Excellencies,
Dear colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen.
A multilateral development bank must be a provider of finance. To fulfill this role effectively — especially at a historical moment when innovation matters more than ever — this Bank must enable broad cooperation on capacity building, knowledge sharing, and the transfer of technology and of successful concrete applications.
Financing is essential. But development also requires understanding what it means at different historical stages, as well as which solutions can be adopted and adapted to different national realities.
The New Development Bank was conceived with this broader role in mind: to help ensure that the conditions for development are accessible to all. Investment in infrastructure, energy transition, and environmental protection has always been considered essential. Our overriding objective today is to improve the quality of education, advance science and technology, and promote innovation across all sectors of our societies and economies —traditional, emerging, and those with the potential to shape the future. These are the drivers that enable EMDCs to achieve truly sustainable development. To this end, cooperation among our BRICS countries, bringing toghether all these elements, is essential.
BRICS countries have achieved remarkable success in fostering innovation. International cooperation among our member countries can accelerate the process of technological and developmental catch up.
The BRICS–NDB Knowledge Portal is a concrete mechanism for advancing this cooperation. It will help connect knowledge, facilitate the exchange of diverse solutions of challenges, share technologies and innovations, and showcase the rich and varied expertise our countries have developed and accumulated.
The Portal, a BRICS–NDB initiative under India’s BRICS Presidency, will bring together contributions from BRICS working groups, NDB member countries, and the Bank’s own operations.
Every project financed by the NDB generates valuable lessons. Our member countries have also developed significant capabilities through their investments, plans, programs, and policies.
The launch of the Portal is a first step toward reinforcing this form of cooperation. The NDB will work with successive BRICS Presidencies to continuously enrich it with best practices, innovations, and development solutions.
I would like to thank the Government of India, and in particular Department of Economic Affairs of the Ministry of Finance, for its leadership in promoting this initiative.
The Portal reflects the role of the NDB as a new type of multilateral development bank: an institution that not only finances development, but also promotes cooperation, innovation, and the exchange of solutions among developing countries.
I am very pleased to launch the BRICS–NDB Knowledge Portal today.
Thank you.