Context

• A decade has passed since New Delhi hosted the third India–Africa Forum Summit (IAFS-III), a landmark event that symbolised a transformative shift in India’s diplomatic vision.
• By welcoming representatives from all 54 African nations, India signalled its ambition to elevate the relationship into a continent-wide, strategic partnership.
• The years since have seen rising trade, new missions, expanding educational networks, and greater political alignment, yet they have also revealed persistent challenges that demand new solutions.
• As India rises as a global economic heavyweight and Africa becomes the demographic centre of the world, both regions stand on the threshold of a shared future that requires coordinated, co-created action.

Features of Indo-Africa Ties

• The Promise and Complexity of a Growing Partnership
  • The strategic logic of India–Africa ties has strengthened considerably since 2015.
  • India’s establishment of 17 new diplomatic missions and trade surpassing $100 billion reflect a broadening engagement.
  • These advances underscore India’s recognition of Africa’s increasing global importance, especially as one in four people on Earth will be African by 2050, and India is set to become the world’s third-largest economy.
  • India has emerged as one of Africa’s top five investors, with $75 billion in cumulative investment.
  • More importantly, the model of engagement is shifting from traditional infrastructure projects to co-creation in high-impact sectors such as vaccine production, digital tools, and renewable technologies. The new message is clear: Build together.
• Expanding Security and Development Cooperation
  • Security cooperation has become a defining feature of this partnership.
  • The inaugural Africa-India Key Maritime Engagement (AIKEYME) in April 2025—featuring navies from nine African countries, marks the beginning of a shared maritime security architecture in the Indian Ocean.
  • On the development front, India’s Exim Bank extending a $40-million credit line to the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development signals support for African-led development priorities.
  • Education, one of the relationship’s strongest pillars, is highlighted by the opening of the IIT Madras campus in Zanzibar, supported by decades of collaboration through the Pan-African e-Network and the ITEC programme.
• Competing in a Changing Global Landscape
  • Despite progress, India faces significant challenges. China remains ahead in trade and investment volumes.
  • Indian companies are often hindered by limited financial scale and bureaucratic delays, creating pressure to scale back engagement, an approach that would be strategically misguided.
  • Instead, India must move up the value chain. Future-facing sectors such as green hydrogen, electric mobility, and digital infrastructure offer the opportunity for joint innovation and leapfrogging.
  • Africa’s own transformation is accelerating through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which aims to create a single continental market.
  • India’s UPI and digital stack can complement Africa’s ambitions, but tools alone are not strategy.
  • With vibrant innovation hubs emerging in Kigali, Nairobi and Lagos, Africa is not just a recipient of technology but a producer of innovation. India must adapt to this evolving ecosystem.

Human Connections: The Partnership’s Most Enduring Strength

• The most profound dimension of the India–Africa relationship is its human link.
• Nearly 40,000 Africans trained in India under programmes such as ITEC, ICCR scholarships, and the Pan-African e-Network now serve as policymakers, innovators and professionals across the continent. These individuals form living bridges of trust.
• The exchange flows both ways. African athletes, students and entrepreneurs have made their mark in India, from Nigerian footballers who became household names to South African coaches shaping Indian cricket.
• African students and researchers enrich India’s universities, laboratories and cultural spaces. The partnership is not merely strategic; it is lived and human.

Charting the Next Chapter: Strategic Priorities

• Connect finance to real outcomes
  • Lines of credit should yield visible, high-impact results, with public finance serving to de-risk private capital.
• Build an India–Africa digital corridor
  • Collaboration must extend beyond UPI to integrate Africa’s digital strengths, enabling co-developed platforms for health, education and payments across the Global South.
• Revive the India–Africa Forum Summit (IAFS)
  • The absence of the summit since 2015 has left a strategic vacuum. Its revival would restore structure, visibility and coordinated direction.

Conclusion

• The foundations built since 2015 show that the India-Africa relationship is evolving from one of exchange to one of co-creation.
• As both regions experience unprecedented transformation, India as an economic powerhouse and Africa as the world’s demographic engine, their futures are becoming deeply intertwined.
• Where merchants once crossed the Indian Ocean in search of spices and gold, India and Africa now traverse those waters exchanging ideas, innovation and confidence.
• The next chapter must be one of shared ambition, anchored not in India extending a hand to Africa but in India and Africa joining hands to build the future together.