India is a world leader in development cooperation: Meenakshi Lekhi

NEW DELHI: Meenakshi Lekhi, Minister of State for Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, released a report on India’s development cooperation on February 21. She noted that India has provided development cooperation assistance to the tune of $ 107 billion between 1947 and 2022. In the process, India has trained around 3,50,000 people from various countries in the developing world through several initiatives such as the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme.

The report has been developed by the think tank Research and Information System (RIS) for Developing Countries. The institute brought out the report as part of its week-long programme to mark 75 years of India’s Independence, being observed as ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’.

According to the report, the Lines of Credit provided by India till now amounts to almost $31 billion. Half of the amount has gone to neighbouring nations. It noted the success of this cooperation model of India during the COVID-19 outbreak. India has supplied vaccines to over 90 countries along with $ 4 billion in aid and grants to around 100 countries. India has granted poor countries with duty foregone amounting to $ 7 billion to enable them to access Indian markets. In terms of in-kind assistance provided by India, during the period under review was also found to be $ 7 billion. Sachin Chaturvedi, Director General, RIS, said that the institute is recalling what India has done in development cooperation in the last 75 years and how it can take this forward in the next 25 years.