The Minister of Local Government, Unity and Culture, Richard Chimwendo Banda, on Friday expressed the Government of Malawi’s commitment to Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) Programme, stressing that it is fully aligned to the goals and pillars of Malawi 2063.
Chimwendo Banda made the sentiments in Lilongwe during celebrations to mark the 59th ITEC Day and i-Learn Graduation, which took place at Woodlands Hotel.
The minister said the Malawi Government was excited to learn that ITEC has components of technical assistance, capacity building and training, which he said are key in the attainment of Malawi’s development aspirations.
“I would like to reaffirm that the Malawi Government will address all the underlying challenges to make sure that the slots allocated to us are maximized, as human capital development is one of the enablers under the Urbanization Pillar of the Malawi 2063,” he said.
In his remarks, the Indian High Commissioner to Malawi, Mr. S. Gopalakrishnan, said his government remains committed to actively supporting Government of Malawi in its socio-economic development through Lines of Credit and Grants in Aid and has executed various developmental projects.
Gopalakrishnan said India and Malawi share decades-long cordial, friendly and historical relations as India was one of the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with Malawi soon after its independence in 1964.
“Driven by our shared political history and strong people to people ties, the partnership between our two democracies has seen a significant growth in recent years. The Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation programme is as old as the independence of Malawi. ITEC programme which was started in 1964, is an important cooperation programme of the Government of India for delivering technical assistance, technology transfer and capacity building for our developing country partners,” he said.
Gopalakrishnan added that through ITEC programme, India shares its development experience and expertise in various fields with over 160 countries around the world including Malawi.
He said every year, more than 15,000 training slots are offered to our partner countries for training courses in various fields including agriculture, rural development, accounts, audit, Management, SME and Parliamentary Affairs, among others.
“I am happy to note that the training programmes under ITEC have contributed significantly towards capacity building and human resource development of our partner countries in many parts of the world. Malawi is India’s one of the valued partners under the ITEC cooperation and the ITEC Programme forms an important part of our bilateral relations with Malawi. The Government of India offers 150 training slots to Malawi every year. Since 2012, close to 1000 Malawian nationals have undergone short, medium and long term courses in India under the ITEC programme. I am also happy that we have commenced a training programme for personnel of Malawian Defence Forces under ITEC programme from 2017. Till today, 43 MDF personnel have availed training at premier defence institutions in India,” he said.
