Embassy of India

ABIDJAN - COTE D'IVOIRE

Excellency Koffi N’Guessan, Minister of Technical Education, Vocational Training & Apprenticeship, Government of Cote d’Ivoire, Senior officials of the Government, ITEC Alumni, Members of Indian Community, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I extend a very warm welcome to all of you on this occasion, when we are celebrating the ITEC Day 2022. At the outset, let me also take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to H.E. Koffi N’Guessan for accepting our invitation to be the Chief Guest for this function.  Excellency, we deeply appreciate and value your personal interest and support towards successful implementation of ITEC Programme between India and Cote d’Ivoire. We are equally thankful to officials of various Ministries of Cote d’Ivoire for their efforts in encouraging officials from all relevant departments of the Government to participate in this programme.

This year marks the 58 glorious years of the Indian Technical Economic Cooperation (ITEC) Programme. India through ITEC programme has been providing training and capacity building assistance to 160 partner countries.  As we speak, we have four Ivorian officials in India undergoing various training under ITEC.

Development cooperation has always played a central role in India’s foreign policy since its Independence. ITEC is Government of India’s flagship program instituted on 15 September 1964. ITEC programmes have been increasingly gaining reputation due to the quality training imparted by Indian institutions. It is aimed at sharing India’s own development experiences with fellow developing countries on the basis of partnership and cooperation for mutual benefit. Its major thrust area is on capacity building targeted towards skill development and professionalism of the trainees in their respective fields of activity.

Today, the ITEC programme proudly claims to have reached out to more than 200,000 beneficiaries in 160 partner countries. This highlights the primacy of development cooperation and strengthening people to people contacts in India’s foreign policy. As India celebrates Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav to commemorate its 75 years of Independence, I would like to highlight the ideal of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the world is one family), one of the core philosophies of Indian civilization.

Honoured guests, today, I am glad to meet Ivoirian ITEC Alumni from Cote d’Ivoire and hope through your ITEC programme experience you have been able to understand India better. I believe this better understanding will act as a bridge in fostering even closer bilateral relations between our two friendly countries. I hope that more and more Ivorians will come forward to take advantage of the ITEC programme, both physically and virtually. Besides ITEC and other scholarships I would also like to encourage Ivorian students to enroll and pursue higher studies through iLearn portal which offers various courses from many centre of excellence in India. For any further information please feel free to contact Embassy of India.

Before I conclude, I would like to thank all the concerned Ministries of the Government of Cote d’Ivoire and all other agencies & institutions, who have partnered with the Embassy of India in making the ITEC programme a success story of our development partnership. I take this opportunity to reiterate India’s commitment to strengthen and expand its bilateral partnership with Cote d’Ivoire, including in the field of training and skill development, to achieve even greater successes in our future cooperation.

Thank you.