CSD Group of CEE and Development Management Institute (DMI), Patna, have agreed to collaborate on an in depth research and documentation study of innovative field projects across the eight themes/sub themes relating to the Small Grants Project (SGP) of UN Development Programme-Global Environment Facility (UNDP-GEF). The study will be undertaken through case research methods and other approaches over a year long period during May 2017 to April 2018.

Having been part of the SGP Meet in March 2017, the DMI team realized that the innovations, processes and upscaling of projects under the SGP are very much in sync with their mission and provide excellent material for their students to understand the processes related to grassroots empowerment and livelihoods. Subsequently, DMI entered into an agreement to develop eight case studies through a mixture of secondary data and field study, which will then be used as study material for their classrooms.

Eight organisations have been selected for the study based on criteria like impact on community, relevance to local issues, potential for sustainability, leveraging of grant for scaling up, innovation and creativity, demonstration effect and technology. A high level academic team from DMI is involved in the field study in coordination with CEE programme staff at various locations.

As part of the project, two workshops with both the teams participating, were conducted: (i) June 21-22, 2017 – to identify organisations to be studied and plan the activities and timeline; (ii) October 4, 2017 – to discuss the pilot case study after the team had visited one organisation as a pilot study.