Diplomatist Magazine Africa Day Special 2018 | Page 55

ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL
NOT SO OLD
SCHOOL
Advancing South-South Cooperation in the
fi elds of Education and Skills Development
By Kanchi Batra*
K
nowledge cooperation is a stout
pillar of the multi-faceted India-
Africa bilateral partnership. Ghana’s
former president John Agyekum Kufuor
had beautifully captured the crux of this
knowledge-driven partnership when he said
that "if Africa’s resources can be married
with India’s expertise, anything is possible."
The African continent has been the focus
of several global economic debates in the last
decade. This drive has been accompanied
by a paradigm shift in the discourse around
the continent — the ‘hopeless’ continent
has turned into the ‘hopeful’ continent with
potential for vast economic growth. As an
extension of this global interest, India has also
amplifi ed its rendezvous with the continent.
Needless to say, the core of India’s
cooperative partnership with Africa is
capacity-building. Although frequently
labelled an ‘emerging’ donor, India's history
of providing and supporting scholarships and
training for peoples of the ‘South’ goes back
to as early as 1946.
The ties between India and Africa date
back centuries and have been largely based
on trade, movement of peoples, and cultural
exchanges. Further, during the second half of
the 20th century, this relationship was one that
was largely based on political and ideological
ties, and some trade. Nevertheless, over
the past decade, India’s relationship with
countries in Africa has undergone a major
revolution
The changing India-Africa relationship
is branded by a greater attention on capacity
building, development cooperation, and
bilateral economic and technological
initiatives. Critically, India now sights its
development collaboration with Africa not
merely in economic terms, but as a process
that is sustainable only if located within
a larger political, social and intellectual
environment.
Agenda 2063
Identifying the revolutions in the world
economy and the priorities of emerging
nations, education and skills development
were placed at the core of the 2030
Development Agenda. In Africa, the African
Union’s 'Agenda 2063: The Africa We
Want' clearly pronounces the requirement
for an education and skills revolution in the
continent.
Basic education is an indispensable
step for evocative technology acquisition,
creation, and transfer. Technology is the
creation of a very specifi c human activity
within certain socio-economic relations and
cultural and value systems. The so-called
transfer of technology is no more than the
2018 • Africa Day Special • 51