Existing and Emerging: An exploration of dynamic capabilities in India
“We lack some basic capabilities, let alone dynamic capabilities,” quipped one of our research participants. A similar sentiment was shared by many of the government officials we interviewed, indicating a potential understanding of these capabilities being different and more difficult to practice than other capabilities. In this blog, we further discuss the emergence of dynamic capabilities in the city governments of Chennai and Srinagar in India and the conditions in which these are practiced. This research is part of the Public Sector Capabilities Index project to develop a tool for measuring and developing city government capabilities across the globe.
Dynamic Capabilities and Context of India
Dynamic capabilities of city governments help them adapt the focus of their activities and resources, processes, and teams to solve existing challenges and develop solutions to emerging vulnerabilities while operating within and leveraging the city government’s structural conditions and constraints. We explored these capabilities in the Indian context through interviews with officials from city governments in Chennai and Srinagar and representatives from the national government and civil society.
We analysed the interviews considering two contextual factors that shape how dynamic capabilities emerge within city governments in India. Firstly, the city governments in India are facing diverse challenges on a large scale. With a combination of some of the fastest-developing cities as well as the ones with the highest climate risks, city governments in India are facing a duality of existing challenges (such as equitable access to public infrastructure and services) and emerging vulnerabilities (such as air pollution and water scarcity). The nature of the challenges they are responding to shapes the toolkit and capabilities city governments deploy to address them. Secondly, the city governments in India do not always have the autonomy to adapt their focus. The devolution of powers to city governments has not taken place in its entirety, and to a different extent in different cities. This results in limits to decision-making power at the city government level. As per finances, local governments typically have limited sources of revenue and depend on other levels of government and multilateral funding. They deploy their capabilities to influence the decisions and strategic direction through other stakeholders in their ecosystem.
Awareness of existing challenges through citizen engagement
In responding to existing challenges, such as the redevelopment of public schools in Chennai and the pedestrianisation of the market square in Srinagar, listening to citizens is a primary tool deployed by city governments to understand the challenges and inform solution development. For example, the agenda of public schools in Chennai was identified as a priority in their smart city plan, which was developed in consultation with citizens. Throughout their project’s lifecycle, engaging with citizens continued as a way of working to ensure the response to the identified challenges remained responsive to the emerging needs of citizens. This capability has been further institutionalized by the introduction of a permanent role of Public Engagement and Partnership officer to support citizen engagement on an ongoing basis.
However, in the context of limited devolution of powers, city governments often have limited power to act on the identified challenges beyond already budgeted projects, programs, and mandates. The emerging capability of studying “the needs of the city, [and] what the public wants” through citizen engagement builds their awareness, which they leverage to adapt the focus or strategic direction by mobilising support from state and central governments.
Uncovering emerging vulnerabilities through partnerships
The emerging vulnerabilities, such as climate risk, are a lived reality in Indian cities, instead of an anticipated future event. For example, urban flooding is a regular crisis that the Chennai city government has to face. Unlike some of the other city governments we engaged with in this phase of research, we found minimal evidence of the use of foresight techniques, which could help anticipate emerging challenges and opportunities.
However, like elsewhere in the world, the climate-related vulnerabilities are systemic, and there is wider interest and expertise in the rich ecosystem of government and non-government stakeholders around city governments. These stakeholders engage with city governments we spoke to, enabling the shift of focus towards the emerging focus areas (such as climate-related risks and adaptation) through resources, advisory, and capacity building. For example, CITIIS, a joint smart cities program by the Government of India (MoHUA, NIUA) and multilateral partners (AFD, KfW, EU), is funding projects focused on inclusion, sustainability, and circular economy in both Chennai and Srinagar, among 20 other cities in India. Similarly, there are city-specific partnerships in place with other multilateral organisations (such as the World Bank, JICA, Asian Development Bank) as well as civil society organisations like Janagraha supporting cities to improve their performance on global benchmarks.
The capability of city governments to work across these diverse partners helps them prioritise emerging challenges, such as air pollution in city centers, and build an institutional response to these challenges, such as pedestrianisation of market squares, through the financial and non-financial support these partnerships provide.
How are these capabilities being developed, and how could they be developed
The capability to build awareness through citizen engagement and external partnerships is central to adapting the focus areas of these city governments beyond the day-to-day. These are embedded in their ways of working. However, there is limited institutional focus within city governments to develop these capabilities internally. These are either a result of Learning by Doing (for example, in the case of partnerships as a way of working) or a response to external interest in shaping the capabilities of city governments (for example, the focus on citizen engagement in the development of smart city plans). The partnership projects themselves are often accompanied by support to develop local capacities (often technical and functional).
However, in the last few years, there has been centralised investment by the Government of India towards building the capabilities of government officials across the country through the establishment of the Capacity Building Commission. Similar to Ministries and Departments of the Government of India, it has encouraged city governments to devise their own capacity-building plans. While the technical and functional capabilities of individual public officials remain in focus, there is also the inclusion of building organisational capabilities, like reconfiguring systems and processes to respond to their respective focus areas. In order to develop dynamic capabilities, this provides a unique opportunity to shape the capabilities that could better prepare city governments to respond to both existing challenges and emerging vulnerabilities.
Key takeaways for our research on Public Sector Capabilities
Our research in India provides us valuable insights into understanding public sector capabilities deployed to address different challenges, how they are practised and developed, especially in the light of contextual factors we discussed at the beginning of the blog:
- Citizen Engagement to identify strategic priorities: In India (and other developing countries), the development of public infrastructure and universal provision of public services is still a high priority, but exposure to environmental vulnerabilities is also an emerging reality. The city governments leverage their understanding of citizen needs as a compass to navigate these competing priorities.
- Partnerships to navigate structural constraints: The limited devolution of power means that decision-making does not always reside with city governments. However, city governments build on their understanding of local challenges to forge partnerships with external organisations to adapt strategic focus and mobilise resources.
- Leveraging opportunities to create enabling conditions: While the smart city plans offered the one-time opportunity to adapt their focus areas, the national focus on capacity building is providing the opportunity to shape their local resources and structures towards the needs of their cities and citizens.
As we continue to develop the Public Sector Capabilities Index, we will build on these insights to create a tool that helps city governments worldwide measure and strengthen their capabilities. Our interim report delves deeper into our findings so far and sets out our next steps to develop the Public Sector Capabilities Index.
If you have lessons to share from capability building inside or outside of government, we’d love to hear from you. Please contact Mia Tarp at m.tarp@ucl.ac.uk.