India and Global Triangular Climate Cooperation

• The role of triangular engagement in India’s comprehensive climate diplomacy;
• the motivations that drive India and its partners to increase participation in the TRC;
• the institutional models that India and its partner countries have used to operationalize the TRC with each other; And
• India’s policy choices to expand the impact and significance of its trilateral commitments, in turn strengthening its portfolio as a credible development partner.

The research questions are addressed through qualitative analysis of data collected from 26 high-level stakeholder interviews as well as expert group consultations with relevant academics and practitioners.

India’s recent TRC activities have emphasized climate action and clean energy. Furthermore, three of the four triangular multilateral initiatives spearheaded by India are climate-oriented – the International Solar Alliance (ISA), the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), and the Global Biofuels Alliance (GBA). Key points to note are:

• The climate crisis has been on top of the agenda in the triangular engagement with India as partner countries have realized that the Global South urgently needs cost-effective, bottom-up solutions that India can supply to other developing countries based on its experiences.
• The approach is to ensure that proposed climate solutions complement the national development goals of recipient countries for improved health care, education, agriculture, gender equality and disaster risk reduction.
• In comparison to previous one-time TRC commitments, India has started to engage in long-term programmatic commitments based on its foreign policy priorities. India has shown willingness to support these activities with finance and human resources.
• Since trilateral projects are small-scale, focused on capacity-building and pilots, they cannot replace India’s comprehensive climate diplomacy at multilateral, multilateral and bilateral levels.
• Therefore, the TRC currently plays a symbolic role for India, signaling the country’s willingness to share the burden and offer alternative models of cooperation beyond the North-South paradigm.
• However, the TRC is helpful for India to build its climate portfolio in countries where it has less diplomatic presence and limited bilateral ability to engage in developmental projects. This is particularly important for engagement with large ocean states and least developed countries (LDCs).
• Finally, by leveraging better established institutional channels to facilitate partners, the TRC provides an opportunity for India to learn through experience and experimentation how to build its diplomatic capabilities.

India, once not so prominent, has recently been an active participant in formally institutionalizing triangular projects into long-term commitments. The following table describes the motivations of different partner countries for engaging in the TRC.

The TRC is considered at high-level political meetings between the heads of state of India and the facilitating countries. The projects are then managed by bureaucrats and diplomats from both countries. Even though India has joined only a few trilateral agreements, there is considerable variation in the way these agreements are implemented.

The agreements with Germany and the US are sector-specific, focusing on pilot projects and capacity building respectively. They are in the “learning by doing” phase with some small-scale projects. These countries are cautious about raising additional finance and resources before evaluating the success of initial projects and strengthening institutional channels for project coordination.

On the other hand, the UK and France have taken a more ambitious path by proposing to set up a joint trilateral fund with India to finance the expansion of start-ups and early-stage enterprises in third countries. Operationalizing these funds has become difficult due to constraints in finding suitable institutional channels for financial disbursement and project selection. However, if successful, the UK and France models could have a higher impact because they involve significant financial sums.

Given its limited developmental capacity to execute projects abroad compared to facilitating partners, India should increasingly take advantage of triangular partnerships. If India is seen as a credible TRC partner, India could expand its diplomatic presence in the global South through new cooperation with partners such as Australia and the Gulf Cooperation Council. However, to ensure that the TRC’s momentum does not diminish due to lack of institutional and policy support, India will need to address some key challenges:

• Poor institutional capacity: India lacks a dedicated development cooperation agency and current institutional resources are inadequate to manage new forms of cooperation, such as multilateral and triangular projects. This has resulted in delays in project implementation, high overheads and poor inter-ministerial coordination.
• Inability to operate joint funds: Despite years of ups and downs, poor institutional clarity and inexperience have created significant obstacles to the operation of tri-funds with the UK and France. A major consideration is that India lacks an institution capable of having a tri-lateral fund to ensure financial disbursement, jointly select and monitor projects.
• Weak strategic vision: India currently has little strategic vision on how to leverage the TRC to fulfill its ambitions to become a development partner. There is no clear framework to determine which sectors, countries and strategies to pursue. Strategies and project proposals appear to be driven primarily by background research facilitated by the partner network.
• Lack of reporting and monitoring mechanism: India does not have a separate reporting mechanism for tri-projects. The absence of standardized evaluation, reporting and monitoring metrics makes it difficult to measure the impact of projects. To move forward on a larger scale, it is necessary to maintain proper records of past experiences and learn how to establish effective collaboration channels and operational mechanisms.

India should take steps to strengthen state capacity, integrate lessons from pilot projects, and develop a systematic understanding of target sectors and regions. It will also be important to focus on climate-friendly solutions and create a database of exemplary innovations for third countries. The following section provides key policy options on how India can become a better trilateral partner:

• Create a dedicated department: India may set up a dedicated development agency or a new division within the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to manage development cooperation projects, including trilateral commitments.
• Develop a Vision Document: India should place the TRC within a broader framework, keeping in mind its short, medium and long-term foreign policy ambitions. For example, countries such as Brazil have included the TrC as an important foreign policy instrument in multilateral fora, including the G20. This vision document should guide India’s strategic actions to enhance its credibility as a developmental partner.
• Adopt best practices that facilitate countries with well-established developmental models: India should learn and adopt best practices in facilitating partner countries, such as institutional mechanisms, operational channels and network-building strategies adapted to the Indian context, to enhance its own development portfolio.
• Improve monitoring and evaluation: India can develop its own system for reporting, monitoring and evaluation of TRC projects based on ongoing and completed projects. For example, the Ministry of External Affairs needs a mechanism to report what has worked, what has not, and possible ways to take projects forward. This will provide insight into the impact of these projects to assess whether replication is viable in the long term.
• Develop joint norms, standards and regulations: Establish joint norms and standards for implementation, tailoring them to the needs of the Global South rather than simply following the standards of the Global North. This approach will enable India as a development partner to create its own unique operating processes, which are more bottom-up and suitable for the developing world.
• Categorize the current need for technological solutions in different sectors: To utilize the resources of partner facilities to conduct studies on demand for technologies in recipient countries and to carry out effective supply-demand matching between India and third countries.
• Identify countries interested in partnering with India: Determine which countries are receptive to partnership with India and how these countries influence India’s foreign policy diplomacy.
• Create a convenient platform: The private sector, often absent in TRCs, plays an important role in scaling up solutions in third countries, particularly through grassroots entrepreneurs and start-ups. India can serve as a vehicle for private sector participation by creating and supporting initiatives such as the Resolve Africa Summit, which provides a platform for social entrepreneurs to secure international capital for projects in third countries.
• Create incentives for expansion into third countries: Given India’s limited domestic capacity abroad, the private sector may be provided opportunities to expand into third countries. These could be concessional financing, mentoring, incubation and de-risking mechanisms for working abroad.
• Display the TRC model in multilateral fora: Through triangular partnerships, India can build credibility as a climate leader by showcasing successful projects at international forums and multilateral fora such as the Conference of the Parties (COP) and the G20. India should highlight the TRC as a horizontal, needs-based approach to climate governance, focusing on the needs of the Global South.
• Continue to focus on climate solutions for development: The approach should emphasize India’s unique focus on climate-friendly solutions that benefit the development of the global South, such as agriculture, health and gender equality. India should continue to focus on climate adaptation and mitigation technologies, utilize think tanks and facilitate partners to create databases of the most effective domestic solutions for replication in third countries.
• Improve energy security and expand green supply chains: Through new partnerships created through the TRC, India can create flexible supply chains for critical minerals and technology transfer needed to enable its domestic energy transition. India can also leverage its partnership to co-create energy solutions that can integrate the country’s manufacturing capacity into global green supply chains.

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This paper is written by Pooja Vijay Ramamurthy, Fellow, CSEP, New Delhi.