As India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi embraced the African Union’s then-chair, Comoros’ President Azali Assoumani, at last year’s G-20 summit in New Delhi, a number of commentaries touted India-Africa relations as the next big thing. India, during its presidency of the G-20, styled itself as representing the Global South, asserting Africa’s voice and rights.
One year on, where does the relationship stand?
Far from displaying signs of a rapid take-off, ties between continent and country are bumpy, with considerable barriers preventing opportunities from being seized. This will only change when, or if, New Delhi is able to increase governmental capacity to boost political ties and development cooperation.
The Case That Africa-India Ties Will Blossom
During New Delhi’s extravagant hosting of the G-20, India proclaimed itself a leader of the Global South, particularly by drawing on its strong relations with Africa. This helps India explain its importance on the global stage, adding weight to New Delhi’s calls for global governance reform.
Implicit in the proclamation is the expectation that New Delhi will prioritize relations with Africa, traditionally its strongest partnership. This was seemingly fulfilled by India’s championing of the G-20 seat for the African Union and the two virtual Voice of the Global South Summits, convened to input views into India’s presidency of the G-20 bloc.
India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar also undertook prominent visits to Kenya, Tanzania, and Nigeria during 2023-2024, and two India-Tanzania-Mozambique naval exercises were held in 2023 and 2024. India is close to reaching its official goal of having 47 embassies on the continent, with more opened in 2023.
In the economic realm, Indian investment in Africa reached new heights, averaging $26.39 billion between 2018-2022 as opposed to just $5.34 billion between 2013-2018. This places India among Africa’s top investors, outstripping China and the United States in some years. Equally, trade, having reached $78 billion in 2015, recovered to a total value of $97.8 billion in 2022 after a 2016-2021 slump.
Therefore, it is possible to paint a picture of booming ties, with New Delhi undertaking diplomatic, military, and economic efforts to elevate relations with the continent.
Falling Back to Reality?
However, this is not the first time India-Africa ties have been touted, nor the first political push by New Delhi to reinvigorate its relations with African countries. Strategic diplomatic efforts date back to India’s very first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. More efforts include the 2002 Focus Africa campaign and the inauguration of triannual India-Africa Forum Summits starting in 2008. The former Congress-led coalition government also promoted development cooperation in Africa, including a large scheme of subsidized infrastructure loans.
The India-Africa relationship is a long one, which has gradually built over the last three decades, tempering expectations of rapid future change.
Crucially, the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government’s record on Africa is inconsistent. India has not hosted the India-Africa Forum Summit since 2015. It had scheduled such a summit for 2019, only for Ebola to cause a postponement, with COVID-19 then hampering efforts during 2020-2022.
However, in contrast, China, the United States, the European Union, Turkiye, and Russia have all held similar top-leader events. This matters, given the impetus generated by such events and the disproportionate importance of top-level political representation to many governments in Africa. Reportedly for African diplomats, the absence of the India-Africa Forum Summit demonstrates New Delhi’s lower prioritization of the relationship.
Such a perception is not misplaced. New Delhi is primarily focused on its South Asian neighborhood, its increasingly conflictual relationship with China, its historic ties to Russia, and its booming relations with the Gulf nations, particularly the United Arab Emirates. India is also being actively courted by numerous Western countries, foremost of which is the United States, followed by others like France, the U.K., Australia, and Japan. Collectively, these top priorities absorb most of the administrative capacity of the Ministry of External Affairs, a notoriously small foreign ministry.
Thus, mid-level prioritization of Africa matters, magnifying New Delhi’s limitations in driving the relationship forward, forging new initiatives, and even delivering on existing pledges.
Development Cooperation
The consequences are perhaps most noted in India’s development cooperation in Africa. The premier program here is India’s IDEAS concessional financing scheme, administered by the Exim Bank. Such subsidized lending is typically required to unlock projects, but after a strong initial decade from 2004-2014, where India lent $6.8 billion, financing has reduced.
Laudable policy changes contributed to the downturn. Efforts to increase scrutiny and root out corruption removed the incentive for infrastructure companies to solicit contracts and advertise Indian development schemes themselves. Rather, new guidelines place responsibility on Indian officials and African governments to initiate funding, but both sides lack capacity.
Equally, grant spending fell from 2018.
With this loss of funding, the number of contracts undertaken by Indian companies appears to have fallen, according to the African Development Bank’s database of infrastructure contracts on the continent.
This infrastructure story appears to be replicated in development cooperation more broadly, with a lack of new schemes in India’s traditional strengths of capacity building, training, and technology sharing. For example, Modi’s 2019 e-VidyaBharati and e-ArogyaBharti schemes, which link health and education institutions in India and Africa, was a relaunch of the earlier 2009 Pan-African E-Network.
COVID-19 vaccines could have been a soft power gift to Delhi given India’s global role in vaccine manufacture. Although initial pledges generated goodwill, feelings turned sour when, in March 2021, India halted all vaccine exports in the midst of its own tragic COVID-19 wave.
Private Boom But Public Retreat?
Five years ago, development cooperation appeared to be a strength of the relationship between India and Africa, but the situation looks very different in 2024. The downturn poses questions about India’s commitment to African ties and New Delhi’s capability to deliver on the continent’s priorities at current levels of governmental and diplomatic capacity.
It is possible that with India’s general election and G-20 presidency out of the way, 2025 will mark the start of a long-touted diplomatic push. India’s Ministry of External Affairs has received real-term budget increases for some years now, which could help alleviate the capacity issues.
But the real tests lie in whether New Delhi can pull off a fourth India-Africa Forum Summit, reciprocate top-level engagement in Africa, and reverse the decline in development cooperation. One trend appears set, and that is for India’s private sector to be the most vibrant force generating relations and new initiatives, not India’s government.