The Government of Goa, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Bharti Institute of Public Policy and Indian School of Business (ISB) to commence a knowledge partnership with a focus on evidence-based policy formulation and impact in the state.
The MoU was signed in the presence of the Chief Minister, Dr Pramod Sawant in Panjim, by Shri Vijay B Saxena, Director, Directorate of Planning, Statistics and Evaluation, Government of Goa, and Prof. Ashwini Chhatre, Executive Director, Bharti Institute of Public Policy, ISB. The MoU signing was also attended by Shri Ajit Roy, Secretary to the Chief Minister, with Power, New and Renewable Energy, Mines and Geology portfolios and Dr Aarushi Jain, Policy Director, Bharti Institute, ISB.
As a knowledge partner, Bharti Institute will 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.
As part of the capacity-building measures under the knowledge partnership, Bharti Institute will collaborate with the Goa Institute of Public Administration and Rural Development (GIPARD) to conduct workshops of officials of state services. These workshops will focus on policy issues, emerging technologies, sustainability, leadership, and digital transformation, among other aspects.
Bharti Institute will also develop the Goa Open Data Portal in collaboration with the Department of Information Technology, Goa, that will 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 will coordinate activities across departments and agencies in the State to attract private investment into the State and will 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 will be initiated under the newly formed partnership. As part of the Programme, capacity-building workshops will be held for the Hon’ble legislators of the State, and Legislative Research Fellows will be onboarded. The fellows will be selected from diverse backgrounds from the State and will be trained regularly to provide research and analysis of crucial government schemes to the legislators.
The knowledge partnership will also extend to the Department of Education, Higher Education and Technical Education, Government of Goa, wherein Bharti Institute will 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. The collaboration will also focus on improving the research focus of faculty members in Higher Education institutions in the state.
The Government of Goa has taken various proactive steps for socio-economic development in the state under the leadership of Chief Minister, Dr. Pramod Sawant and this Government-Academia partnership is also a step in the same direction.
