PAHELI is a rapid assessment of the prevailing status of human development in a district and covers four major sectors: life and livelihood, water and sanitation, mother and child health, and education and literacy.

An initial pilot of Paheli was done in ten districts. In each district, a local organization, NGO or academic institution carried out the assessment. This is an initial attempt to generate district human development report cards at the local level.

Ahmednagar, Maharashtra | Bidar, Karnataka | Chamba, Himachal Pradesh | Dakshin Dinajpur, West Bengal | Dhemaji, Assam | Gajapati, Orissa | Lower Subansiri, Arunachal Pradesh | Mandla, Madhya Pradesh | Mewat, Haryana | Mon, Nagaland |

PAHELI is a rapid assessment of the prevailing status of human development in a district and covers four major sectors: life and livelihood, water and sanitation, mother and child health, and education and literacy.

Facilitated by Pratham and its district partners, PAHELI was supported by UNDP with participation from UNICEF. In each district, a local organization, NGO or academic institution carried out the assessment. This is an initial attempt to generate district human development report cards at the local level.

PAHELI focuses on selected, basic dimensions of people’s lives. It uses a participatory approach, basic indicators, simple tools and easily replicable processes for collecting primary data. It combines activities, observations and questions. Wherever possible, pictorial survey tools have been used. The use of activities and the pictorial survey have been very useful in increasing involvement and engagement of those who are surveying and those who are being surveyed.

In 2006, PAHELI was carried out in 11 backward districts around the country. Thirty randomly selected villages were visited in each district and in each village, twenty randomly selected households were surveyed. Adult women were asked questions regarding the household. Currently, the PAHELI effort has generated a tool-kit and a set of district human development report cards for ten districts. It is hoped that these cards will help planners, policymakers and practitioners understand different dimensions of poverty and human development in the district. If found to be useful, this approach can be used, with different sampling frames at the village level, panchayat level, block level or district level.

The PAHELI effort does not intend to replace or substitute for ongoing sources of data. It is a tool that local stakeholders can use to benchmark and monitor the state of human development, expressed in simple terms and language.