Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development (India)

ACTED has been working in India since 2006. Active in vulnerable areas of North East India, in the states of Assam, Meghalaya, and Nagaland, ACTED works to facilitate local authorities and service providers in increasing and improving access to information of public schemes and initiatives in backward districts, right down to the village level.
Mission Context
With a population of 1.3 billion people, India is currently the world’s third largest economy. Over the last two decades the country’s per capita income has more than tripled. While these improvements are far from just numbers and graphs on economist spreadsheets, the rising tide has struggled to lift all boats: high levels of poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition remain, and the gap between rich and poor continues to increase. Women and girls are particularly affected due to high levels of social exclusion.

Civil society organisations and social enterprises have the potential to tackle these challenges by restructuring local economies to support pro-poor economic growth. Yet, both of these manifestations of civil society lack the capacity to advocate for the needs of their communities or scale-up the solutions which they can offer.