18 New Indian Missions to Come Up in Africa Over 4 Years

The Indian Cabinet has given its nod for the opening of 18 new Indian missions in Africa over a period of four years, from 2018-2021, providing a boost to relations between Indian and Africa, the government said in a statement.

The 18 new Indian missions in Africa will be opened in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, Rwanda, Sao Tome& Principe, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Swaziland and Togo over a four-year period from 2018-2021. This will increase the number of resident Indian missions in Africa from 29 to 47.

“The decision will enhance India’s diplomatic outreach in the African continent and allow India to engage with Indian diaspora in African countries. Opening of new Missions is also a step towards implementing the vision of enhanced co-operation and engagement with Africa,” the statement said on March 21.

The Cabinet’s approval in opening of missions in Africa is in line with its efforts to implement the commitments chalked out during the third India-Africa forum summit that was held in New Delhi in October 2015 .

The summit saw both the countries resolving to facilitate greater mutual understanding of cultures, traditions and heritage and bringing people closer through exchanges at various levels.

According to India-Africa framework for strategic cooperation, the two countries are committed to encourage the use of modern social networks to build communities of mutual interest. In the area of economic cooperation, they emphasized their commitment to achieve sustainable prosperity and reaffirmed their collaboration to promote inclusive and sustainable growth for a decent life for the people of the region.

The framework highlighted that Africa-India trade has multiplied in the last 15 years and doubled in the last five years, reaching nearly $ 72 billion in 2014-2015. There is growing investment by Indian companies, both multinational and small and medium-sized enterprises, in Africa in a range of sectors.

“Energy and Infrastructure form substantial part of the ongoing cooperation between Africa and India. The forms of our ongoing cooperation include training, capacity building, consultancy and project implementation through concessional credit in areas including water supply management, power generation and transmission, road and railway construction and upgradation, hydrocarbon exploration among others,” the statement said.

India and Africa together can shape the future of the world, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in May last year, PTI reported, emphasizing on the need to increase the cooperation between the two sides. He spoke at the opening session of the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) annual meeting in Gandhinagar. “If India is a bright spot, then Africa is not very far away,” he had said.