Background

India has over the years employed development partnership grants, lines of credit, technical training, and educational programs as a tool of its foreign policy. As India's efforts increase - particularly in South Asia, Africa, and the Indo-Pacific, how have these been employed to support good governance and civil society in other countries?

To discuss these and related questions, as part of a continuing series of roundtables, ORF America and ORF co-hosted a closed-door, virtual discussion under Chatham House rules on India’s Foreign Assistance Programs.

The discussion highlighted India’s existing toolkit to support democratic governance in partner countries. These include grants, concessional financing like Lines of Credit (LoC), technical assistance, capacity building and preferential market access. The financing and scale of these programs have grown substantially over the past decade. The discussants also mentioned mechanisms for inter-agency coordination within the Indian government on how these programs are conceptualized and implemented. As advanced industrial democracies seek to engage developing countries in the Global South, there is greater potential for coordination with India on foreign assistance programs.  

Featuring

• Ruchita Beri, Senior Research Associate MP-Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA)

• Dr. Sachin Chaturvedi, Director-General Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS)

• Riva Ganguly Das, former Secretary (East) and High Commissioner to Bangladesh

• Tarun Sharma, Chief Financial Officer Exim Bank of India

To know more about the Democracy and Indian Foreign Policy series, check out ORF America’s Special Report No. 1 Democracy in Indian Foreign Policy.