by Institute for Global Dialogue
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Sujata Mehta, secretary (Multilateral and Economic Relations) in the ministry of external affairs, said that while India’s $7.4 billion concessional credit offered during the past two summits, in 2008 and 2011, was being utilized for projects in 41 African countries, there were “numerous challenges” in utilizing the full amount.
She said efforts would be made to address the challenges and improve upon delivery.
Addressing a conference on ‘India-Africa Partnership: Future Directions’, Mehta said India’s development partnership with Africa has had successful outcomes in building community infrastructure in the field of water and public health.
She noted that the development partnership has been like an ongoing dialogue over the years between India and the different African countries, with inputs sometimes in the form of “trenchant criticism” from scholars and analysts, and “we are trying to improve”.
Mehta also noted that India’s development cooperation with Africa was a partnership based on solidarity and “not a requirement imposed on us… what we do is only because we feel we have something to share with other developing countries like us”.
Mehta said that India’s partnership with Africa was “non prescriptive… it is a response to a requirement expressed to us. We see it as genuinely participatory, a partnership based approach”.
She brushed away criticism of India’s development partnership with Africa as lacking the profile of big players like China, saying that India’s partnership is “unlike the state-centric model which would be based on resource extraction and the creation of a pertinent infrastructure”.