US wants to work with India to address key global problems: Top Biden admin official

WASHINGTON: The US is keen on working with India to address some of the key global problems, including in areas like healthcare, clean energy and climate change, a top Biden administration official has said.

The remarks by Nisha Desai Biswal, Deputy CEO of the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), came ahead of her visit to India this week. “It's not about what India needs help with, as much as how the US and India are working together to address problems,” Biswal told PTI in an interview.

“We have always said if you don’t solve it in India, you can't solve it for the world,” Biswal said before leaving for India, her first to the country in four years and first as the Deputy CEO of the DFC, which is a development finance institution and agency of the US.

Her four-day trip to India will start on Tuesday.

She said there are several areas -- like climate change and the issues of addressing global warming and controlling greenhouse gas emissions, supporting a clean energy transition and tackling health challenges - where the two nations can work together as they did during the Covid pandemic.

India was a vital partner in not only containing the pandemic when it spread within India but also played a key role in helping and supplying vaccines to control the pandemic globally, she said.

“So, I think the way we think about it is, what are the problems that we want to try to solve together,” Biswal said in response to a question.

Biswal said during her India trip she is eager to explore how DFC can support the goals and objectives of the US-India Strategic Partnership.

She said that the DFC has invested enormous amounts in India during the Biden administration.

“India is our largest country in which DFC is investing. I think we have over USD 3.8 billion in active projects in India. Really USD 2.5 billion of that has come during the Biden administration and in key sectors like infrastructure, in supporting manufacturing, health and vaccine and insulin, in supporting India's economic growth and access to capital. So just a very diverse range of areas that we're working in partnership with India on,” Biswal said.

DFC, she said, is deploying its financing in India to address climate and clean technology diversification.

“We want to make sure that as we think about the technologies of tomorrow, we're not reliant on a single country to be the manufacturing hub for all of that,” she noted.

“As we think about friend-shoring, India is on the top of the list where we would like to see that diversification," she said.

Biswal, as the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia and then as head of the US India Business Council had played a key role in the India-US relationship.

“As someone who has been watching and active in the US-India relationship … and passionate indeed, a true believer, I have to say I'm just very gratified to see how much deeper the US-India ties are and how broad-based they are,” India-born Biswal said.

“Broad-based in terms of the broad support and recognition in both our countries that we are each other's most important partners, but also broad-based in the areas in which the US and India are working together geographically, sectorally. It's just breathtaking. It’s just really, really exciting to see,” she said in response to a question. The top Biden administration official said that Indian innovation in research and technology continues to grow by leaps and bounds.

“You see Indian advancements in the frontiers of whether it's in space exploration, whether it's in breakthroughs in health and pharmaceuticals, across every plane of human endeavour, India has been making tremendous advancements. For the United States, it's fundamental that we can partner with and support all of these advancements within India because they not only benefit India and the Indian people, but they also truly create greater benefit globally,” she said.