New Delhi, Nov 3 (KNN) Periasamy Kumaran, Secretary In-charge of development partnership administration at the Ministry of External Affairs of India on Thursday commended recent triangular cooperation initiatives undertaken by India and Germany in Benin, Cameroon, Ghana, Malawi and Peru to achieve sustainable development and climate goals in partner countries.

During the inaugural session of the 1st Asian Conference on Triangular Cooperation (ACTrC) in New Delhi, Kumaran informed that similar initiatives as per interest shown by other developing countries are in the pipeline, including a millets-based project in Africa.

“Germany understands the Indian philosophy on development cooperation based on the comfort and desire of respective partner developing countries. Triangular cooperation is an important vector in India’s development cooperation,” he said.

Germany’s Ambassador to India Philipp Ackermann highlighted two key positives in engaging India as a pivotal partner in such cooperation in third countries. First, India’s strong development history accompanied by its more recent role as a powerful emerging market inspires trust in its development initiatives with its success in several fields. Second, even with geopolitics getting more and more difficult, India’s masterly negotiations towards a successful outcome during its G 20 Presidency makes India ideally suited for Germany to take its triangular cooperation operations forward.

The Asian Conference on Triangular Cooperation (ACTrC) aimed at exploring technical feasibility and technical expertise from all sides and the way in which they contribute to the achievement of SDGs and beyond.

It discussed the growing development cooperation modality where a developed country and a developing country join hands with their respective expertise to implement developmental projects in third developing countries.

Triangular cooperation circumvents the North-South barriers of traditional development cooperation and learning from the increasing South-South cooperation among developing countries, provides a new form of international collaboration aimed at capturing the best of the existing modalities.

 Although still small compared to bilateral and multilateral approaches for development cooperation, triangular cooperation keeps growing globally. It offers a partnership-oriented, resilient way of implementing global goals that builds on the contributions of all, for the benefit of all.

(KNN Bureau)