Events of IGC
LSE’s International Growth Centre awarded funding to work on research to support Bihar policymakers in alleviating poverty
Patna, 5 May. The International Growth Centre (IGC), based at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and in partnership with the University of Oxford, has started a new programme with Gates Foundation to engage with Government, Research Institutes, another institutions in Bihar to build a strong, sustainable ecosystem of research, monitoring and evaluation in the State and create the necessary local institutional capacity. The three-year programme, Building evidence, evaluation capacity and use, with an emphasis on Bihar, will draw from the IGC’s extensive experience in India to provide demand-led, evidence-backed policy advice to Indian policymakers on promoting sustainable economic growth.
The IGC and its partner organisation in India, the Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI), launched the new programme at an event in Patna on 5 May. In the presence of Hon. Deputy Chief Minister of the Government of Bihar Shri Sushil Modi, Agriculture Minister, Mr. Prem Kumar, IGC Executive Director, Dr. Jonathan Leape, IGC India Director Dr. Pronab Sen and ADRI Member Secretary Dr. Shaibal Gupta.
Hon. Deputy Chief Minister Modi said in his remark that “We are pleased to continue the Government of Bihar’s longstanding partnership with the IGC and begin a new collaboration with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with the launch of this programme. This is a tremendous opportunity for us to increase our own capacity in research and evaluation to strengthen our policies for the social and economic development of Bihar.”
The grant will support the IGC India programme in helping to strengthen and develop effective and sustainable research, monitoring, and evaluation ecosystem from its base in Patna, the state capital of Bihar. In alignment with the Gates Foundation’s work, this research will focus on issues related to health and development in Bihar.
Professor Jonathan Leape, Executive Director of the IGC, commented: “This partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation represents an exciting new stage in our research and policy work in India. By building on our existing close collaboration with stakeholders in Bihar this grant will enable us to support Bihar in developing an even stronger culture of using evidence to make better policy decisions.”
Hon. Agriculture Minister Prem Kumar “IGC has already done four research in the context of Agricullture in Bihar which has helped in strengthening state policy in Agriculture. Given that we are in our 3rd phase of our agriculture road map a further research on cost-effectiveness, role of technology, educating farmers and many others in the area of agriculture can help in strengthening the design of the Agriculture road map.
Dr. Pronab Sen, building on his extensive experience in Policymaking with Indian Government said that “there is wealth of data in India which identify what we are lacking but not enough to suggest what and how it should be done”, he then remarked that there is where IGC model has came in and help the government. He said that “All IGC studies, more than 200 of them has been commissioned after speaking with relevant policy stakeholders, hence the IGC evidence feeds into policy directly and smoothly.
Agriculture Production Commissioner, Sunil Kumar Sing, Principal Secretary of Health, Sanjay Kumar also provided their insights on how the programme can help the government of Bihar in strengthening the policy.
Brief Details: The IGC Bihar programmes were launched in 2009 in close partnership with the Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI), to provide a platform for the state’s policymakers to engage with world-class researchers, and through this collaboration, generate practical, rigorous research that would aid better policy formulation. Drawing on ADRI’s local expertise, the IGC has developed close links with policymakers, local researchers and the larger civil society in Bihar. IGC India believes that local solutions are at the heart of the most effective policies; therefore, improving the quality and quantity of evidence available is crucial for ensuring policymakers and practitioners look towards evidence and evaluation when designing and implementing both policies and programmes.
During the last few years, the IGC India-Bihar Programme has produced a significant body of work and conducted dissemination workshops and events to meet the need for independent, policy-oriented academic research in Bihar. Research projects have been completed in the areas of Finance, Education, Health, Water resources, Disaster Management, Agriculture and many others.
The IGC India country programmes are merging under a new partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) to engage with government, research institutes, and other institutions in Bihar to build a strong, sustainable ecosystem of research and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) in the state and throughout the country and create the necessary local institutional capacity.
In this scenario, we are organizing a half-day consultative workshop on the Saturday, 5th of May 2018 at 4 PM at Hotel Chanakya, Patna. The objective of the workshop is to launch the Phase II programme and also seek feedback from all stakeholders on the ongoing research work and to receive guidance on IGC’s future work areas.