Quad announces Cancer Moonshot, Ship Observer Mission, Ports Partnership

Wilmington/New Delhi: Some of the major announcements at the Quad Summit held at Wilmington, Delaware, include ‘Quad Cancer Moonshot’, for the detection, prevention and treatment of cervical cancer in the Indo-Pacific region, and the first-ever Quad-at-Sea Ship Observer Mission to improve interoperability between the Coast Guards of the Quad nations across the Indo-Pacific.

The major announcements are:

* “Quad Cancer Moonshot”, a groundbreaking partnership to save lives in the Indo-Pacific region.

* The First-ever “Quad-at-Sea Ship Observer Mission” in 2025 to improve interoperability and advance maritime safety between our Coast Guards across the Indo-Pacific.

* The Quad Indo-Pacific Logistics Network pilot project, to pursue shared airlift capacity among our nations and leverage our collective logistics strengths, in order to support civilian response to natural disasters more rapidly and efficiently across the Indo-Pacific region.

* The ‘Quad Ports of the Future Partnership’ which will harness the Quad’s collective expertise to support sustainable and resilient port infrastructure development across the Indo-Pacific. Here, Quad partners will share practices to ensure that our ports are able to maintain an acceptable level of service and infrastructure to ships, cargoes, and other customers in the face of disruptions (e.g. pandemics, natural disasters and cyber or terrorist attacks); this varies with port size, location and type of operations.

* A ‘Semiconductor Supply Chains Contingency Network Memorandum of Cooperation’ that would leverage the complementary strength of the Quad partners to realize a diversified and competitive market and enhance Quad resilience in semiconductor supply chains.

* The Leaders also agreed to reform the UN Security Council, and recognised the urgent need to make it more representative, inclusive, transparent, efficient, effective, democratic and accountable through expansion in permanent and non-permanent categories of membership of the UN Security Council.

* Collective Quad effort to boost energy efficiency, including deployment and manufacturing of high-efficiency affordable cooling systems in the Indo-Pacific region.

Some of the important deliverables from India that were announced at the Summit include:

* Leaders welcomed the ‘Quad Principles for Development and Deployment of Digital Public Infrastructure’ for the region and beyond. Through DPI, the Quad partners have agreed to provide equitable access and improve public service delivery at scale; governed by applicable legal frameworks that provide for a level playing field to drive development, inclusion, innovation, trust, and competition.

* India will offer technical assistance and capacity building on DPI in cancer care to interested countries from the Indo-Pacific region through its commitment of $10 million to the WHO’s Global Initiative on Digital Health.

* India will provide $7.5 million worth HPV sampling kits, detection kits and cervical cancer vaccines to countries in the Indo-Pacific as part of the Quad Cancer Moonshot Initiative.

* A commitment from the Serum Institute of India, in partnership with Gavi and the Quad, to support orders of up to 40 million HPV vaccine doses for the Indo-Pacific region.

* As part of Quad’s activities in the space domain, India is setting up a space-based web portal for Mauritius to assist in monitoring of extreme weather events and climate impacts.

* India will invest $ 2 million in setting up new solar projects in Fiji, Comoros, Madagascar, and Seychelles.

* Quad partners agreed to launch a ‘Maritime Initiative for Training in the Indo-Pacific’ (MAITRI) , which will enable our partners in the region to maximize tools provided through IPMDA and other Quad partner initiatives, to monitor and secure their waters, enforce their laws, and deter unlawful behavior. India will host the inaugural MAITRI workshop in 2025 (during India’s Quad Presidency).

* India announced new category of scholarships for students of the Indo-Pacific region which would enable them to pursue a four-year bachelor’s level engineering programme at a Government of India funded technical institute.

* India will host the inaugural Quad Ports of the Future Partnership conference which will harness the Quad’s expertise to support sustainable and resilient port infrastructure development across the Indo-Pacific.

* In the area of sustainable and resilient port infrastructure, India will be hosting a capacity building workshop with the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI).