India Elected ISA President for Third Straight Term

India will keep the Presidency of the International Solar Alliance (ISA), having been chosen for the chair by member countries for a third consecutive term. Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy Pralhad Joshi, who also holds the Education and the Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution portfolios, announced the result while speaking to the press during the Bharat Renewable Energy Summit and Expo 2026. He thanked member states on behalf of the Government of India for the trust they had placed in the country, and congratulated France on being returned as Co-President of the Alliance.

How the Alliance grew

The Minister recalled that the conviction behind solar cooperation had brought India and France together to set up the Alliance in 2015. The grouping today has 130 signatory and member countries, and has turned into a working platform for the Global South. The Indian approach rests on the ideas of Power To Empower and of One Sun, One World, One Grid. Mr Joshi said the priority now was to move from solar commitments to investments, from partnerships to projects and from ambition to real impact on the ground.

Finance for solar projects

Money was placed at the centre of the Alliance agenda. The Africa Solar Facility of USD 200 million was described as an important step towards unlocking investment in the distributed renewable energy business of that continent. India has committed about Rs 225 crore, which is USD 25 million, to the effort. A separate USD 300 million Nigeria Distributed Renewable Energy Fund was held up as a model that could be scaled up across Africa.

Farmers, islands and institutions

The Minister spoke of empowering three million farmers through solar power and of widening work into Agri-PV, where crops and panels share the same land. He said the Indian PM-KUSUM programme had shown how solar-run agriculture cuts the cost of irrigation and adds to a farmer income, and that the Alliance was adapting the idea for member countries, especially in Africa. Alliance-backed work in Fiji, Madagascar, Comoros and Seychelles powers clinics and schools, supplies clean drinking water and runs cold storage for farm produce. Aggregated solar and storage opportunities are being developed starting with Mauritius, as a model for Small Island Developing States.

On building national capability, Mr Joshi pointed to 17 Solar Technology Application Resource Centres, the Global Capability Centre SHINE, which stands for Strategic Hub for Innovation and Execution, and the AI-enabled ISA Academy. The summit itself was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 2 November 2026 and closes on 5 November 2026.