The Union Cabinet on Wednesday gave its approval to the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between India and the African Asian Rural Development Organisation (AARDO) for capacity building programmes in the field of rural development.
The MoU for the triennium 2015-2017 is being signed under which capacity building programmes for AARDO member countries will be organised every year during the triennium at various institutions of excellence in India such as National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRD and PR), institutions governed by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Indian Institute of Management (IIM) and others.
The duration of each training programme shall be of two to three weeks. The post graduate diploma in rural development management at the NIRD and PR under this scheme is for one year.
The AARDO, which has its headquarters in New Delhi, is an autonomous, inter-governmental organisation established in 1962 with the objective of promoting cooperation among the countries of the African-Asian region in the direction of eradicating thirst, hunger, illiteracy, disease and poverty in the region.
India is one of the founder members of AARDO and is the largest contributor in terms of membership contribution of USD 141,100 apart from contributing by way of providing 70 fully paid training scholarships for human resource development programme under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme (ITEC) to the organisation.
India has also provided a building for housing the AARDO Secretariat in Delhi and considerable financial assistance is given to AARDO for maintenance of the building. AARDO currently has 31 countries of the African - Asian Region under its fold.
Since the year 2009, India is continuing to provide an additional contribution of USD 600,000 to AARDO for each triennium 2009-2011 to expand its scale and scope of the capacity building programmes of AARDO for the benefit of member countries.