Indian Politics & Policy Volume 1, Number 2, Fall 2018 | Page 85

Indian Politics & Policy
and faster growth of African economies
since 2002, Indian policy has come to
pay greater attention to Africa. At the
start of India’s new foreign assistance
policy from 2004 to 2005 onwards, the
Indian president addressed the Pan-African
Parliament in 2004, India was
part of UN Peacekeeping Forces in four
countries, and most of Africa had endorsed
India’s candidature for a permanent
UNSC seat.
In 2004, India declared its intent
to build a fiber-optic E-connectivity
network for Africa. There was also
close cooperation with the ECOWAS
group of West African states (established
1975). In 2005, India engaged
with COMESA (Common Market for
Eastern and Southern Africa, established
1994) based on an India-COME-
SA MOU. An India–Africa Conclave
was held in Delhi in March 2005, and
the SADC-India Forum was approved
by the (14 nations) SADC (Southern
Africa Development Community, established
1992) Council of Ministers.
The TEAM-9 Initiative (India plus eight
West African countries) was launched
at the margins of the UN General Assembly
in New York in September 2005
and a $500 m LOC offered to TEAM-
9. An LOC of $200 m was extended to
several countries for execution of projects
and purchase of equipment under
the New Partnership for African Development
(NEPAD). India joined the
African Capacity Building Foundation
(based in Harare) as a full member.
Four thousand ITEC and SCAAP slots
were allotted to Africa, spanning 39 institutions
in India.
A landmark event in India’s assistance
policy to Africa was the India–Africa
Forum Summit held on
April 2008 in Delhi. It ended with the
Delhi Declaration, a new architecture
and framework for Africa-India cooperation,
and a doubling of LOCs to Africa
to $5.4 bn over the next five years
(2008–13), concentrated in agriculture
and food, small and medium enterprises,
irrigation, infrastructure, IT, energy,
and pharmaceuticals. Scholarships
were doubled, and a Duty Free Tariff
Preference scheme for access to products
from African LDCs was initiated.
A second India-Africa Forum Summit
was held in 2011 and a third in 2015,
both marked by step-ups of assistance.
Four Indo-African institutions
were established as part of the follow-up
to the India-African Forum Summit.
These were the India–Africa Institute of
Foreign Trade, India-Africa Diamond
Institute, India-Africa Institute of Educational
Planning and Administration,
and the India-Africa Institute of Information
Technology.
The Duty Free Tariff Preference
scheme was offered to 33 African Least
Developed Countries, of which 18 acceded
to it. The Pan-African E-network
was implemented in 34 out of 47 states
in 2010–11.
In May 2011, the second Africa–India
Forum Summit was held in
Addis Ababa, resulting in the Addis
Ababa Declaration and Africa–India
Framework for Enhanced Cooperation,
another step-up in the level of cooperation.
The Declaration was a political
document covering UN reform, WTO,
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