Quad Summit 2024: Maritime Initiative Announced, India Pledges $2 Million For Solar Projects Key Points

(MENAFN- Live Mint) Quad Summit 2024 : From launching Quad Cancer Moonshot, to India announcing Quad scholarships for students from the Indo Pacific region, the Quad Summit 2024 witnessed a host of commitments by the partner countries.

US President Joe Biden hosted the fourth meeting at his hometown, Delaware, on Saturday.“Established to be a global force for the good,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Australian PM Anthony Albanese, and Japanese PM Kishida Fumio all came together to agree on a combined charter to combat problems within the Indo Pacific. Here are the top points:

A. Quad Cancer Moonshot: The Quad launched the historic Quad Cancer Moonshot initiative with an initial focus on cervical cancer. India committed to providing HPV sampling kits, detection tools and cervical cancer vaccines worth $7.5 million to the Indo-Pacific region. Meanwhile, the US made an early pledge of at least $1.58 billion over five years.

B. Mpox and pandemic: In order to combat the recent outbreak of Mpox, the Quad agreed to make low-cost Mpox vaccines easily accessible for all the people in the Indo Pacific region. For pandemic preparedness , India is set to release a white paper outlining emergency public health responses, while Australia is increasing the pool of public health specialists.

Beside, the US has pledged over $84.5 million to partner with fourteen countries in the Indo-Pacific region to strengthen capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease threats.

C. Solar projects: India pledged to invest around $2 million, which is around ₹16.48 crore in new solar projects in Fiji, Comoros, Madagascar, and Seychelles.

Meanwhile, the United States decided to extend a $250 million loan to Tata Power Solar to construct a solar cell manufacturing facility and a $500 million loan to First Solar to construct and operate a solar module manufacturing facility in India.

Climate and Clean Energy: Japan committed to $122 million grants and loans, for both public and privated renewable energy projects in the Indo-Pacific. Meanwhile, Australia said it will open applications for the Quad Clean Energy Supply Chains Diversification Program in November, providing AUD 50 million to support projects that develop and diversify solar panel, hydrogen electrolyzer and battery supply chains.

People based initiatives: India announced a new initiative to award 50 Quad scholarships, worth ₹4 crore, to students from the Indo-Pacific to pursue a 4-year undergraduate engineering program at a Government of India-funded technical institution.

Maritime security, logistics network : The Quad announced a new regional Maritime Initiative for Training in the Indo-Pacific (MAITRI) to enable the Indo-Pacific partners to monitor and secure their waters, enforce their laws, and deter unlawful behaviour.

A Quad Indo-Pacific Logistics Network pilot project, has also been announced for shared airlift capacity among the four nations to support civilian response to natural disasters.

Besides, the US Coast Guard, Japan Coast Guard, Australian Border Force, and Indian Coast Guard also announced plans to first-ever Quad-at-Sea Ship Observer Mission in 2025 in the Indo-Pacific. As part of this mission, coast guard departments of the four countries will spend time on board in a US Coast Guard vessel operating in the Indo-Pacific.

Navigating AI, and Technology: The United States plans to invest over $7 million to support the global expansion of Asia Open RAN Academy (AORA), by partnering with Indian institutions for training projects.

Quad partners will also coordinate with the Tuvalu Telecommunications Corporation to ensure the country's readiness for nationwide 5G deployment.

Quad countries, through the Standards Sub-Group, launched two Track 1.5 dialogues on AI and Advanced Communications Technologies to promote international standardization cooperation, including frameworks for AI conformity assessment.

Besides, the Quad partners said they look forward to launching the BioExplore Initiative – a joint effort supported by an initial $2 million in funding to use AI technology to study and analyze biological ecosystems across all four countries.

Ports and Infrastructure: The Quad Ports of the Future Partnership project are expected to bring out the Quad's expertise to support sustainable and resilient port infrastructure development across the Indo-Pacific, by collaborating with regional partners.

Mumbai is set to host the inaugural Regional Ports and Transportation Conference, for the Quad partners in 2025.

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