Prime Minister Vladimir Putin framed the structure and principles of his brainchild – the Strategic Initiatives Agency, which has been designed to become a social lift for talented young people. The government will establish the agency and hold a competition to choose its head and directors of three main departments. The agency will have a site to which every new talent may send ideas and cooperation proposals. This will help counter red tape within the new agency.
Putin began yesterday's government presidium meeting with a question that was not on the agenda. He set forth his idea to create the agency. Officials organize the day-to-day work and generate laws and regulations. "All this is good for stopping all kinds of nonsense and deceitful attempts to take hold of budget funds," Putin said unexpectedly. "But at the same time we know how difficult it can be to break through these bureaucratic barriers."
This is why he came up with the idea of the agency. "The aim is to create what we would call a social lift for promising young people," Putin explained. The agency will work in three areas – new business projects, skills assessments and social programmes. "The government could be the founder of the agency and it could work under the prime minister's supervision," Putin suggested modestly.
The agency will focus on the development of its regional networks, which, according to the prime minister, is very important for the scale of the project. The selection of projects and candidates for work in the agency must be as open as possible. Following this, Putin suggested creating a special web site and hiring independent experts to do evaluations. The agency's head and the directors of three main departments each responsible for a specific area must also be hired following the competition. "Successful experience in independent professional work will be a key criterion for selection," Putin announced. The competition will be launched on May 25 and Putin suggested that the agency's official presentation take place on the same day.
Inga Vorobyova