The Uttarakhand Livelihoods Improvement Project for the Himalayas (AAJEVIKA) - A Mid-Term evaluation

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
 
 
A great and deep  acknowledgement  to all my Indian friends and colleagues, and thanks for your ever-
generous hospitality and humanity. And thanks to all those who accepted to talk with me about their life, 
their conditions, and their opinion about this project. 
Many thanks to Mr. Rajesh Kumar Pandey, Manager District of Purola. This paper would not have been 
possible without your great help and dedication. Thanks for your professionalism, friendship, and human 
help.  
Thanks to Mr. V.P. Singh and his wonderful wife for the great time spent together. Thanks to Mr. B. K. Bhatt 
for the exiting sympathy.  Thanks to Anita for the help during my first days in Purola, thanks to Mr. Ankur 
Jain for the translation and support. Thanks to all staff of UPASaC Purola. A special thanks to Mr. Deepak 
Aggarwal for the wonderful food, the friendship, the dedication and the great honesty.  
Thanks to Shri Himanand Semwal, his wife and his shiny daughter, thanks for your sincere hospitality and all 
your dedication. I am strongly in debt with Atul and Kavita Pandit, thank you so much for everything: the 
amazing food, the help, your hospitality, thanks for making me feel as a part of your family, as Sambhav’s 
didi.  
Thanks to everybody at USOCA: Anjali Basliyal, Ravi Bhandari, Pankaj Bhatnagar, Mohommad Shahid, and 
also Deepak for the million of cups of tea!  
Thanks to Mariella Sandini for the availability, even out of Italy, thanks to Giorgio Franceschetti and Elena 
Pisani for the constant availability and the great help. 
Thanks to my family for loving and supporting me. Thanks to Margherita, Melissa, Giorgia, Stefano, 
Giovanna and Pietro. Thank you Lou.  Thanks to Francesco. Everything was possible thanks to you. 
 
6
7
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 
 
This study is the outcome of an ongoing evaluation realized in September 2009 on a development initiative, 
AAJEEVIKA, based in Uttrakhand. This project has been applied in favor of the most deprived sections of the 
population in 17 development blocks of 5 districts. AAJEEVIKA, known as the Uttrakhand Livelihoods 
Improvement Project for the Himalayas (ULIPH) is being implemented by the Uttarakhand Parvatiya 
AAJEEVIKA Sanvardhan Company (UPASaC) with the financial support of IFAD. The project aims to enhance 
livelihood opportunities for poor households by utilizing the self-help principles and by promoting self help 
groups (SHG) that would produce savings, reduce drudgery and create a context in which livelihood projects 
can be launched.  
The primary objective of this assessment is to understand if the project is able to respond to some mid-term 
criteria: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, and mid-term sustainability, with a glance on the mid-term 
impact. It has been developed a multicriteria analysis, for trying to give an objective judgement of the 
initiative in its implementation phase. Results show the project attains a good level of efficiency and 
effectiveness, it is producing some social mid-term impacts and it is strongly pertinent to beneficiaries’ real 
needs.  
 
Questo elaborato è il prodotto di una valutazione in itinere di un progetto di sviluppo, AAJEEVIKA; il relativo 
processo di raccolta dati è stato condotto nel settembre 2009. In Uttarakhand, stato settentrionale 
dell’India, l’iniziativa coinvolge le fasce più svantaggiate tra le popolazioni rurali delle zone himalayane, 
coprendo il target di 5 distretti e 17 blocchi di sviluppo. AAJEEVIKA è conosciuta  anche come Uttrakhand 
Livelihoods Improvement Project for the Himalayas (ULIPH), e l’implementazione è affidata ad una social 
venture capital company: Uttarakhand Parvatiya AAJEEVIKA Sanvardhan Company (UPASaC). Il progetto è 
supportato in termini finanziari dall’IFAD. L’obiettivo generale è quello di un miglioramento nelle condizioni 
di vita delle famiglie povere, e ciò attraverso l’uso del self-help principle (promuovendo quindi gruppi di 
mutuo sostegno (SHGs) che operino a stabilire un meccanismo di risparmio comune), la riduzione 
progressiva del carico di lavoro nell’agricoltura, e creando un contesto dal quale possano essere lanciate 
migliori opportunità di vita. 
L’obiettivo primario della seguente valutazione, invece, è quello di comprende se il progetto è in grado di 
rispondere ad alcuni criteri di medio termine: rilevanza, efficacia, efficienza, e sostenibilità di medio 
termine, con uno sguardo anche ai possibili impatti di breve termine. E’ stata dunque sviluppata un’analisi 
multicriteriale al fine di fornire un giudizio numerico ed obiettivo dell’iniziativa nella sua fase di 
realizzazione. I risultati mostrano che il progetto ha buoni livelli di efficacia ed efficienza, esso sta dunque 
producendo dei primi impatti a breve, per lo più di carattere socio-culturale, in più è estremamente 
pertinente alle reali necessità dei beneficiari. 
8
EVALUATION BACKGROUND 
 
This thesis is the result of an evaluation performed over a developing project called AAJEEVIKA, which is 
implemented in the Himalayan zones of Uttaranchal (North India). Uttrakhand Livelihood Improvement 
Project for the Himalayas (ULIPH), popularly known as AAJEEVIKA, has been possible thanks to the support 
and funding from IFAD. It pursues the main objective to improve the livelihood of vulnerable groups in a 
sustainable manner through promotion of improved livelihood opportunities and strengthening of local 
institutions that relate to livelihood development. 
The evaluation has been developed in the spire of the final training, thus this final work represents a 
complete assessment about concepts, themes and realities seen or studied during such an experience.  
This paper is the result of various phases of work, and it has been possible thanks to the collaboration of 
the Uttrakhand State Organic Certification Agency (USOCA), and with the support of the implementing 
Company, the Uttrakhand Parvatiya Sanvardhan Company (UPASaC).  
The first step was carried out with USOCA.  This agency  holds the role of a technical consultant for the 
project. It works for the certification of organic products and then for the introduction in a market circuit, 
national or international. With the help and the advices of certification staff, the first phase has been 
characterized by the delineation of evaluation aims and of the methodological ways of executions. It has 
been analyzed the Project Logical Framework and concerning indicators, the information question and 
gaps. This has allowed to draw up the questionnaires that were submitted to the evaluation target group: 
the project beneficiaries. 
The second phase has been developed in the field, with the mentioned support of UPASaC – Purola (the 
more accessible district involved in the project). This step has been characterized by a series of interviews 
carried out in a period of 11 days (September 2009) in the rural villages of Purola district in Uttarkashi, 
Uttarakhand. Because of some logistics and socio-economic  constraints, I have opted for the delineation of 
a random sample, a rather small example but anyway representative of the major part of Purola clusters. 
This attempts to cover the cultural, religious, economic and agricultural diversity of the Himalayan people 
involved with AAJEEVIKA. Questionnaires have been submitted with the method of a structured interview. 
The work has been concluded with the aggregation of data, with a qualitative analysis of collected 
informations in the district of Dehra Dun, Uttrakhand. Project main administration has its own Camp Office 
in this city. Because of a limited timetable, the collection of general data about all project aspects has been 
performed during the stay on the field, but even further. Mentioned information collected have been: 
Project Appraisal Documents, articles, short reports and assessments previously performed. 
9
WEIGHT AND MISURES 
 
Currency Unit – Indian Rupees Weights and measures 
(considerate with the exchange rate of  
September 2009) 1 Hectare – 49.8 Nalis 
2
     1 nali – 201 m 
2
Euro 1.00 – Rs. 70,4320       1 acre – 4000 m 
    Rs. 1.00 – Euro 0,0014           1 acre – 20.16 nalis 
 
 
ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS 
 
AGs Activity Groups 
BDSs Business Development Services 
BP Business Promoter 
CBOs Community-based Organizations 
COSOP Country Strategic Opportunities Paper (of IFAD for India) 
CRP Community Resource Persons 
DMU District Management Unit 
FFIs Formal Financial Institutions 
FNGO Facilitating Non-Government Organizations 
GDP Gross Domestic Product 
GoI Government of India 
GoUK Government of Uttrakhand 
GP Group Promoter 
HH Household 
ICIMOD International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development 
IDRC International Development Research Centre 
IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development 
IGAs Income Generating Activities 
MAP Medicinal and Aromatic Plant 
M&E Monitoring and Evaluation 
NFHS National Family Health Survey 
NGO  Non-governmental Organization 
PD Project Director 
PM Project Manager 
PMU Project Management Unit 
RDS Rural Development Society 
RNGOs Resource Non-governmental Organization 
SBS Sub-sector / Business Development Services 
SHG Self-help Group 
SMEs Small Medium Enterprises 
SVCC Social Venture Capital Company (now UPASaC) 
ULIPH Uttarakhand Livelihoods Improvement Project in the Himalayas 
UPASaC Uttarakhand Parvatiya AAJEEVIKA Sanvardhan Company 
USOCA Uttarakhand State Organic Certification Agency 
VP  Van Panchayat 
 
10