Indo-African relationship has historic importance and is set to define future for majority of world’s population. Dating back several centuries, the relations between India and African countries are driven and shaped by a number of factors, including trade and investments, cultural, historical and political engagements. A youthful demography, fast growing economies and vast amount of natural resources are something that both sides enjoy, causing envy and interest in rest of the world. Ongoing visit by the Vice President is the first-ever high level visit from India to Gabon and Senegal. This visit is set to add momentum to India’s engagement with Africa and emphasize India’s commitment to this continent as Africa is increasingly becoming important to India’s foreign policy calculations also.
Not only India, but rest of the globe is also far more interested in the African continent today than any time in history. India and Africa’s historical links and relations have experienced a revival in recent years and both sides understand the fact that it is a win-win situation as growing relations are mutually beneficial. India-Africa trade has grown to around 66.7 billion US dollar in 2019-20. Around 8% of Indian imports are from Africa and around 9% of Africa’s imports are from India. The investment of India’s public and private sector enterprises are increasing in Africa, making it the 8th largest investor in African. Besides loan and investment, India has also given ample amount of aid to Africa to fight the Covid-19 pandemic. Under the Vaccine Maitri initiative, India supplied 24.7 million doses of Made of India Covid vaccines to 42 countries in Africa.
India’s engagement with Africa focuses much on its core competencies like human resource development, training and skill development, IT, ITES, education and healthcare services which are very different to the Chinese approach, which focuses majorly on developing manufacturing capacities and infrastructure in Africa. While, China’s economic model of engagement with Africa looks attractive and has also paid rich dividend in recent years, the fascination for India’s support for democratic practices, processes, institutions and people to people engagement is high in Africa. India also has an advantage of language and cultural affinity. English is far more prevalent among the people in African countries than any other language, making it much easier for Indian to interact with African people. Moreover, over 3 million strong Indian diaspora in Africa also proves to a crucial strategic asset for India to further its relations with African countries.
Over half a dozen countries in Africa are among the fastest developing economies including Rwanda, Senegal, and Tanzania, making it one of the growth pole of the world. Real GDP in Africa in the past decade has grown almost twice. African continent has a population of over one billion with a combined GDP of 2.5 trillion dollars, which makes it a huge market. Taking these all things into account, India is making consistent efforts towards strengthening relations with Africa. India’s duty-free tariff preferential scheme has been beneficial for Least Developed African Nations. The India–Africa Forum Summit- the official platform for the African-Indian relations, is also contributing immensely to this building up the relationship process.
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