BackIndia expects most African states at summit
It will be the first time since the 1983 Non-Aligned Movement summit that India will host so many foreign leaders
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New Delhi: India expects at least three-fourths of the 54 African states to attend the October summit in New Delhi, aimed at rescripting the country’s ties with a continent replete with natural resources and potentially lucrative business opportunities.
Already, special envoys of Prime Minister Narendra Modi have delivered invitations to the third India-Africa Forum summit to almost half of the 54 African states, two persons familiar with the development said on Thursday on condition of anonymity.
India hopes to secure the presence of at least 40-45 of the 54 African states at the 26-30 October summit, one of the two persons said. It will be the first time since the 1983 summit of the Non-Aligned Movement that India will be hosting so many foreign leaders at one event.
Leaders invited so far include those of Angola, Kenya, Africa’s newest country South Sudan, Nigeria and South Africa. External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj delivered an invitation to Jacob Zuma, president of South Africa, in May.
Invitations to the other countries in Africa will be completed by the end of August, the second person said.
Three ministers of state have been drafted in as Modi’s special envoys on Africa—Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Rajiv Pratap Rudy and V.K Singh.
One of the countries whose presence is unlikely at the October event is Libya, beset with warring factions four years after a civil war ousted Muammar Gaddafi.
The summit is the third such—the first was held in New Delhi in 2008 and the second in the Ethopian capital Addis Abba in 2011. India was to host the third summit last year but had to postpone it due to the Ebola viral outbreak in West Africa.
Once enjoying close ties with Africa during the 1960s and 1970s due to the extension of political and diplomatic support to their struggle against colonialism, India’s links with the continent started to fray later because of New Delhi’s focus on globalising its economy in the early 1990s and mending relations with the United States after its May 1998 nuclear tests.
India first realised that its influence on Africa was waning when African countries voted for Japan rather than India in an election to a non-permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council in 1996.
Indian officials say India has regained some of its lost foothold with its emphasis on skill and human resource development projects on the continent where the presence of China dwarfs all others with projects like football stadia, airports and large boulevards besides huge commercial deals for resources.
In 2008, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh offered $5.4 billion in concessionary credit lines while at the 2011 Addis Ababa summit Singh promised three-year credit lines of $5 billion.
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