User:Foreign affairs guy/sandbox

History
2009-14:

Technical cooperation continues to account for the bulk of Indian foreign assistance. In 2012-13, Indian spending on technical cooperation activities reached $589 million, representing 58 percent of the country’s foreign aid budget. The Indian government also makes sizeable contributions to multilateral organizations, including the U.N. Development Program and the World Health Organization. “A stage has come in our development where we should now, firstly, review our dependence on external donors. Second, extend support to the national efforts of other developing countries,” said then-Indian Finance Minister Jaswant Singh in February 2003.

New Delhi’s aid program is mostly under the purview of the Ministry of External Affairs, which taps specialists from within its ranks and across the Indian government to carry out its programming. India has also channeled its aid money through other ministries, however, including the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Defense.

In large part through its deputation of technical experts abroad, the Indian aid program now spans more than 60 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

NGOs
Poised for further expansion, the Indian aid program has been increasingly turning to the country’s vibrant development community to bolster its technical and delivery capacity. For instance, the Indian government has partnered with nongovernmental organization SEWA on livelihood initiatives for women in rural Afghanistan.

“A particular area of focus is to engage more with NGOs, small enterprises and academia involved in the conceptualization and delivery of socioeconomic programs in India, so that we can replicate the success of such programs in other developing countries,” P.S. Raghavan, head of the Development Partnership Administration at the Ministry of External Affairs, said earlier this year.

Eager to project its emerging donor status as a symbol of Indian self-sufficiency, New Delhi is unlikely to aggressively tap foreign consultancies and NGOs for its aid program anytime soon. Many recently published tenders from the Ministry of External Affairs for its aid activities have not been open to international bidders.

“Indian interest in working with foreign consultancies and NGOs would be very limited. I doubt there would be much interest at all for now at least,” Gareth Price, senior research fellow for Chatham House’s Asia program, told Devex.

Some Indian aid experts suggest there could be an opening for international partners that offer distinct expertise beyond India’s knowledge base.

“India is not completely closed [to foreign NGOs] but funding them is not easy to justify at Delhi’s end, unless they bring some special expertise partly because they are more expensive,” D’Souza said.