25 June 2021: UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis

E. Editorials

Category: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

1. Staging a comeback, re-energising India’s Africa policy

Context:

• The article analyzes the India-Africa bilateral relations and carries out a critical review of India’s Africa foreign policy implementation.

India-Africa relations:

• The relations between India and Africa have long historical roots. For many centuries, the peoples of the two parts of the world have interacted at the levels of economics, politics, and socio-cultural practices.
• After independence, India rapidly built up political ties with the newly independent countries and freedom movements in sub-Saharan Africa as well as with the countries in northern Africa. In the 1950s, 60s and 70s, India enjoyed strong political and brotherly bonds with many of the African nations.
  • India was one of the key organizers of the Asian-African Conference, held in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955. 
• India’s ties with Africa have been stepped up in the last two decades both bilaterally and with the regional economic communities, initially with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Team-9 and continentally through the African Union (AU).
• A structured engagement with Africa took shape in 2008 with the First India Africa Forum Summit (IAFS-I). The Third India Africa Forum Summit (IAFS-III) of 2015 was a landmark event with delegations representing all African countries.
• The ‘Delhi Declaration 2015-Partners in Progress: Towards a Dynamic and Transformative Development Agenda’ was adopted at the conclusion of IAFS-III and so was the India-Africa Framework for Strategic Cooperation.
• The current administration too has designed a forward-looking strategy to deepen relations with African countries and has backed it with the requisite political will in expanding the multi-faceted engagement with African nations.

Significance of Africa for India:

• Africa is considered a foreign policy priority by India for the following reasons.

Economic aspects:

• Africa today is definitely a ‘happening continent’.
• Africa is home to over half a dozen of the fastest-growing countries of this decade which has led to some referring to Africa as the future growth pole of the world. Africa has witnessed rapid expansion in sectors like tourism, banking, telecommunications, manufacturing and agriculture.
• Most of Africa is experiencing moderate to healthy economic growth rates, which is fuelling the growth of its middle class and demand for more goods and services. Africa’s growing middle class, already expected to be bigger than India’s, continues to boost consumption, construction and private investment.
• Thus Africa will be a high priority area for India in the economic and commercial sphere.
• Indian exports to Africa of manufactured products like medicines, automobiles, two-wheelers, iron and steel products, plastics, machinery and engineering processes, etc. as well as refined petroleum products are quite substantial and growing. Africa provides an alternate destination to such manufactures from India whose exports to traditional destinations in Europe and North America are on the decline, and helps to prop up the ‘Make in India’ campaign.
• India is among Africa’s largest trading partners. India’s exposure in terms of investments in Africa is also considerable. Thus bilateral trade and investment compel India to pay attention to the African market.
  • The bilateral trade is valued at $55.9 billion in 2020-21.
  • India’s top five markets today are South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya and Togo. The countries from which India imports the most are South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Angola and Guinea.
  • India’s top three exports to Africa are mineral fuels and oils (processed petroleum products), pharmaceutical products and vehicles.
  • Mineral fuels and oils (essentially crude oil) and pearls, precious or semi-precious stones are the top two imports accounting for over 77% of our imports from Africa.

Geographical aspects:

• India and Africa share a millennial old connection given the geographic proximity of India and Africa. In that sense, Africa is a neighbour and both share large coastal areas along the strategic Indian Ocean region.

Substantial Diaspora population:

• A significant number of people of Indian origin have, over two centuries of outward migration, made large parts of southern and eastern Africa their home.
• Members of the Indian diaspora reside in around 46 countries of Africa. Indians in Africa account for 12.37% of the total diaspora in India over time.
• The large populations of Indians within Africa could be the cause of the political support Africa is seeing from India now.

Source of critical commodities:

• Africa supplies a vast basket of goods to India which is dominated by commodities, particularly crude oil, gas, pulses and lentils, leather, gold and other metals, all of which India lacks in sufficient quantities.
• The diverse sources in Africa provide some protection against the vulnerability of depending on just one or two regions for their supply.

Geopolitical aspects:

• African countries tend to take a unified stand on such multilateral issues after discussions and deliberations at the African Union consisting of 55 members. Africa’s support would be inevitable for India’s policy agenda of UN reforms and India’s bid for a permanent UN Security Council seat.
  • India and Africa have often held common positions in global platforms and worked together to guard the interests of other developing countries.
• A robust relationship with Africa constitutes an important part of India’s South-South Cooperation platform.

China factor:

• Trade between China and Africa has been increasing at an exponential pace and China is currently Africa’s largest trading partner.
• The increasing economic heft of China has resulted in China enjoying critical political support among the political classes of Africa.
• China enjoys a significant military presence in the region.
  • In July 2017, China set up its first overseas military base in Djibouti as a logistics facility for peacekeeping missions on the continent.
• There have been increasing international concerns over the significant political, economic, and military roles that China is playing in the African continent, more so for India given the increasing Chinese presence on the coastline of the strategic Indian Ocean.
  • Various security analysts have described the increasing presence of China as part of its “String of Pearls” geopolitical and military strategy in the Indian Ocean.
• Thus cultivating good relations with African nations is an inevitable need for India to counter the Chinese plans in the Indian Ocean region.

Significance of India for Africa:

Developmental aid:

• Through its Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme India has been providing technical assistance through human resource development to other developing countries, with African countries being the greatest beneficiaries of it.
• India has been aiding development in Africa by contributing to African institutions through training and capacity-enhancing assistance.
  • India has invested substantial amounts to establish educational institutions and training programs in several African countries.
  • In 2006, India launched its flagship aid initiative in Africa by constructing the $125 million Pan-African e-Network, the continent’s largest tele-education and telemedicine initiative. The network links 47 African countries with schools and hospitals in India through satellite and fibre-optic links.
• The values that steer India’s development cooperation — demand-driven, conditionality free and based on the principle of partnership among equals — are appreciated in Africa.

Aiding economic growth:

• India has been a major aid contributor to economic development in the African continent through grants and concessional lines of credit.

Medical aid:

• The availability of Indian-manufactured drugs has also been essential in the fight against the HIV and AIDS pandemic in Africa.
• Even as the COVID-19 era began in March 2020, New Delhi took new initiatives to assist Africa through prompt despatch of medicines and later vaccines.

Security aspects:

• In security matters, India has also assisted African countries to fight against terrorism through the provision of arms and training of military personnel.
• India also participates in UN-led peacekeeping missions across Africa.

Concerns:

• Following are some of the concerns with regard to India-Africa relations.

Bilateral economic relations:

• India-Africa trade is on a decline. According to the Confederation of Indian Industry, bilateral trade in 2020-21 has fallen by $10.8 billion compared to 2019-20, and $15.5 billion compared to the peak year of 2014-15.
• The composition of the India-Africa trade has not changed much over the two decades thus indicating the failure to diversify the bilateral trade relations.
• India’s investments in Africa too have witnessed a decline from $3.2 billion in 2019-20 to $2.9 billion in 2020-21. Total investments from India into Africa over the last 25 years account for only about one-third of China’s investment in Africa.

Global competition for Africa and India found lagging:

• Africa has experienced a sharpened international competition, known as ‘the third scramble’, in the first two decades of the 21st century.
• A dozen nations from the Americas, Europe and Asia especially the United States, the European Union (EU), China, Japan and India have striven to assist Africa in resolving the continent’s political and social challenges and, in turn, to benefit from Africa’s markets, minerals, hydrocarbons and oceanic resources, and thereby to expand their geopolitical influence.
• Africans have been deeply affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and remain ill-equipped to tackle it.
• While China has successfully used the pandemic to expand its footprint by increasing the outflow of its vaccines, unfortunately, India’s ‘vaccination diplomacy’ has suffered during the devastating second wave of the pandemic in India. India which has traditionally ensured the flow of aid to Africa has been found wanting as it has been caught up in coping with the novel coronavirus pandemic.

India’s changed foreign policy priorities:

• Geopolitical tensions in Asia and the imperative to consolidate its position in the Indo-Pacific region have compelled India to concentrate on its ties with the United Kingdom, the EU, and the Quad powers, particularly the U.S. Consequently, the attention being paid to Africa is on the wane.

Way forward:

• For mutual benefit, Africa and India should remain engaged at all levels – political and economic.
• The future engagement must recognize and acknowledge the historical and current context of relations between India and Africa and the effect of cross-cutting multilateral issues between the two as envisaged in the Delhi Declaration.
• India should focus on according Africa an important place in its diplomacy and economic engagement.
  • The third India-Africa Forum Summit was held in 2015. The pending fourth summit of the India-Africa Forum Summit should be held as soon as possible.
  • Fresh financial resources for grants and concessional loans to Africa must be allocated.
  • India should seek to improve the economic relations with emphasis on developing and deepening collaborations in health, space and digital technologies.
• To overcome the China challenge in Africa, increased cooperation between India and its international allies seems inevitable.
  • Just like the recent India-EU Summit where Africa has been identified as a region for a partnership-based approach, similarly, India should propose a robust partnership plan for Africa in the Quad deliberations.