Indian Politics & Policy Volume 1, Number 2, Fall 2018 | Page 71

Indian Politics & Policy
2017–18, 10,918 civilian and 2,512 defense
training slots were available for
161 partner countries including 4,700
for African countries. 5
Overall, it is not surprising, as we
shall see later, that South Asia, as well as
the “near abroad,” including Myanmar
and Afghanistan, has dominated Indian
foreign assistance. However, Africa has
emerged as a major focus particularly
since 2008 (Duclos 2012; Kragelund
2010; Naidu 2008).
Recent Institutional and Policy
Evolution: The Development
Partnership Administration
In terms of institutions, organization,
and strategy, in common with
many other donor countries, there
was considerable bureaucratic competition
between the Finance Ministry
and the MEA on institutional control.
A proposal for an integrated agency
called the India International Development
and Cooperation Agency,
mulled over since 2003 and mooted in
the budget for 2007–08, did not come
into being immediately. However, since
January 2012, a Development Partnership
Administration (DPA) has been
formed within the MEA, and started
functioning from June 2012 in effect,
coordinating the implementation of
India’s development partnership program.
It is a three-division department.
The DPA currently has a staff strength
of 75–80. This was a somewhat belated
response to India’s development assistance
program since 2003–04 outpacing
the support infrastructure in the
MEA. The creation of the DPA within
the MEA to coordinate Indian assistance
has to be seen in the context of
the clear understanding in the MEA
that a capital-hungry country like India
can justify a foreign assistance program
only if it serves vital national interests,
political, strategic, and economic. 6
Foreign assistance is clearly seen as
a matter of foreign policy rather than
disinterested development assistance
despite it not laying down economic
policy conditionalities.
The core DPA mandate consists
of (a) focused attention on projects,
the flagship project of the DPA being
the construction of 50,000 houses for
displaced persons in the North and
East of Sri Lanka; (b) developing a skill
base; (c) helping in policy formulation.
However, it is an implementation
agency, not a policy-making agency
and does not propagate any particular
development philosophy or strategy.
Policy is handled by the country desk
in the relevant political (territorial)
division in the MEA. The traditional
mechanism continues, that is, requests
for assistance originate from the
would-be recipient country. The Indian
embassy, usually the ambassador or
deputy chief of mission, is approached
by the foreign government. This also
happens very commonly on high-level
visits to India either by heads of government
or foreign ministers, or other
cabinet ministers such as trade ministers,
or when Indian leaders undertake
high-level visits.
Four major examples are the India–Africa
Forum summits of 2008,
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