India began looking at Africa as a whole in terms of development assistance quite recently, with the impetus gained through the First India-Africa Forum Summit in 2008 and the Second India-Africa Forum Summit in 2011. Through this summit process, India could rope in 47 African countries. Though India had traditional links with some African countries, and while with some, like Egypt, it had close relationship after Independence, its engagement with the African continent has not been as intense as China could develop.

Better late than never, India has sought to engage itself with the resource rich continent. The basic approach is through the three-pronged strategy of development cooperation – technical assistance, line of credit (LoC) and grants. Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) was launched as early as in 1964 to share its development experiences with fellow developing countries, but the continent of Africa as a whole was not much in the focus. To give focus to the country’s development cooperation programmes, a separate Development Partnership Administration (DPA) was set up in the External Affairs Ministry in January 2012. For promoting economic diplomacy Investment and Technology Promotion (ITP) Division was also created.

Largely, India’s development assistance is routed through the African Union, which decides on the development needs of member countries. Other venues of India’s engagement are Economic Commission for Africa, Afro-Asian Rural Development Organisation (AARO), Pan African Parliament, Indian-Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC).

As the development cooperation is mostly bilateral in nature, it is high time, India engages directly with each country in the continent. Individual country is better place to rightly project its development needs for striking a win-win situation for both. Otherwise, to deal with the diverse continent, India should engage with sub-regional groupings like Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD), Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), East African Community (EAC), Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS/CEEAC) and its sub-group Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and its sub-groups West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) and West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ), Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), Southern African Development Community (SADC) and its sub-group Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and Arab Maghreb Union (AMU).

Most of these African sub-regional groups have overlapping membership. The AMU does not participate in AU’s African Economic Community (AEC) due to opposition by Morocco.

India can also link up with other smaller sub-groups like Greater Arab Free Trade Area (GAFTA), Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries (CEPGL), Indian Ocean Commission (COI), Liptako-Gourma Authority (LGA) and Mano River Union (MRU).

Recently South Africa hosted the 5th BRICS Summit with focus on partnership for development, integration and industrialization of Africa. BRICS countries agreed to set up a Development Bank to meet the needs of developing and least development countries in which countries can be beneficiaries. But South Africa is not an accepted leader of the entire continent. Rather the oil rich Nigeria can stake its claim.

Countries like Algeria, Angola, Cameroon, Congo Brazaville, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Equitorial Guinea, Gabon, Kenya, Libya, Ivory Coast are rich in oil deposits. Precious resources like diamond are found in Angola, Botswana, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, Ghana, Lesotho, Liberia. Botswana has deposits of copper and nickel, Central African Republic has timber resources, Democratic Republic of Congo has copper and cobalt deposits, Gabon has manganese and uranium deposits and timber resources, Ghana has deposits of gold, bauxite, aluminium, manganese ore and timber resources, Guinea has resources like bauxite, alumina and gold, Guinea-Bissau and Ivory Coast have timber resources, Lesotho has diamond resources, while apart from diamonds Liberia has iron ore, timber and rubber resources.

It his high time India engage more with these resource-rich countries of the African Continent bilaterally if possible or through relevant regional sub-groups and precisely assess their development needs and strike a win-win situation.

In the wake of the recent discovery of natural gas deposits 60 to 100 km off the coast of Tanzania, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Somalia, Eritrea, Kenya, India needs to speak in terms of the security in the Indian Ocean Rim, apart from energy cooperation.

India’s Pan-African e-Network for tele-medicine and tele-education is functional in 47 countries of the Continent. This is one of the successful institution-building partnerships with Africa done in consultations with the African Union. But there are other development assistances rendered under Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme and Special Commonwealth Assistance for Africa Programme (SCAAP). Assistance under these programmes should be tuned precisely to the development needs of beneficiary countries, which may be different on case to case basis and country to country basis.

ITEC was launched as early as in 1964 to share India’s development experiences with fellow developing countries. But it was in recent times that India took this programme to Africa in a big way. This civilian training programme aims at skill development and capacity building. Training are imparted to professionals, Government officials and others in the areas such as finance, accounts, audits, banking, education, planning and administration, parliamentary studies, crime records, textiles, rural electrification, tool designs, ophthalmologic equipment. There are also general courses relating to rural development, small and medium enterprises and entrepreneurship.

At present over 15,000 African students have been offered scholarships to study in India in various fields in 47 institutes in the country. India also provides technical assistance in military capacity building. Such assistances have been provided to Mauritius, Seychelles, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Nambia and Uganda. It also rendered in form disaster relief to the Republic of Congo.

Another form of India’s development assistance is the extension of the line of credit (LoCs). Over the last decade India extended 164 LoCs amounting to $9.2 billion, out of which $5.3 billion was for African countries. The LoCs enable borrowing countries to import goods and services from India undertake projects for infrastructure and capacity building. Benin, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Sudan are some of the recent beneficiaries.

Under grant assistance, India recently extended support to the education and healthcare in Malawi, Botswana, Namibia and Tanzania.

On the trade front, India has allowed duty free entry of goods from African least developed countries. More than 6,500 Indian soldiers support UN Peacekeeping Operations in Africa, out of which a large contingent is helping in UN stabilisation programme in the Democratic Republic of Congo. India has made financial contributions to the African Union Mission in Somalia and the African-led International Support Mission in Mali.

There is a need for India to send missions to these countries to assess and review the working of these projects undertaken and its impact on the people. (IPA Service)