23-May-2018: 3rd Mission Innovation (MI) Ministerial at Malmo, Sweden

On November 30th, 2015, leaders of 20 countries came together to launch Mission Innovation (MI), a landmark 5 year commitment to accelerate the pace of innovation and make clean energy widely affordable and accessible worldwide. MI now comprises 23 economies and the European Commission, representing the European Union, and collectively accounts for more than 80 percent of the world’s total public financing of clean energy R&D.

This week Ministers and high level delegates from these countries converged at Malmo, Sweden for the 3rd Mission Innovation Ministerial from 22-23 May, 2018.  Indian delegation was led by Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister for Science, Technology and Earth Sciences.  The Minister and other delegates participated in several discussions with business leaders, clean energy innovators and policy makers to discuss plans, progress, country highlights and made a series of public announcements on identified areas of cooperation. Mission innovation countries launched Mission Innovation Champions Programme to felicitate clean energy innovators. At the Solutions Summit, the MI 2020 Solutions booklet was launched, showcasing over fifty cutting-edge breakthroughs emerging from MI members investments ranging from blockchain technologies to the world’s first commercial passenger electric boat. A World Economic Forum White paper on public-private cooperation was also released.

Dr Harsh Vardhan inaugurated Smart Grid Workshop on 22nd May, 2018 at Copenhagen and Chaired public private round table on Strategies on Decarbonization through innovations in Smart Grids. He highlighted Government’s commitment to clean energy and appraised the global community of several successes of Indian innovation landscape in scaling up clean energy innovations through examples on energy efficient lighting, clean fuel provision, rural electrification etc. India announced setting up of First International Incubator for clean energy in public-private partnership at a total investment of around US $ 5 million in Delhi. This incubator will foster entrepreneurship and promote innovations in the area of clean energy and provide opportunities to innovators across the MI countries to test their technologies in the local market. India also announced participation in global cooling innovation challenge to design a more efficient cooling solution catering to the typical housing unit in a highly populous city in India. India announced research programmes emanating out of MI centric funding opportunities in smart grids and off-grid access at a total investment of US $ 10 million which has participation of  large number of  Indian institutions and foreign entities.

After successfully posting 2 international MI workshops on Smart Grids and sustainable bio-fuels, India announced its plan for hosting MI clean energy materials Workshop in October-November, 2018 at New Delhi. India also announced the launch of Joint Virtual Clean Energy Centre with United Kingdom and Indian Government funding of UK £  5 million each. An Indo US Joint Clean Energy Research and Development Centre  on energy storage and smart grids with a total investment of US$ 30 million  with matching share of both the Governments and the Consortia has been launched. India also announced 3 dedicated MI funding opportunities on sustainable Bio-fuels, Carbon capture and Sunlight innovation challenge with a total investment of US $ 11 million.

5-Feb-2018: 5th South Asia Region Public Procurement Conference

The Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, Shri Arun Jaitley stressed on the importance of procedural fairness in public procurement and award of contracts. The Finance Minister said that this can be ensured through transparency and fairness that enable a State to act in the best interest for its citizens in terms of price, quality and service delivery and help avoid elements of nepotism and corruption in public procurement.

The Finance Minister highlighted the special measures taken by the Government of India to bring in greater transparency, fairness and efficiency in public procurement through a series of measures including launch of the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) for online purchases of common use items. The Finance Minister mentioned that in addition to having its own rules and regulations relating to public procurement in the Government, the layers of accountability at various levels in the Government have also been tightened. The Finance Minister, Shri Jaitley was delivering the Inaugural Address after inaugurating the 5th South Asia Region Public Procurement Conference in New Delhi. He noted the evolution of public procurement in the last century and emphasized its significance in delivery of public services in democratic societies in the larger interest of the citizens. As South Asia is the fastest growing region, the relevance of public procurement is of key importance to all.

This Conference is being attended by the Senior Government Officials of South Asian countries in addition to the World Bank (WB), Asian Development Bank(ADB), Islamic Development Bank(IDB) and other agencies.

The objective of the Conference is to enable the Heads of Public Procurement and other key stakeholders in the eight South Asian countries to meet and learn from one another and from experts in the field of public procurement. The knowledge thus acquired would help various South Asian Governments to consider enhancements and innovations in their public procurement systems, enabling efficient utilization of public resources, ensuring quality and timeliness in delivery of services. The Conference is held under the auspices of the South Asia Region Public Procurement Network (SARPPN), which is sponsored and facilitated by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and Islamic Development Bank.

The First Conference was held in Kathmandu in 2010, the second in Islamabad in 2014, the third in Dhaka 2015 and the fourth in Sri Lanka 2017. All the Conferences helped achieve the above mentioned mutual knowledge exchange and learning objectives. In between these annual events, the World Bank facilitates, via Video Conferences, meetings of the SAR Heads of public procurement for continuous exchange of knowledge and experiences through discussions of topics of interest.

The World Bank has also been sponsoring country knowledge exchange programs for the SAR heads of public procurement. Such programs have already been successfully organized in Brazil and Mexico (2014), Australia (2016), and USA (2017). These knowledge exchange programs not only provide an opportunity for the heads of public procurement to learn from the countries with well-advanced public procurement systems, but also to learn from one another.

The Fifth South Asia Region Public Procurement Conference being held in New Delhi, February 5-7, 2018, will continue with the SARPPN overarching goal of providing a learning and networking platform to SAR heads of public procurement and procurement professionals and to exchange their knowledge and experiences on topics that would help them improve their public procurement systems.

The theme of the Fifth Conference “Public Procurement and Service Delivery” is appropriate and timely as the governments of all the countries in the region strive to improve their public procurement to ensure timely and quality delivery of public services. All eight SAR countries spend approximately US$550 billion equivalent on public procurement of goods, works and services, which eventually convert to public services. The Fifth Conference will deliberate upon key aspects of public procurement that help ensure delivery of these services; and identify and address areas that need improvement. Procurement of health and education services, enhancing oversight in public procurement through complaints mechanism, audits, etc., role of ICT and PPP in public procurement, etc., will figure in various sessions in this 3 day conference. Government officers in charge of public procurement will also share their country experiences during the conference, enabling discussion on best practices.

During the Conference, the SARPPN along with ADB, WB, IsDB and Procurement iNET is holding a ceremony to honor the winners of the South Asia Procurement Innovation Awards (SAPIA) 2017 for their winning submissions.