Sindh Rural Support Organization (SRSO) 5.39

Sindh Rural Support Organization (SRSO)

SRSO was established as a Not for Profit, Section 42 Company limited by guarantee in 2003. The setting up of the SRSO was triggered due to recognition of the success of Rural Support Programmes (RSPs) which was initiated by the Agha Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) from the Northern Areas. Its replication through the National Rural Support Programme (NRSP) in the selected districts of all the four provinces and AJK inspired the provincial governments to support the setting up of the provincial RSPs. The provincial government of Sindh provided the seed capital to SRSO which has laid a sound foundation of the organization to sustain its core function and at the same time leverage this capital to access donor funds for various development projects. The goal of SRSO is to improve quality of life of rural poor in Sindh. To achieve this goal, SRSO attempts to harness peoples’ potential through a social mobilization process which has been designed on the core assumption that people have tremendous potential and willingness to improve their quality of life.

The objective of SRSO is to develop a building block of community institutions at the settlement level (Community Organization), village level (Village Organization) and Union Council level (Local Support Organization) in all the union councils of its programme districts. These institutions together provide institutionalized forums to the communities to work together for betterment of their lives through multiple activities and linkages. The COs take care of household level activities, while the VOs and LSOs manage larger projects through their COs at village and union council levels. The LSO and VOs also play an important role in strengthening the COs and increasing programme coverage.

SRSO is currently present in 15 districts covering all rural Union Councils. SRSO aims at covering the entire population of all the union councils in terms of organizing them and linking them with government and other agencies for their development. Recognizing the fact that women in Pakistan especially in Sindh are more vulnerable and disadvantaged, SRSO has implemented a gender mainstreaming strategy which ensures inclusion of women in organizations as well as in decision making.

Based on the experience of SRSO and other RSPs, SRSO has identified interventions that align the opportunities that people believe the platform of COs can provide them. Based on the priorities set by the people themselves SRSO has identified Income Generating Grants/Asset Transfers as the most important intervention for the extremely poor/destitute members. This works as a safety net and foundation for graduating them to the next level. For other categories of poor people, the skills training and micro credit play an important role in enabling them to come out of vicious circle of poverty. Based on the pilot testing of PSC analysis of union councils and the MIPs, the SRSO has developed a composite package comprising the following interventions for different levels of poverty:

SRSO implements its programme through a network of 15 district offices and field offices. These field offices are responsible for organizing people and linking them with various interventions. To support this major function, the SRSO has set up following Sectors as the policy level units that provide technical assistance and managerial support to the field offices for the delivery of various services:
• Social Mobilization
• Human Resource Development
• Rural Credit and Enterprise Development (RCED)
• Physical Infrastructure and Technological Development (PITD)
• Natural Resource Management
• Social Sector Services (Health and Education)
• Crafts Enterprise Development


The Gender and Development is a cross cutting section. The support sections include the MER and Finance and Accounts.

Funding sources

The Government of Sind has provided Rs 1,000 million as seed capital. SRSO uses the return of this income to maintain core operations in 09 districts of Sindh. In addition to this endowment fund, the government of Sindh has engaged SRSO in the implementation of Union Councils based Poverty Reduction Programme in 03 districts of Sindh while in other districts SRSO is linking the COs with its own microfinance programme and other interventions that it has accessed from different agencies. The Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) is a major donor of SRSO after the government of Sind which provides capital for micro credit, skills training, community physical infrastructure and other interventions. . Some activities are funded by the Helpage International and the Brooke Pakistan.


Community Investment Fund (CIF)

The Community Investment Fund (CIF) is a community-managed fund which consists of a revolving fund being provided to community organizations, specifically to poor women. From the self managed CIF, the poorest women are provided with micro loans which they are able to invest in income-generating activities only. However what is unique in CIF is the fact that not only does it provides access to much-needed capital; it also builds the confidence and capabilities of poor rural women. The reason for this is because in CIF it is women who make the decisions and not external agencies. Therefore decisions such as who to provide micro loans to, how much to provide, at what service charge, for how long and repayment conditions are all decided by these organized women themselves. These decisions take place in their own community organizations, which are formed at the neighborhood level and then federated at the village and Union Council level. These Interest free loans are being provided to rural communities having Poverty Score Card ranging between 0-18. Till now, SRSO has benefitted 94,183 poor Households in which 938 million have been disbursed. All these funds are being managed by 3,528 village based organization all headed by women.

A 3rd party assessment by a reputable organization has witnessed that the CIF programme provided benefits to women in several forms, along social indicators such as decision making authority in purchase of capital items, decision making on their children’s education – particularly girls, decision making on food consumption, attending CO/VO routine meetings, the ability to go to market, access and control over money, threat of physical and psychological violence, and the hope for a better future.


Vocational Training Program Yields Early Results for Youth


The aim of the SRSO vocational training programme is to focus on youth via imparting technical training in income generating trades to improve and uplift the women/men youth of the target communities; which may further help them come out of the poverty circle, unemployment and become the earning member for the household. Till Now, more than 40,000 women/men community individuals have been trained in Vocational trainings across SRSO Operational Area. These trainees lie in the extremely and chronically poor category of the Poverty Score Card ranking.


SRSO Microfinance Program


Poverty and default risks are some of the reasons why different microfinance institutions hesitate for the disbursement of loans to poor. Keeping these stereotypes behind, SRSO’s Microfinance Programme is working on improving system and services of microfinance instead of depriving poor from the services. Recently, SRSO expanded its Microfinance operations in urban areas as well. The rural credit focuses on providing credit facilities to farmers and for the purpose of small businesses; while in urban areas only women are being focused. Need Identification decide the load size for borrowers for any kind of preferred activity. SRSO has disbursed 4,326 million among 274,751 borrowers in rural areas. More than 90% loans have been disbursed through women.