Development assistance:
- Development assistance is a key instrument in India's foreign policy.
- Target regions: The focus of development assistance has been the countries in India’s neighbourhood and in Africa, though India is focussing South East Asia, East and Central Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, Pacific Island Countries, etc.
- The main instruments of India’s development assistance include:
- Lines of Credit (LOC),
- Grant assistance,
- Small Development Projects (SDP),
- Technical Consultancy,
- Disaster Relief and Humanitarian aid,
- as well as capacity-building programmes under Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme (ITEC).
Small Development Projects (SDPs): As of February 2019
- Small Development Projects (SDPs) constitute an active pillar of India’s development assistance to neighbouring countries such as Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan Bangladesh, Myanmar.
- Additionally, Government undertakes SDPs in some other partner countries such as Suriname, Dominica, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Niue etc.
- The Government extends assistance annually to the SDP programme in Nepal for the implementation of projects each costing less than NPR 5 crore (approximately INR 3.125 Crore). The Government has implemented about 200 SDPs in Nepal between the years 2008 and 2017.
