The government has identified India as one of the major sources of technical support and orientation for the implementation of its One Factory, One District and One Village, One Dam policies.
Delivering the keynote address at the celebration of the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) in Accra last Friday, the Senior Minister, Mr Yaw Osafo Maafo, said the government was optimistic that considering the successful implementation of similar policies in India, that country had much to offer to Ghana.
The day, which is celebrated each year, provides a platform for all beneficiaries of the ITEC to come together and share their experiences and provide feedback to assist in reviewing the scheme to make it more useful and relevant to the needs of future participants.
ITEC
ITEC is India’s initiative to provide capacity building for Africa’s human resource through educational scholarships and sponsored training programmes.
Ghana has been a beneficiary of the programme, which came into effect in the early 1960s to help developing and under developed countries to strengthen their human resource through technical training.
More than 3,000 Ghanaians have benefited so far from the programme.
Mr Maafo said India’s example could be used to promote the government’s agenda of industrialisation and irrigation farming.
On foreign investment to Ghana, the Senior Minister stated that he was optimistic that India could become the second largest investor in the next three years, from its current position as the third largest investor.
Educational opportunities
Earlier in his opening remarks, the Indian High Commissioner to Ghana, Mr Birender Singh Yadav, announced that India had increased scholarship allocations for Ghanaians to study in India and also their slots on its ITEC programme as part of its support for Ghana’s 60th anniversary celebration.
He said the increment was also to celebrate the visit of the Indian President, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, to Ghana in 2016.
The government of India has increased Ghana’s allocation on the ITEC programme from 250 to 300 and increased the slots for graduate, master’s and PhD scholarship options from 20 to 60 as part of its contribution towards [email protected]
He added that the programme had so far offered technical assistance valued at more than $2 million to more than 26,000 foreign nominees from 156 developing countries in Africa, Asia, East Europe and Latin America since 1964.
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