Kampala: Union Minister of State (MoS) for External Affairs V Muraleedharan on Monday expressed India's willingness to share its experiences on leveraging technology to transform governance. He noted that India's digital governance has offered "scalable, secure and inclusive solutions for making governance more efficient, inclusive, faster and transparent."

While addressing the plenary session of the Third South Summit in Uganda, Muraleedharan said, "India is ready to share its experiences on leveraging technology to transform governance. India's Digital Public Infrastructure offers scalable, secure and inclusive solutions for making governance more efficient, inclusive, faster and transparent."

He noted that India has "walked the talk" when it comes to South-South cooperation. Muraleedharan stated that India has supported capacity building and development for partners from the Global South.

Muraleedharan stated, "India shares its development experience with the Global South through the Indian Technical and Economic Co-operation (ITEC) Program, which now extends to 160 partner countries. Every year, around 14000 scholarships are offered in 800 courses across 200 premier Indian Institutions."

"The India-UN Development Partnership Fund currently supports 76 development projects in 54 countries," he added.

He said that India became the first nation to announce a duty-free trade preference scheme for Least Developed Countries (LDCs) with the aim of providing market access to LDC goods.

Highlighting India's efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic, he said, "During the COVID-19 pandemic, our 'Vaccine Maitri' initiative supported more than 100 countries with India made vaccines. India's Co-WIN platform was offered as a digital public good for effective vaccination campaigns."

He stated that Prime Minister Narendra Modi formally launched the Global DPI Repository at the second Voice of the Global South Summit in November 2023 along with a social impact fund of USD 25 million to fast-track the implementation of DPI in developing countries.

Speaking about India's efforts, he said, "India's initiatives of the International Solar Alliance (ISA), the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) and the Global Biofuels Alliance are further examples of India's solution-oriented approach to addressing the challenges of clean and renewable energy and disaster resilience, particularly in developing countries."

He stated that the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) awarded 11 projects across 13 Small Island Developing States (SIDS) to enhance disaster and climate resilience in infrastructure systems under the Infrastructure for Resilient Island States initiative.

He further said, "India, along with Brazil and South Africa, also has an active partnership with the UNDP for fruitful South-South Cooperation to assist developing countries, mainly LDCs. Currently, it is supporting 42 projects in 36 countries with a budget of USD 46.7 Million."

He stated that India is one of the fastest-growing major economies of the globe today. He said, "India's experience shows that a diverse and populous country can embrace democracy to achieve human-centric, inclusive and sustainable economic growth and development."

While concluding his remarks, he spoke about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's message which said, "India will always stand with our friends and partners from the Global South, to work together towards building an inclusive growth story for our future generations."

In his address, h highlighted the diversity and unity of the Group of 77 (G77), bringing together nations from diverse geographies, economies, and political systems. The Minister stressed that the Global South, with its youthful demography and rapidly growing economies, holds the key to the world's future prosperity.

"Across diverse geographies, economies, regions and political systems, the Group largely brings together the Global South to address the challenges of our times. The Global South today, having the youngest demography and some of the fastest growing economies is the future growth engine for the world," he said.

Muraleedharan also said that the "third South Summit is being looked upon with a lot of expectations." The way forward for us, as a Group, is to focus on the achievement of the SDGs, with highest priority accorded to the eradication of poverty, he said.

Taking to X, Muraleedharan stated, "Delivered India statement at the 3rd South Summit in Kampala, Uganda. Highlighted importance of Global South as future growth engine of the world. Emphasized need for South-South Cooperation for finding innovative solutions for achievement of SDGs & addressing future challenges."

"Spoke on India's commitment to making international organizations more inclusive & supporting capacity building & development for our partners Advocated early operationalization of Open ended Working Group to strengthen working methods of G77," he added.