India and UN launch global capacity building initiative

India and the United Nations have launched a joint capacity-building initiative that will operationalise development-relevant deliverables of India’s G20 Presidency and aims to share the country’s best practices with partner countries in the Global South.

The “India-UN Capacity Building Initiative” was announced at the event ‘India-UN for the Global South-Delivering for Development’ in the presence of the External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.

“This Initiative will also operationalise the development-relevant deliverables of India’s G20 Presidency, including the G20 Action Plan for Accelerating Progress on the SDGs, technological transformation and building Digital Public Infrastructure, among others,” a press release by India’s Permanent Mission to the UN said.

It will be a significant contribution to global efforts towards accelerating momentum for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by strengthening South-South Cooperation and reflects India’s continuing efforts to strengthen its development partnership with the Global South.

“This initiative carries forward the successful G20 Presidency of India which saw inclusion of the voice of Global South into the G20 agenda and entry of the African Union into the grouping,” the release added.

The initiative aims to share India’s development experiences, best practices and expertise with partner countries in the Global South through capacity building and training programmes, a press release by India’s Permanent Mission to the UN said.

As part of this initiative, the UN India team and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will “partner to leverage India’s Technical and Economic Cooperation platform to share India’s development experiences and best practices across the world.” At the event, a Joint Declaration of Intent was exchanged between UN Resident Coordinator in India Shombi Sharp and India representative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Hari Menon.

The ‘India-UN Capacity Building Initiative’ builds upon the extensive cooperation in development and capacity building that India already has bilaterally with the partners countries. It also complements the India-UN partnership in the form of India-UN Development Partnership Fund which has developed a portfolio of 75 development projects in 61 countries in the last 6 years, the release said.