Discuss the significance of South–South cooperation in addressing challenges of dryland agriculture. Examine India's role through institutions like ICAR and ICRISAT.

Drylands are semi-arid, largely rainfed agro-ecologies that sustain a vast share of the developing world's farmers while remaining the most climate-vulnerable. Since these regions cut across Asia, Africa and Latin America, solutions travel better horizontally than vertically — making South–South cooperation the natural vehicle, as reaffirmed by the Dryland Congress 2026 in New Delhi [1].

Significance of South–South cooperation

• Shared agro-ecology: drought-tolerant crops, water harvesting and soil management technologies developed for Indian semi-arid tracts transfer directly to the African Sahel, unlike temperate-zone research.
• Affordability and scale: peer-to-peer exchange offers low-cost, context-suited innovation rather than capital-intensive imports.
• Collective voice: joint platforms let dryland nations shape global food-security and climate agendas together.
• Institutional evidence: the Congress convened 800+ scientists, policymakers and farmer representatives from Asia, Africa and the Americas around six themes, concluding in the Delhi Declaration on Drylands (3D) [2].

India's role through ICAR and ICRISAT

• ICAR, under the Department of Agricultural Research and Education, anchors India's dryland research network and extends it outward through joint programmes [1].
• ICRISAT, the CGIAR institute for the semi-arid tropics headquartered in Hyderabad, makes India a host and hub of global dryland science rather than merely a recipient [3].
• The Congress marked 50 years of the ICAR–ICRISAT partnership, and its timing on the UN Day for South–South Cooperation (12 September) signalled deliberate development diplomacy [1].
• New MoUs and the ISSCA Global Awards 2026 institutionalised knowledge-sharing beyond declarations [4].

Dryland agriculture's challenges are transboundary, so its remedies must be too. India's credibility rests on converting consensus documents into funded, monitorable joint projects, since such declarations are voluntary. Sustained ICAR–ICRISAT collaboration, aligned with SDG-2 and SDG-13, can make India the knowledge bridge of the global drylands.