ISB signs knowledge partnership MoU with Goa for policy formulation

HYDERABAD: The Indian School of Business’s Bharti Institute of Public Policy, on Tuesday, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Goa Government to commence a knowledge partnership with a focus on evidence-based policy formulation and impact on the State.

The MoU was signed in the presence of the Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant by Directorate of Planning, Statistics and Evaluation Director Vijay B Saxena and Bharti Institute of Public Policy, ISB, Executive Director and Professor Ashwini Chhatre in Panaji, Goa. With this collaboration, Bharti Institute, ISB partnered with yet another State Government after its continuing engagement with the State Governments of Odisha, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Punjab.

As a knowledge partner, Bharti Institute would facilitate furthering the State Government’s objectives to improve the social and economic prosperity indicators through evidence-based public policy interventions, capacity-building workshops, and citizen-centric governance-based initiatives as part of this agreement.

Under the knowledge partnership, Bharti Institute would collaborate with the Goa Institute of Public Administration and Rural Development (GIPARD) to conduct workshops for officials of State services. Bharti Institute would also develop the Goa Open Data Portal in collaboration with the Department of Information Technology, Goa, that would serve as a ‘one-stop destination’ for open data to access and interact with, for citizens, aiming towards digital governance.

To tap into the bioenergy reserves of the State and empower forest-based communities with secure tenure, Bharti Institute would coordinate activities across departments and agencies in the State to attract private investment and would support in enabling the required framework of secure forest tenure, building women-led and community-owned enterprises, delivering digital and mechanical interventions for efficiency and scale, besides providing market linkage.

To strengthen and enhance the capacity of the Legislative Assembly of Goa, a Legislative Support Programme would be initiated under the newly formed partnership. As part of the programme, a Legislative Research Fellowship would also be initiated, and fellows with diverse backgrounds would be selected from the State.

The knowledge partnership would also extend to the Department of Education, Higher Education and Technical Education, Government of Goa, wherein Bharti Institute would extend its support and resources to improve the quality of education via effective leadership training, fostering positive learning environments, and empowering education officials, including principals and heads of institutes.