The recent India-Africa Forum Summit in New Delhi is an effort of putting threads of friendship to both the countries with the plan of action focuses on furthering cooperation in areas like environment, health, education, energy and mining. Other issues also addresses broader areas of cooperation and common views on regional and international issues, including fight against terrorism, climate change and WTO negotiations.

The decision to strengthen relations between India and Africa is not a new phenomenon. We have a common colonial past and in the post-colonial period we have worked together. India did not want to impose any pattern on Africa and it was for Africa to choose its own pattern of development. However, India would be privileged to be a partner in that process, headed. India’s decision to expand unilateral duty free and preferential market access for exports from all the 50 Least Developed Countries, 34 of which are in Africa, and its offer of lines of credit amounting to $5.4 billion are steps in this direction in making the bond stronger. The enhancement of India’s budget, for technical assistance and training programmes and, greater opportunities for African students to pursue studies in India reflect the priority India attach to human resource development and capacity building. India also offered its assistance in ushering in a Green Revolution in Africa through holistic capacity building in agricultural production, storage and transportation.

India has also begun to develop cooperation with the Regional Economic Communities of Africa and with the African Union (AU). Both India and Africa had agreed had agreed that Africa and India deserved permanent representation on the UNSC and would support each other.  Both sides had been broadly working together for UN reforms and were now ready to strive to make the UN more representative and democratic.  Towards the end of Nehru’s tenure, India’s Africa relation dipped to a low. By the mid-1960s India undertook a serious reassessment of its Africa policy and adopted some fresh initiatives. By the 1970s, India’s stature had risen in African eyes; the Indo-Soviet Treaty (1971), the 1971 war, the Green Revolution, and the Peaceful Nuclear Explosion (PNE) in 1974 probably contributed towards this change. In the 1970s and 1980s India continued to support liberation struggles in Africa. It worked closely with the Africans in the fight against South Africa and Namibia; not just at the UN but also at other multilateral for a as NAM, and the Commonwealth.

India had accorded diplomatic status to the African National Congress (ANC) in 1967 and SWAPO. India has been providing military training to officers and JCOs of the African defence forces. Most of the African countries lack military training institutions and, therefore, the officers are often sent abroad either to the military colleges of the former colonial powers or friendly countries in the developing world. Since the 1960s India has provided military training to a number of Africans, primarily from Anglophone Africa. Having gained a head start in Africa, observers stress, India should not allow itself to play second fiddle to China as a vigorously engaging ally of Africa.