External Affairs Minister S M Krishna today said that India would establish 19 institutions to develop human resources and capacities in Africa under the decisions taken at the India-Africa Forum Summit (IAFS) here in April last year.
Inaugurating the 6th CII EXIM Bank Conclave on India Africa Project Partnership 2010, he said these institutions would include the Africa-India Institute of Foreign Trade, Africa-India Diamond Institute, Africa-India Institute of Information Technology and Africa-India Institute of Education Planning and Administration.
India will also create 10 vocational training institutions and five human settlement institutes in Africa, he said.
"Our endeavours through these commitments will supplement our ongoing training programmes through the ITEC programme. Many of these proposed institutions will provide support to the creation of skilled professionals in Africa who could either work for themselves or with local companies or with foreign investors including those from India," he said.
Mr Krishna urged the private sector to contribute to the enhancement of capacity building activities in Africa. In particular, he urged the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to use its vast network of partners in Africa to create similar training modules in select African countries to augment what the Government of India intended to do.
He said the Government was, on its part, going to work on another programme which would seek to provide internships for African students already in India by engaging with industry in select centres there is a substantial number of African students.
"We believe that such new initiatives in association with Indian industry and its institutions like the CII, will allow us to enhance our engagement and provide a better connect between what we as a Government do in Africa and with the efforts of our entrepreneurs," he said.
The conclave was attended by, among others, the Vice-President of Ghana, the Prime Minister of Togo and Ministers from several African countries.
Mr Krishna noted that the conclave had become a flagship event for promoting entrepreneurship and business between India and Africa.
He noted that the two sides had, only a few days ago, launched the Joint Action Plan between India and Africa to follow up on the decisions taken at the IAFS in 2008.
He said that the Government was looking at organising, through the Indian Council of Cultural Relations, an African cultural festival later this year to highlight their age-old cultural links. He said the Indian Council of World Affairs had agreed to re-establish the annual Africa Day Lecture to mark India's close and abiding relationship with Africa.
Mr Krishna emphasised that the overall engagement between India and Africa remained vibrant and full of vitality.
"In such a positive ambience, there are no hurdles to the enhancement of business and entrepreneurship," he said.
"We wish to make the positive emotive engagement between India and Africa into a successful economic engagement for mutual benefit and propose to utilise our Government’s financial commitments to Africa to catalyse greater trade and investment," he said.
He recalled that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had, in April 2008, announced at the IAFS that India would provide $ 5.4 billion in lines of credit to African countries and institutions to support infrastructure and the development goals of African countries. He said that, in the first year of implementation, India had nearly attained the annual commitment expected of it and would continue to strive for full engagement in this area.
Mr Krishna said one of the most significant contributions that India had made was the Pan-African e-Network Project to which 47 African countries have adhered and it is already implemented in about half of them.
"This visionary project creates networks among African countries and provides them opportunity for tele-medicine and tele-education linkages with Indian hospitals and universities," he said.
He said there were efforts at the bilateral level, too. Over the last year, India had signed agreements to establish the India-Lesotho Centre for Advance Education in Information Technology; procurement and supply of medical equipment for Victoria Hospital, Mahe, Seychelles; Hole-in-the-Wall Education Project in Namibia; procurement and supply of solar photovoltaic equipment for 35 schools of rural areas of Rwanda; and supply of computers and buses to Benin and oth.
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