India And Japan In Africa

ABHISHEK MISHRA explains how due to complementarities in Japan and India’s development cooperation approaches and their blossoming strategic convergences, both are exploring the possibilities of trilateral cooperation with the continent of Africa

- Abhishek Mishra

Africa’s centrality in Indian foreign policy initiatives has consolidated over the years driven by economic interests and quest for international recognition. Indian efforts to contribute developmentally to Africa have lately come to the forefront of our policy engagement with a promise to become more central in the years to come. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has accorded top priority in India’s foreign and economic policy. Based on historical goodwill and age old relations, India-Africa relations were formalised and institutionalised through the framework of India Africa Forum Summit (IAFS). Till date, three summits (2008, 2012, and 2015) have taken place, with the next summit scheduled to be held in 2020.

Four main techniques embodies India’s development cooperation approach; capacity building and training, lines of credit (LOC), grant assistance, and bilateral trade and investments. India’s development cooperation with Africa is based on certain core principles. It is consultative, driven by demands of African countries and is free of conditions. India deliberately rejected the donor-recipient paradigm and adopted development cooperation which incorporates the idea of partnership, working for mutual benefit rather than promoting a patron-client relationship which suggests an unequal dependency.