Background, Indian Diaspora in Africa, and India-Africa Forum Summit

Get unlimited access to the best preparation resource for competitive exams : get questions, notes, tests, video lectures and more- for all subjects of your exam.

Background

Historical Ties

  • Indian in Africa
  • Mahatma Gandhi
  • Colonialism and liberation wars
  • Non-alignment movement
  • Indian diaspora in Africa
    • Significant numbers in East Africa
  • After end of colonialism in Africa, India-Africa relations were expected to strengthen
    • However, on the whole the flourishing of trade and economic exchanges did not happen
    • Why? – lack of resources was part of the problem, and many new countries were forced to look to former colonial rulers for assistance in meeting their development needs.

Economic Ties

  • Annual trade of USD 46 bn with Africa.
  • Least-developed African nations are to get/have got preferential access to the Indian market and India also committed itself to establishing 19 centres of excellence and training institutions in different fields across Africa
  • Cumulative Indian investments in Africa stood at $ 90 billion in 2010 and are likely to rise dramatically in the years ahead.
  • Bharti՚s investment in Africa is seen as an example of how Indian companies are looking at long term partnerships in Africa
  • Indian corporate houses like Tatas, Bajaj, OVL, Essar, Sanmar, Ranbaxy and Reliance have a presence in Africa
  • India should
    • Negotiate FTAs with African nations and group of nations

Indian Diaspora in Africa

  • Within Africa, there are several scattered Indian communities, quite often substantial in number
  • They are typically engaged in trade and also in professions like medicine and law
  • After independence of African nations, they had a mixed experience
    • In some countries they prospered
    • Elsewhere they were regarded with suspicion
    • Even forced to flee in Uganda
  • In such circumstances they were unable to be a useful bridge between India and Africa
  • About 2 million people of Indian origin live in Africa
  • Bulk of the diaspora is in countries like South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, and Nigeria.

India-Africa Forum Summit

  • India-Africa Forum Summit first held in 2008 in New Delhi
    • It was the first such meeting between the heads of state/govt of India and 14 countries of Africa chosen by the African Union
    • Delhi Declaration was adopted
  • 2nd India-Africa Forum Summit held in 2011 in Addis Ababa
    • 15 African countries attended
    • Addis Ababa declaration adopted
    • Envisages economic and political cooperation, and also cooperation in a host of other areas including S&T, social and infrastructure development, tourism, culture, and sports.
    • theme: Enhancing Partnership: Shared Vision
    • We have thus decided to enhance our partnership with new initiatives for the mutual benefit of Africa and India, In recent years, this has included substantial financial flows from India to Africa in terms of grants, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and concessional loans that continue to contribute to capacity building in the socio-economic sectors, particularly in the human resource development, the development of the private sector, increasing support to infrastructure, agriculture and SMEs, leading to a substantial expansion of Indian investment in Africa and of trade between Africa and India. We agree, to build upon this by assisting each other to achieve inclusive growth, socio-economic development, and self-reliance. Areas for such cooperation will include sharing strategies for sustainable development, poverty alleviation, healthcare, and universal education, and sharing appropriate technologies. These new avenues for cooperation will enable us to add strategic depth to our partnership.
    • Climate change cooperation
    • Urge major economies to work together and enhance macro-economic policy coordination
    • India announced $ 5 bn credit line over the next three years
  • Other initiatives announced at the 2nd summit
    • India-Africa Food Processing Cluster
    • India-Africa Integrated Textiles Cluster
    • India-Africa Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting
    • India-Africa University for Life and Earth Sciences
  • Potential areas for cooperation
    • Agricultural sector
    • Trade
    • Industry and investment
    • Peace and security
    • Promotion of good governance and civil society
    • Information and communication technology
  • India, with its substantial technology knowledge pool, is well placed to contribute to such capacity building
  • Unlike China՚s foray in Africa that has focused on extractive resources, oil and mammoth infrastructure projects, India has chosen to focus on capacity building as the defining template of its engagement with Africa
  • Economy
    • Bilateral trade is about $ 40 billion
  • India has initiated the pan-Africa e-network project
    • e-medicine and e-education project
    • To connect India with all 53 countries of the African Union with a satellite and fibre optic network for sharing India՚s expertise in education and healthcare
    • The project is being implemented in 47 African countries of which actual commissioning has been completed in 34 countries.
    • 12 more countries are added in the second phase.