By IANS,
New Delhi : India is not in any competition with other countries in Africa, Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor said here Friday.
“India’s Africa policy stands on its own; we are not in competition with anyone,” Tharoor said at the valedictory function of a seminar on “India and Africa – An Emerging Partnership”.
“And given the long history of our solidarity with Africa, we have nothing to prove,” he asserted, noting in that context that the theme of the conference should not have been “emerging”, but “enduring” partnership.
In the question and answer session, he admitted to a query on Indian presence versus the domination by China in Africa that India “can and should do much more”. However, he felt that there Africa had enough potential to accommodate the aspirations of China, India and the western world.
Tharoor said that even in the first few decades after independence, India extended $3 billion worth of concessional lines of credit to African nations.
“We believe that Africa’s requirements are enormous and every country which can contribute to Africa’s development should do so. This is the raison d’etre for India, despite being a developing country itself, committing considerable resources to its development cooperation program for Africa,” he said.
At the India Africa forum summit in 2008, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had doubled the amount of lines of credit to $5.4 billion for the next five years. “Every day, new proposals are being process and the momentum of executing developmental projects in Africa is indeed increasing,” said Tharoor.
Besides, India has been especially active in the human resources field, with the Indian government doubling the number of scholarships, as well as increasing the number of slots under the Indian Technical Economic Cooperation from 1,100 to 1,600 every year.
Tharoor mentioned the Pan African e-network as an initiative by India to bridge the digital divide in Africa. The project, launched in July 2007, has since progressed well with agreements with 47 countries, and 26 learning centres and 26 patient-end hospitals in Africa already integrated with universities and super-specialty hospitals in India.
“The project would give major benefits to Africa in capacity building through skill and knowledge development of students, medical specialists and for medical consultation,” said Tharoor, a former United Nations diplomat.
India has also engaging with Africa at the multilateral level, as it plans to set up Pan-African institutions across the continent after finalising an action plan with the African Union.
“India will offer its fullest cooperation to harness the great potential of the African people for the cause of Africa’s progress and development,” Tharoor said.