India playing a vital role in reshaping global agenda on South-South Cooperation: S Jaishankar

NEW DELHI: India is playing a vital role in reshaping the global agenda on South-South Cooperation ( SSC), according to Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar.

Delivering the valedictory address at the two-day South-South Conference here on Friday, Jaishankar mentioned that India is always willing to share its limited resources with other developing countries and take it as a responsibility to assist developing countries in building their capacity. For this, India in its present union budget has increased the range of its development assistance be it in capacity building, lines of credit, grants or aids.

India has been proponent of the South-South Cooperation since ancient times which is clearly reflected in its neighbourhood policies. Under the neighbourhood’s first approach policy India is by far the

largest provider of development assistance to its neighbours, Dr. Jaishankar added. He also pointed out that North South Cooperation is about giving whereas South South Cooperation is about sharing.

Jaishankar mentioned that SSC must be as a parallel process to North-South Cooperation and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be met by joint efforts of both. He said, this conference, provided the much needed platform to discuss how southern countries could adopt SDGs within their plans and work collectively to achieve these.

He stressed on the need to proactively own and contribute on South-South cooperation. It is a partnership beyond strategic cooperation and is built on solidarity, shared past and ancient relations.

Prof. Sachin Chaturvedi, addressing the valedictory session informed that the recently formed Network of Think-Tanks (NeST) will serve as a knowledge and information bridge for southern countries and will also provide information about literature on SSC so far.