban poverty cell of the Local Administrative Department, Government of Kerala Tripartite initiative in Kerala

10. vision “To eradicate absolute poverty in ten years through concerted community action under the leadership of Local Self Governments by facilitating organization of the poor combining self-help with demand led convergence of available services and resources to tackle the multiple dimensions and manifestations of poverty holistically”.

11. Identifying the Poor families Empowering the poor women Encouraging thrift and investment through credit Improving incomes of the poor through improved skills and investments for self-employment. Ensuring better health and nutrition for all. Ensuring basic amenities like safe drinking water, sanitary latrines, improved shelter and overall environment improvement. Ensuring a minimum of primary education for all children belonging to risk families. Enabling the poor to participate in the decentralization process Strategy

12. The nine factors Scheduled Castes and Tribes Only one or none of adult family members being employed. Thatched house. Lack of household sanitary latrines. Non-availability of safe drinking water. Family having two meals or less per day. Alcohol or drug addicts in the family. Family having at least one illiterate member. Family having at least one child below 5 years. Identifying the poor

13. 215 local governments Around 175,000 neighborhood units federated at different level 40% of the "planned expenditure" of the State is put at the disposal of the local governments planning begins at these well-defined, numerically-organized neighborhood forums. Neighborhood Units

14. Kodimunai was organized into 16 territorially grouped neighborhood forums of about thirty families each. These neighborhood groups discussed on various matters that affected their lives. Neighborhood Forums

15. The experiment at Kodimunai limited to catholic parishes spread to other villages both within the district and else where in India. From 1992 A systematic effort was made to make the approach totally secular under an inter-religious leadership A shift

16. A Global Dream Gradually the initiative gave shape to a dream of multi-tier global federation of neighborhood parliaments under the banner of NCN- http://www.ncnworld.org/ Neighborhood Community Network (NCN)

17. NCN insists on neighborhood structure rather than structures merely at the level of the village or town, because the bigger a forum gets to be the more the small voices of small people go unheeded and it all becomes a game of the big to alienation of the small. Neighborhood & smaller forum

18. When people have their say, it will be for their liberation. when people are empowered they will not tolerate any slight to their dignity. Rationale behind the Network

19. The ability to have one’s say presupposes forums to talk which are not available in the present structures of merely representative democracy The available talking forums are too big and not viable for the people living in poverty and the oppressed to express themselves on an ongoing basis. Rationale behind the Network

20. Neighborhood Parliaments The essence of the matter is that the very size of the participatory forums or the parliaments we have today makes it difficult for people, especially women to feel empowered.

21. Multi-tier federation • The power must go into the hands of the people with small voices at the base. • The solution is to make the talking-forums small and create a global multi-tier federation of them.

22. Dreaming of a new world • The whole world gets organized into neighborhood parliaments of about 30 neighboring families. • Each neighborhood of 30 families becomes a kind of a mini-world or a mini-nation.

23. Dreaming of a new world Each neighborhood parliament has a neighborhood cabinet, with a chief minister and ministers for various concerns like • health, • hygiene, • environment, • income generation, • children’s welfare, • adolescent’s guidance, • and others- that are relevant

24. Dreaming of a new world • Neighborhood parliaments • Village parliaments • Local government parliaments • Block parliaments, • District parliaments, • State parliaments, • National parliaments, • International regional parliaments • The world parliament – each with its cabinet. (mind you not United Nations but a world parliament)

25. Neighborhood Parliaments • The whole process is guided • by certain principles • Numerical Uniformity • Smallness of Size • Recall • Subsidiarity • Convergence

26. Principle of Numerical Uniformity certain number of neighborhood parliaments “village”-parliament; certain number of “village” parliaments, “local government ”parliament;

27. The advantage: Everyone knows everyone face to face. And everyone’s weaknesses and strengths. One cannot go on fooling a face-to-face community for long - Mohandas Gandhi Principle of Smallness of Size

28. We don’t need to wait for five years to call back a candidate whom we “elected” from one level of the parliament to the next. We can convene our parliament any time we want. We can decide together to send someone else who would explain and represent our concerns better. Principle of Recall

29. Subsidiary units get the focus here. Vitality, dynamism and power are concentrated more at the lowest levels possible. No business that could be handled at a lower level is taken to any level above it. Higher levels deal only with those matters that the lower levels cannot handle. Principle of Subsidiarity

30. Everything converges at the network. Everything is done through it. This reinforces the structures further and further. Thus whether children’s programme, adolescents programme, self-help groups or whatever, everything is referred to neighborhoods & their representative federations. Principle of Convergence

32. “Giving Community organizations greater involvement in the design and implementation of local projects, particularly in the areas of education, health care, resource management and social protection” -Copenhagen