Workshop: Coming together to leverage India’s national workfare program for resilient livelihoods for women

Abstract

Public works programs have the potential to reduce poverty, provide resilience for workers to economic shocks, and improve infrastructure. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), India’s large national workfare program, has provided 3.07 billion person-days of work at a guaranteed minimum wage in the 2024 fiscal year alone, and received attention for both its scale and its role as a safety net for workers. The program also has significant potential to empower women. It guarantees equal pay for men and women and has a bottom-up participatory planning process in which anyone working in the program can propose the construction of assets that could improve their lives, livelihoods, and resilience to shocks.

Yet as with any program, the success of MGNREGA critically depends on how it is implemented in practice, and whether (and which) individuals can leverage program resources to meet their goals.

A September 28 IFPRI workshop in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India explored these issues. The event, “Leveraging the Mahatma Gandhi NREGA for resilient livelihoods for women: New insights, old bottlenecks, innovative solutions,” brought together members of civil society organizations, researchers, and representatives of international donor organizations, financial institutions, and government agencies. They discussed the challenges facing the MGNREGA in Odisha and elsewhere and to highlight potential solutions for improving women’s role in the selection of assets under the program and utilizing these assets to build resilient livelihoods.