This session explores the new levers of state power:

• Why are we still talking about “big” and “small” government – isn’t this a dichotomy of the past?

• What should governments do about digital platforms and their increasing power?

• What has COVID taught us about the new levers of power available to government, and how to harness them for positive societal outcomes?

In this session, Jaideep Prabhu, Professor of Business and Enterprise at the University of Cambridge, talks about his research on the nature of innovation in the public sector in both developed and developing nations (such as India, China, Kenya and Bangladesh), and what it revealed about the dilemmas of governing in the 21^st century. He argues that we should go beyond black or white categorisations, and that there are ways in which governments can be both big and small, generous and frugal, deeply involved in the lives of their citizens while stopping short of intrusion.

He is accompanied by Angela Lusigi, UNDP resident representative in Ghana, and Stephan Klingebiel, Director of UNDP’s Seoul Policy Center, who share their reflections on the implications of the research for UNDP’s work.