<div><strong>BW Online Bureau</strong></div><div> </div><div>After the senior officials’ and secretaries’ meeting on Monday (26 October) that took the resolution to strengthen India-Africa trade ties, the India Africa Forum summit will see external affairs ministers meeting on Tuesday (27 October), with Union External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj slated to meet her counterparts from several African countries, including Kenya, South Sudan, Malawi and Democratic Republic of Congo.</div><div> </div><div>The big summit day is on 29 October when Prime Minister Narendra Modi will interact with the heads of the state in an event touted as unprecedented by the forum coordinator and former MEA spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin “as never in the history of African union, 54 representatives have together attended a meet of this nature.”</div><div> </div><div>All the countries invited by India have responded in a positive manner. At least two countries where regime changes happened as recently as a fortnight ago are being represented by their respective state heads.</div><div> </div><div>India may have some good news to break on the 29th by way of increasing the quantum of line of credit. “Wait for the next big thing in the summit. India has already disbursed $3.5 billion out of the total committed $7.4 billion. Approvals have already been given for $5 billion,” said Akbaruddin.</div><div> </div><div>He, however, refused to put his stamp on any figure, dubbing such reports as speculations.</div><div> </div><div>On Monday, the secretaries and senior officials deliberated upon a political document – talking about political partnership between India and Africa, and a framework document of cooperation – talking about developmental partnership between India and Africa.</div><div> </div><div>Over the next three days, India has also lined up a bevy of cultural items for the visiting African dignitaries. One capsule, specially designed for their spouses, will have a meeting with some 300 African women who are being trained at Tilonia by Bunker Roy to use solar energy to light up 15,000 of their villages. They have often been described as solar grandmothers.</div><div> </div><div>Asked if India was concerned over the growing Chinese footprint in Africa, Akbaruddin said that India was more concerned about people to people exchange, and capacity building. “Our engagement with Africa is in terms of human resources,” he added.</div><div> </div><div>He said that India had too had to learn a fair bit from the African countries many of which were far ahead of India in mobile banking.</div><div> </div><div>To a question from Businessworld, Akbaruddin said that it was only to be expected that anti-terrorism measures would be part of the talks as this deeply concerned bot the sides.</div>
