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Harnessing the Power of Data: Inclusive Growth and Recovery Challenge Impact Report

March 23, 2023

With generous support from the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and The Rockefeller Foundation, data.org issued an open call in May 2020 for breakthrough ideas that harness the power of data to help people and communities rebound and remain resilient in the wake of COVID-19 and its economic impact.Through the Inclusive Growth and Recovery Challenge, data.org sought to address a systemic issue: the majority of social initiatives don't have the budget, staff, capacity, or partnerships to take full advantage of our current data revolution. But with support, mission-driven organizations can use data, tools, and methods to make their work go further and faster, helping more people.After thorough review, we awarded $10 million in funding and technical assistance across eight exemplary awardees from a pool of over 1,200 applications, and the Paul Ramsay Foundation funded a ninth project. These awardees show the range of opportunities that exist to use data to drive social impact for workers, entrepreneurs, and communities. 

Dairy production in India: Animal welfare implications and public perceptions

March 8, 2023

TOPIC ONE: Dairy consumption in India. Key points: 1) India is the world's largest dairy consumer. 2) Fluid milk and ghee makes up 3/4 of all dairy products consumed. 3) India's growing population, affluence, demographic changes, and liberalized trade policies are expected to contribute to increased dairy demand.TOPIC TWO: Dairy production in India. Key points: 1) Launched in 1970, Operation Flood spread the cooperative dairy model throughout India and vastly increased dairy production. 2) Today, India is world's largest milk producer with more than 80 million farmers and 500 million cattle. 3) Both cattle and buffalo are raised for milk production but productivity per animal is very low. 4) Most dairy farms are very small, but large commercial dairies are increasing. 5) Most dairy goes through unorganized markets; organized sector consist of cooperatives and private companies.TOPIC THREE: How animal welfare is assessed on dairy farms, and the major dairy animal welfare challenges in India. Key points: 1) Size of a farm is not associated with welfare status of the animals on that farm. 2) Most animal welfare challenges faced by dairy animals in India relate to lack of basic animal care, poor/uncomfortable housing, tethering and abandonment. 3) As dairy production in India intensifies, animal welfare will likely improve, but new animal welfare issues will emerge.TOPIC FOUR: India's unique socio-cultural context and how this shapes public debate about dairy cattle welfare. Key points: 1) Cattle has sacred status. 2) India is home to the D'harmic religions which place high value on the principle of non-harm to animals (Ahimsa). 3) Cattle slaughter is banned or restricted in many states, leading farmers to abandon unproductive cattle. 4) Indians appear divided on the implications of intensified dairy farming for animal welfare.TOPIC FIVE: Recommendations for front-line persons interested in the animal welfare implications of the Indian dairy sector. 1) Prioritize public outreach to most receptive demographic (younger, educated, affluent, females, pet owners). 2) Conduct pilot studies to benchmark dairy animal welfare and actual consumer demand for animal-friendly products. 3) Organize symposia where farmers, dairy scientists, animal ethicists and religious authorities can discuss relationship between dairy farming, animal welfare, and religion in India. 4) Focus on animal welfare issues, not farm size/type.

Reflections on Philanthropy for Social Justice — A New Era of Giving

March 1, 2023

Philanthropy in India is growing steadily, with a surge in funds and practice advancements. The question remains, how can this redistribution of wealth be effectively harnessed to achieve transformative social change and more inclusive development? In A New Era of Giving, thought leaders from India and abroad share their insights and perspectives on the challenges and issues to be addressed to make a shift from a charitable model of support to an approach that prioritises social justice.

Philanthropy in BRICS countries and the UN Sustainable Development Goals

March 1, 2023

Philanthropy in the BRICS countries and the UN Sustainable Development Goals is a review prepared by Russian Donors Forum alongside with the research Philanthropy and social investment in the BRICS countries. The review analyses how philanthropy in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa is aligning its activity with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), what progress has already been made and what challenges the sector faces.The review studies the common features of philanthropy of the BRICS countries, as well as the role of Agenda 2030 in the sector of philanthropy and social investment in each of the countries.

Philanthropy and social investment in BRICS countries

March 1, 2023

Philanthropy and social investment in the BRICS countries is a study initiated by the Russian Donors Forum Association and the Ural Federal University Center for Research of Philanthropy and Social Programs. The International partners of the study are the Worldwide Initiatives for Grantmaker Support Association (WINGS) and the Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose Association (CECP Global Exchange). In addition to the research there has been published a review Philanthropy in the BRICS countries and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.The aim of the study was to conduct a comparative analysis of the donor communities of the BRICS countries and to assess the COVID-19 impact on the sector of philanthropy and social investment.The study represents a portrait of the donor communities of the BRICS countries, the external conditions of their activities, including the regulatory environment; highlights the urgency of the donor organizations' work. In addition, the authors of the study tried to identify the challenges that arose before the donor community of the BRICS countries in connection with the global crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as analyze the activities and approaches of the donor community aimed at combating the pandemic and its social consequences.

How India Gives | 2020-21

September 26, 2022

Giving is not a new phenomenon for Indians, and it has been a part of their everyday lives for ages. Both structured and informal ways of giving in India have received attention from researchers who have indicated an overall high incidence of giving in the country.The Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy (CSIP) at Ashoka University conducted this research on 'How India Gives' in collaboration with the Worldpanel Division of Kantar. This study is the first attempt to understand household-giving patterns acrossgeographies, socio-economic groups, demographics, and forms of giving using household surveys. 

Legal and Policy Barriers to Self-Managed Abortion

September 13, 2022

We envision a world where individuals seeking abortion care can exercise full reproductive autonomy without any impediments or gatekeepers. This includes the ability of individuals to have self-managed abortions, which are those performed through self-care interventions or without clinical supervision, particularly early in pregnancy through medication abortion. Self-managed abortion is grounded in an array of human rights, including the rights to health, equality and non-discrimination, information, privacy, and to benefit from scientific progress.This mapping aims to better understand the global legal landscape on self-managed abortion, with a focus on medication abortion1 as the safest form of self-managed abortion. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that individuals have the option to self-manage abortion using medication abortion at least during their first 12 weeks of pregnancy. The WHO recognizes that individuals can safely and effectively self-assess their eligibility for abortion and self-administer abortion medication, demonstrating that self-managed abortion is a critical tool for enabling individuals to safely exercise reproductive freedom.Yet, as this mapping shows, even in countries with liberal abortion laws, guaranteeing access to medication abortion and enabling individuals to self-manage abortion care requires a reconceptualization of legal and policy frameworks on abortion.

India Climate Collaborative Annual Report

August 3, 2022

The India Climate Collaborative is a first-of-its-kind, Indiafocused, India-led organisation working to accelerate funding to, and engagement with, the climate ecosystem. The report offers a glimpse into how ICC aim to accelerate the amount of finance flowing into the climate space, enable new channels of collaboration between disparate stakeholders, and drive the climate solutions being developed by their network of partners to fruition. 

Identifying economic and financial drivers of industrial livestock production - the case of the global chicken industry

June 10, 2022

This report articulates the asymmetries of power and policies that give rise to corporate concentration in livestock industries, in particular poultry.Another aim of this report is to provide an analytical framework on how to research economic and global finance drivers of corporate expansion and concentration of industrialized livestock production systems in low- and middle-income countries. It explains how to map the economic organization of livestock industries from the local to global level. For example: What are the spheres of influence? How is market power concentrated in corporations? What are the firm ownership structures? What are the investment portfolios of public development banks?The framework is followed by an analysis of the economic organization of the global poultry genetics industry. Lastly, the report presents a case of how global finance and corporate consolidation is linked to the Indian poultry industry, examining how corporate concentration and public policies have shaped the Indian poultry industry into vertically integrated broiler production systems.This report helps front-line persons and policy-makers understand the pathways and power-sharing practices between international and domestic private and public capital that support industrial livestock production systems and their negative externalities. It provides evidence that they can use to identify and address power imbalance in a financialized livestock industry, characterized by spheres of influences and political clientelism between IFIs, LMICs governments, multinational firms and domestic agribusinesses. 

Bridging the Gap on Funding the True Costs of NGOs in India

June 6, 2022

There's a gap between funders' perspectives on how much they support indirect costs ("overhead") and organisational development, and NGOs' perspectives on just how much funders are willing to support it. Improved communication between funders and NGOs would help to build trust and shift entrenched attitudes and practices. This research along with our assessment guide and tips can support NGOs and funders in this important work.

Powered by the People: Community-Driven Change in Urban Informal Settlements

June 1, 2022

A decade ago, a Muslim religious scholar named Hussain Khan was a vocal critic of the Mahila Mandal Federation (MMF), a Mumbai-based grassroots women's group, which has been nurtured by an NGO called CORO for the past 20 years. He questioned MMF's efforts to help women take on leadership roles in their communities in urban informal settlements. But instead of viewing Khan as an adversary, MMF believed he might one day become an ally.Today, Khan hosts MMF meetings at his madrassa (school), which traditionally excludes women. And he has developed a course, "Quran and the Constitution," which builds community members' awareness of their constitutional rights and their moral responsibility to help neighbours in need.What prompted Khan's change of heart?Along with MMF, CORO spent three years conversing with Khan about the challenges women living in urban informal settlements encounter, including domestic violence and low access to education. CORO was well-positioned to engage in those meetings, since it is largely led by Dalit and Muslim people who live in the communities in which they work. Khan was later selected into CORO's Samta Fellowship, where he spent a full year reflecting on the values enshrined in the Indian constitution and acquiring leadership and movement-building skills that he took back to his community.It is not an accident that Khan now champions the work of a grassroots group that he formerly opposed. It is an outgrowth of CORO's core approach to supporting community-driven change: to meet people where they are and earn their trust. The idea is to unlock their "power within" to advocate for the rights of Dalits, Muslims, and other historically marginalised communities to have an equal opportunity to advance their lives.To learn more about how this kind of ground up, community-driven change comes to life, a Bridgespan Group team spent several months researching and interviewing CORO as well as three other NGOs in the Global South: Mumbai-based Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action (YUVA); Kenya's Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO); and Ubuntu Pathways (UP), which works in South Africa's Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth) townships.Our research reaffirmed that community-driven change is challenging to execute. Multifaceted power dynamics related to gender, caste, class, and religion often pose significant barriers to change. However, we also learned that, despite all of this, the four NGOs pushed past those challenges to build long track records of success by playing a supporting role as community groups built their own solutions. Tightly focusing on a few NGOs, rather than on many, gave us a close-up look at on-the-ground approaches to working with community members as they take steps towards leading their own change. One of our main insights was the similarities in how community-driven organisations think. Specifically, we identified five mutually reinforcing mindsets that help orient these NGOs around community members' priorities and lived experience. 

Mapping India's Energy Policy 2022

May 31, 2022

Carefully designed energy support measures—subsidies, public utilities' investments, and public finance institutions' lending—and government's energy revenues play a key role in India's transition to clean energy and reaching net-zero emissions by 2070. Looking at how the Government of India has supported different types of energy from FY 2014 to FY 2021, the study aims to improve transparency, create accountability, and encourage a responsible shift in support away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy.Mapping India's Energy Subsidies 2022 covers India's subsidies to fossil fuels, electricity transmission and distribution, renewable energy, and electric vehicles between fiscal year (FY) 2014 and FY 2021.We found that fossil fuels continue to receive far more subsidies than clean energy in India. This disparity became even more pronounced from FY 2020 to FY 2021, going from 7.3 times to 9 times the amount of subsidies to renewables.