Despite substantial investments by the Indian government, there is still potential for accelerating progress towards achieving India’s development goals, a report titled, ‘Systemic Impact Exemplars: Unique Approaches Towards Solving India’s Development Challenges,’ released by the Convergence Foundation, in collaboration with India Impact Sherpas, noted.
The report adds that though in 2022-23, the cumulative social expenditure by the Central and State governments amounted to ₹21.03 lakh crore, according to the Reserve Bank of India, there is a need for more System Support Organisations (SSOs) to work with governments to provide technical and programmatic support for population level impact. SSOs work in close collaboration with governments at the Centre as well as State levels, to create impact at a large-scale.
Also read | India, its SDG pledge goal, and the strategy to apply
With this report, the Foundation, and India Impact Sherpas – organisations working in the area of social development – said that it aims to offer an actionable framework on how SSOs can work with governments to create outsized impact.
Speaking at the launch of the report, Vini Mahajan, secretary, Department of Drinking Water & Sanitation, Ministry of Jal Shakti, noted that non-profit organisations that have adopted the system change approach by implementing scalable pilots and working meaningfully with governments can contribute to large-scale change.
“The systems change approach is a pivotal idea that has the highest potential for transformation. We conceptualised this report to identify and learn from leading Indian organizations that have adopted systems change to inspire and inform other social purpose organizations by building evidence on what works in the Indian context,” Ashish Dhawan, founder and CEO of The Convergence Foundation, said.
The report examines various systems change practices, including creating demand and alignment for change, grounding the theory of change in data, evidence, and research, informing the design and implementation of policy, designing, and demonstrating scalable solutions and investing in population-scale platforms.
“The report serves as a comprehensive knowledge resource, intended to shape thinking on systems change. It outlines frameworks for how social purpose organisations can adopt it and offers models on how SSOs can create disproportionate impact,’’ a release issued by the Foundation stated.
