IBSA does not attach strings to its cooperation: India

India has stressed that it along with Brazil and South Africa - the IBSA bloc - does not attach strings to its cooperation, unlike the collaboration between industrialised and developing nations and does not consider cooperation with developing countries as a "burden".
India's Permanent Representative to the UN Asoke Mukerji noted the issue of "increased burden sharing" being talked about in the UN during a special event titled 'IBSA Fund Experiences in South South Cooperation: Innovations, Strengths and Joint Vision for the 2030 Agenda' yesterday.
"First, we in the Fund do not look at our cooperation with partner developing countries as a 'burden'. We do not attach strings to our cooperation, unlike the traditional approach of North-South cooperation," he said.

Mukerji said India's national approach on such cooperation has stressed on the concept of "sharing".
"It has been our experience that development of human resources is essential to sustain the functioning of such developmental cooperation, and we are glad to expand our national experience through the IBSA Fund into a multilateral framework," he added.
Mukerji stressed that the developmental projects through the Fund are all backed up by the national experience of addressing the challenge posed by poverty in each of the IBSA countries, and "it is this that makes the Fund's activity relevant and supportive for our partner countries."

"As would be evident, these three reasons also make it clear that while South-South cooperation is relevant, it cannot be a substitute for North-South cooperation, which is based on clear commitments from industrialized countries to the developing world," he said.

"The implementation of Agenda 2030 will bring this issue into clear focus, especially when we look at using the Technology Facilitation Mechanism agreed to by all member states for accelerating developmental processes," he added.
Mukerji also noted that IBSA Foreign Ministers will meet later this month to review the progress made by the Fund as he hoped to double individual commitments to USD 2 million each annually going forward.

"This should act as a healthy incentive for our partners in the North to also rise to the occasion, and increase their funding of developmental activities in developing countries to eradicate poverty from the planet," he said.