Trickle Up Graduation Pilot
West Bengal, India

Name of project: Trickle Up Graduation Pilot
Project implementer: Trickle Up
Project partner: Human Development Centre
Location: West Bengal
Start date: 2007
No. of clients reached: 300 women
Research: Randomized impact assessment (village level) by the Indian Institute of Management; qualitative research by Brac Development Institute
Consumption support: US$ 2.25/week for six months
Livelihoods: Livestock, rice paddy, fish, and small trade
Financial service: Savings with self-help groups (SHGs); each SHG has a savings account with the State Bank of India; SHGs can obtain bank credit after two years
Additional services: Trickle Up provides preventative health care, neo/post-natal care, sanitary latrines, and community veterinarians; Village Assistance Committee in each community
Scale up: Plans to scale up to 5,000 people over the next four years; first step with 800 new people in 2009

Trickle Up is a livelihood development organization that funds grassroots programs targeted at people who must live on less than $1 a day. Trickle Up works closely with its implementing partners and functions more like a design and technical assistance partner than a traditional donor organization.

Trickle Up is implementing this graduation pilot with the Human Development Centre (HDC), a local nongovernmental organization (NGO) in West Bengal. Though HDC is quite a large NGO by local standards, it is new to many of the activities included in the graduation model.

The pilot is located in the South 24 Parganas district, which is adjacent to the Sundarban delta, the largest tidal mangrove forest in the world. As such, the land is swampy and is unsuitable for agriculture. This pilot is slightly different than the others in that it does not link to a traditional microfinance institution, but rather it links into the SHG system. HDC has mobilized 300 women into SHGs (which offer the financial services part of the program) and delivers the nonfinancial aspects of the program itself, at a cost of $400 per participant. Participants receive productive assets and working capital worth roughly $115 to start one or more livelihood activities. Assets are usually either goats or sheep or materials to start a petty trade business. Members who choose livestock receive materials for building a shed and intensive training in livestock care. Trickle Up does not expect the participants' enterprises to generate income before 12 to 18 months, so a consumption smoothing stipend of about $2 a week is provided. HDC has trained a health worker who conducts social development training and preventative healthcare and links participants with government healthcare services.

Trickle Up hopes that, over 24 months, each member will grow her enterprise sufficiently to earn Rs 10,000 (roughly $250) a year. A linkage with the local State Bank of India branch will eventually allow the SHGs to access funds for credit.

Project status
The Trickle Up project has bought veterinary expertise on board and has implemented community-based veterinarians called “animal friends” to visit households and ensure best practices for livestock are adopted. Trickle Up also provides healthcare messages to beneficiaries and links them to available government services. In 2008, nine out of 10 beneficiaries that were sick received treatment from the government health system and almost 50 percent of eligible households had adopted permanent family planning methods.

Trickle Up will graduate 300 beneficiaries in August 2009 and anticipates over 70 percent graduation rate. They plan to scale up the pilot to 5,000 beneficiaries in the next five years.