India, Africa discuss setting up of 80 training institutions

By Groum Abate, Addis Ababa, Oct 12 : India has discussed the action plan with the African Union to set up over 80 training and capacity building institutions across Africa, an important decision that was unveiled at the second summit in Addis Ababa in May.

India and the 53-member AU discussed the Action Plan under the Enhanced Framework of Cooperation adopted at the Second India Africa Forum Summit held in Addis Ababa May 24-25. The Indian delegation was led by Gurjit Singh, Additional Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs.

After the offer of 21 institutions at the First India Africa Forum Summit, India plans to establish more than 80 institutions in Africa. Several of these would be implemented bilaterally, for which offers of specific institutions have been made to various African countries, according to a press release from the Indian embassy in Ethiopia.

Other institutions will be established through the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) to which also offers have been made and will be further discussed at the second meeting of India with Africa's Regional Economic Communities to be held in New Delhi Nov 8 and 9.

The African Union is discussing the establishment of six pan-African institutions offered by India, including a food processing cluster, an integrated textiles cluster, a centre for medium range weather forecasting, an institution of agriculture and rural development, a civil academy, and a pan-African university for life and earth sciences.

India has also offered to increase the scholarships it grants to African students to 22,000 over a three-year period until 2014. These include the special agricultural scholarships; the Raman fellowships for Science and Technology; scholarships for graduate studies; fellowships for social science research; and a large number of short-term training positions both under the existing ITEC programme and nearly 500 positions per year for special capacity building courses for Africa.

During the meeting, a review of the implementation of decisions of the India Africa Forum Summit was also undertaken. Satisfaction was expressed that progress had been consistent and the structure of cooperation had been clearly defined which would make it easier for the model to be continued for the new institutions to be established, according to the embassy.

During the discussions, it was noted that several India-Africa conferences were to take place in India between October and December 2011. These include: the India Africa Workshop on Traditional Medicines in Jaipur, India Africa Civil Aviation Negotiation Conference in Mumbai, India-Africa RECs meeting in New Delhi, Workshop on Mobilisation of Domestic Savings in New Delhi, Conference on Economic Partnership for Infrastructure Development through the Lines of Credit in New Delhi; and India Africa Business Partnership Summit in Hyderabad.

(Groum Abate can be contacted at groumabate@gmail.com)

--IANS