ITEC Day

IGCIC

17 September 2019

REMARKS

High Commissioner Tanmaya Lal

Hon. Minister of Civil Service & Administrative Reforms, Eddy Boissezon

Senior Advisers to Hon. Minister and other colleagues

ITEC Scholars

Ladies and Gentlemen

A very warm welcome to all of you as we celebrate the ITEC Day here in Mauritius.

We are grateful to the Hon. Minister for having spared his time to join us this evening. Your presence, Sir, is a great encouragement for all of us.

We are among the ITEC family of Mauritius here. Most of you know about the programme and have actively participated in various aspects of this longstanding programme.

Friends,

Yesterday marked the completion of 55 years of ITEC partnership.

Right after our independence, starting in 1950s, the Indian Government worked actively to promote the causes of first decolonization and then economic and social progress of fellow developing countries.

The formalization of the ITEC programme in early 1960s was among the earliest manifestation of what became subsequently known as South-South Cooperation. The Government while finalizing the programme looked to contribute “To a world community based on inter-dependence of all members in the attainment of their common goal of promoting social and economic well-being of the people”.

The programme was meant to share our own nascent development journey with fellow developing countries in its more specific and technical aspects and requirements.

The programme does so through providing training opportunities for officials from partner countries and deputation of Indian experts on specific projects as per the need and request of partners. It is a wide ranging programme that also includes study tours, consultancy services, feasibility studies, aid such as disaster relief, provision of equipment, etc.

Our friends present here this evening have personally experienced the first aspect that of training under this programme.

In the last 55 years, more than 200,000 officials from 160 countries have participated in the nearly 1200 training courses run by 80 institutions. The collaboration has also taken place with a number of multilateral partners such as the African Union or the East African Community or ECOWAS among the others.

We are proud that Mauritius is among our biggest partners for ITEC. This reflects the very unique and special relationship that our countries share. This year more than 200 training slots are available for Mauritius. These are in addition to the nearly 170 slots for security officials.

I must add that while this programme offers to share solutions and ideas that may have relevance for our partners, this is mutually learning process for all of us.

All of you represent the entire range of governance streams, for instance, education, healthcare, infrastructure, security, IT, banking and insurance, agriculture, environment, tourism and so on. The ITEC programmes mirror these and also cover the entire range of government functions.

Currently, there is one Indian expert deputed under ITEC to work with colleagues at the National Disaster Relief Force in Mauritius.

Today South-South Cooperation continues to expand in scale and into new areas with new formats of collaboration involving multiple partners. South-South Cooperation is visible, for instance, when developing countries negotiate collectively, as SIDS or G77 for their economic or other concerns. It is reflected in many special trading arrangements or large development projects undertaken collaboratively.

Very soon, we will see the return of railways to Mauritius. We are all excited for its launch, the first phase of the project is being completed within time and earmarked resources. The Metro will transform the mobility landscape in Mauritius and we are happy to see that Indian engineers and technicians are delivering a quality project. A state-of-the-art ENT Hospital is also ready for inauguration soon.

We look forward to not only collaborating in such landmark development partnership projects but also strengthening the linkages between our academic and research institutions in high technology areas such as space and biotechnology. Very soon, an expert from Mauritius will travel to India to attend a course on space technology.

Being an engineer myself, I am happy to have participated in recent weeks in a range of technical seminars and conferences such as the one on Disruptive Technologies organized by the Institution of Engineers both from India and Mauritius as well as the World Federation of Engineering Organizations; a Conference organized by IIT Madras in association with University of Mauritius on Ocean Engineering and another one on boosting entrepreneur links between India and Africa.

We hope that the ITEC Alumni here will utilize the networking opportunities with us, each other and the wider ITEC family around the world. Today social media such as Twitter and Facebook are useful interactive platforms, we hope to engage with you on these formats also. I am especially happy that the Government of Mauritius is also now on Twitter. We also look forward to your suggestions in this regard.

To conclude, may I once again welcome you all.

And now we look forward to the Hon. Minister sharing his thoughts and perspectives with us and later to listen to the panelists and some of you on how we can improve our technical and economic cooperation further.

Thank you