India will establish a ‘Global-South Centre of Excellence’ to find solutions for development problems in less industrialised and middle-income countries.
The new institution will undertake research on best practices of many nations, which can then be scaled and implemented in others.
The proposal is among the summary of deliberations at the Voice of Global South Summit 2023, hosted by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week and released by the Ministry of External Affairs, WAM reported.
India’s G20 presidency
‘Global South’ is a term used in geo-economics to refer to regions outside the developed nations in Europe and North America.
Leaders and ministers from 125 countries, including 14 Arab countries – among them three GCC states – took part in the two-day virtual summit, which was part of India’s ongoing Presidency of the Group of Twenty (G20).
The UAE, a regular invitee to G20 summits, was among the GCC countries which took part in the deliberations.
The other two attendees from the GCC were Bahrain and Oman.
Modi told leaders who attended the Summit that the digital public services developed by India in fields like electronic payments, health, education or e-governance can be useful for many other developing countries via the proposed Centre.
The official summary of the Summit proceedings said the country will also launch a ‘Global-South Science and Technology Initiative’ to share expertise in areas like space technology and nuclear energy.
The country’s ‘vaccine maitri’ initiative during the Covid-19 pandemic – when Indian-made vaccines were supplied to more than 100 nations – is to be converted to a new ‘aarogya maitri’ project. ‘Maitri’ and ‘aarogya’ are Hindi words which mean friendship and health, respectively.
The other initiatives from the Summit are a ‘Global-South Young Diplomats Forum’ and ‘Global-South Scholarships’.
Modi said India proposes to institute Global-South scholarships for students from developing countries to pursue higher education in the country.
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