India: Women's Self-Help Groups in Andhra Pradesh - Participatory Poverty Alleviation in Action

This document studies the effectiveness of self-help groups (SHG) as primary tool of poverty alleviation and empowerment. It states that a SHG is a small group of persons who come together with the intention of finding a solution to a common problem such as medical issues, livelihood generation or watershed management, with a degree of self-sufficiency. The document states that:

• National and state government initiatives have used SHGs to implement poverty alleviation programs in Andhra Pradesh since 1979;
• Self-help groups also empower poor women, more than 4.8 million of whom are mobilized into SHGs;
• Following on successes in earlier programs the state has promoted significant increases in SHGs using a social mobilization approach;.

It concludes that:

• When micro credit is the pivot around which organization takes place, its ability to alleviate poverty/empower is limited;
• SHGs should not be seen only in their capacity to route micro credit. Their political potential is powerful;
• Potential of women-only SHGs for women's empowerment depends upon several other supportive measures like education, health, housing and infrastructure;
• To approach a complicated problem such as poverty, a complex mix of methods is required.