IT IS being compared to the 19th century European “scramble for Africa”. First China and now an India determined to catch up on its great Asian rival,pouring billions in investment into the continent.
“Africa possesses all the prerequisites to become a major growth pole of the world in the 21st century,” India’s prime minister Manmohan Singh told an India-Africa summit in Addis Ababa on Tuesday. “The India-Africa partnership is unique and owes its origins to history and our common struggle against colonialism, apartheid, poverty, disease, illiteracy and hunger ... We will work with Africa to enable it to realise this potential…”. And, of course, to help itself economically and politically in the process, though with what human rights groups warn is perhaps a Chinese blind eye and accommodation to local dictators.
Among the 15 African leaders at the summit – and not in the latter category – were Kenyas Mwai Kibaki, Senegal’s Abdoulaye Wade and Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, the African Union chairman.
With African economic growth averaging 5 per cent in the last decade and a booming domestic market, there are opportunities aplenty in pharmaceuticals, gold, diamonds and information technology for India whose own 9 per cent growth needs an outlet. Its need to import 70 per cent of its oil has also led it to look to new suppliers Nigeria, Sudan and Angola to reduce dependence on the Middle East.
The south Asian country will offer African nations €3.6 billion in credit lines over three years, Singh told the summit. And New Delhi has recently signed a deal with 19 African education institutions and is supporting the establishment of an India-Africa “virtual university”, offering 10,000 scholarships. It will build a railway line between Ethiopia and Djibouti at a cost of €212 million, and set up diamond processing facilities in Botswana to help the country move up the value chain.
India is now Africa’s second major trading partner after China, though a decade behind the latter, with less than half the level of China’s investment in the continent that is expected to hit a staggering €78 billion this year. New Delhi has had long-standing links with Africa’s eastern seaboard but only in the last few years has trade really begun to take off – bilateral India-Africa trade has grown from €711 million in 2001 to €32.7 billion in 2010.
Singh also hopes that its engagement will bring political dividends – African support for its bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.