In the era of globalisation, India’s strengths are its democracy, vigilant civil society, a growing economy and investment in development through policies, programmes and innovation. Considering the increased focus on South-South Cooperation development dialogue and India’s experience in addressing development challenges and assisting development in various regions of the world, the Government of UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) is implementing a new model of cooperation support in India through the Knowledge Partnership Programme (KPP). KPP is funded by DFID and managed by a Consortium led by IPE Global Limited under its Knowledge Initiative.

The KPP envisages production and dissemination of high quality research and analysis products, sharing Indian and global evidence on policies that impact development outcomes. KPP supports the following three strategic objectives:

• Gathering and uptake of evidence on issues central to India’s national development that have potential for replication in Low Income Countries (LICs).

• Gathering and uptake of evidence on issues central to India’s national development having significant impacts on global poverty.

• Promote sharing of Indian evidence, best practice and expertise with LICs in order to facilitate policy review and uptake.

The aim is to step up collaboration around ideas, knowledge, evidence, accountability, technology and innovation between UK, India, LICs of Sub Saharan Africa and South-East Asia thus leading to innovation and shaping of global discourse.

• Implementation through 50 plus experienced partners including research organisations, industry chambers, CSOs and individual consultants.

• Cooperative and solution oriented.

• In-depth project engagement.

• Future centric keeping in mind national demands and their global implications and innovation options.

• Policy-relevant analytical studies.

• Policy briefs that highlight key challenges and constraints and suggest solutions.

• Workshops and events for policy dissemination.

• Contribute and support to International Conferences with policy influencing goals.

• Knowledge sharing through visits of officials and representatives from LICs to learn from India’s experience.

• Online platforms to facilitate exchange on key policies.

• Communication campaigns.

Resource Scarcity, Food Security, and Climate Change

KPP strives to build global public goods and share India’s lessons and expertise, in order to help LICs to strengthen their approaches to food and nutrition security; and manage resources more efficiently at the food-water-energy nexus. Areas of knowledge partnership include:

• Policy and legal frameworks for food security

• Harnessing Indian agri-business in Africa

• Renewables for energy access

• Resource efficiency in industrial supply chains

• Green construction technology

• India’s footprint at the water-energy-food nexus.

Health and Disease Control

KPP generates high-quality evidence and research-based knowledge which enables health policy makers and all stakeholders to make informed decisions and influence their national policy and institutional environment, thus creating an impact on the global footprint in the health development sector. Some focus areas:

• Pharmaceuticals.

• Health Technology.

• Private Health Sector.

• Global Burden of Diseases.

Women and Girls

KPP endeavours to build robust evidence and to influence key global processes and strengthen policies and programmes in other countries that impact the lives of women and girls. It actively shares India’s experience and lessons through multi-stakeholder knowledge partnerships. Some focus areas of work include:

• Violence against Women and Girls.

• Women and Work.

• Girls’ Education.

Trade and Investment

KPP is used as a strategic instrument to find and respond to the entry points to engage with the poverty reduction potential of India's global trade and investment footprint, especially in LICs. Some focus areas:

• India’s Trade with Least Developed Countries.

• India’s Aid to Least Developing Countries.

• India’s FDI in Least Developed Countries.

Development Effectiveness

KPP complements the above four areas and focuses on India’s engagement with international processes and India’s development policy. Some focus areas.

• Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)/ Post 2015.

• Effective south-south cooperation.

• Development Partnership Agency for India.

• KPP-India-Ethiopia ‘partnership on economic empowerment through Self Help Groups and financial inclusion informed programmes and policies of different stakeholders.

• KPP-India-Nepal partnership that led to a pilot of employment guarantee programme and women’s safety audit through SafetiPin.

• KPP-DFID-IRENA ‘Building Energy Businesses’ workshops with business entrepreneurs and incubators from Asia and Africa.

• Findings from ‘Dynamics of Pharmaceutical Quality Systems for export from India to Africa’.

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