Centre for Effective Governance of Indian States (CEGIS)

The Centre for Effective Governance of Indian States (CEGIS) aims to improve lives by helping state governments deliver better development outcomes.

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What is effective governance? And why does it matter?

From poor learning outcomes to malnutrition, many of India’s biggest development challenges stem from weak state capacity. Whether it is ineffective government schools and clinics, people not receiving their welfare entitlements, understaffed and overworked police forces, or our backlog of over 30 million court cases, weak state capacity hinders the quality of public expenditure, constrains growth and hurts the poor. 

CEGIS believes that building the effectiveness of the state and improving the quality of public expenditure is the most cost-effective way of improving development outcomes at scale. Governments are responsible for designing and implementing policies, delivering services and regulating markets. And research has shown that even small improvements in state capacity can generate outsized effects on development. 

We believe that well-functioning governments share at least four features: (i) outcome measurement to monitor progress against specific goals; (ii) policies and practices that effectively hire, train and manage personnel to meet goals; and (iii) resource allocation based on evidence and cost-effectiveness; and (iv)  building state's capacity to manage its market interfaces. At CEGIS, we support Indian state governments to build these foundations so that they can deliver development outcomes more effectively.  

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Why Indian states?

Across health, education, agriculture, nutrition and other sectors, Indian state governments have the mandate, resources and personnel to deliver public services and create the conditions for economic growth. Given this scope and scale (the average Indian state has a population of nearly 50 million), improving Indian state government functioning has the potential to help millions, making it one of the most powerful ways to increase Indian and global prosperity.  Finally, state governments are ideally placed to lead India on policy reforms: a tried and tested reform in one state is more likely to be replicated by other states. Supporting state-led governance and policy reforms can be transformative for the country.