ABSTRACT
The watershed project in Jhabua also delineated a very important role to the civil society intermediaries. Action for social advancement (ASA) was founded by a group of professionals who had been working in the Bhil area since 1996. Their mission is to conduct an extensive and intensive participatory development process through the empowerment of the Bhil community, with a special focus on the role of women and the socio-economically deprived sections. In the case of watershed development programme, it has been ASA's strategy that the Self-Help Groups should be made directly responsible for planning and implementation of the watershed programme while watershed development committees should act as the funding and monitoring agency at the village level. All the community organisations established as a part of the watershed project are working well and have contributed to the empowerment of the Bhil. Replenishment of natural resources and initiating processes for sustainable management of natural resources has also been ASA’s major planks.
