A Meeting with the Delegation from the Latin American Association of Development Financing Institutions (ALIDE) was organised on 24 October 2018 at NABARD, Head Office, Mumbai. ALIDE represents Latin American and Caribbean development banking institutions and interests. The delegation was on a Mission in India to meet with various Development Financial Institutions and to understand the role of NABARD in agriculture and rural development and explore potential collaborations with NABARD. The delegation was led by Mr Edgardo Augusto Alvarez, Secretary General, ALIDE. The other members of the delegation were from various institutions from Latin America, viz., National Chamber of Commerce of Bolivia; Banque Nationale de Credit, Haiti; Banco Nacional de Comercia Exterior, Mexico; Financiera Emprendedores, Mexico; Banco de Fomento a la Production, Nicaragua and Development Bank of Nicaragua.
The meeting was chaired by Dr Harsh Kumar Bhanwala, Chairman, NABARD supported by senior officers viz, Shri Jiji Mammen, CGM, BID; Shri Mukesh Thakkar, CGM, CPD; Shri R Mahajan, GM, DoR, Shri J Srivastava, GM, SPD, Dr D Ravindra, GM, CPD; Dr P K Maheshwari, DGM, NABCONS Assam, Shri R V Ramakrishna, DGM, CPD & Dr Y Hara Gopal, DGM, DoR.
At the outset, Shri Mukesh Thakkar, CGM, CPD welcomed the participants. Dr Bhanwala, Chairman, NABARD, highlighted the overall role of NABARD as Development Financial Institution in its quest for enabling rural prosperity. Chairman, briefly spoke about the role of NABARD Subsidiaries in supporting the overall mandate of NABARD and how NABARD is able to use its wealth of experiences in providing consulting services with a development orientation. Chairman also mentioned the critical role of NABARD in climate finance and how NABARD has been able to leverage various climate funds of the UNFCCC and the GoI. Chairman also highlighted the financial soundness of NABARD and human capital in NABARD and the critical institution building role of NABARD for the capacity development of the agriculture and rural sectors. Presentations were made by CPD on the overall functions of NABARD, followed by a presentation by NABCONS.
This was followed by an interactive session with the ALIDE delegation showing interest in the specific role of NABARD in microfinance, in our sources of funding, role of NABARD in managing the refinance function and the supervision function and the level of digitalisation and technology in the agriculture and rural finance. The Delegation leader Mr Alvarez, Secretary General, ALIDE was interested to enter into an MoU with NABARD for taking forward the cooperation with the various members institutions of ALIDE.