Policy and Governance Studies in South Asia

Project title: Policy and Governance Studies in South Asia: regional Master and PhD Programs.

Background

Different estimates of governance indicators in South Asia have for recent years been negative and indicate that governance performance in Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh is much below the world average.

The countries also suffer from poor financial management and high levels of corruption. Better and good governance coupled with sound policy making and implementation is a precondition for any nation and equally highly relevant for South Asian states. Inclusion of minorities, women and the poor in policy making are critical governance challenges.

However, the large public sectors in these states are weakly organized resulting in poor public policies and governance. Analysing and assessing these sectors and their interfaces with other social and economic actors at domestic and global levels are crucial in order to address socio-economic challenges.

Better formulation and implementation of public policies as a precondition for good governance

Given this context, it is recognized that there is a need for better formulation and implementation of public policies in South Asia as a precondition to attain good governance.

This project brings together universities in Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, in cooperation with the University of Bergen, in order to strengthen teaching and research capacity on policy and governance, which in turn will develop skills for policy making, planning and budgetary processes.

The establishment of master, PhD and post-doctoral research at the involved institutions will contribute to this capacity development.

Publication and knowledge dissemination

The project aims to produce a number of scientific works of international standard, among them one book on Gender Policies, as well as a number of policy briefs and scientific articles.

The project will publish a peer reviewed journal with an international editorial board bi-annually. The journal will be an avenue for publication of scientific works of faculty members of partner institutions as well as of South and South-East Asian scholars.

Key goals and achievements

Overall goal

Development of research based education and knowledge in the field of Policy and Governance to build professional, competent and qualified work force in government and non-government sectors in order to promote good governance in South Asia.

The objectives of the project are:

1. Building capacity in universities in Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to provide relevant and quality education in public policy and governance.
2. Improved policy decisions and implementation on the basis of evidence based research, knowledge generation and dissemination.
3. Improved gender balanced environment in Southern institutions.