Keynote Address

Dr. Gayathri Vasudevan, Chief Impact Officer – Sambhav Foundation, delivered the keynote address. Drawing on her experience of over 25 years working with underprivileged youth and the informal sector, she highlighted the complexities of behavioural challenges within education, skilling, and the employment continuum. She highlighted the paradox of high unemployment and the shortage of skilled workers in India, attributing it to people’s perceptions, attitudes, and behaviours, which affects their willingness to take up certain jobs and their suitability for available jobs.

Gayathri Vasudevan
Chief Impact Officer
Sambhav Foundation

Gayathri Vasudevan has a doctorate in Development Studies with more than 23 years of consistent work for the underprivileged in India.  A research scholar on gender issues, she has spent the initial years of her career in rural India, working at the grass root levels, during which time she consulted with international developmental organisations such as UNDP, UNICEF, NORAD, and the World Bank, among others, working on development initiatives.

In 1999, Gayathri joined the ILO, a UN agency dealing with labour issues, with the mission to make a difference in poverty-stricken nations of the world.  Later, she co-founded Sambhav Foundation in 2006, with a vision to enable livelihoods of people working in the informal sector through Education, Employability and Entrepreneurship programs.  So far, her work has impacted the lives of more than half a million in India.

Panel 1: Policy capacity and incorporating behavioural insights

This panel aimed to address the importance of policy capacity and its role in promoting policy actors’ abilities and motivation for effective policy implementation; the role of behaviour science in the process of creating, implementing, and assessing effective policies and other key questions.

Key Takeaways – 

• Citizen centricity and adapting to citizens’ needs means shifting from rule-based to role-based working among civil servants for effective governance.
• The effort to reduce the gap between policy objectives and how they are experienced by citizens must be based on various feedback and evaluation mechanisms.
• Success stories in policy have behavioural science at the core of policy making.
• Institutionalising behaviour science is important to make its application more systematic.
• A systemic view is important to ensure that interventions in one sector do not adversely affect other sectors.
• Shifting focus from outputs to outcomes is the key to successful policy evaluation.

Apoorve Khandelwal
Senior Programme Lead
Council on Energy, Environment and Water

Apoorve leads the Sustainable Food Systems program at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water. He has invested almost a decade working on different sustainability challenges in the arena of bioeconomy (food, feed, fibre, and fuel), approaching them from different angles. While Apoorve has developed advanced biofuel and biomaterial technologies for a Fortune 500 and developed policy recommendations as part of satellite policy-research teams set up by Govt. of India, he has also led strategy consulting projects to advise agro-food organisations in Europe, North America, Africa, and Asia on a variety of sustainability issues. However, the consistent theme throughout this journey has been systems thinking, interdisciplinarity, and collaborative action.

Nila Mohanan, IAS
Joint Secretary
Department of Personnel & Training

Nila is a civil servant in the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) with over 16 years of experience as a public policy practitioner in governance and strategic management. Her core competencies are in public advocacy, public policy formulation and implementation, budget planning, innovative public service delivery, multi-stakeholder policy modelling, and building cross-sectoral partnerships. Nila’s areas of specific expertise in public policy formulation and implementation include human resource management, healthcare, education, industry and commerce, citizen service delivery and change management. Nila holds an MPhil in International Politics (CIPOD, SIS, JNU). 

Shagata Mukherjee
Deputy Director, Centre for Social and Behavioral Change (CSBC), Ashoka University
Academic Lead of Behavioural Insights Unit (BIU) of India, NITI Aayog

Prior to this position, Shagata was an Associate Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Meghnad Desai Academy of Economics. He was also a Visiting Fellow at the Mumbai School of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Mumbai and an Affiliated Faculty at the Centre for Experimental Social Sciences (CESS) Nuffield -FLAME. He received the Vernon L. Smith Young Talent Award in Experimental Finance for his research on gender and microfinance. He is a co-founder of the Mumbai Behavioural Network.

Shagata holds a PhD in Behavioural and Experimental Economics from the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University, a master’s degree in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University and a B.Sc. in Economics from Presidency College.

Panel 2: International perspectives : Role of CB agencies in developing BeSci capacities of public officials

This panel aimed to address whether agencies like Nudge Units, Behavioural Insights Units and other CB agencies design their course offerings and curricula, and if there are state policies in place to direct the capacity building of public administrators as well as the courses they offer. 

Key Takeaways – 

• Understanding culture and political contexts is very important before designing capacity building interventions.
• A system of accreditation for trainers ensures quality. An annual survey of civil servants’ views on the training provides information on how effective the training has been.
• The recipient department or ministry should take ownership of the capacity building programme and collaborate to provide feedback on the transfer of training and impact.
• In international programmes, the focus should be on enabling networking and conversations to get new ideas from unfamiliar locations.
• When training is tailored to individual needs, and participants enrol voluntarily, they are more engaged and eager to get something from the training programme.
• Using a pre-training questionnaire to find out what the organisation wants and what the individual wants helps incorporate these needs into the course curriculum and design.
• Follow-up activities such as online mentoring and coaching can be used for effective engagement.
• Packaging knowledge for practical application across programmes remains a crucial institutionalisation challenge.

Christopher Ng
Managing Director
Civil Service College (CSC), United Kingdom

At CSC, Chris has overall responsibility for training operations, partnerships, finance and communications. He works closely with the Chief Executive in the strategic development of the college to ensure CSC’s learning solutions reflect the changing demands of the public sector in the UK and abroad. With experience in collaborating with both UK and international public bodies, Chris specialises in designing and managing the delivery of capacity- and capability- building programmes.  Since joining CSC in 2013, Chris has partnered with over 15 governments across the Commonwealth and several non-Commonwealth countries. He has established a strong working relationship with Asian governments, particularly with India and Taiwan’s government training institutions, maintaining these partnerships since 2016 and 2018 respectively. Chris has organised training programmes for delegations from Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mauritius, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, UAE and Vietnam. Leading the International team, he has successfully delivered training to groups exceeding 100 delegates in a single cohort. Chris holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Warwick and a master’s degree from the London School of Economics.

Dominic Byarugaba
CEO and Executive Director
African Institute for Capacity Development (AICAD), Kenya

Dominic has been with the African Institute for Capacity Development (AICAD) since 2014. The AICAD brings together Public and Private Universities in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda that subscribe to AICAD’s mandate on top notch Research, Training, Extension and Information Repository Platforms.

Dominic holds a PhD in Pharmacognosy (MUST/UCT), a Master’s in Ethnobotany, and a Bachelor’s in Botany and Chemistry from Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda. He has vast experience in research with a focus on indigenous knowledge and citizen science innovations with respect to pharmacognosy and shared standards in orthodox or conventional structures of therapy.

He  is published widely and is an Editor with the Blackwell and Cambridge Publishing Houses. He is passionate about mentorship in emerging issues through the vast network of global, continental, regional and national organisations.

Voravate Chonlasin
Executive Director, AIT Extension, Asian Institute of Technology
Director, United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), International Training Centre for Authorities and Leaders (CIFAL) Bangkok

Voravate leads the AIT Extension of the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand, to provide academic service on executive education, organisation development and capacity enhancement in the recent development areas, such as climate change, SDGs, financial risk management, green and circular economy, municipality development, etc. He also serves as Senior Program Specialist in which he takes a leading role in the design and development of capacity building programmes to enhance the capacity of public sector organisations in developing countries. 

Voravate manages and directs programmatic teams to implement capacity development and training activities in the areas of performance-based management, public policy and administration, monitoring and evaluation and human resources development (HRD). 

Voravate earned his B.Sc. in Soil Science from King’s Mongkut Institute of Technology Lad Krabang (KMITL) in 1989 and M.Sc. in Regional and Rural Development Planning of AIT School of Environment, Resources and Development (SERD) in 1994.

Panel 3: Role of leadership in driving behaviour change

This panel aimed to address imperative questions like what characteristics / attributes do leaders need to possess to drive behaviour change and how can these characteristics / attributes be built in potential leaders? How to measure behaviour change and what are some in-process measures we can use to measure behaviour change?

Key Takeaways – 

• Organisations often resist change unless the market demands it. Successful change involves adapting to new technologies and philosophies, with leadership playing a critical role in driving and managing these transitions.
• Disruptive companies force entire industries to change and those that do not change will gradually decline. Changes in organisations can be difficult because of entrenched interests, positions, and roles.
• Government behaviour may differ greatly, with some behaving like corporations, and others only maintaining basic services. The government must provide an enabling environment and make behaviour change easier. Decentralisation of decision-making and targets makes governance very effective.
• Skilling in India has been a challenging issue impacting India’s manufacturing sector.
• Behaviour is prompted to a great degree by culture. The effectiveness of capacity building programmes varies by country due to cultural differences, highlighting the importance of tailoring programs to local contexts.
• The government plays a significant role in driving technological adoption through digital public goods initiatives like Aadhar and Digital India.

Amit Narayan
Partner
Control Risks

At Control Risks, Amit has led the firm’s engagements with clients, partners and associates in India and across South Asia since January 2018. He holds a seat on the Asia Pacific Regional Executive Committee.

Based in Mumbai, Amit has over 25 years of experience working across India as well as across Asia Pacific managing operational risks for multinational firms. He has advised clients on political and regulatory risk, pre-investment risk, public policy, labour disputes and stakeholder mapping across the sub-continent.

Amit has worked with multinational firms such as Edelman, Vodafone, The Walt Disney Company and Cable & Wireless previously. He has conducted over 100 days of crisis management and risk mitigation strategy workshops as well as scenario planning exercises with corporations. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University and a master’s degree in business economics from Delhi University. He is CQI and IRCA Certified Business Continuity Management Systems (ISO 22301:2019) Lead Auditor.

Manish Dubey
Chief – Practice
Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS)

Manish is a governance and institutional development expert with nearly 25 + years of consulting experience with national and state governments, multilateral and bilateral development partners, INGOs, and philanthropies. His experience spans the rural and urban water supply and sanitation (WSS), urban development, natural resource management, and rural livelihood sectors across 20 Indian states. Among his clients have been the World Bank, UNICEF, Asian Development Bank, Australian Agency for International Development, DFID, Global Sanitation Fund, and Swedish International Development Agency.

Key areas of Manish’s work include institutional design and strengthening, programme design and strategy, reform management support, strategic stakeholder communication and sector, portfolio and programme level result

Ramesh Ramaswamy
Vice President, Business Head, APAC
BoschSDS

With a career spanning 25 years, Ramesh has successful experiences delivering results in challenging business situations, complex organisational structures and with extremely diverse cultural landscapes, across various domains like Automotive, Industrial Manufacturing and Aerospace. He has successfully crafted new portfolios in Digital i4.0 solutions & Data Analytics, established successful Enterprise System Services and Automotive Product Engineering businesses in various geographies across India, Germany, Mexico & China. 

Behaviour Change Communication – Performance

At the end of the panel discussions on Day 1, Team Green Stage performed a street play, “Kasa Nova“, which emphasised the need for behavioural change in waste management practices in cities.

Through “Kasa Nova,” they aimed to demonstrate to the attendees how IEC activities can inspire communities to take actionable steps towards better waste management and environmental stewardship. The attendees had the opportunity to interact with the performers to ask questions about their experiences with community engagement.

Team Green Stage has performed more than 500 street plays since its inception in 2009, significantly impacting various communities and organisations. The team has performed several plays for Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB), Kidwai Hospital, and Namma Bangalore Foundation, among others.

Learning Exchange Hub: Cases from Practice

The Learning Exchange Hub provided an opportunity for practitioners to come together and share their experiences from their respective sectors with the community of practice and an opportunity for cross-sectoral learning from the ground. It was framed as a series of case presentations from practitioners on capacity building interventions from various sectors focusing on behavioural insights, behavioural barriers, behavioural interventions and their outcomes. Cases from health, urban mobility, disaster risk reduction, sanitation, solid waste management, and environment sectors were presented.

Sectoral Experts:

Learning Workshop: Concepts, methods, and tools for designing behavioural interventions

The learning workshop offered a hands-on toolkit-based approach to the application of behavioural insights in intervention design in the development sector. The workshop introduced behavioural biases to the participants through a game-based learning approach, then emphasised designing nudges with their role in mitigating biases. The participants were exposed to the four-step process of application of behaviour insights in India – from identifying behaviour barriers, designing behavioural interventions, methods of evaluation, and scaling up strategies. The participants were provided with worksheets for hands-on activity and essential reference materials to ensure maximum uptake of learning and transferability to their sectors of work.

Facilitators:

Shagata Mukherjee
Director, Centre for Social and Behaviour Change, Ashoka University
Academic Lead, Behavioural Insights Unit of India, NITI Aayog

Akarshik Banerjee
Researcher, Centre for Social and Behaviour Change
Ashoka University