Africa- second largest continent, in terms of land and population with 55 countries & about 15 percent of world’s population. India and Africa have history of interaction laid by Mahatma Gandhi.India and Africa have a lot of common interests and both have vital stakes in each other’s progress, peace and prosperity.
Importance of Africa:
- Geostrategic
- India’s security, especially the Horn of Africa region, because of its proximity with India. The threat of radicalism, piracy, organized crime emerge from this region
- Economic
- diversifying our energy sources objective of our Integrated Energy Policy
- Africa rich reservoir of valuable minerals, metals including gold and diamond
- space for Indian investment
- ample agricultural land address India’s food security. India is looking at leasing land in Africa to overcome the land deficit in terms of arable land
- India is involved in capacity building of African countries.
- Africa is also largest beneficiary of India’s ITEC programme
- Geopolitical
- Support for India’s aim of gaining a permanent seat in UNSC
- space for India’s soft and hard power
- India has been actively involved in peace and stability of African countries through UN Peace keeping operations.
Strategies adopted by Indian government:
- Pan African level engagement
- Partnership with regional organization
- Development partnership through IBSA and BRICS
- Bilateral engagement with countries
- Involving Indian communities and Indian Diaspora
Africa is at a critical juncture:-
- Economic growth of the continent is estimated to be 3.2 percent in 2018.
- It also houses some of the world’s fastest growing economies
- Several African countries have been providing incentives to attract foreign investors and partners in growth
- Est of African continental Free Trade area boost to economy organization and provide wider opportunities for India
Nature of the relationship so far:-
- India’s Africa policy oscillated between passive and reluctantly reactive at best. Strategic apathy toward the continent was obvious on many fronts.
- until recently there wasn’t any significant attention paid to the continent.
- Indian leaders seldom travelled to African nations .
- historicity of their interactions- trade partnerships, socio-cultural linkages built by a thriving diaspora, nationalist movements during the Nehruvian era that supported anti-imperial struggles, and shifting geopolitical tides with the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM).
- acquisition of critical assets by State Owned Enterprises (SOE) looking to diversify the energy basket away from West Asian nations and other commercial ventures by Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) and Multi-National Companies (MNC).
The relationship changed and there are areas where both India and Africa can work together:
- India’s developmental initiatives such as Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC), Team 9, and Pan Africa e-network etc aimed at building institutional and human capacity as well as enabling skills and knowledge transfer.
- Conscious attempt at evoking morality to reflect an “alternate model of development” by using terms such as “win-win cooperation” to describe New Delhi’s approach to Africa.
- role played by sub-national organizations and state governments crafting independent relationships with African counterparts.
- For example, Kerala is planning on importing Cashew from African countries for its processing plants that are running low on raw material.
- Similarly, Ethiopia and South Africa are working with Kudumbashree, a self-help group created by the Kerala aimed at eradicating poverty and empowering women, to find ways to localize and adapt the model in their respective countries.
- palpable goodwill for people of Indian origin, a sense of familiarity and cultural connection, with Bollywood movies and songs often acting as a cultural bridge.
- China role:-
- Whereas India’s policy has focused on job creation in the countries it has invested in, China has tended to bring in its own labour causing resentment among the locals.
- The Chinese model has often been criticised for creating huge debts for the nation in which it sets up projects eg. Nairobi-Mombasa rail link
- The $ 4 billion project has left Kenya with enormous debts and the Chinese military base in Djibouti has raised fears that Beijing is abandoning its non-interference policy in the region
- Role of Indian businesses:-
- Indian businesses are active across geographic spaces and sectors in Africa. Agri-business, engineering, construction, film distribution, cement, plastics, and ceramics manufacturing, advertising, marketing, pharmaceuticals, and telecommunication are only some of the sectors that have Indian players.
Way Forward:
- take direct control of our development programme instead of handing our funds to intermediaries whose priorities are often different from India’s.
- aid should be disbursed bilaterally and aligned with national priorities
- India’s development prefer the countries with its substantial interests, both existing and potential for instance, Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Ghana, Angola and Algeria are India’s top six trading partners in Africa, yet, they do not figure commensurately in India’s developmental pecking order.India’s own needs for raw materials, commodities and markets should be factored in its aid calculus.
- aided project selected should be compatible with local requirements. They should be cost-effective, scalable, future ready and commercially replicable.
- for greater transparency, India should prefer its public sector to implement the aid projects.
- Indian Head of Mission in the recipient African state must be an integral part of the aid stream including project selection, co-ordination and implementation.Apart from empowering our diplomacy, this would ensure better harmonisation between our aid and economic objectives.
- the aforementioned should not distract us from our duty to provide the needed humanitarian assistance to Africa: to be rendered promptly and with sensitivity, but without noise.