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India commits $500 million aid for West Africa
Monday, 01 March 2004, 20:30 IST
NEW DELHI: India Monday committed $500 million for development projects in West Africa as it firmed up a "unique" techno-economic cooperation agreement with eight countries of the region.
External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha announced here New Delhi's readiness to help in the development of the region during talks with his counterparts and officials of eight oil and natural resources-rich countries of the region -- Burkina Faso, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Mali and Senegal.
West Africa has become strategically important with the discovery of large oil reserves in the Gulf of Guinea in the late 1990s as well as other major discoveries inland. Angola, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon and Nigeria lie along the gulf.
Barring Equatorial Guinea and Chad, which were represented by their foreign secretaries, other countries sent their foreign ministers for the talks.
The nine countries are to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on a Techno-Economic Approach for Africa-India Movement, TEAM-9 in short, after the talks.
"It's eight plus one in a way," Sinha told reporters after the talks referring to the fact that India was the only country outside the West Africa region in the grouping.
"We haven't called it G-9. It's TEAM-9 because it's the team spirit we are emphasizing," he said and described it as a "unique experiment."
The groundwork for the MoU was done by the foreign secretaries of the nine countries at their meeting here Friday.
"We have excellent bilateral relations with each of the countries. What we are trying to do through TEAM-9 is to promote not only bilateral cooperation but regional cooperation," he said.
"We are all determined it will not be confined to an MoU, we will actually translate it into concrete action," he added.
As tension and political instability grip major world suppliers in the Middle East, multinational oil majors have moved into the region in a big way, signing several commercial agreements and trade treaties with the oil-bearing countries of the region.
India is reaching out to the region rather late, largely because of distance, the absence of a large Indian diaspora and problems of language since the region is largely French-speaking.
This is unlike the rest of the African continent where English is widely spoken and where India has made some headway.
Presently India has diplomatic missions in only five of the eight West African countries in the TEAM-9.
Sinha said the meeting identified various areas of cooperation ranging from agriculture and pharmaceuticals to health, human resource development and energy.
Speaking on behalf of the West African countries, Senegal's Senior Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio said: "India is a role model for the developing countries, particularly those in Africa.
"You have shown you can defeat poverty and development (problems). Frankly we are proud of what you are doing."
Ghanaian Foreign Minister Joseph Henry Mensah said the "great success" India had achieved in various fields is a "great inspiration for all of us."
Guinea Bissau's Foreign Minister Joao Jose Silva described India as an emerging world power and said African countries, which in the past maintained their relations with India through European countries, wanted to have direct links
Source: IANS
Source: IANS