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India-Africa Summit will lay ground for pluralistic and holistic engagement

Business Standard, IANS, The Statesman

Content from the Brookings Institution India Center is now archived. After seven years of an impactful partnership, as of September 11, 2020, Brookings India is now the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, an independent public policy institution based in India.

Download the PDF version of the Brookings India collection of essays, ‘India And Africa: Forging A Strategic Partnership’

At a conference organised by Brookings India on ‘India-Africa Partnership: Future Directions’, Sujata Mehta, secretary (multilateral and economic relations), in the Ministry of External Affairs, said India’s development cooperation with Africa was a partnership based on solidarity with technical cooperation and capacity building as the two main pillars that had led to strengthening of bilateral ties.

The Brookings India conference, organised in partnership with the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS) and the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), comes ahead of the Third India-Africa Forum Summit beginning next week in New Delhi. the IAFS structure format lays the ground for pluralistic and holistic engagement with Africa.

Addressing the conference, Gennet Zewide, the ambassador of Ethiopia, said Africa with its abundant natural resources, vast agricultural land and 5.5 GDP growth rate had attracted many players seeking closer economic cooperation.

Zewide, who is the Dean of African Diplomatic Corps, said Africa-India ties were based on mutual respect and genuine partnership and a sense of solidarity.

She said “India surpasses all other countries in providing human resource development in various sectors” to Africa and added that India could partner Africa in striving to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030 and the Agenda 2063 goals of Africa. She hoped the upcoming summit would look into the issue.

Zewide also expressed hope that trade and economic ties between India and Africa would get a boost as well as people-to-people ties.

Read the full article in Business Standard and The Statesman.