India's economic diplomacy in Africa

Abstract

Haté (2008, p. 3) states that "Africa is still a relatively small part of India's foreign policy, far less significant in commercial or political terms than the Middle East or Southeast Asia. But as India cultivates its global role, this is an area where it can position itself as a leader, a supplier of investment, and an aid donor". This fits with another analysis, that "Since India lacks the foreign reserves to match the cheque-book diplomacy of China, it is futile to imagine that economic munificence alone can give New Delhi traction in Africa. If credit lines and infrastructure construction become the sole pillars of India's strategy in Africa, it will end up second best forever vis-à-vis China" (Times of India 24 May 2011). The question here is whether India is a "scrambler or a development partner?" (Corkin and Naidu 2008). While Indian academics forcefully assert that it is a true partnership (Sharma 2007, for example), the answer remains very much open, particularly when current Indo-Africa linkages "spans the corporate globalisation era started from the late 1980s to the present day [which] became the prime engine driving India-Africa relations with big Indian companies and their investment in Africa" (Paul 2014, p. 184). This chapter aims to shed further light on the debate, reviewing some of the implications of the growing role of economic diplomacy in Indo-African relations.Economic diplomacy is here understood as the deployment of various economic tools to achieve policy goals. This includes trade and investment, developmental assistance, bilateral agreements etc.