Diplomatist Magazine Africa Day Special 2018 | Page 11

ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL
A diplomat’s thoughts on why India’s engagement with Africa
is crucial to India’s economic and social well being
By Amb. (Retd.) Debnath Shaw
N
ew Delhi hosted the Third India
Africa Forum Summit (IAFS-III)
on 29th October, 2015. To many
Delhiites' surprise, the city witnessed over
forty African Heads of State and Government
on its soil for that landmark event and
about a dozen other African delegations at
ministerial levels representing all the 54
African countries were invited to the mega
event. In addition, a few other countries and
international organisations were also present.
Since then, many other events, including
the annual CII-EXIM Bank Conclave on
India-Africa Project Partnership, energy
and climate change conferences, the Annual
Meeting of the African Development Bank
in 2017 and the International Solar Alliance
(ISA) Summit Meeting in March 2018, have
witnessed substantial high-level participation
by African leaders in India. On the other
hand, the President, Vice President and Prime
Minister of India have travelled to nearly 15
African countries in the last three years and
almost all the AU member countries have
been visited by Indian delegations at the
Ministerial level. This signifi es a growing and
sustained dialogue and partnership between
India and Africa.
I spent nearly seven years of my over
thirty-year diplomatic career in China, and
another three years on the China desk in
headquarters at New Delhi. During this
period, I witnessed the meteoric rise of
China – initially as a regional, and then as a
global power. India, too, adjusted its relations
with China in these three decades from that
of benign neglect to active engagement and
healthy competition in whichever sectors
there is ‘….space for both India and China
to grow together....’
Initially, I was apprehensive about my
posting as head of the Indian Mission to
Tanzania in 2012, a region I had very little
contact with and experience of until then. In
hindsight, I must thank the powers that be for
the opportunity to have lived and worked in
this exciting continent.
To answer the question “Why Africa?”,
one has to go there. Like the vibrancy one
could feel and absorb in China of the late
eighties and nineties, and of the 20th century
and the fi rst decade of the 21st century, Africa
today is defi nitely a ‘happening continent’.
All major powers across the globe have
recognised this signifi cant positive change
across most of sub-Saharan Africa, once
the 'basket case' of the world and a 'dark
continent' which, according to global pundits,
was beyond salvation, ravaged by mindless
poverty, disease, and confl ict. Africa has
made a turnaround from those depths it had
reached in the last century and, today, is on the
mend. Africa is home to over half a dozen of
the fastest growing countries of this decade.
2018 • Africa Day Special • 7