This is the third edition of the India-Africa Forum Summit, held earlier in 2008 and 2011, and Prime Minister Modi is expected to reveal India’s new Africa policy during the event. The summit was originally scheduled to take place in December last year, but was cancelled due to the Ebola epidemic that killed thousands of people in several African countries. “The two previous conferences helped in setting the agenda for this year’s summit,” said a senior official of the MEA. “And a lot of it is based on the relationships that Indian businesses and corporate ventures have built in Africa, especially over the last two decades.” This raises an interesting question: as the Modi government rolls out a new roadmap for India’s engagement with Africa, who will define the contours of that policy: businesses or bureaucrats?

On October 29 this year, the summit would commence opening up another new chapter in India’s relations with the African continent with which it has a record US $ 70 billion of bilateral trade. India has extended soft loans of about US $ 7 billion to the African countries which constitutes about 2/3rd of all lines of credit operating with the continent. India has investments worth over US $ 32 billion in Foreign Direct Investment in Africa. India’s trade has expanded 14 times in the last seven to eight years.

Besides loans, India has set up number of capacity building institutions, three vocational guidance centres in Ethiopia, Burundi and Rwanda. India has offered as many as 22,000 scholarships to Africa in the fields of agricultural sciences, the CV Raman fellowships for scientific research and ICCR. India’s presence through the I-Tech centres extends to 48 of the 54 countries reflecting India’s robust relations with the dark continent. India and African countries have exchanged periodic visits by foreign ministers and leaders of the respective countries since the first summit was held in 2008.

Considering that a robust trade relationship with the emerging African economies is at the core of India-Africa ties, India Inc. deserves credit for driving trade between Africa and the subcontinent, which has been growing at nearly 33 percent since 2005. Private Indian companies have made considerable investments in Africa in realms such as energy, telecommunications and automobile manufacturing, pushing two-way trade past $70 billion in 2014. Going by the latest estimates, this figure is likely to breach the $100 billion mark by the end of this year. These statistics are buoyed by an annual growth rate of 32 percent in African exports to India (Angola, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, and South Africa alone account for 90 percent of Africa’s total export trade—comprising mostly raw ma¬terials, oil and minerals—with India). Never mind if the annual growth rate of India’s exports to Africa—mostly manufactured goods, transport equipment, industrial machinery and phar-maceuticals—plods at a sedate 23 percent.

But even with the balance of trade in favour of Africa, India is steadily, if slowly, levelling the playing field by diverting investments in the key energy sector. Oil consumption is growing by leaps and bounds in India and the country is predicted to become the third largest consumer of oil in the world by 2030. Thanks to a burgeoning population and rising per capita income, energy consumption levels in India are set to double over the next two decades. Like many other countries, India’s dependence on Middle East oil sources has become increasingly vulnerable to the sporadic outbreaks of conflict in the region. These energy jitters have prompted many countries to look elsewhere for their energy needs. So India, too, has shifted its energy focus to Africa, which has now become the second-biggest source of crude oil imports for India. India’s engagement with Africa is thus clearly linked to its relations with major oil-producers in the African continent like Nigeria, Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire and Sudan. Several Indian companies have stakes in oil-rich regions of Africa like Côte d’Ivoire, Mozambique, Libya, Egypt, Angola and Gabon, besides investments in the gas sector in Kenya and Tanzania.

Of course, India’s Africa vision is not just about trade, but also aid. Less than a year ago, for instance, when West Africa was reeling under the Ebola epidemic, Prime Minister Modi did not think twice about pledging $13 million to help the affected countries fight the scourge. New Delhi has also provided development assistance to several African countries, helping build critical rail and road infrastructure in countries like Ethiopia, Djibouti and Uganda. The goodwill this has generated is a key input in ensuring the realisation of India’s new Africa policy.

The other crucial driver of India’s renewed engagement with Africa is the continent’s immense relevance to New Delhi’s strategic calculus. Having openly shed its earlier passive and reactive foreign policy in favour of a more proactive approach towards the world, India makes no bones about its intentions to be a major competitor for Chinese interests in Africa. Beijing’s aggressive Africa policy is based on a multi-pronged bid to court the continent, one that seeks much more than merely securing China’s energy needs. The strategic angle is highlighted by Chinese companies that are funding and helping build more than 110 hydro-electric projects and highways in Africa. Beijing has bolstered this with a $20 billion aid package to African states that covers a range of areas—from agriculture and infrastructure to training personnel in different sectors.

Yet, of late, many African governments have signalled their willingness to look beyond China and diversify their options on foreign business partners. A resurgent India offers them a reliable alternative for stepping out of the looming Chinese shadow on the continent. India may find it easier to seize this opportunity at this point, given the fact that the Modi Government has slackened the bureaucratic stranglehold on government approval processes which often tripped Indian investments in other countries. While India may not be able to offer infrastructure projects on a scale China can, Indian experience in education and human resources development promises long term benefits for African states.

It is ironical that despite India’s enduring cultural, political, and economic ties with Africa, the relationship between the two sides remains tepid at best. The upcoming summit offers an opportunity to rectify this. (IPA Service)