India and the African Union’s Engagement Through IAFS: Challenges of Strengthening Partnership

Abstract

India’s engagement with the African Union has been one of its important partnership agreements with Africa. The India–Africa Forum Summit (IAFS) kickstarted the engagement with African countries through the African Union overtaking bilateral relations and partnerships with regional organisations. India has since then remained a unique, request and need-based partner of the African Union. The various capacity-building initiatives taken up through IAFS have shown that India has shown serious commitment to India–Africa partnership. The first three IAFS shows that India committed substantial amounts of funds through IAFS. However, in reality, it could only deliver a very small portion due to the slow implementation of projects. Only 4% of Indian grants in 2017–18 were committed to Africa which improved slightly after 2019. Subsequently, over 40% of funds were committed but implementation had been very slow. There is never a third independent party evaluation of these projects for impact assessment or to suggest a solution for implementation issues. Presently, there is an urgent need to hold the next IAFS which has been delayed for a long time now. There is a need to organise review meetings with AU on a regular basis. India made extra-ordinary efforts to get the African Union admitted in G20 at the New Delhi meeting. However, the Indian expansion of Banjul Formula for IAFS, India’s renewed focus on Global South, bureaucracy-driven implementation of partnership projects and insufficient political-level communications with AU leadership throw new challenges.