UNDP to support India’s development priorities: Usha Rao-Monari

As India took over the Presidency of G20 on December 1, 2022, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is supporting the Government of India in all areas of human development, including systems strengthening, inclusive growth, sustainable livelihoods, climate action, and resilience. For the same, United Nations (UN) Under-Secretary-General and Associate Administrator, UNDP, Usha Rao-Monari, was on a 3-day visit to India between November 30 and December 2, where she interacted with Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs and Arjun Munda, Minister of Tribal Affairs.

Rao-Monari was on her first official visit to India after her appointment at UNDP in April 2021. During her visit, she also interacted with senior government officials from the Department of Economic Affairs under the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of External Affairs and NITI Aayog. In the closed-door meetings, Rao-Monari reaffirmed UNDP’s commitment and support to the country’s development priorities and accelerate the progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

“UNDP has had its partnership with India (for) over 70 years. The agenda for my visit was to meet the government, other stakeholders, the private sector, civil society organisations, and youth to find out what is important right now as India takes on a leadership role in so many on so many levels. G20 and Shanghai Cooperation Organization are two very important leadership roles it's taking.  So, I'm here to see how UNDP can help India in achieving its goals in the areas of sustainability, climate action, resilience, social inclusion, and just simply institutional and governance strengthening. That is how we look at our support to the country's objectives and outcomes,” Usha Rao-Monari told Business Today.

Rao-Monari was impressed by the actual thinking of government officials. “I'm very impressed with the thinking I heard from government officials on this as they said, ‘we have to do things differently’. That doesn't mean Innovation for the sake of innovation. It just means that we have to change our approach to finance to scale the sustainable development goals as needed to reach 2030. That was very interesting to me.”

Expressing concerns about achieving SDG goals, Rao-Monari said that the time towards the SDG goals of 2030 (the 17 SDGs to transform our world) is shorter and shorter by the minute. So, any country, not just India, has to accelerate whatever they set out to do at the beginning of the agenda in the 2030 period. Speaking on India’s progress, Rao-Monari stated that “Whether it's a question of the financial instruments, whether it's a question of policies, regulations and legal frameworks to be put in place, social protection schemes, etc. they just have to put a stimulus lens on it so that they move faster.” She also appreciated how the regulators like SEBI,  government ministries like the Ministry of Finance, corporates in India, and financial institutions in India are all coming together to figure out a way to accelerate the pathway towards 2030.

Also read: As 5G networks roll out in India, what are the new areas of growth that they will bring in?

Also read: What is the National Single Window System and how will it work?