Civil Society

Indian Social Activist and Former Ford Foundation Program Officer Wins Prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award

Adivasi women at a meeting about Self-Help Groups, in Gujarat, India.

NEW YORK, 7 August 2009 — Social activist, development finance expert, and former Ford Foundation program officer Deep Joshi has been awarded the Ramon Magsaysay award — sometimes referred to as the Asian Nobel Prize. He is being honored for his work in development finance and rural development and for his broader contributions to the professionalization of the NGO sector in India.

"It is a wonderful choice, and we are thrilled for him and his colleagues," says Steven Solnick, representative for the foundation's New Delhi office.

Joshi served as a program officer in the New Delhi office from 1980 to 1986. He co-founded Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN).

PRADAN has invested its resources in microcredit, livestock development, natural resource management and promoting and building local community institutions. It is recognized for providing innovative training and rural development programs throughout India. These initiatives have resulted in a number of poverty-reduction efforts including the development of cooperatives of small producers of poultry in tribal areas, watershed structures that lead to improved productivity of agriculture, and tsar silk rearing. A long-time Ford grantee, PRADAN has partnered with government agencies, banks and other financial institutions, research organizations, and other donors — all with the common goal of alleviating mass poverty.

Building on the Ford Foundation's mission to promote sustainable livelihood opportunities for the poor, PRADAN has long worked to empower marginalized women socially and help them gain economic security. It was an early supporter of Self-Help Groups (SHG) — an informal association of about 15 to 20 rural poor women who gain access to banks and public services to apply to the wellbeing of their communities. It pioneered the promotion of SHGs as early as 1987 in Rajasthan. As of March 2007, PRADAN has worked with approximately 7,512 SHGs across seven states, mobilizing total savings of 225 million Rupees ($4.7 million) and representing 106,090 rural poor women.

The foundation is committed to supporting creative individuals and organizations like PRADAN. Over the years, this has included the work of Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank — both recipients of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize — for pioneering the field of microfinance. Following support for Yunus, Ford funded development finance organizations around the world such as CAME, a microfinance bank which provides loans to low-income populations in Mexico, and the Centre for Microenterprise Development in Nigeria, which provides training in microlending. Today, we remain committed to bringing vibrant microfinance models to scale.

Deep Joshi holds an engineering degree from the National Institute of Technology, Allahabad, and masters degrees in engineering and management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a member of the Working Group on Rainfed Areas for the Government of India's Eleventh Five Year Planning Commission and a recipient of the 2006 Harmony Silver Award for his "contributions to society."

Read our In the News item about Deep Joshi.

Learn more about PRADAN.

Read the issue of Ford Reports magazine focused on Opening Doors to the Economic Mainstream (PDF).