Leaders of 54 African Nations to attend – Biggest Diplomatic Event of the Year
By TN Ashok Diplomatic Editor
New Delhi, March 25: India will host the 3rd India Africa Forum Summit in Delhi in October this year to further strengthen its political, economic and diplomatic links with the African continent.
“ The event will take place between October 26 to October 30 and the participation will be at three levels “, Navtej Sarna, Secretary West of the Ministry of External Affairs, said adding , the 1st level would be at the Heads of Government level followed by the Foreign Ministers at the 2nd and Senior government officials at the third.
Sarna told newsmen that on October 26 senior officials of the 54 African nations will meet with senior officials of the Indian government, on 27th the foreign ministers would take the meetings to the next level and on October 28, the heads of African states would arrive and meet with the Indian President.
On October 29 this year, the summit would commence opening up another new chapter in India’s relations with the African continent with which it has a record US $ 70 billion of bilateral trade. India has extended soft loans of about US $ 7 billion to the African countries which constitutes about 2/3rd of all lines of credit operating with the continent. India has investments worth over US $ 32 billion in Foreign Direct Investment in Africa.
India’s trade has expanded 14 times in the last seven to eight years.
Besides loans India has set up number of capacity building institutions, three vocational guidance centers in Ethiopia, Burundi and Rwanda.
Sarna said the summit was to have taken place much earlier but had to be postponed because of the outbreak of E Bola virus in some parts of Africa. The new dates had been scheduled for the meeting after careful consideration of the situation there and WHO updates on the same.
India has offered as many as 22,000 scholarships to Africa in the fields of agricultural sciences, the CV Raman fellowships for scientific research and ICCR. India’s presence through the I-Tech centres extends to 48 of the 54 countries reflecting India’s robust relations with the dark continent.
India and African countries have exchanged periodic visits by foreign ministers and leaders of the respective countries since the first summit was held in 2008.
The India–Africa Forum Summit is the official platform for the African-Indian relations. It was first held from April 4 to April 8, 2008 in New Delhi, India. It was the first such meeting between the heads of state and government of India and 14 countries of Africa chosen by the African Union. Libya and Egypt’s heads of state did not attend then.
The second summit was held at the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, with India and 15 African Countries participating. The leaders discussed significant aspects of the India-Africa partnership with the objective of enhancing and widening its ambit for mutual benefit.
The third summit in a rotation basis was scheduled to be held in New Delhi, India in December 2014. But lately Syed Akbaruddin, the official spokesperson of Indian Foreign Ministry told the media that the scheduled summit was postponed to 2015 and would include more no. of African leaders unlike previous two occasions where the event was restricted to only 10-15 African countries.
Sarna said the ministry had now got down to the business of sending out formal invites to both the heads of state and the foreign ministers to attend the summit. It would be possible to announce how many countries are participating in the summit based on the acceptance by the leaders of these countries.