Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s African safari has helped raise the region’s profile in India. However, the government’s initiative of offering a $5 billion line of credit over the next three years will amount to something only if private enterprise steps in to do its bit. Even the initiative to offer an additional $700 million to establish new institutions and training programmes will require private sector engagement to make an impact. India has a longstanding people-to-people (P2P) link with African countries, about which Dr Singh spoke at length, and has been engaged in reviving the government-to-government (G2G) relationship, but both need a stronger business-to-business (B2B) partnership between Indian and African enterprise for the relationship to blossom and benefit the wider Indian Ocean community.
The multiple initiatives announced by Dr Singh should help develop a stronger B2B relationship. These include the setting up of an India-Africa Food Processing Cluster that would contribute to value-addition and the creation of regional and export markets; an India-Africa Integrated Textiles Cluster that would support the cotton industry and its processing and conversion into high-value products; an India-Africa Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting that would harness satellite technology for the agriculture and fisheries sectors and contribute towards disaster preparedness and management of natural resources; and the establishment of an India-Africa University for Life and Earth Sciences that can help develop synergies in bio-technology and pharmaceuticals. India has also offered to establish an India-Africa Institute of Agriculture and Rural Development, and institutes for English language training, information technology, entrepreneurship development and vocational training, as well as rural technology parks, food testing laboratories, food-processing business incubation centres and centres on geo-informatics applications and rural development. All these sound like G2G initiatives but their success would depend entirely on their ability to establish closer P2P relationships and open up new B2B opportunities.
It is this comprehensive nature of the India-Africa relationship that makes it different from the unidimensional China-Africa relationship which is largely a top-down G2G relationship. China is, of course, doing a lot to catch up and, as was seen during the Beijing Olympics, is working hard to establish closer P2P relations. So Dr Singh’s other initiative to offer 22,000 scholarships to African students over the next three years is another good idea that must be implemented with care, given Indian racial prejudices. The new engagement with Africa has also been made possible by Africa’s own rise and the emergence of a new middle class. Indians dealing with Africa should know that they are now dealing with a more self-confident people. Old attitudes and even old slogans have no role or relevance. As Africa’s successful hosting of the 2010 FIFA World Cup showed, the so-called dark continent is now increasingly bright.
