By Matthew Newsome

This was announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who also said that $700 million will be provided for assorted training programs and many new institutions will be established on the continent to maximize human capacity in Africa.The summit that began at the African Union headquarters in the Ethiopian capital was the first since the India- Africa summit in April 2008. The Summit culminated with the Addis Ababa Declaration and the Africa-India Framework for Enhanced Cooperation. The 8-page declaration affirms the critical importance of South-South co-operation.

The Indian Prime Minister who stayed in Addis for four days on his first visit to Ethiopia said that "Africa possesses all the pre-requisites to become a major growth pole in the world, we will work with Africa to enable it to realize its potential." At a press conference during the summit, Singh was asked how can he be confident investing in African countries when so many of them are politically unstable? He responded with a quote from Lord Keynes "an act of investment is an act of faith".

South-South co-operation for tangible and real benefits for Africa

India was represented by its Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who also held bilateral meetings with PM Meles Zenawi, following his participation in the Summit before continuing his journey with a visit to Tanzania. . The African continent was represented by the AUC Chairperson Jean Ping, the current Chairperson of the AU Assembly and President of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasago. The AU member states were represented by the five founding members of The New Partnership for African Development, NEPAD, (Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, and South Africa) and the current Chair of the NEPAD Implementation Committee (Ethiopia), as well as the current Chairs of the eight Regional Economic Communities (Kenya, Libya, Namibia, Burundi, Swaziland, Nigeria, Chad, and DRC).

The Summit culminated with the Addis Ababa Declaration and the Africa-India Framework for Enhanced Cooperation. The 8-page declaration affirms the critical importance of South-South co-operation as an instrument that can effectively supplement existing international efforts and lead to tangible and real benefits for the developing world.

The India-Africa Framework for Cooperation outlined the agreed areas of cooperation, including human resource development, research and development, institutional capacity building, education, science and technology, agricultural productivity, industrial growth, mineral extraction, development of the health sector, development of infrastructure, ICT as well as the establishment of judicial systems with police and defense establishments under civilian control.

Chairperson of the AU Assembly and President of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasago said that ‘there was great debate but moreover there was great solidarity’.

As part of the Summit, a meeting between African Trade Ministers and the Indian Minister of Trade and Commerce took place on 21st May. Recognizing the market opportunities for both sides, they agreed to strengthen trade relationships, build trade-related capacities, and conclude trade agreements between regional economic communities and India. The meeting also recalled the objectives set for the WTO Doha negotiations and reiterated both sides’ commitment to Special and Differential (S&D) Treatment and more preferential treatment for Least Developed Countries. It was decided that the ministerial trade meeting will take place annually as an "India-Africa Trade Ministers’ Dialogue".

The Summit was accompanied by a series of business (trade exhibition, business conclave, and craftswomen interaction), academic (symposium on Africa and India – a partnership for development and growth) and cultural events (multimedia exhibition, film festival and a media symposium).

THE GREAT INDIA-AFRICA ECONOMIC RECOVERY

$ 5 billion in new funds have been committed for economic engagement with Africa including a significant proportion to be committed to capacity building and human resource development.

Trade between India and Africa currently stands at $50 billion, African Union Commission Chairman Jean Ping said in his address at the launching of the Summit on May 24th.

"Africa possesses all the pre-requisites to become a major growth pole in the world," PM Singh said on his part. "We will work with Africa to enable it to realize its potential."

India will offer $5 billion for the next three years under lines of credit "to help achieve the development goals of Africa with an additional $700 million US dollars to establish new institutions and training programmes," PM Singh said.

Priority will be given to infrastructure, including railways, IT, telecom, power-generation, and physical connectivity and small, medium and micro enterprises. Agriculture and food security, including crop-diversification, water-management, capacity-building in agriculture as well as building institutions that are dedicated to agricultural research, will be other areas of cooperation.

At the Summit, India announced a Duty Free Tariff Preferential scheme (DFTP) for the 49 least developed countries, 33 of whom are in Africa. This will cover 94% of India’s total tariff lines and, more importantly provide preferential market access on tariff lines for 92.5% of the global exports of all LDCs. This extends to important products of export interest to Africa, including cotton, cocoa, aluminium ores, copper ores, cashew nuts, cane sugar, readymade garments, fish fillets, non industrial diamonds etc. It is hoped that the LDC’s in Africa, who have not yet subscribed to the DFTP scheme, would do so shortly and make use of this increased market access to the large Indian market.

A mechanism in the form of an ‘India-Africa Business Council’ (IABC) is being planned in order to have an institutional platform for sustained exchange of business communities from India and Africa to step up their business engagements as well as to institutionalise a road map for business partnerships and identify opportunities for working together in various sectors, chiefly trade between India and Africa.

In 2009-10 India’s total trade with Africa was $ 39 billion and during the last five years it has increased 3.5 times. In 2010 it increased to $45 billion. India expects investment to double to 10 billion by 2015.

The partnership has been private sector-led, revolving around energy resources, precious metals and uranium. The bilateral trade between India and Africa has grown dramatically in recent years from $967 million per year in the mid-1960s to $40 billion in 2008-09 with a projected increase to $70 billion by 2015.

Though Africa was late to catch up, the continent has been growing in the recent few years by a fast pace. Despite the global woes, Africa’s economy expanded by 4.7 per cent in 2010 and is expected to grow by over 5 per cent in the coming years, giving opportunities to India.

"We are well on our way to achieve bilateral trade target of $70 bn by 2015," Anand Sharma, Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry said while inaugurating the India Show at the Millennium Hall on Friday 20th May. The minister said that ever since the first India-Africa Forum summit in 2008, the trade between them has increased tremendously. What was a meager $3 bn at the turn of the century has crossed the $46 bn mark last year.

Sharma said in his speech that "India has become one of the leading investors in African countries, with investments in joint ventures and wholly owned subsidiaries touching $33 bn mark." The investment covers sectors such as oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, IT, fertilisers and infrastructure.

Sharma also co-chaired the India-Africa Trade Ministers Meeting held at the African Union Commission here. The meeting took place ahead of the second India-Africa Forum Summit.

TRADE MINISTERS MEETING
On May 21, 2011 there was the Africa-India Trade ministers meeting. This was organized to meaningfully discuss and evolve measures to strengthen trade and investment linkages.
The meeting was addressed by Mrs Elisabeth Tankeu Commissioner for Trade and Industry, African Union Commission and was co chaired by Francisca Tachoupe Belobe, Minister of Economy, Commerce and Business Development, of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea and Anand Sharma, Minister of Commerce and Industry of India.

They exchanged views on the global economic environment, noting with satisfaction that both the African and the Indian economies have shown recovery from the global economic crisis.

During the meeting, the ministers explored ways to establish trade and investment linkages between India and Africa through institutionalizing trade cooperation agreements between Indian and African Regional Economic Communities, according to a joint statement released after the trade ministers’ meeting:

"We appreciate the establishment of an India-Africa Business Council, a mechanism to strengthen and deepen economic ties between the business communities of India and Africa. We consider that these linkages would lead to enhanced partnerships, especially in the sectors of processing of basic products and other priority sectors such as agriculture, pharmaceuticals, education, health, IT, skills training and infrastructure," it said.

India-Africa expressed confidence that the 2nd Summit would go a long way in galvanizing economic ties between the two sides. They also agreed on the need for a reform of the global financial system to avoid a recurrence of the recent crisis by focusing on the need for regulation of the markets.

The combined markets of India and Africa comprise about 2.2 billion people with a combined GDP of more than US$ 3 trillion in 2009. The bilateral trade between Africa and India was in excess of US$ 46 billion 2010.

"We are confident that this trade will reach US$ 70 billion by 2015. We also note with satisfaction the increase in Africa-India investments, which reached US$ 90 billion in 2010".

They also recognized the important role of the various trade related initiatives taken by the Indian government in Africa, such as the ‘Duty Free Tariff Preference Scheme’, Cluster Development Studies, and various Capacity Building and Technical Assistance Programmes.

"We agree that effective implementation of these initiatives will contribute to the strengthening of the trade relationship between Africa and India. We commit ourselves to work towards tapping the huge potentials for the development of integrated clusters in sectors such as agro-processing, textiles, IT, floriculture, etc in Africa".

"South-South trade and investment is no longer just a political objective but an inescapable economic imperative," said Anand Sharma. He expanded upon this statement with the following qualification "because of sluggish growth in developed countries and their continued trade barriers against products of export interest to developing countries, South-South trade is imperative".

INDIA TO INVEST IN INFRASTRUCTURE
India in consultation with the African Union has announced that it is committed to fulfilling its promise from the first Summit to support and promote regional integration. To substantiate this pledge it announced its support to the development of a new Ethio-Djibouti Railway line by offering 300 million US dollars.
India will provide $300 million to help rehabilitate the Djibouti-Ethiopia railroad, a project that began in 2004.
"Under the lines of credit that we offered at the first summit, we had specifically looked at promoting regional integration through infrastructure development," PM Singh said, "on the advice of the African Union, we will support the development of the new Ethio-Djibouti railway line."

HUMAN CAPACITY BUILDING
India has continued to deliver on its promise to develop capacity building in the human resource development sector. PM Singh has proposed the following new institutions at the Pan -African level:
-An India-Africa Food Processing Cluster- This would contribute to value-addition and the creation of regional and export markets;

-An India-Africa integrated Textiles Cluster- This will support the cotton industry and its processing and conversion into high value products;

-An India-Africa Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting- This will harness satellite technology for the agriculture and fisheries sectors as well as contribute towards disaster preparedness and management of natural resources;

-An India-Africa Institute of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The Indian Prime minister announced that it will establish an India-Africa Virtual University. "This will help meet some of the demand in Africa for higher studies in Indian institutions. We further propose 10,000 new scholarships under this proposed university that will be available for African students after its establishment," he added.

The Prime Minister of India proposed that India and Africa work towards the establishment of an India-Africa Volunteer Corps which would be devoted to development work. The Volunteer Corps can, on a pilot basis, identify projects in the areas of public health, informal education and women’s. Prime Minister Singh also proposed to enhance Indian aid to Africa by expanding concessional lines of credit and undertaking projects against grants in excess of USD 500 million over the next five to six years. These will focus on human resource development and capacity building. India will strengthen local capabilities by creating regional and pan

–African institutions of higher education, especially in pure sciences, information technology and vocational education. India will also make investments in research and development in renewable forms of energy and agricultural development, through these institutions. An important aspect of the capacity building programmes is the offer from India of 300 scholarships in the field of agricultural education and research over four years.

To institutionalize India’s pledge to maximize capacity building, PM Singh announced during the Summit that 4 Pan-African Institutions will be established: (i) India Africa Institute of Foreign Trade, (ii) India Africa Diamond Institute, (iii) India Africa Institute of Educational Planning and Administration and (iv) India Africa Institute of Information Technology.

PAN E NETWORK

Ethiopia was the first beneficiary of this flagship project under a pilot project, which was completed in 2007 at a cost of US$2.13 million.

The project uses Indian expertise in information technology to bring the benefits of healthcare and higher education in Africa, including in remote areas. It presently operates within 35 countries. The network will be connected by a satellite/fibre optical network for tele-medicine, tele-education and VVIP connectivity. The current project cost is about $116 million, which will be given as a grant by the Government of India. It consists of 5 regional universities, 5 regional super specialty hospitals, 53 learning centres, 53 remote hospitals and 53 VVIP nodes in all countries of Africa. These will be linked to 7 universities and 12 super specialty hospitals in India. Each country is required to sign an agreement with the Indian implementing agency, Telecommunication Consultants India Limited (TCIL).

PEACE KEEPING
The South Asian country will also provide $2 million to support the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia, Singh said.
India’s stated position at the Summit regarding the NATO air strikes in Libya was that any further attempt to de-escalate the crisis in the region must avoid humanitarian catastrophe.

UN
India on Tuesday made a strong pitch for reform of global political and economic institutions, including the UN Security Council. "The current international economic and political system is far from favorable, particularly for developing countries. The world faces new challenges in meeting the requirements of food and energy security," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told African leaders. "The global institutions of governance are outmoded and are working under stress," he said. "We, therefore, need a new spirit of solidarity among developing countries."
It was announced that India could count on the AU for support for their seat on the UN Security Council
LAND GRAB
India is manifestly very keen to invest in Ethiopian agriculture. Karuturi Ltd, an Indian company presently occupies 100,000 hectares of land in the Gambella region, the size of Blegium. Karuturi is a large supplier of flowers as well as sugar and cereals.
During a press conference at the National Palace, PM Meles was asked whether we should be cautious about foreign countries land grabbing in Ethiopia. Meles responded with unconcealed indignation and defiance: "We have 3 million hectares of unutilized land. We want to use all 3 million. We do not want to admire the virgin beauty of our land while we starve".
India’s partnership with Africa has been largely viewed as being mainly motivated by its prioritization of food and energy security for its 1.2 bn population.

Its relations with African countries have been most developed with Nigeria and Angola (energy), South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe. After visits to Nigeria, South Africa (IBSA Summit), and Kenya (Commonwealth) this will be the third visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Africa.

In comparison with China, India has favored a low profile and soft power approach. The World Bank claims in a report that the Indian firms employ a larger number of Africans than the Chinese ones.
One of the most notable questions thrust at PM Singh was: ‘What gives you confidence to invest in Africa when so many African Countries are politically unstable.’ PM Singh sidestepped the loaded question with a quick witted delivery of a quote by Lord Keynes "the act of investment is an act of faith".
The AU has recognized the necessity of the Indian partnership and so did India, PM Singh candidly said "The African continent needs Indian partnership to develop and progress".

In response to this, the Chairperson of the AU Assembly and President of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasago stated, "Africa cannot consider itself free until we have economic, political, social, and technological independence. We need assistance and diversity of co-operation with all countries of the world to arrive at this point where we do not need dependence anymore".
PM Singh said at the same press conference during the Summit that this path of resurgence taken by the South Asian giant and the African continent must now crucially "move into the phase of implementation and be under close and constant review".
MEDIA DECLARATION
Highlights from the African and Indian Media partnership symposium held on Saturday May 21st at the Hilton Addis:
- It was underscored how vital a role a free and independent media plays in protecting the rights of citizens, ensuring the accountability of both governments and the corporate sector, and promising equitable and sustainable economic policies.

- India-Africa medias have promised to work closely with each other to promote the widest possible respect for the freedom of the press and media.

- All governments and combatants must respect the right of a journalist to do her or his job in conflict situations free from attacks and violence or the threat of violence and to not hinder in any way the media’s attempts to report what is happening.

- The need was stressed for media to be responsible in the way it covers conflict situations.

- Active efforts will be made to ensure workplace diversity in the media and especially the adequate representation of women at all levels of the media hierarchy.

- There will be fully funded slots in Indian media schools for students in Africa.

- It was proposed that there should be an Afro-Asian satellite TV channel.

- The growth of the African movie industry will be encouraged by using African locations to shoot Bollywood films.

(Capital/ Addis Ababa)