New Delhi – In a significant move, Vice-President Hamid Ansari will be visiting the African nations of Morocco and Senegal in the middle of this month. This would mark the first trip by a top Indian leader to the African mainland under the current NDA government. For barring Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the island countries of Mauritius and Seychelles last year, only ministers in the government have visited mainland African nations. This despite the fact that New Delhi held the largest India-Africa Forum Summit last October that saw participation from all African nations. However, the next such summit will be held five years down the line. Hence, it’s important to create a momentum of high-level exchanges to boost India-Africa ties.
For as admitted by PM Modi during the India-Africa Forum Summit, there’s been a huge gap between expectations and actions with regards to New Delhi’s outreach to the continent. Two-way trade hovers around the $70 billion mark, which is less than a third of China’s trade with the continent. Despite India’s historical linkages with Africa, New Delhi simply hasn’t been able to leverage this to the full potential. As a result, a sense of neglect has crept into India’s relations with the continent. If the Indian government is truly serious about reversing this trend and not just merely paying lip service to the concept of India-Africa cooperation, it must display a greater degree of diplomatic energy in dealing with African nations.
Not least because Africa today boasts of more than half of the world’s fastest growing economies. A rising African middle class powered by technology innovations is changing how the continent is perceived in the international community. In this context, Morocco has been championing a new model of African development based on South-South cooperation. This in turn is based on the philosophy that Africa no longer needs handouts but meaningful, mutually beneficial cooperation among sister countries.
Reflecting this concept, the second edition of the Crans Montana Forum on Africa and South-South Cooperation was held last month in the Moroccan city of Dakhla. The forum saw the participation of more than 500 dignitaries, including government officials and experts from more than a hundred countries, as they exchanged views on a wide range of development issues and explored possibilities of future cooperation. Some of the key sessions of the forum were focussed on topics like African women and their role in structuration and governance, public health and regional cooperation, and creating opportunities for African youths.
All of this suggests that Morocco has emerged as a pivotal player in the development of Africa. Add to this the fact that Morocco will also hold the next UN Climate Change summit (COP22) in Marrakech in November, and there are multiple reasons why New Delhi should use Hamid Ansari’s trip to enhance ties with Rabat. In fact, given that PM Modi recently appealed to the international community to drop the notion that terrorism is someone else’s problem, it’s noteworthy that Morocco has been cooperating with different international partners to counter terrorist networks through security cooperation and intelligence sharing. It has also been pioneering a project of training foreign imams in moderate Islam to counter the global spread of jihadi ideology.
Taken together, these factors make India and Morocco not just natural partners in tackling global development challenges, but also key allies in transforming Africa. Together, New Delhi and Rabat can take India-Africa relations to great heights and bring prosperity to more than two billion people living in their territories.
This article was first published on Times of India
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial policy
