President Maithripala Sirisena visited New Delhi recently to attend the Founding Conference of the International Solar Alliance.
The Conference was co-chaired by Prime Minister of India and Narendra Modi and President of France, Emmanuel Macron.
President Sirisena called on President of India Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the Conference.
The ISA Founding Conference brought together delegations from 46 countries all over the globe including Heads of State and Government from 21 countries. Several UN representatives, leaders of Multilateral Development Banks, business leaders in renewable energy, members of civil society and think tanks also attended the Conference. Delhi Solar agenda was released at the Conference.
Solar projects worth nearly US$ 1.4 billion in 15 countries were announced at the Conference under the Government of India concessional financing.
An Indian line of credit for US $ 100 million was announced for undertaking solar projects in Sri Lanka, which includes development of 200,000 rooftop solar units for low income families (for US$ 50 million) and setting up of rooftop solar in Government schools and colleges, hospitals and other Government establishments in Sri Lanka (for US $ 50 million).
ISA has been described by the Prime Minister of India as the single most important global achievement after the Paris Accord on Climate Change.
The first General Assembly of the ISA is expected to be held on the sidelines of the second edition of the Renewable Energy Global Investors Meet and Expo, in short REINVEST to be organised by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy of India in April 2018.
India has offered to meet ISA Secretariat expenses for the first five years. The Government of India has allotted five acres of land to ISA, a nice campus in Gurugram, Haryana and released US$ 20 million to create a corpus fund, building infrastructure and meeting day to day recurring expenditure.
President Maithripala Sirisena attended the launch of ISA at the COP-21 in Paris on November 30, 2015. The ISA was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the then President of France Francois Hollande.
The ISA is conceived as a coalition of 121 solar resource rich countries (lying fully or partially between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn) to address their energy needs, through a common platform for collaboration, for achieving speed, scale and skills for deploying available solar technologies; facilitating strategic and collaborative solar R&D; and lowering the cost of finance for solar projects and capacity building.
Sixty two countries have joined ISA so far, out of which 32 countries have signed and ratified ISA Framework Agreement. Sri Lanka became a full-fledged member of ISA on February 12, 2018.