Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy is a not-for-profit trust dedicated to improving urban governance and citizen participation in India. Their program focuses on enhancing state capacity, public finance management, and citizen engagement in urban areas, with a particular emphasis on sanitation services and infrastructure development in low-income communities.

DevInsights is conducting a baseline impact evaluation of Janaagraha’s initiatives to assess the current status of outcomes of state capacity building efforts across three key workstreams: Organisational Development, Public Finance, and Citizen Participation.

Organisational Development: This stream aims to evaluate process efficiency and human resource aspects across three schemes: Mukta, Jaga, and Sanitation (including Garima, SWM, FSSM, and Grey Water Management). Semi structured interviews will be conducted with key stakeholders to assess improvements in process observability, workforce efficiency, and accountability within the system.

Public Finance: This aims to analyse the usage and effectiveness of the Sujog platform across 114 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs). This involves collecting and analysing data on budget utilization, assessing the uniformity of budget spending throughout the year, and evaluating the timeliness of payments to Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and vendors/contractors.

Citizen Participation: This involves evaluating community engagement in urban infrastructure and service delivery, with particular emphasis on sanitation in low-income areas. It involves conducting perception-based surveys with 400 respondents including SDA members, Executive Committee members (President, Treasurer, ward officers and secretary), Executive Officers, Municipal Engineers, Sanitation Experts, community coordinators and Jaga Coordinators. The study also assesses the inclusivity of spaces for women in urban poor communities to voice their opinions, particularly in relation to sanitation services.

Locations: Odisha

Duration: December 2023 – Present