Agric, energy, security to dominate India-Africa summit
By Thisday
Published : Tuesday, April 8, 2008
As the first forum of India-Africa Leaders opens this morning in New Delhi, India, challenges posed by agriculture, human resources development, telecommunications and Internet technology as well as climatic change and energy security will dominate the talks.
At least five African Heads of state namely President John Kuffour of Ghana, Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, Joseph Kabila of Democratic Republic of Congo, Prime Minister Tertius Zongo of Bukina Faso and Mwai Kibaki of Kenya arrived yesterday for the summit.
Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal among others were still being expected at press time last night.
Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan, who is representing President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua at the summit, also arrived yesterday.
Briefing journalists in New Delhi after the meeting of the foreign ministers of the participating countries, India’s Minister of State for External Affairs, Shri Anand Sharma, listed other issues expected to come up at the summit as infrastructural development, industrialisation, education and capacity building between the two blocks.
He said the foreign ministers had a marathon session on the priority areas of engagement between India and Africa and that those priority areas and a working document fashioned out would be discussed and agreed with by leaders of the two blocks today.
“The foreign ministers agreed on priority areas of partnership. Documents were finalised and frozen. The cooperation framework and a joint declaration of the Heads of state are being expected after their meeting,” he said.
Leaders of 14 African countries namely Algeria, Burkina Faso, Congo DR, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Libya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and chairperson of the African Union Commission are participating in the summit with India leaders.
Anand said the idea of the summit was mooted in 2006 in a bid by the two blocks to deepen their engagement on a structured basis and that leaders of African Union pre-selected the African countries participating at the summit.
Answering questions from journalists, Anand said India would support any country chosen by Africa for permanent membership of United Nation’s Security Council.
On speculations that India’s engagement with Africa was fired by an unspoken rivalry with China, which had moved far ahead in its relationship with Africa, Anand said those bandying such information were sceptics, “who are un-informed about an age-long relationship between India and Africa. They should go back to history and read about years of shared struggle for colonialism and imperialism between India and Africa”.
He said economic cooperation between India and Africa had exceeded $30 billion and had increased six folds in the last five years.
Even though he said the cooperation between the two blocks would be mutual, the minister spoke of issues of food security, food management, crop diversification and building institution for agric research from which he said Africa could tap from India’s expertise.
He also spoke specifically on the Pan-Africa e-Project, which India is sponsoring to help sub-Saharan Africa bridge the technological gap.
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