In news

To promote cooperation between India and Germany on various areas of mutual interest, NITI Aayog and Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation & Development (BMZ) signed Statement of Intent (SoI) on November 23, 2021.

Key Highlight

• This SoI intends to establish an overarching mechanism as “NITI- BMZ Dialogue on Development Cooperation” to facilitate a common platform for periodic bilateral discussions, sharing of developmental policy experiences and means to have an overview of other ongoing bilateral programmes.
• NITI- BMZ Dialogue on Development Cooperation” would be a bi-annual Dialogue (once in two years) between the two sides to discuss and share insights on key issues being considered by NITI Aayog and BMZ. 
• This dialogue intends to increase the India – Germany bilateral cooperation in the areas of Climate, SDGs, energy, emerging technologies and agroecology.

Aim

The NITI – BMZ dialogue aims at creating a common platform for bilateral discussions.

Objectives

• Exchanging the experiences of the developmental policies.
• To establish means to overview bilateral programmes.
• Carry out joint research for the progress of government policies and to tackle the multi-sectoral challenges.
• Involvement of think tanks, Government, Industry and Academia to analyse policy issues.

Significance

• The Index and Dashboard will ensure the implementation of data-driven decision making.
• It highlights the strengths and gaps of ULB-level data, monitoring, and reporting systems.
• Tools such as this index and dashboard will contribute to the creation of an ecosystem in which all stakeholders will be equipped to adopt and implement data-driven decision-making.

SDG Urban Index & Dashboard

• The SDG Urban Index & Dashboard (2021-22) was launched by the Government of India and BMZ to establish a robust SDG monitoring in the cities by improving the ULB- level data monitoring and reporting systems.
• The SDG Urban Index and Dashboard ranks 56 urban areas on 77 SDG indicators.