Institute of Social Studies Trust

Organization's name: Institute of Social Studies Trust
Organization's acronym: ISST
Headquarters address  
Address: Upper Ground Floor, Core 6A, India Habitat Centre
Lodhi Road. New Delhi. 110003

India
Phone: 91 11 4768 2222
Fax: 91 11 4768 2220
Email: isstdel@isstindia.org
Web site: www.isstindia.org
Organization type: Non-governmental organization
Languages:
  • English

Activities

Areas of expertise & Fields of activity:
Economic and Social:
  • Women
  • Women/gender Equality
  • Youth

Gender Issues and Advancement of Women:
  • Capacity building
  • Human rights of women
  • Violence against women
  • Women and HIV/AIDS
  • Women and poverty
  • Women and the economy
  • Women in power and decision-making

Social Development:
  • Employment
  • Poverty
  • Youth
Geographic scope: National
Country of activity:
  • India
Millennium Development Goals:
  • Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
  • Promote gender equality and empower women
Mission statement:
Year established (YYYY): 1980
Year of registration (YYYY): 1996
Organizational structure: Institute of Social Studies Trust is registered as a Public Charitable Trust of India. The organization is governed by a group of trustees. The Finance and Administration Committee and The Academic Planning Committee look after the finance, administration and academic programs. For execution of programs, it is headed by a three member team of two trustees and an Office-in-Charge.
Number and type of members: Ten distinguished persons as members of board of trustees at present. One Secretary to the trustee board, who is also the Office-in-Charge. One Treasurer, from the staff members of the organization. and there are around twenty employees with the organization.
Funding structure:
  • Donations and grants from domestic sources
  • Foreign and international grants

Additional Information

Sustainable Development

Major group affiliation:
  • Local authorities
  • Women
  • Non-governmental organization
Involvement in UN Partnerships: Yes

Social Development

Affiliation with other organizations: In recent years ISST has worked with UN-Women, UNDP, UNICEF, UN-ESCAP and ILO. Apart from that ISST has affiliated with International Development Research Centre, Canada, Ford Foundation, International Organization for Cooperation in Evaluation, WIEGO, Sir Dorabjee Tata Trust, Mumbai, National Foundation of India, IDS (Sussex), Swiss Network of International Studies and Ministry of Women and Child Development, Govt. of India to carry out several research and evaluation studies in recent years. ISST maintains the online community of practice of evalgender+.
Publications: A Resource Pack on Gender Transformative Evaluations (2016) Engendering Meta-Evaluations: Towards Women’s Empowerment (2015) Toolkit on Gender-sensitive Participatory Evaluation Methods (2015)
Purpose of the organization: ISST's overall objective is research and action to bring social changes with a focus on livelihood, work and well- being of vulnerable communities, from a gender perspective. It attempts to bridge the gaps between research, action and policy with the objective of promoting social justice and equity for the underprivileged. ISST believes that research and evaluative studies are valuable to understand the shortfall between the intentions of the programs and actual outcomes.
Confirmation of the activities of the organization at the regional, national or international level: ISST has completed a project entitled "Engendering Policy through Evaluation" funded by IDRC and Ford Foundation. ISST has recently completed a study to asses the social and economic vulnerability among the informal sector home-based workers in five south Asian countries. ISST is presently the part of an international research project on women's unpaid care work. ISST is also conducting a study on social and solidarity economy, which is an international research project being conducted in South America and India.
A list of members of the governing body of the organization, and their countries of nationality: ISST Board of Trustees: 1. Sarojini G. Thakur (India) 2. Sharada Jain (India) 3. A. Vaidyanathan (India) 4. Padma Ramachandran (India) 5. Gita Sen (India) 6. Ratna M. Sudarshan (India) 7. Kameshwari Jandhyala (India) 8. Madhu Kishwar (India) 9. Aswini Despande India) 10. Nirmala Banerjee (India)

Advancement of Women

Affiliation with other organizations: ISST has affiliated with International Development Research Centre, Canada, Ford Foundation, WIEGO, Sir Dorabjee Tata Trust, Mumbai, National Foundation of India and Ministry of Women and Child Development, Govt. of India, Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, Swiss Network of International Studies, UNRISD, to carry out several research and evaluation studies in recent years for advancement of women.
Statements or documents submitted
to the Commission on the Status of Women: 		http://www2.unwomen.org/~/media/field%20office%20eseasia/docs/publications/southasia/reportstudies/05_human%20rights/progress-of-women-in-south-asia-20072%20pdf.ashx?v=1&d=20141202T120138