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Defining Our Mandate The India in 1982, when the Development Alternatives Group came into existence, was quite different from what we see now. With 72 million people, we were already the second most populated nation in the world. The indicators for multi-dimensional poverty, health, food insecurity, housing, energy and water were worrisome and livelihood opportunities were few and far between. India’s industrialisation, agriculture, environment and rural development policies guided by the five-year plans were well intended but highly dissonant. And while the big-ticket areas of focus were food security, energy production, higher education and industrialisation, top-down processes, sectoral, ministerial and departmental silos, large centrally driven and managed programmes designed by experts, and conflicts environment and development concerns dominated policymaking in India. In this context, the Development Alternatives Group recognised the need to design, advocate and support policy shifts for an inclusive, green and just society that aimed to arrive at a fine balance between ecological health and human well-being. We realised that the hidden opportunities for the local economy and ecological integrity could be achieved only if our economic systems and processes, technology choices and development solutions and institutional designs worked in sync across sectors, geographies, scales of industry and levels of governance. To upscale local prosperity models and provide global leadership, it was important for policy at national and state levels to recognise, value and strengthen local capability and resources and enable people, institutions and markets to respond appropriately. This meant that policymaking and implementation required systemic thinking. This silent voices from society and nature, were brought on to the forefront to ensure that out comes were reflected through local prosperity and environmental gain. Open learning from the thousands of local good practices as also from failures whether big or small were also factored. The integrated canvas was vast, and we needed to focus on the unaddressed and the fundamental issue. Approach With Mahatma Gandhi and E.F. Schumacher as our guides, we defined our mandate to support policy design and development planning for enabling the fulfilment of basic needs of housing, clean domestic energy, water and sanitation, local prosperity through value addition to local resources and skills in environmentally benign ways. Our work included policy research, recommendations for policy design, building institutional capacities for sustainable development planning, advocating for and supporting processes of institutional engagement by the most vulnerable people and representation of nature in these potentially high-impact sectors. As inclusion was a core principle, therefore, dialogue, debate, partnerships and co-creation became the method of designing the proposals for policy shifts. Systems thinking was required to guide policy design and implementation, and, therefore, cross-sectoral and multi-stakeholder approaches, trans-disciplinarity, the anticipation of possible unintended consequences and human–nature interdependence were designed into the recommendations and support for policy design and planning system.
The appreciation of local experimentation, successes from good practice and evidence of impacts of existing policy strategies were our knowledge base, and therefore, our guiding mantra has been learning from practice to inform policymaking. While designing and recommending shifts in policy design has been an important part of the mandate, building institutional capacities for planning and policy implementation has been the other pillar. Where Have We Made a Difference? Over the past 40 years, we have documented, analysed and assessed innumerable initiatives including those from our own group in the area of rural habitat, urban and rural construction technologies and their applications, energy, water and sanitation technologies and delivery models practice on the ground. We have also conducted rigorous policy research and engagement with a wide range of local, national and global stakeholders to co-create new narratives and perspectives, road maps and solutions for policymakers. Central to our agenda have been the interrelated sustainability concerns of resources stress, climate change and ecosystem loss and the need for sustainable livelihoods at scale. With the integration of science to community voice and evidence from practice for policy design and implementation, the Development Alternatives Group has made a significant contribution to the nation and planet, over the last 40 years across a wide range of sectors. Our work in rural housing and habitat has enabled shifts in the design, scope and delivery of India’s largest social housing programme—the PMAY (rural)—both at the national level and at the specific state levels, resulting in the integration of locally relevant, disaster-resilient and environmentally friendly building technologies and designs, skill building programmes for artisans and government engineers, development of sustainability guidelines, standards and codes and links of housing with livelihood opportunities. At the state level, our work with the Bihar State Pollution Control Board has resulted in a significant increase in the setting up of local fly-ash-based brick-making units and their application in construction to provide an alternative to soil and energy-guzzling- fired clay red bricks. We have advocated for fiscal incentives and supported the setting up of quality management mechanisms and strategies for public procurement of fly ash bricks at the state level, thus providing both supply-side and demand-side support for mainstreaming desirable policy shifts.
Our work on planning support
for the effective utilisation of industrial and construction wastes has
now extended to wastewater and plastics, a growing concern at the level
of cities and villages. Tools to understand the scale of the problem,
and the decision-making to select the right technologies and delivery
models have been our support to state and municipal governments. Local models for entrepreneurship eco-systems developed in partnership with a range of civil society, financing and policy actors are providing lessons for systems change at the state and national programme and enabling the creation of thousands of entrepreneurs daily of which a majority of them are women from rural geographies, supported with information, technology, finance and market linkage services. Charting the Road Ahead The India of today is very different from 40 years back; although, many problems of the 20th century continue and have in fact become more complex with added population growth, climate change impacts and extreme inequities. Policymaking and development planning too, have changed over the years; the country has moved away from the five-year plan processes that ended with the 12th Plan in 2015 to a largely mission-based one that addresses urgent and emergent issues in a time-bound manner. However, it is also increasingly centralised and driven by central programmes and schemes and remains siloed. The evolution of policymaking and planning into a more devolved, decentralised and systemic process-driven approach as envisaged by the 73rd and 74th amendments of the Constitution of India has not happened. A mission-based approach is enabling rapid gains in infrastructure creation for housing, connectivity, energy, transportation, etc., but many concerns such as equity, gender parity, ecological integrity, resource circularity and inclusion in governance still remain unaddressed. A better balance between ‘process outcomes’ and ‘programme outputs’ is required, which would be served through genuine multi-stakeholder dialogue and consultation mechanisms integrated into governance processes. A huge step in development planning has been digitalisation. The investment in GIS-based mapping, and digital databases for almost all aspects from demography to wastes being generated, groundwater resources, infrastructure, health, education, etc. enables a much more objective and scientific policymaking and planning. This information is available on government portals for policy scientists, planners and others to use. However, the ground truthing of data and validation of analysis methodologies is an ongoing process, where the Development Alternatives Group is providing analytical support in key sectors at national and state levels. Sustainability is a critical goal now more than ever. We are in times of extreme uncertainty and rapid change. Global patterns of consumption and production have brought our planet to a stage where today the very existence of the human species is at risk. And, even though there is a growing global and national discourse regarding a more people- and nature-centred development, there is resistance from the traditional economic and development planning school that considers nature as an externality, an infinite source of materials and energy, an infinite sink for pollutants and emissions, and values financial capital over human and natural capital. India is especially at risk with climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution impacting lives and livelihoods and posing immense challenges to our struggle for poverty eradication, human health and wellbeing. Although, historically, India has not been a primary contributor to global climate change and biodiversity loss, our economic strategies and models of production and consumption must respond to global challenges and transition to greener, more inclusive and just development pathways. With a 1.4 billion strong population that is aspirational with respect to material goods and services and needs natural resources and energy to meet the basic needs of shelter, connectivity, mobility, food and energy security, we have to look for models of development that are nature integrated and nature positive. Charting a low-carbon, resource-circular and resilient pathway for development is the policy imperative of today. Policymaking and planning at the national and state levels in the present day are guided by global sustainability concerns and national strategic interests of resource security and self-reliance, economic growth and territorial integrity. However, national and state policies, programmes and industry and market response are neither adequately balanced nor centred on people and nature. This is a desirable goal and requires a systems thinking approach that sees interconnectedness across social and ecological domains and focuses on building adaptive governance capacities.
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In the building and
construction sector, our contribution is primarily through addressing
resource efficiency and circular economy concerns in policy design and
implementation. Our focus has been on low-impact high-value technologies
that are amenable to local enterprise and job creation. Starting with
the humble compressed earth block technology and roofing tile-making
technologies, we have addressed the bricks and cement sectors as well as
the increasing ecological threat and opportunity offered by construction
and demolition waste. We have taken technological innovations to
commercialisation and worked with government and industry to mainstream
these in policy and practice, through decision-making tools, guidelines
for application, technical standards as well as the design of enterprise
finance for local green enterprises manufacturing green building
materials for fulfilling basic needs and building local infrastructure.
Going forward, the
Development Alternatives Group has sharpened its focus on policy
research and support for policy design and programme planning for
India’s transition to an inclusive, just and resilient green economy. In
partnership with a range of state and non-state actors, our mission is
to serve society and institutions to build resilience to global,
national and local ecological and economic uncertainties and enable
access to opportunities for decent livelihoods to all. We continue to
focus on mainstreaming resource efficiency and circular economy
strategies in economic sectors of high ecological impact and societal
value, and to build capacities of local governments to implement these
strategies. Our mandate has expanded to support public policy to
mainstream innovative finance mechanisms that enable the creation and
sustenance of local green enterprises at scale and expand markets,
including public procurement, for these enterprises. Our focus will be
on the inclusion of women, and the rural and urban excluded communities
into this green economy and, most importantly, on the internalisation
and valuation of nature in development planning and economic design of
business models.