In a significant achievement towards recognizing efforts in health sector and especially COVID management, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of India received the Porter Prize 2023. The prize was announced at “The India Dialog” organized by Institute for Competitiveness (IFC) and US Asia Technology Management Center (USATMC) at Stanford University, on February 23 & 24, 2023. It was presented to MoHFW in the virtual presence of Dr. Mansukh Mandaviya, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India and Shri Rajesh Bhushan, Secretary, MoHFW. The theme of the conference was “The Indian Economy 2023: Innovation, Competitiveness and Social Progress”.

The prize recognizes the strategy followed by the Government of India in managing COVID-19, the approach, and involvement of various stakeholders especially involvement of ASHA workers in the industry to create PPE Kits. It was  also noted that “the idea of vaccine development and vaccine manufacturing and the scale that India achieved, was tremendous. India has delivered more than 2.5 billion doses today, which has just been amazing. The ministry took all the necessary steps to combat the Covid situation in the country.”

Experts noted that the strategies followed by India in its COVID management has been very successful. They elaborated on the three cornerstones of India’s strategy – containment, relief package, and vaccine administration. It observes that these three measures were critical in saving lives and ensuring economic activity by containing the spread of the COVID-19, sustaining livelihoods, and developing immunity against the virus. India thus, balanced the social agendas along with economic outcomes in planning its response and thus, showed resilience through its healthcare system.

Shri Rajesh Bhushan, Secretary of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, stated, "On behalf of the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, it is indeed an honour and privilege to be a recipient of this prestigious award. We treat it as a milestone that would encourage us to do better in the future and ensure that our responses are more agile and evidence-based. We are able to engage with the community at large to explain to them why certain interventions have been initiated to ensure a greater offtake of those interventions because we must realize that whatever we do in the area of the social sector, particularly health and education has an intrinsic link with the economy and the performance of the economy both in the short-term and in the long-term. Again, thank you all for considering us for this prestigious award."

The conference had series of keynote addresses and panel discussions on themes of Innovation, Competitiveness and Social Progress. The participants gained an outlook into the future for India and the challenges to its continued progress. Intellectuals and domain experts in the field of economics, business, policy-making, and social development were present to provide their up-to-date perspectives into the state of the India economy in 2023. 

Porter Prize is named after Michael E. Porter, an economist, researcher, author, advisor, speaker and teacher. He has brought economic theory and strategy concepts to bear on many of the most challenging problems facing corporations, economies and societies, including market competition and company strategy, economic development, the environment and healthcare. His research has received numerous awards, and he is the most cited scholar today in economics and business. 

The other speakers who were a part of the special presentation panel were Mr. Hari Menon, Director-India Country Office, BMGF; Dr. Michael Enright, Professor, Northeastern University; Dr. SV Subramanian, Professor at Harvard TH Chans School of Public Health and Dr. Mark Esposito, Professor, Hult Int’l Business School & Harvard University’s Division of Continuing Education.

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HFW/ HFM/ Porter Prize at The India Dialogue/2^nd March 2023/1