Rajiv Gandhi Mahila Vikas Pariyojana

RGMVP aims to organise the rural women and build their institutions to enable them to overcome poverty and channelize their collective strength to access information, services and entitlements.[3] These institutions are organized in a three tier system of Self-Help Groups (SHGs), Village Organizations (VOs) and Block Organizations (BOs). An SHG usually consists of 10–20 poor women, typically from similar socio-economic backgrounds. All SHGs mobilized at the village level are federated into Village Organizations (VOs), representing 150 to 250 poor families drawn from 10 to 20 SHGs. The VOs in turn are federated into Block Organizations (BOs) representing 5000 to 7000 women. These institutions aim to act as a systemic interface between poor people and development initiatives.

The key strategies of RGMVP include social mobilization, building of social capital, synergy and convergence, scaling up and the saturation approach.

RGMVP enables the poor to build capital through their own savings within the SHGs and access credit through SHG-bank linkages.[4] It has garnered support from 17 rural and central banks in its project areas.

The main focus of RGMVP is on promotion of income generation activities through providing backward linkages to the livelihood activities through specific initiatives on agriculture and dairy, livestock management and non-farm activities to ensure that every poor household has at least two or three sources of income.

Agriculture and dairy: Under the agriculture and dairy initiative women are trained in making organic compost, sustainable agricultural practices such the System of Rice Intensification (SRI)[5] and System of Wheat Intensification (SWI) and the best practices of dairy management. RGMVP also aims to promote Farmers Clubs. Livestock management: This initiative focuses on supplementary livelihoods such as goatry, bee-keeping and poultry through facilitating access to sources and training activities. Non-farm sector: RGMVP tried to encourage poor women to explore opportunities in the non-farm sector by providing training in activities such as stitching and embroidery,[6] food preservation, cane furniture making, mechanised knitting, leather work, pottery making, detergent making, etc.

Behaviour change management is promoted among the poor household to reduce IMR & NMR and facilitates linkages with the health system at a local level in order to improve access of health services.

The organisation has also taken some initiatives in education with a view to enhance the community participation in education, encourage education of girls and promote affordable good quality children's education.

Environment friendly solar-LED lighting solutions managed through community managed Solar Energy Kiosks,[7] and bio-gas energy for the rural poor are some other initiatives promoted by the organisation.