Roots to Government-private Thought Partnerships

Context: To compensate for lack of government capacity (in the recently launched Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) 3.0.), it is necessary to leverage the private sector to forge thought partnerships.

PMKVY 3.0:

• Focus on matching local skilling requirements with local job opportunities.
• Empowering States and districts to implement skilling schemes by making regional­level plans.
• The first is being implemented on a pilot basis during the 2020-­21 fiscal year, while simultaneously initiating the creation of an implementation framework for the second phase (2021­-2026).

Government’s efforts to promote government-private collaboration:

• Lateral Entry: has been formalised at the senior level and is conducted at the staff level by several government entities like the NITI Aayog as consultants, officers on special duty or young professionals.
  • They support the existing bureaucracy and provide them with research and logistical support.
• Establishment of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, Department of Economic Affairs research programme: encouraging world-class research on capital control and flows in India.
• The National Institute of Financial Management: provided legal research and technical assistance on Indian and foreign financial markets, policy analysis, formulation.
• The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE): Started engaging with multiple private firms such as Dalberg Global Development Advisors to design its vision for 2025.

Associated challenges:

• Issue of funding: is challenged by implicit or explicit agendas and obligation attached to private funding and the process of getting requisite approvals.
• Lack of systematic and definitive mechanism to promote private collaboration.
• Dearth of scholars and practitioners: Singularly focused on researching and solving India’s problems.
• Isolated policy choices: from the rigorous debate and research has led to suboptimal results.

Way forward:

• Develop Thought Partnerships: They are a structured mechanism for private entities to lend relevant strategic expertise to the government on policy design, evaluation and implementation.
  • It will save costs of recruitments.
• Utilising Impact Investors and Philanthropic support: to develop thought partnership with no strings attached for systemic or sectoral transformation programmes.
  • Since much of these funding goes to contextual settings (trying to improve learning levels in a district through direct classroom interventions) rather than systemic or sectoral transformation programmes (rethinking how the government school system works in a State).