THE annual Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation reception (ITEC Day) took place on March 29, hosted by the Embassy of India in Manila.
The event was attended by about 100 ITEC alumni from the Philippines, as well as key Philippine government partner-organizations, including Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) Secretary-Director General Isidro Lapeña, Labor Department Undersecretary for Employment and General Administration Cluster Renato Ebarle, and the Philippine Navy’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Education, Training, and Doctrine (J-8) Commodore Donn Anthony Luna Miraflor.
Since its independence, India’s foreign policy has been guided by solidarity with other developing nations, based on shared economic and developmental priorities. With this in mind, ITEC—as a comprehensive program—was launched in 1964 to provide assistance in technical and economic sectors to other developing nations.
ITEC has reached over 200,000 participants from 160 partner-countries. Cornerstones are the short- and long-term training courses conducted in different centers of excellence in India. Every year, professionals from developing countries attend some 300 different courses in over 80 premier institutions of India.
In addition, ITEC offers exchange of best practices and sharing of experience through projects, consultancy, feasibility studies, deputation of Indian experts in partner-countries, study tours and disaster relief. The cooperation is demand-driven, and relies on innovative technological cooperation in line with priorities of partner-countries.
Capacity-building cooperation is an important strand of the development-oriented partnership between India and the Philippines, with the latter being an important ITEC partner in the Indo-Pacific. To date over 1,100 Filipinos have participated in a range of training programs in India.
The Philippine government and other public institutions are free to choose their personnel and courses that are relevant for their development needs. The program is fully funded by the government of India. In the civilian sector, Filipino government officials have joined training courses of diverse disciplines such as information technology, rural development, parliamentary practices, entrepreneurship, renewable energy, health care, as well as marine and aeronautical engineering, among others.
During the pandemic, India continued to extend training through e-ITEC courses. Since April 2020 over 120 Philippines nationals have participated in the said sessions. In February 2022 a three week-long course on Leadership Management and Good Governance Practices for Sustainable Development for Philippine Government Officials was especially curated in consultation with TESDA, the Department of Finance and Department of Budget and Management. Thirty-three government officials benefited from the said course hosted by the Indian Institute of Public Administration.
Other e-ITEC courses popular in the Philippines are Digital Documentation of Cultural Heritage, which was attended by 10 participants, Disaster Management: Floods and Droughts with 13 participants, and on Environment Impact Assessment, where seven participants enlisted. Recently an officer from the Philippine Army joined the prestigious 47-week National Security and Strategic Study course at the National Defense College in New Delhi.
Defense training covers fields such as security and strategic studies, defense management, as well as logistics and management, among others. Over the last few years the number of defense slots offered by India to the Philippines has increased steadily. In the coming year, the Philippines has been offered more than 50 slots—the highest number in Southeast Asia. Today, defense personnel from India and the Philippines are attending flagship defense-training programs in each other’s country.
The growing partnership between India and the Philippines in capacity-building reflects their shared resolve to harness the greatest assets that both democracies have in abundance: their human resources. It also demonstrates a growing trust in India’s competence as a provider of technical know-how, expertise and training opportunities.