Connecting with Africa thoughtfully

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with South African President Jacob Zuma at Union Buildings in Pretoria, South Africa. (Photo: PTI)

India is doing very well to connect with Africa. The President visited Ghana, Ivory Coast and Namibia in June and the Prime Minister has just returned after visiting Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya. Many areas of mutual cooperation were discussed during the visits, including energy, contract farming, civil nuclear cooperation, maritime security, defence partnerships, water, trade and investments. These are important issues that need to be addressed, but we need to remember that sustainable relations are built not just between leaders but, between people.

Globalisation and the Internet have triumphed over many of Africa’s difficulties. Africa today is young, intelligent and optimistic. Its 1.1 billion people are the youngest amongst all the continents — the median age is around 19.7 years, whereas the world median is 30.4 years. These young Africans are certain to fuel long-term growth.

Currently around 40 per cent of Africans live in urban areas, a figure which is close to China’s, and it is continuing to grow. Households with discretionary incomes are expected to rise by 50 per cent in number over the next decade, reaching a figure of around 150 million. By 2030, Africa’s top 20 cities could have total spending power of $1.5 trillion.

In view of this extraordinary market potential and the vast resources of Africa, raw material seeking countries like China, Japan and Korea have been engaged for decades in relation-building work in almost all countries in Africa. Their initiatives have a long-term perspective and are aimed at connecting with the people. China is involved in building transportation systems, industrial parks, hospitals and landmark buildings like the African Union Headquarters — all at no immediate cost to the host nation. Their construction firms located in Africa usually bring their own personnel — engineers and labourers. The African people are greatly benefited by these constructions. In addition, China frequently invites even middle level functionaries of African governments for goodwill visits to China.

Japan is involved in transferring simple technologies to improve lives, such as technology to easily purify water and make it safe to drink. Japan International Cooperation Agency engages extensively with the African governments to teach efficiency enhancing techniques like kaizen and to improve the productivity of small and medium enterprises at no cost to the hosts. When they feel it is appropriate, they confer awards like Japan’s Order of the Rising Star to functionaries in African governments on behalf of their Emperor.

Koreans have started posting some of their technical experts in African ministries of trade and industry and others at no cost to African governments. The experts are often involved in efforts to supplement African government’s efforts to quickly transform a developing nation into a middle-income country, just as Korea has done for itself so successfully.

India has a great advantage in Africa to develop people to people relations. It has a historical association with Africa and the presence of people of Indian origin in almost African nations.

Indians have contributed substantially to economic activity in all African countries and have supported the growth of education through the dedicated teachers who have served in schools and colleges in many parts of Africa since the 1960s and continue to do so today.

At this stage, it would greatly benefit India if it reviewed its development support programmes. India’s ITEC programme in its current form is often seen to benefit the host institutes in India, many of which are not among the best, rather than the visiting African students. India’s initiatives of sourcing resources like gas and uranium are sometimes seen as undisguised attempts at benefiting India without first developing long-term goodwill.

There can be new initiatives as well to support relation building. India can put in place a system to confer suitable awards to prominent Africans who promote goodwill with India and to invite important working-level functionaries of African governments to India. In addition to setting up centres of excellence in IT, India could set up centres of innovation and start-ups. These centres, which are needed, would directly benefit the educated African youth and be attuned to their aspirations.

The proposed contract farming of pulses can be repackaged as an initiative to improve the lives of small farmers in Mozambique rather than seen as a project to cheaply secure pulses for India. The project could include providing support to farmers’ children. It needs to be kept in mind that to be successful such a project must be able to provide significant increase in income to the African farmers.

Large-scale contract farming is common usually for high value perishable crops. It has never been attempted for pulses. Contract farmers often find that to deal with a large number of farmers is not an easy job, especially when such farming is known to create rifts in village societies.

Also, most contract farming arrangements in Africa are verbal. In any case honouring of written contracts is not assured or enforcing them easy. Operating costs in Africa are higher than in India and rural productivity is low.

The overall costs of dealing with the farmers, warehousing, transporting and shipping the pulses to India and then distributing them to the consumer will need careful estimation. After all for a project to be successful both the Indian housewife as well as the African farmer must benefit. Otherwise it is unlikely to promote goodwill and build relations with Africa, which our President and the Prime Minister are so keen to do.

Dr Amitava Chaudhuri is the resident UNDP adviser to the minister of industry, Government of Ethiopia, in Addis Ababa. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at chaudhuri.amitava@yahoo.com