India Backbone Implementation Network (IbIn)

While preparing the 12th Five Year Plan, the Planning Commission of India undertook an analysis of what would be required to implement the Plan. Initially the analysis began with examination of plans related to accelerating growth of the manufacturing sector. Later, the results of that analysis were also extended to other sectors when it was realised that the root causes of implementation bottlenecks were the same. The analysis revealed that the root cause of the poor implementation of plans and projects in India is contention amongst stakeholders, and poor coordination amongst agencies. Such bottlenecks are at many levels in the system, at the Centre, in the States, and in districts and cities too. Efforts to relieve these bottle-necks top down after they have arisen have now become necessary. However this approach is not sustainable, because bottlenecks will keep arising within the system unless root causes for the bottlenecks are addressed. Taking cognizance of this, the Planning Commission in the 12th Five Year Plan identified the need "to establish an effective ‘backbone' capability which will provide strength to multi-stakeholder policy and implementation processes". This led to the launch of the India Backbone Implementation Network (IbIn) in April 2013, with the primary objective of promoting widespread capabilities in the country to systematically convert the manifest confusion to coordination, and rampant contention to collaboration, so that intentions can be converted into implementation. IbIn's capabilities include stakeholder alignment, project management, and policy development processes, all of which require skills as well as domain knowledge. Generally no single entity can provide both the process management skills and the domain knowledge. Therefore IbIn is designed as a network that will bring together combined capabilities of partner organizations, as required.