India’s G-20 Opportunity For An African Renaissance

GS Paper II International Relations

Context:

The 15th BRICS summit took place in South Africa with the theme “BRICS and Africa”.

Like an absentee landlord, Africa is flagging its demands nowadays on multilateral fora such as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), the G-20 and the United Nations General Assembly.

Challenges and Disruptors:

Existential Challenges: Misgovernance, unplanned development, the dominance of ruling tribes and corruption.
New Challenges: The Islamic terror, inter-tribal scrimmage, changing climate, runaway food inflation, urbanization and youth unemployment.
Past Military Interventions of Other Nations: France, the United States and Russia’s Wagner Group to curb the militancy have become part of the problem.
- Example: Keeping dictatorships in power to protect their economic interests, such as uranium in Niger, gold in the Central African Republic and oil in Libya.
Erosion of Earlier International Support:
- China: Its Belt and Roads Initiative has raised the debts of some African countries to unsustainable levels, resulting in ceding control of some of their assets to China.
- France, the United Kingdom and other colonial powers as well as the United States have continued to exploit mineral wealth in Africa, but their economic downturn has limited their outreach.

Relations with India:

Historic Ties: India’s ties with Africa are deep, diverse and harmonious that range from Mahatma Gandhi’s satyagraha against the apartheid to the UN peacekeeping role.
Non-native Ethnicity: Approximately three million people of Indian origin live in Africa, many for centuries and are Africa’s largest non-native ethnicity.
Robust Investment: India was the fifth largest investor in Africa and as extended over $12.37 billion in concessional loans.
- India-Africa trade reached $98 billion in 2022-23.
- High investment and other socio-economic engagements, especially in such sectors as education, health care, telecom, IT, appropriate technology and agriculture.
- India has completed 197 projects and has provided 42,000 scholarships since 2015.

The Path Ahead:

India’s hosting of the G-20 Summit is an opportunity to consult like-minded G-20 partners and multilateral institutions for a comprehensive semi-permanent platform to resolve the deadlock security and socio-economic situations in several parts of Africa.
India should deliver political stability and economic development by combining peacekeeping with socio-political institution building.
India can offer targeted investments and transfer of relevant and appropriate Indian innovations, such as the JAM trinity (Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile), DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer), UPI (Unified Payments Interface), and Aspirational Districts Programme.
By offering a more participative and less exploitative alternative, India can make the India-Africa ecosystem an exemplary win-win paradigm for the 21st century.