Svetlana Chupsheva, ASI: “Mr Minnikhanov always teaches his team to share, teach and learn”
The platform for an exchange of the best practices of social and economic development among regions was discussed in Kazan
A big discussion of the project Smarteka Library of Smart Solutions, which is a global platform for an exchange of the best practices of social and economic development among regions, took place in Kazan on 6 August. Read how Smarteka will help implement national projects, if it is hard to adapt the best practices of one region to other regions, what Rustam Minnikhanov’s life hack regularly brings Tatarstan to the top of the National Investment Climate Rankings and what a tool for experience exchange our republic developed in Realnoe Vremya’s report.
Architecture of platform
The first strategic session dedicated to issues of implementation of the systemic initiative of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives — Smarteka Library of Smart Solutions took place in Boiling Point — Kazan shared working environment on 6 August. High-ranking officials from neighbouring republics as well as Moscow guests in the person of Vice Minister of Construction, Housing and Utilities of Russia Nikita Stasishin and Director General of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives Svetlana Chupshina arrived in Tatarstan to participate in the event.
An instruction to launch the platform allowing regions to exchange the best social and economic practices was given by President of Russia Vladimir Putin after the SPIEF 2019. The responsibility fell on regional governments’ shoulders, as well as the ASI. The necessity to introduce this system is explained by the fact that though almost every Russian region has interesting management solutions and practices, standards of their description, unified metrics and control of the result are still absent.
According to the head of the ASI, Smarteka is to become “a constantly running mechanism where regions, companies, municipalities and entrepreneurs will be able to participate in changes in a specific city, region or country”.
“We’ve already formed the architecture of this platform. The first format is an online platform where anyone can place one’s solutions for certain standards. The conditional ‘catalogue of solutions’ will be differentiated in 12 national projects. There will be introduced a system of ratings and supervision,” Director General of the ASI Svetlana Chupshina said. “The second format is offline laboratories where we will gather in different regions (like today in the Republic of Tatarstan) and discuss topics, create new solutions together with businesses and authorities.”
The head of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives expressed her hope that after the two-day session in Kazan’s Boiling Point the participants would manage to choose several best solutions, which would be represented on Smarteka among the first later.
Minnikhanov’s life hack and difficulties with adaptation
During the discussion, head of the ASI Svetlana Chupsheva mentioned the National Investment Climate Ranking where Tatarstan regularly keeps top positions. The speaker fairly noticed that the top 30 on this list hadn’t almost changed in the last five years.
“The most active governors and motivated regional teams who don’t even wait for the description of the best practices are at the top. I can put an example of Rustam Minnikhanov’s life hack: after every ranking, he looks at data of his regions, looks at where the best indicators are and sends his team to the region with the best practice to study and learn the experience without waiting for anything. He looks at interesting management solutions that can be used in Tatarstan. To remain a leader, one should move and run faster than other regions,” the head of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives said.
Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov, in turn, noted that the republican solutions were actively applied to work by other regions, moreover, we do have the groundwork in some areas of national projects — from demography and housing to support for small and medium-sized businesses.
“It pleases that today the Republic of Tatarstan is really sharing its solutions, inviting delegations. Mr Minnikhanov always teaches his team to share, teach and learn. I think that it is the key principle of success of the republic,” Svetlana Chupsheva said.
The participants of the session recognise that the readiness to share the experience is wonderful, but what about the adaptation of the best solutions and practices of one region in other regions?
“Undoubtedly, one task can have several absolutely unique solutions that suit different cultural and demographic definitions, territorial locations. A solution can be applied not integrally but it can be made up of several elements like transformer. You know, we aren’t talking about a unified standard that will be spread across the country. It is really a number of unique solutions that everyone will use for their identity,” the director general of the ASI explained.
Tool from Tatarstan Ministry of Economy
During the events, its participants were presented a project of the Ministry of Economy of Tatarstan, which is a local platform to exchange the best practices of social and economic development. The Competition of the Best Practices of Tatarstan will become the first practical experience in performing the main idea of federal Smarteka.
Successful entrepreneurship and administrative practices will be published on the digital platform. They all will be divided into territories and spheres of application, which will help users easily get their bearings when looking for necessary information and see more active territories and their leaders. Online access to the data will give a chance to optimise the time and efforts of all interested members. Every practice will be moderated and get an expert evaluation before publication, can be included in Golden Hundred of Tatarstan in the future and become one of the successful federal practices.
According to Minister of Economy of Tatarstan Farid Abdulganiyev, the competition of best practices will help increase the efficiency of the managerial apparatus of Tatarstan, augment the investment attractiveness and raise the population’s well-being through the exchange of successful experience inside the republic. It is noted that the first release of the platform is scheduled for September 2019.
Necessary expansion
Also, during the strategic session, Vice Minister of Construction, Housing and Utilities of the Russian Federation Nikita Stasishin expressed his vision of the platform. The speaker wondered about the role of Smarteka in accelerating the development pace of individual housing development in accordance with the population’s needs.
“What is needed so that regions could take the best standards in this area from the platform? Firstly, land as far from urban districts or the city’s borders as possible is the first thing we lack. Secondly, we don’t have a correct approach to calculate engineering infrastructure per square metre of private housing development (heating, water treatment and water disposal). Thirdly, our banks don’t know how to grant a mortgage with an interest rate they grant a mortgage when building blocks of flats through co-investment contract or escrow accounts at. We, in turn, created a standard to grant a mortgage having adopted the best practices in Nizhny Novgorod, Lipetsk, Kaluga and Voronezh Oblasts: Sberbank and Bank.DOM.RF start to grant a mortgage with the same conditions as if we were purchasing a flat at the stage of construction,” Nikita Stasishin said.
Chairman of the Government of the Republic of Mari El Aleksandr Yevstifeyev, in turn, offered to expand the “catalogue of solutions” of the platform beyond national projects. In his opinion, the circle of existing problems now doesn’t fit in this format.
