Global South countries want lessons from India’s development: NITI Aayog VC Bery

United Nations: Many countries of the Global South, especially from Africa, want to draw lessons from India’s achievement in lifting over 171 million out of extreme poverty in a decade, its strategies for development, and its use of digital infrastructure, according to NITI Aayog Vice Chairperson Suman Bery.

Ministers and high-level development officials from several countries around the Global South met Bery, who was here for the recent High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, in bilateral meetings “for understanding how India works” and what they can learn, he said in an exclusive interview with IANS.

The interest was particularly high among African countries, elevated by “India’s success in bringing the African Union into the G20”, he said.

It “is very deeply appreciated, and, as a consequence, several African countries have requested time here (for meetings)”, he said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, presiding over the G20 Summit in New Delhi last year, had the 55-member African Union admitted as a permanent member, granting it a status similar to that of the European Union in the group of developed and major emerging economies.

“There’s, I think, a sense that India has pioneered certain approaches that people would like to find out more about,” he said.

India’s digital public infrastructure (DPI) draws a lot of interest, now that there is a mechanism to make it scalable and spread it.

“There’s also interest in our Aspirational Districts Programme, how we manage it,” he said.

The programme aims to rapidly transform 112 of India’s most underdeveloped districts, focusing on the strengths of each and localising the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, according to NITI Aayog.

“It is quite surprising to find already what a rich footprint of cooperation there is,” Bery said, recalling the meeting with a minister of an African country who spoke of India’s emergency aid delivery.

“So, a lot is happening,” he said. “It necessarily needs to happen at a decentralised level, and the machinery is now in place”.

For the leaders from countries who asked for help or for assistance in developing their programmes, he said, diplomatic missions in those countries will follow up and make “India’s experience to be available to African countries”.

It will be a broader effort of the Indian government to help them, he said.

Although a small entity, NITI Aayog backs those efforts by contributing to training for and visits from several countries, he added.

–IANS