SL signs Framework Agreement on International Solar Alliance

The High Commissioner for Sri Lanka in India, Chitranganee Wagiswara, signed the Framework Agreement of the International Solar Alliance (ISA) on 31 January at the Ministry of External Affairs of India in New Delhi.

The signed documents were handed over to Nagaraj Naidu – Joint Secretary of Investments, Technology Promotion and Energy Security Division of the Ministry of External Affairs of India. Once the agreement is ratified, Sri Lanka will become a founding member of the International Solar Alliance.

With a view to spearheading the UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/36/193 in 1981 which underlined the need for cooperation among developing countries and mobilisation of financial resources for new and renewable resources of energy and subsequent to the 2002 UN World Summit on Sustainable Development, many advocacy organisations were set up, primarily to disseminate knowledge on renewable energy, making it a priority area in the future agenda of all the countries.

The Paris Declaration on the International Solar Alliance of 30 November 2015 stressed the shared ambition to undertake the joint efforts required to reduce the cost of finance and the cost of technology and to mobilise more than $ 1,000 billion in investments required by 2030 for massive deployment of solar energy and pave the way for future technologies as well.

In this context, the ISA was conceived as a coalition of solar resource rich countries to address their special energy needs and to provide a platform to collaborate on addressing and identifying issues through an agreed common approach.

The ISA will provide solar resource-rich countries lying fully or partially between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn with an unprecedented opportunity to bring prosperity, energy security and sustainable development to the people.

The objective of the ISA is to cooperate closely with its members and strive towards establishing mutually beneficial relationships with relevant organisations, public and private stakeholders and with non-member countries.