Apolitical and India's Capacity Building Commission announce landmark collaboration on AI governance

The collaboration will define what good AI governance looks like for public officials and the institutions they work within, grounded in the realities of public sector implementation worldwide.

Apolitical and India's Capacity Building Commission (CBC) have launched a new initiative, under the CBC’s Global Digital Capacity Building Alliance (GDCBA), on AI governance in the public sector. The initiative builds on CBC's leadership of Mission Karmayogi, India's flagship civil service capacity-building programme, and its ‘Capacity by Design for Governance’ [CbD-G]™ approach, alongside Apolitical's global network of public servants.

The initiative responds to a defining challenge in public administration: while governments around the world are accelerating their adoption of AI, the governance structures, institutional capacities and shared standards needed to oversee that adoption remain underdeveloped. This makes AI adoption a leadership and governance challenge as much as a technical one, dependent on human judgement, institutional readiness and ethical oversight. Insights from Apolitical's AI Readiness Check, drawn from its network of public servants across 170 countries, reveal that 43% of leaders in high-readiness countries do not have an AI adoption strategy, and just 26% of AI implementers are familiar with ethical AI frameworks.

"Governments everywhere are asking how to implement AI and what the risks are when the rules are often undefined. India's Capacity Building Commission has immense expertise on how to build capacity in a workforce of millions to handle governance challenges like these", said Robyn Scott, Apolitical co-founder and CEO. "Combining CBC's experience alongside the collective insights of Apolitical's global network of public servants is an opportunity to design a powerful approach that’s adaptable to the needs of governments around the world."

Apolitical and CBC have previously collaborated to bring AI guidance to public servants through iGOT Karmayogi talks and courses on Apolitical's Government AI Campus. This new initiative marks a shared ambition to define what good looks like for those responsible for delivering AI transformation in government. 

CBC’s Global Digital Capacity Building Alliance (GDCBA), led by Dr Vashima Shubha, Principal Advisor, Capacity Building Commission, aims to strengthen public-sector capabilities globally for the digital era. It applies CBC’s Capacity by Design for Governance [CbD-G]™ approach, which treats capacity building not as a collection of standalone training interventions, but as an integrated system that connects the capabilities required by public officials and institutions with the frameworks, enablers, learning architecture, and delivery mechanisms needed to build and sustain them. In the context of AI, CbD-G™ provides a structured lens for understanding how public-sector capacity requirements are changing as AI becomes increasingly embedded in public administration—and what governments need to put in place to respond. 

The initiative will examine what public officials in different roles need to know and be able to do, and what institutions need in place to support them: the policies, governance structures, digital infrastructure and accountability mechanisms required for the authorised use, oversight and deployment of AI systems and agents.

The work will be hypothesis-led, testing questions such as whether to permit public chatbots for official work, or whether to meet new demands by creating specialist roles or upskilling existing staff, against research and expert consultation. Governments with widely differing resources and starting points will be central to that testing, not only those already furthest ahead.

“AI is advancing faster than governments can build the institutions, capabilities and governance systems needed to harness its potential responsibly,” said S Radha Chauhan, India Administrative Service (Retd.), Chairperson, Capacity Building Commission. “This makes AI governance not only a question of technology or regulation, but fundamentally a question of public-sector capacity. Through the Global Digital Capacity Building Alliance and our work with Apolitical, CBC is bringing the lessons of India’s Mission Karmayogi to the global conversation on AI governance.”

The initiative begins in August with an expert panel discussion on AI governance and public sector readiness, convening senior government leaders, policymakers, practitioners, academics, industry and international organisations. In-depth interviews with senior public officials and AI governance experts will follow, grounded in a comprehensive literature review and Apolitical's existing research and data. Learning content to support public servants will be designed and delivered as the work develops.

Insights from the initiative will inform the competencies, governance approaches, institutional capabilities and operational standards that responsible AI adoption depends on. Apolitical and CBC will share what they learn with governments and multilaterals at convenings around the world, with the aim of helping governments move beyond isolated AI projects towards resilient, AI-native public institutions.