Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

India's approach to development partnership

India's approach to development partnership

In a globalising world, there was an increasing shift towards development partnership. Today, when globalisation is threatened due to the pandemic and a new war in Europe, there is a greater requirement for development partnership programmes.

India's approach to development partnership was rooted in the experience of India's freedom movement. This had solidarity with other developing countries who were also shaking off the yoke of colonialism and thereafter, under-development.


Despite initial resource constraints, India immediately after its independence in 1947, began to share its developmental experience and technical expertise with other countries. This began with scholarships and capacity-building programmes and then spread to institution building.

Ambassador Gurjit Singh Ambassador Gurjit Singh

India's developmental partnership approach focuses on human resource development; it shows respect for partnerships, provides for diversity, looks at the future and puts sustainable development at the centre. India's development cooperation is typically unconditional.

In a survey of African interlocutors, 60 per cent said that they saw the HRD, capacity building, training and scholarships as a valuable part of the Indian partnership, next only to Indian FDI.

Cooperating with development partners on an equal basis, and guided by their development priorities is India's fundamental approach.

In the landmark address of Prime Minister Modi to the Parliament of Uganda in July 2018 he said ‘Our development partnership will be guided by your priorities. It will be on terms that will be comfortable for you, that will liberate your potential and not constrain your future. We will build as much local capacity and create as many local opportunities as possible’.

India's model of development cooperation is organised to be responsive to requests from partner countries and provide technically and financially feasible solutions.

The main instruments of India's development partnership include lines of credit, grant assistance, small development projects, technical consultancy, disaster relief and humanitarian assistance, as well as capacity-building programmes under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme.

In a recent survey in Africa, the ITEC had the best recall among various development efforts. The establishment of the ITEC program in 1964 came about as India understood that newly independent and emerging countries faced challenges in their development.

There was an opportunity to fill such gaps. The ITEC hence brought India’s own development experience and growing achievement to share with other developing countries.

The ITEC program has 6 core qualities

  • Training in India for regular courses in several areas within the ITEC courses
  • Provide consultancy services and conduct feasibility studies for proposed projects in partner countries
  • Set up grant-based projects in partner countries in areas mutually agreed upon
  • Dispatch experts to partner countries
  • Study and experience sharing tours by decision makers from partner countries
  • Provision for disaster relief and humanitarian assistance

Indian partnership directly supports national development priorities. India also contributes to multilateral funds for similar achievements like the IBSA fund or the India-UN Development Partnership Fund. Where loans are involved or institutions are built, there is now a greater emphasis on business plans to make these projects financially sustainable.

The main point is that they should support development priorities, which internationally today include the Sustainable Development Goals. Development cooperation adds value to the development processes of its partners.

The projects emanating from the partnership can play an important role in providing incentives for profitable activities, which can have a developmental impact. The Indian impact investment movement for implementing the SDGs through investment is an example of this.

The development partnership that India follows creates new opportunities for other developing countries using its own experience and capability of its public and private sectors.

Thus, it tries to overcome the structural impediments that limit the absorption among other countries and creates easily scalable and transferable models. This criterion is increasingly important.

The Indian model of cooperative development partnership seeks to provide ownership of the assets and the capacities which are built through partnership with India of the host country.

It aims to complement resources and capacities while respecting the sovereignty of partners and their own development plans. This has led to the Indian partnership model earning respect among developing countries and from international partners.

India’s efforts are also cost-effective and spend less on high fees for consultants and focus more on delivery. The creation of a new Trilateral Development Fund in India will incrementally channel diverse funds into supporting the Indian model of cooperation in developing countries.

In Nepal, India has constructed highways, electrified villages, provided drinking water projects and increased the power potential of the country. Amid Sri Lanka’s recent crisis, India has provided support of about $ 3.8 billion for immediate assistance to alleviate the problems faced by the people of Sri Lanka for fuel, food and medicines.

In Africa, the Pan African E-network project was the largest project which covered 47 countries to provide them with telemedicine and tele-education facilities between 2009 and 2019. It has now moved into the next digital phase.

There are other success stories like the Centre for IT Excellence in Ghana and Entrepreneurship Development Training Centre in Senegal.

The India-Africa Forum Summits provided a new paradigm for India's development partnership, raising the funding by several billion dollars.

In ASEAN countries, India has contributed several projects to the ASEAN Initiative for ASEAN Integration and has also supported projects in Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam that have helped in narrowing the Development Gap.

India has undertaken projects through the India-Central Asia Forum and the Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation.

As India’s economy grew, India opened its facilities further and encouraged its private sector to go to Africa and other countries with greater support of concessional loans and support to private sector investment.

It is these approaches which are now being honed under the India Development Initiative into a new set which will keep pace with the current situation and provide succour to India’s development partners in a sustainable manner.

Ambassador Gurjit Singh is a retired Indian diplomat and has been India’s Ambassador to Germany, Indonesia, ASEAN, Ethiopia and the African Union. 

More For You

Will government inaction on science, trade & innovation cost the UK its economic future?

The life sciences and science tech sectors more widely continue to see out migration of companies

iStock

Will government inaction on science, trade & innovation cost the UK its economic future?

Dr Nik Kotecha OBE

As the government wrestles with market backlash and deep business concern from early economic decisions, the layers of economic complexity are building.

The Independent reported earlier in January on the government watchdog’s own assessment of the cost of Brexit - something which is still being fully weighed up, but their estimates show that “the economy will take a 15 per cent hit to trade in the long term”. Bloomberg Economics valued the impact to date (in 2023) at £100bn in lost output each year - values and impact which must be read alongside the now over-reported and repetitively stated “black hole” in government finances, being used to rationalise decisions which are already proving damaging.

Keep ReadingShow less
Deep love for laughter

Pooja K

Deep love for laughter

Pooja K

MY JOURNEY with comedy has been deeply intertwined with personal growth, grief, and selfdiscovery. It stems from learning acceptance and gradually rebuilding the self-confidence I had completely lost over the last few years.

After the sudden and tragic loss of my father to Covid, I was overwhelmed with grief and depression. I had just finished recording a video for my YouTube channel when I received the devastating news. That video was part of a comedy series about how people were coping with lockdown in different ways.

Keep ReadingShow less
UK riots

Last summer’s riots demonstrated how misinformation and inflammatory rhetoric, ignited by a tiny minority of extremists, can lead to violence on our streets

Getty Images

‘Events in 2024 have shown that social cohesion cannot be an afterthought’

THE past year was marked by significant global events, and the death and devastation in Ukraine, the Middle East and Sudan – with diplomatic efforts failing to achieve peace – have tested our values.

The involvement of major powers in proxy wars and rising social and economic inequalities have deepened divisions and prolonged suffering, with many losing belief in humanity. The rapid social and political shifts – home and abroad – will continue to challenge our values and resilience in 2025 and beyond.

Keep ReadingShow less
Values, inner apartheid, and diet

The author at Mandela-Gandhi Exhibition, Constitution Hill, Johannesburg, South Africa (December 2024)

Values, inner apartheid, and diet

Dr. Prabodh Mistry

In the UK, local governments have declared a Climate Emergency, but I struggle to see any tangible changes made to address it. Our daily routines remain unchanged, with roads and shops as crowded as ever, and life carrying on as normal with running water and continuous power in our homes. All comforts remain at our fingertips, and more are continually added. If anything, the increasing abundance of comfort is dulling our lives by disconnecting us from nature and meaningful living.

I have just spent a month in South Africa, visiting places where Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela lived, including the jails. They both fought against the Apartheid laws imposed by the white ruling community. However, no oppressor ever grants freedom to the oppressed unless the latter rises to challenge the status quo. This was true in South Africa, just as it was in India. Mahatma Gandhi united the people of India to resist British rule for many years, but it was the threat posed by the Indian army, returning from the Second World War and inspired by the leadership of Subhas Chandra Bose, that ultimately won independence. In South Africa, the threat of violence led by Nelson Mandela officially ended Apartheid in April 1994, when Mandela was sworn in as the country’s first Black president.

Keep ReadingShow less
Singh and Carter were empathic
leaders as well as great humanists’

File photograph of former US president Jimmy Carter with Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi, on October 27, 2006

Singh and Carter were empathic leaders as well as great humanists’

Dinesh Sharma

THE world lost two remarkable leaders last month – the 13th prime minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh, (September 26, 1932-December 26, 2024).and the 39th president of the US, Jimmy Carter (October 1, 1924-December 29, 2024).

We are all mourning their loss in our hearts and minds. Certainly, those of us who still see the world through John Lennon’s rose-coloured glasses will know this marks the end of an era in global politics. Imagine all the people; /Livin’ life in peace; /You may say I’m a dreamer; / But I’m not the only one; /I hope someday you’ll join us;/ And the world will be as one (Imagine, John Lennon, 1971) Both Singh and Carter were authentic leaders and great humanists. While Carter was left of Singh in policy, they were both liberals – Singh was a centrist technocrat with policies that uplifted the poor. They were good and decent human beings, because they upheld a view of human nature that is essentially good, civil, and always thinking of others even in the middle of bitter political rivalries, qualities we need in leaders today as our world seems increasingly fractious, self-absorbed and devolving. Experts claim authentic leadership is driven by:

Keep ReadingShow less