Context:

• The fourth India–Africa Forum Summit (IAFS-IV), scheduled for May 28–31, marks a crucial opportunity for India to recalibrate and deepen its engagement with Africa amid rapidly evolving geopolitical and economic realities.
• Originally due in 2020, the summit was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent global diplomatic disruptions.
• In the intervening years, Africa’s external partnerships have expanded significantly, with major powers such as the European Union (EU), China, Japan, France, Germany, and South Korea intensifying their outreach.
• Against this backdrop, India must transform its historical goodwill with Africa into a more structured, continuous, and strategic partnership.

Changing Geopolitical Landscape in Africa:

• Intensifying global competition: Africa has emerged as a major arena of geopolitical competition and strategic engagement.
• Recent developments:
  • EU and Japan organised high-level summits with African nations in 2025.
  • South Korea conducted ministerial consultations with African partners.
  • Germany hosted discussions on the Sudan crisis.
  • France is advancing a renewed Africa outreach strategy.
  • China continues its sustained engagement through the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC).
• This increasingly crowded diplomatic space poses a challenge for India to maintain visibility and relevance. 

India’s Traditional Strengths in Africa:

• Historical goodwill: India enjoys substantial goodwill in Africa due to shared colonial experiences and anti-imperial struggles, South-South cooperation framework, capacity-building initiatives, etc.
• Development partnership: India is often viewed by African nations as -
  • A country that provides affordable and accessible developmental solutions.
  • A non-hegemonic partner.
  • Adaptable and development-oriented.
  • Respectful of African sovereignty and priorities.
• However, goodwill alone is no longer sufficient in an increasingly competitive environment.

Need for Institutionalised Engagement:

• Limitations of the existing summit model: The five-year summit cycle remains useful for leadership-level engagement, but the absence of robust inter-summit mechanisms has weakened continuity.
• Consequences:
  • Engagement often becomes episodic.
  • Partnerships default to bilateral interactions.
  • Pan-African institutional cooperation remains limited.
  • Many summit commitments suffer from weak implementation.

Reviving the Three-Tier Africa Framework:

• India’s earlier framework of engagement: It was based on bilateral level, regional level, and pan-African level. Although implementation challenges reduced its effectiveness, the framework remains strategically relevant.
• Suggested measures:
  • Enhanced political engagement:
    • Annual invitation to the Chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC).
    • State visits for the annually rotating African Union (AU) Chair.
    • Greater inclusion of geographically underrepresented African countries.
  • Importance of Burundi’s role: With Burundi currently holding the AU Chair and co-chairing IAFS-IV, such engagement gains additional significance.

Importance of AU and Regional Economic Communities (RECs):

• Strategic role of the AUC: The AUC plays a central role in shaping Africa’s collective positions on climate change, energy transition, digital governance, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and global South cooperation.
• Sharing developmental experiences: Engaging the AUC would enable India to share its developmental experiences in Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), financial inclusion, public health systems, capacity building, and e-governance.
• Re-engaging RECs:
  • Africa’s RECs are critical pillars of continental integration and economic coordination.
  • Suggested initiative is an annual Track 1.5 India–Africa Strategic Dialogue involving policymakers, AUC leadership, Permanent Representatives’ Committee (PRC), academia, and industry experts.
  • This can create sustained policy continuity beyond summit diplomacy.

Persistent Challenges in India–Africa Engagement:

• Gap between commitments and delivery: Many IAFS announcements have suffered from slow implementation, weak monitoring mechanisms, and limited institutional follow-up.
• Episodic nature of engagement: Without regular engagement mechanisms, India risks being viewed as a reactive partner, and an occasional diplomatic actor rather than a long-term strategic stakeholder.
• Weak institutionalisation of cooperation: Several promising initiatives remain insufficiently developed, particularly in renewable energy, agriculture, climate finance, digital economy, counterterrorism cooperation, etc.
• Growing Chinese influence: China’s highly institutionalised and financially intensive engagement through FOCAC creates competitive pressure for India. 

Way Forward:

• Shift to process-driven diplomacy: IAFS-IV should evolve from symbolic summitry to sustained strategic engagement. Key institutional mechanisms -
  • Establish regular mid-cycle review meetings.
  • Create monitoring frameworks for implementation of commitments.
  • Enhance consultations with African diplomats in New Delhi and Addis Ababa.
• Deepen development cooperation: India should focus on sectors where it has comparative strengths - DPI, FinTech and UPI-based payment systems, affordable healthcare, pharmaceuticals, skill development, and renewable energy.
• Align with African priorities:
  • “African priorities should guide India’s engagement with Africa” - the Indian PM’s 2018 principle articulated in Uganda.
  • This would reinforce mutual trust, demand-driven cooperation, and respect for African agencies.
• Strengthen multilateral coordination: In Global South platforms, climate negotiations, WTO reforms, UNSC reforms, and digital governance norms.

Conclusion:

• IAFS-IV arrives at a critical juncture in global geopolitics and South-South cooperation.
• Africa is no longer a peripheral strategic space but a central arena in the emerging multipolar world order.
• For India, the challenge is not merely to preserve historical goodwill but to translate it into sustained institutional partnerships and credible delivery mechanisms.