After Washington in June, it’s Paris’s turn to roll out the red carpet for the Indian Prime Minister. Narendra Modi is the guest of honor at the July 14 parade, which will be attended by a contingent of the Indian army. India is increasingly emerging as an essential partner for Westerners and a pillar of the countries of the “Global South”. It must be said that India’s G20 Presidency has reinvigorated its relations with other parts of the developing world, especially Africa. As the African continent grapples with the economic fallout from the Russian war in Ukraine, inflation, tight international funding, New Delhi sees an opportunity to reinvigorate its trade with several states. The Prime Minister regularly uses the podiums of international conferences to draw attention to debt issues in developing economies or their representation in major institutions. He recently called for full membership of the African Union in the G20, at the next summit to be held at the end of the year. In recent years, out of the twenty-five new embassies or consulates opened by India, eighteen are in Africa. In February, India hosted forty-eight African countries at the Voice of Global South summit.
And on the ground, India advances its pawns. According to a Bloomberg report, forty-two African countries received about $12 billion, or 38% of all credit granted by India over the past decade. This rapprochement with Africa is intended, above all, to counter the growing influence of China in Africa. Beijing has pledged up to $134.6 billion to African countries, according to data from Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center, that’s eleven times more than India.
To catch up, Indian governments are increasingly organizing summits and meetings in order to draw up the framework for a strategic partnership, and the private sector is also advancing its pawns. New Delhi can rely on its financial arm, the Export Import Bank of India, headed by Harsha Bangari. The bank is an instrument of India’s “economic diplomacy”, he said in a recent interview, adding that the South Asian nation has also opened 195 lines of credit for projects across Africa. In fact, Indian investments are increasingly significant. These include the Mauritius metro, bus exports from India to Senegal, an electricity project in Gambia, the Adétikopé industrial park in Togo, with several factories on site (assembly of motorcycles electrical and textile) and the transformation of aluminum by the Indian group Gravita.
Exim Bank services also claim that, with nearly $75 billion in investments by Indian companies, the giant is among the top five investors in Africa. Bilateral trade between India and Africa reached nearly $100 billion in March 2023, and the government aims to increase it to $200 billion by 2030. New Delhi is a member of the African Bank of development, which brings together fifty-four African countries and twenty-eight non-African partners.
Unlike China, India can rely in Africa on an ancient presence, linked to a shared history since British colonization, and the solidarity born of decolonization and the non-aligned movement in the 1960s and 1970s. This political solidarity is currently finding an echo on the international scene, indeed India and South Africa are both candidates for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, in the name of the necessary representation of the economic powers of the countries of the “Global South.” »
