Dialogue is one of the best tools for creative problem identification and solving. It allows us for the identification and solution to a problem by “thinking together” and forming a common consensus for future agenda. The emergence of COVID-19 and recent amendments in the law have affected the development work carried out by various organizations across India. This requires all of us, the CSOs, practitioners, social workers, to come together and reflect on how to streamline the systems and reinvent our social movements.

Hence, Caritas India organized a webinar ‘Ek Samvad’ on 27^th November 2020 on the virtual platform for her partners across India and other like-minded NGOs, to come together and explore for co-creation of learning agenda on Future of Work & Workers that informs policy (people informing policy) as well as practice. By connecting practitioners from across various parts in India – Caritas India sought to catalyze a dialogue on issues of common interest and promote cross-learning through this virtual webinar.

The webinar commenced with a note of welcome to all the participants and panellists extended by Ms. Shimray, Manager in Caritas India. She emphasized on the quote by Malala Yousafzai “The best way to solve and fight against war is through dialogue”. She stated that this pandemic has given us ample of opportunities for dialogues through virtual webinars and affirmed that ‘Ek Samvad’ also unfolds before us the same to dialogue, discuss and converse with each other, to co-create the solutions together in such difficult time of COVID19 and new amendments.

The session was moderated by Mr. Kushal Neogy and the panellists involved Dr. D. Dhanuraj, Chairman and Managing Trustee of Centre for public policy research, Cochin India; Mr. Nixon Joseph, President and chief operating officer, SBI Foundation and Fr. Paul Moonjely, Executive Director, Caritas India.

The webinar was conducted in a panel discussion format, wherein various questions were put forward to the panellists. Few such questions involved the most critical issues faced by the country in this pandemic and ways to address the same as shared responsibilities among the various actors; changes brought by the new FCRA laws to the civil societies; the strengths and possibilities of this law and expectations from the future youth workforce to contribute in nation-building.

With regard to the challenges faced during the pandemic, the panellists highlighted that it is a global humanitarian challenge which created unprecedented loss all over the world, especially to migrants in India. It has affected all the sectors, especially Health, Education and Livelihood. Fr Paul emphasized that the policymakers should start thinking structuralizing new planning process for grassroots level to fight back this pandemic. Relating to his experience of COVID, he said that post-COVID recovery and expenses of treatment is another big challenge for our common people who are poor. Hence, he proposed a security framework that must be thought off i.e. health security, social security, economic security, livelihood security. He concluded with a positive note saying that amidst the pandemic, we have learnt lot of lessons and know that the society we live in is a society with a heart.

With regard to the FCRA amendment, the panellists were of the opinion that the development sector should adapt to the changing time and look at things with an entrepreneurial perspective or model. Definitely, the flow of fund has diminished due to the pandemic and emergence of FCRA will tighten and further diminish the fund to the sector. There are some clauses of FCRA which might lead to misinterpretation, harassment or delay like a restriction of admin cost, etc. The law has made intermediary organizations non-relevant who used to fund the grassroots organization. Hence, in this scenario, both type of organizations is going to suffer, one at the grassroots level who do not have the expertise to reach out to the external donors and second the intermediary organizations who do not have the expertise to implement at grassroots level. This may redirect the donors to fund the other countries, looking at all these formalities /limitations in India.

Overall, the webinar helped to enhance the understanding of the current challenges facing buy the development sector and its further implications. Embedded by rich and own experiences of the speakers, the webinar proved to be quite insightful and enriching.