Rules vs. Responsiveness: The Challenges of Building State Capability in India

Public organizations often have trouble implementing the policies and programs that will benefit the state and its constituents and the public sector in India is no exception. The perception of the state’s capacity to implement policy is often called into question so how can civil servants in India overcome the barriers they face to policy implementation? Today on CID’s Speaker Series podcast, Salimah Samji, Director of the Building State Capability Program at CID interviews Yamini Aiyar of the Centre for Policy Research, who provides first-hand details on culture within the public sector in India. Salimah and Yamini further examine India’s state capabilities and discuss remedies that could improve decision-making processes within the government. Yamini Aiyar is the President and Chief Executive of CPR - the Centre for Policy Research - one of India’s leading public policy think tanks. Her research interests are in the field of social policy and development. In 2008, Yamini founded the Accountability Initiative at CPR. Under her leadership, the Accountability Initiative has produced significant research in the areas of governance, state capacity and social policy. // www.bsc.cid.harvard.edu // Interview recorded on June 6th, 2018. About Yamini Aiyar: Yamini Aiyar is the President and Chief Executive of CPR. Her research interests are in the field of social policy and development. In 2008, Yamini founded the Accountability Initiative at CPR. Under her leadership, the Accountability Initiative has produced significant research in the areas of governance, state capacity and social policy. It pioneered a new approach to tracking public expenditures for social policy programs and is widely recognised for running the country’s largest expenditure-tracking survey in elementary education. Yamini’s own research on social accountability, elementary education, decentralisation and administrative reforms has received both academic and popular recognition. Yamini Aiyar is a TED fellow and a founding member of the International Experts Panel of the Open Government Partnership. She has also been a member of the World Economic Forum’s global council on good governance. Previously, she has worked with the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program and Rural Development unit in Delhi, where she focused on action research aimed at strengthening mechanisms for citizen engagement in local government. Additionally, she was a member of the decentralisation team at the World Bank that provided policy support to strengthen Panchayati Raj (local governance) in India. Aiyar is an Alumnus of the London School of Economics, St. Edmund's college Cambridge University, and St Stephen’s College, Delhi University.