Union Cabinet approved MoU between India & UK on cooperation in governance reforms

The Union Cabinet on 20 January 2016 gave its ex-post facto approval for the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between India and United Kingdom on cooperation in governance reforms.

The MoU, which was signed in November 2015, seeks to extend bilateral cooperation in public administration and governance reforms.

Features of the MoU

• It covers areas of cooperation such as sharing good governance practices in public administration, user led service design, reducing bureaucracy in service delivery and government process re-engineering.
• It will also cover reforms towards strengthening of social security, collaboration between Government and Industry on staff management, crisis and disaster Management and digital transformation of government among others.
• It will help in understanding the system of customer oriented public service delivery in UK with reference to rapidly changing environments in the area of public service management and enable in adapting some of the best practices in the Indian Public Service Delivery System,
• A Joint Working Group on Public Administration and Governance will be responsible for implementation of the MoU.
• The First Joint Working Group (JWG) meeting under the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is scheduled to be held in January 2016 in London.

Comment

The MoU facilitates India to learn best administrative practices from the UK which is renowned for its Right to Information Act, Ombudsmen and Citizen Charter initiatives in the field of public administration.

The MoU is part of India’s efforts in seeking international collaboration for initiatives in good governance and administrative reforms.

The Department of Administrate reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), which is a part of the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, has so far entered into similar bilateral MoUs with China, Malaysia, Singapore and a trilateral MoU with Brazil and South Africa.

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