When:
31 May, 2013
Where:
Casuarina Hall, India
Habitat Centre - New Delhi
Description
PRIA in partnership with Research and Information System for Developing
Countries (RIS) is organising a workshop on India’s Global Development Presence
and Engagement of Indian Civil society on 31 May 2013 at India Habitat Centre,
New Delhi.
During the past decade, India’s global presence is being acknowledged in
various multi-lateral and bi-lateral global arenas. India is seen as the
rapidly rising global power by virtue of being the largest democracy, having
younger demographics and one of the top five economies of the world today. As a
member of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and Asian Development
Bank, India has increased its stakes and influence following the global
financial crisis of 2008. In new multi-lateral mechanisms like G20, IBSA and
BRICS, India’s influence is being increasingly felt. Indian business
enterprises (both public and private) have been expanding their presence around
the world. Indian investment abroad in 2012 was higher than foreign investment
in India.
However, most Indian civil society organisations have largely remained
domestically focused in their development efforts. A recent study on “Civil
Society @ Crossroads” suggested that most Indian civil society actors have not
come to terms with this changing global reality, except in respect of rapidly
declining international funding for their domestic programmes.
India’s official development cooperation also seems to have increased
during the past decade. In order to streamline the growing programme of
development cooperation, the Ministry of External affairs has created a
separate unit Development Partnership Administration (DPA). Senior officials of
DPA have shown an interest in interacting more regularly with Indian civil
society organisations, especially those having experience in overseas
programmes in developing countries. RIS (Research and Information System for
Developing Countries) convened a meeting in January 2013 to explore this
interaction between DPA and Indian civil society and academia. Following that
meeting, a Forum for Indian Development Cooperation (FIDC) has been launched.
The specific purposes of the workshop
are:
• To develop a deeper understanding of India’s global development
footprints bilaterally and multi-laterally in G20, IBSA, BRICS, etc.;
• To explore approaches and modalities of broad-based cooperation
between Indian civil society and DPA;
• To evolve a set of mechanisms that can support on-going and critical
engagements of Indian civil society with India’s global influence in bi-lateral
and multi-lateral fora.
