"India's capacity building programmes under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) has earned much goodwill for it in Africa." Discuss. (UPSC CSE Mains 2018 - Political Science and International Relations, Paper 2)
Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme (ITEC) was started in 1964 and has allowed India to boost people-to-people relations and enhance its ties with developing countries as it followed a strategy of economic and technical cooperation. African countries have greatly benefited from a bilateral capacity-building programme launched by India more than 50 years ago as it helps expand, build and share technical skills among developing countries. It is a demand-driven, response-oriented programme that focuses on addressing the needs of developing countries through innovative technological cooperation between India and the partnering nation. Along with its corollary the Special Commonwealth Assistance for Africa Programme, ITEC covers158 countries across Asia, Africa, Lan America, Central and Eastern Europe, and several Pacific and Caribbean nations. But its main focus has been in Africa where partner countries are Algeria, Angola, Benin, Burundi, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Congo, Chad etc.
Major reasons for Goodwill connected to ITEC programme:
- There are 47 training institutions in India which run more than 280 training courses in diverse subjects ranging from IT, public administration to election management, SME, entrepreneurship, rural development, parliamentary affairs, renewable energy to name a few.
- African Union (AU), Afro-Asian Rural Development Organization (AARDO), Pan African Parliament are partners in these schemes with ITEC, they make sure that proper facilitation of these programmes as per the needs of the Natives.
- Apart from organizing training courses in India, it also covers deputation of Indian experts abroad, aid for disaster relief, gifting of equipment, study tours and feasibility studies/consultancy services. ITEC is a demand-driven programme, therefore, assistance offered under ITEC is usually in response to requests received from friendly countries and the commitments made by India’s political leadership.
- Through ITEC programme Indian government also helps African countries to provide mid-career training to its bureaucrats in the field of Election Management, Government Performance Management, Parliamentary Studies, Urban Infrastructure Management, WTO related Topics, this further develop goodwill for India among the Bureaucracy which is very helpful at the level of Government to Government relations.
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