Partnership and Knowledge-Sharing: New Sources to Drive Development
KEY CONCLUSIONS
Partnerships and successful practice exchange in various fields to be driver of country’s successful development
“Talking face-to-face is absolutely necessary – it is experience exchange with those who are trying to employ those practices, and we need a regular platform for that purpose,” Andrei Belousov, Aide to the President of the Russian Federation.
“Interregional cooperation is still very important. We are going to share our practice of participatory financing, which originated with the support of the Ministry of Finance,” Aysen Nikolaev, Head of Sakha Republic (Yakutia)
“We have arrived at a conclusion that we need to develop more partnerships, we shouldn’t confine ourselves in e-commerce, we should also work as a technology company,” Pavel Gontarev, Director, Мail.ru. Digital Technology
“All our products that have succeeded had the design principle of partnership in mind, meaning that our products and revenue succeed and grow if our partner’s revenue succeeds and grows,” Meir Brand, Vice-President, Google Inc.
“We started a programme two years ago called Collaborated Russia. <…> It involves cooperation with the largest research centre in Russia, and that is knowledge sharing. We hope that that innovation will be patented in Russia and we’ll have a chance to be the first to secure the licence. The other programme is called ‘Patents Power’ which we do together with the Skolkovo Foundation,” John Edward Butler Ransohoff, Vice President, Head of Strategic Projects for Innovations and International Partnerships Direction, Bayer AG.
Experience exchange platforms required to make use of potential of best practices
“Best practices are not to be valued as such, it is communities where best practices develop and grow that are important,” Andrey Ivanov, Deputy Finance Minister of the Russian Federation.
“Best practices are very good for our regions. We provide them with solutions and deliver useful knowledge. As for urban environment, we have been doing this since 2015 – we have implemented over 300 projects all over the Republic, and we have gained experience in public relations through understanding public needs,” Rustam Minnikhanov, President of the Republic of Tatarstan.
“In these conditions [of limited resources – Ed.], the way out is to utilize energy and ideas of our citizens and communities to find solutions and to create a sensor that would detect these ideas. Ideas and knowledge have been and will be a growth driver. <…> The value of ideas and knowledge grows as they are shared,” Konstantin Polunin, Partner, Expert, Head of the Public Sector Practice Area in Russia, BCG.
“There is no such thing as best practices, there are good practices,” Aleksandra Posarac, Lead Economist, Leader of the Program of Social Protection in the Russian Federation, World Bank Group.
Digitalization plays an important role in management
“We have realized that without digital technology, without simplifying all procedures, we will be outsiders in a huge region, both in economics and in politics. Digital economy is a phenomenon of the time, and you cannot refuse it. If you want to move forward, if you want to be a leader, to be successful, you must digitalize all processes. If you stand against it, you are a fool,” Andrei Vorobyov, Governor of Moscow Region.
Building efficient partnerships must be taught
“We have developed a training programme to teach building partnerships. If we provided trainings in different institutions on how to build partnerships, I think that every rouble spent on this education would bring 10 roubles to the country’s GDP. One of the best platforms for sharing [best practices – Ed.] is alumni associations,” Gor Nahapetyan, Serial Entrepreneur and Philanthropist; Co-Founder, Profilum, CrashPro future Careers School, The Friends Foundation
PROBLEMS
Challenges of sharing best practices
“Why knowledge-sharing mechanisms fail? Why is it so hard to transfer these practices from one region to another? Introducing a best practice is always, indeed, a risk for those who introduce it, because they cannot tell how it is going to work out. Good practice works somehow, but best practice seems to be the best, however you should be careful not to ruin the good thing. There is a host of conditions that make good and best practices worst or simply impossible to use,” Andrei Belousov, Aide to the President of the Russian Federation.
Imperfect regulations
“When regions begin solving their problems, they see the solution, they do it quite efficiently, but something is missing. What? The missing part is a law, a regulation, which would make this work to the full,” Vladimir Yakushev, Minister of Construction, Housing and Utilities of the Russian Federation.
Insufficient access to modern information-sharing tools
“Only half of the world is connected. We have been working hard on that mission; we have maybe reached only 50% of our goal, when you have connection to the Internet, be it a farmer in Russia or in Africa,” Meir Brand, Vice-President, Google Inc.
SOLUTIONS
Encouraging leaders to introduce best practices
“If a governor asks a head of a municipality, why they do not have something that a neighbour has? This is what encourages them not only to have what their neighbours have, but to make it better. <…> This mechanism is now working pretty well as part of national rating,” Andrei Belousov, Aide to the President of the Russian Federation.
“We are going to introduce a concept of business sheriff. Technically, it is an ombudsperson for entrepreneurs, it is a self-sustained deputy head of administration, who, however, will only be appointed based on all business structures represented in this municipality,” Radiy Khabirov, Acting Head of the Republic of Bashkortostan.
Discarding old regulations
“Our goal, at federal, regional, and local levels is to discard regulations, decrees, modify laws that were created dozens of years ago,” Andrei Vorobyov, Governor of Moscow Region.
Involving population in solving social issues
“50% of the population of a village who take part in decision-making and implement one project or another, it is a great opportunity to improve people’s lives,” Aysen Nikolaev, Head of Sakha Republic (Yakutia).
“If you do not know where to start with optimization of social institutions, start with customers, start with students, with patients, with teachers – they will tell you straight away what they would like to have improved,” Nikolay Solomon, General Director, Federal Competence Centre (FCC).
Best solutions base must be readily available
“We have done the rating over several years, and we do have the database of best solutions from variety of Russian regions that have proven their efficiency. We put them into words, we provide off-the-shelf solutions based on the experience. But the demand is so high that we can only cover 10 regions in a year, but we have 85 regions in Russia, so we need to speed up. <…> We need a very convenient interface, an open platform where all regions would find it easy to work, which would not just be place to stack roadmaps that no one ever uses,” Svetlana Chupsheva, General Director, Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI).
“WHO statistics predict a shortfall of 15 million health workers in 2030. <…> Watson [AI platform – Ed.] is the technology that will assist a health diagnosing practitioner in accessing the best knowledge of the best professionals,” Oleg Byakhov, Director for Business Development, IBM East Europe and Asia.
For more information, visit the Roscongress Foundation's Information and Analytical System at roscongress.org/en.
