V Governance - vibrant governance

The Government of Gujarat strongly believes that Governance would be as good as the people who manage it. Human resource development and Human capital formation within the Government therefore, becomes a matter of critical significance. This can only be achieved with concerted long-term efforts by sensitizing the Government personnel with regard to internal and external environment within which they operate, as also rapid changes in the environment and need for adaptation and being focused in management of Government and Governance.

Vibrant Governance training programme was conceived and implemented by Government of Gujarat to address this very vital need to kick-start the process of ensuring human capital formation within the Governance in order to ensure a more vibrant, citizen oriented and responsive Government in time to come.

The parameters and guiding principles ultimately translate in design and implementation of the training programme which, perhaps is a pioneering effort of its own kind in the country and perhaps in the world.

V-Governance Training Programme

V-Governance stands for Vibrant Governance. The programme was evolved by the State Government and implemented from the year 2003 and is continuing.

This programme, is only a stepping stone and is expected to eventually become a launching platform in the process of change within the establishment. Thus this is not a one time programme but is infact a mechanism to kick-start a process which is ultimately institutionalized and investments in terms of ideas, issues and outcome are built into the system to ensure sustainability and replicability .

Ultimately the programme of V-Governance may just induce and provoke Government personnel to think about the changes in environment and enable them to own up the sense of being citizen focused in a Vibrant and result oriented Governance. It is also expected that the sense of ownership inculcated would gradually lead them from traditional process orientation to result orientation.

Continuous and close interaction was ensured as an ongoing exercise between all stakeholders and support was granted to conduct the programme meaningfully right from the highest level of Government including the Office of Hon. Chief Minister, Office of the Chief Secretary, Heads of the Department and Heads of the District Administration throughout the State to ensure that Vibrant Governance is conducted with very serious and close attention. This signifies the importance and priority accorded by the State Government to ensure a Vibrant and result oriented Governance in the State.

Evaluation and Impact Assessment

Evaluation critically examines the training programme itself while Impact assessment examines the outcome and the impact generated as a result of the training programme conducted. It is all about how the training was imbibed, utilized and how and to what extent it brought about the change or desired impact in the targeted areas. It is a study, which, focuses on examining whether and to what extent the deliverables of the programme have been received by the target audience and practiced to bring about desired changes and with what impact or results.

In order to study this vital aspect of the training programme it was decided that an independent agency be entrusted the assignment. International Centre for Entrepreneurship and Career Development), which has experience and expertise Nationally and Internationally in undertaking impact assessment studies, was assigned the task of assessing the impact of the V-Governance training.

The centre is actively engaged in varieties of activities related to Development, and has a wide experience of projects and training groups at National and International level. ICECD's expertise is in areas such as Behavioural/Management/Entrepreneurship training, Organisational effectiveness, HRD, Technology transfer etc and in-house experts have International reputation.

The centre has very carefully and consciously made some observations during implementation of this study as well as through interactions with participants, heads of the departments, trainers and clients. It was a very enlightening experience and the centre had an opportunity of interacting with many stakeholders that provided very few negative and quite a large number of positive experiences.

OBSERVATIONS BY ICECD

It is observed that the process of V-Governance training is well designed and well directed. The final observations are as follows :

	Majority of participants find the programme to be very useful in initiating the process of self-change with regard to personal as well as official spheres through attitudinal development received from the training. The programme has also assisted the participants in honing their skills. In general, it is a very successful programme for capacity building in desired areas for the target audience.
	It is observed that whereas it would be easier to translate the learning as far as individuals are concerned on personal levels, it would require following support mechanisms to translate it into a process as an ongoing exercise.
	To establish suitable and supportive enabling environment by process of administrative reforms or other mechanisms.
	By continuing the process as a long term exercise duly institutionalized within the establishment by sustaining it through continued programmes and activities horizontally and vertically throughout the Government apparatus.

In conclusion it can be mentioned that the training programme has achieved the objectives for which it is designed, significantly. Further, immense benefit which is accrued through this pioneering effort needs to be institutionalized on sustained and long term basis within the Governance to ultimately reach and achieve the mission of ushering in Vibrant Governance in subsequent phases on a sustained basis.