ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the persistent failures to achieve policy objectives are the unintended policy consequences of informal policy practices. It outlines some significant intended consequences of SGSY. This is followed by a discussion of the persistent policy failures in SGSY. The chapter examines how and why these policy failures persist, by analysing escape hatches, institutional conflicts and the foreclosure of alternative policy choices. It explains gender-specific persistent failures, escape hatches and foreclosures, while the concluding fifth section assesses the gender-specific consequences of SGSY. The unprecedented achievement of SGSY is that its focus on women has made it the first national, mainstream policy to bring over six million rural poor women into the sphere of public policy. Women accounted for 66 per cent of the policy beneficiaries, well over the stated objective that women should make up 50 per cent of the SHGs and be 40 per cent of the total beneficiaries.
