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Sustainable Development and Climate Change 223

be instrumental in bringing about solar energy revolution globally. The proposed World Solar
Bank would cater to the need for dedicated financing window for solar energy projects across
the members of ISA. It is expected to provide low-cost financing at favorable terms for solar
energy projects as well as engage in co-financing with other multilateral/bilateral development
financial institutions. The ‘One Sun One World One Grid’ vision was laid down by the Hon’ble
Prime Minister of India at the first assembly of the ISA. The initiative aims to create an inter-
connected green grid that will enable solar energy generation in regions with high potential and
facilitate its evacuation to demand centers. ISA’s progress in solar rooftop programme has been
equally noteworthy, with a demand of more than 1 GW aggregated from member countries. ISA
has diversified its programmatic focus onto health sector, cold storage chains for agriculture &
vaccines and other innovative applications of solar energy.
6.38 ISA’s Framework Agreement mandates partnerships with various stakeholders, including
public and private corporate sector, to promote sustainable, clean and affordable solar energy.
To institutionalize its partnership with the Corporate sector, the ISA Secretariat has recently
launched a ‘Coalition for Sustainable Climate Action’ comprising of global public and private
corporates. The partner organisations under the coalition would benefit from the network and the
platform provided by ISA to leverage and demonstrate their expertise in promoting sustainable
development globally.
6.39 ISA organized the First World Solar Technology Summit (WSTS) in September 2020
with an objective of showcasing to Member Countries the state of the art and next-generation
solar technologies. The summit also provided a platform to deliberate on the way forward for
increasing access to new technologies at an affordable cost.

Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure
6.40 Since the launch of the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) in September
2019 at the UN Climate Action Summit, the need for disaster resilience in all aspects of human
activity has been unambiguously highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. CDRI is another
expression of India’s commitment to work with all the partners to address global challenges.
The Coalition functions as an inclusive multi-stakeholder platform led and managed by national
governments, where knowledge is generated and exchanged on different aspects of disaster
resilience of infrastructure. As of December 2020, 19 countries and 4 multilateral organizations
have become members of the Coalition. The CDRI is co-chaired by India and the United
Kingdom (UK).
6.41 The CDRI is working on enhancing the resilience of power sector in the state of Odisha,
which was impacted by Cyclone Fani on the eastern coast of India in May 2019. On transport
sector, CDRI has initiated a global study on disaster resilience of airports. The study will look
at the airports that were affected by disasters but which have successfully managed the extreme
events. The coalition has initiated the process to carry out the national level risk and resilience
assessment of infrastructure to support better decision making and policy development and
thus protect infrastructure investments from disasters and climate change. In the first phase, the
CDRI will develop a framework for risk and resilience assessments using Indian transportation
infrastructure as the basis. Following this, a thorough analysis is intended to be undertaken in
order to understand the level of impact that will be caused by disasters. A detailed vulnerability