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National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), GmbH have had a long-standing and successful technical cooperation for a span of more than two and a half decades. The history dates back to 1990s when NABARD and the then GTZ started to cooperate in the area of watershed management and self-help group promotion and development. To commemorate this long-standing cooperation, a celebratory event was organised coinciding with the visit of Ms. Cornelia Managing Director, GIZ on the 5th May 2017 at NABARD, Mumbai, India.

High level dignitaries from NABARD, GIZ and German Embassy participated in the event. Dr Harsh Kumar Bhanwala, Chairman, NABARD, Mr. H.R. Dave,Deputy Managing Director, Mr.R. Amalorpavanathan, Deputy Managing Director, Ms. Cornelia Managing Director, GIZ,Dr Wolfgang Hannig, Country Director, GIZ, Mr Alexander Sattler, Financial Counsellor, German Consulate, Mr Bernard Steinrucke, Director General, Indo-German Chamber of Commerce. CGMs, CPD, FSDD, FSPD and MCID also graced the occasion.

Ms Cornelia Richter, Member, Management Board, GIZ talked about the long standing technical cooperation between NABARD & GIZ. She mentioned that the collaborative partnership has led to numerous milestone projects; many of which have now been mainstreamed by NABARD through employment of its own resources. The collaborative areas included Rural Finance, Watershed Development or Climate Change Adaptation, with both organisations jointly devising and implementing cutting-edge developmental approaches. She highlighted that the areas of interest which could be mutually worked out would include Digitisation which is one of the latest agenda of Government of India. She also discussed that apart from bilateral, new areas of tripartite nature by NABARD and GIZ could be explored in collaboration with other countries.

Mr. H.R. Dave,DMD(HRD), NABARD revisited the NABARD GIZ Cooperation with SHG-BLP and all the associated experts from the German side such as Dr Kropp, Dr Seibel, Dr Brigitte Klein, Ms Marie Luise Haberberger as persons who understood the pulse of NABARD; as also of the rural financial ecosystems and who contributed to the success of the partnership between NABARD and GIZ. He wished the future collaborations a great success.

Mr.R. Amalorpavanathan, DMD(RA),NABARD AMA indicated that NABARD & German cooperation has traversed from poverty alleviation to prosperity enhancement, from economic development to empowered society and inclusive growth.

Dr Harsh Kumar Bhanwala, Chairman, NABARD congratulated the forum on the Silver Jubilee of NABARD & German Cooperation wherein joint collaborations in the field of micro credit, watershed development, NRM and Climate Finance were undertaken. He stressed that there needs to be more initiatives towards adaptation measures on climate change. Chairman laid down the vision and way forward for the cooperation for the next 25 years. He suggested food processing, collectivisation/aggregation of farmers into Producer Companies, Green Finance, Enhancing Irrigation efficiency, as some potential areas on which future collaborations could be developed.

To take forward the long standing partnership based on shared vision and mutual respect, a letter of intent was also signed between GIZ and NABARD, to bring forth the need to strengthen and strategically orient the partnership related to climate change adaptation and mitigation. The letter signed between NABARD and GIZ outlines the areas of collaboration on topics related to and climate finance development as well as capacity building.