Time to Move Beyond Declarations to a Structured Partnership
4 min readMay 13, 2026 05:18 PM IST
First published on: May 13, 2026 at 05:16 PM IST
The fourth India-Africa Forum Summit (IAFS IV), scheduled for May 28-31, is a moment to rethink how India engages Africa in a rapidly changing world, and find ways to keep the relationship anchored in, but not dependent on, a summit.
IAFS IV was due in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by a period of intense global diplomatic churn, resulted in a prolonged pause. Africa’s global partnerships have deepened and diversified since. The resumption must therefore contend with a far more competitive landscape. The European Union and Japan held summits with African partners in 2025, South Korea convened ministerial consultations. Germany hosted discussions on the Sudan crisis in April, and France is advancing its own outreach this month.
China continues its structured engagement through the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. In this crowded field, India retains significant goodwill, but the challenge is to convert historical affinity into sustained, structured, and visible engagement. The appointment of Mahamoud Ali Youssouf as chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC) signals an openness to reinvigorating partnerships.
The five-year summit cycle remains useful at the leadership level, but in the absence of a robust inter-summit mechanism, engagement defaults to bilateral interactions. India’s earlier three-tier Africa framework, structured across bilateral, regional, and pan-African levels, remains conceptually sound. While implementation challenges limited its impact, abandoning it altogether would be erroneous. India could reinstate the practice of inviting the AUC chairperson for annual visits; the AU’s annually rotating Country Chair could be hosted for a state visit. This would deepen political engagement and ensure geographic diversity, bringing to the fore countries that may otherwise remain outside India’s bilateral radar.
With Burundi currently holding the AU Chair and co-chairing IAFS IV, such an approach would have been timely. Equally important is the need to re-engage Africa’s Regional Economic Communities (RECs). An annual Track 1.5 India–Africa Strategic Dialogue could provide the missing layer of continuity, integrating policymakers, AUC leadership, representatives of the Permanent Representatives’ Committee (PRC), and domain experts from academia and industry.
The AUC plays a central role in shaping African positions on global issues, from climate change and energy transition to digital governance and AI. Engaging it would allow India to share its own development experience, particularly in areas such as digital public infrastructure, public health, financial inclusion, and capacity building. One of the persistent weaknesses of the IAFS has been the gap between commitment and delivery.
Periodic consultations between Indian officials and the African diplomatic corps in New Delhi could serve as an initial layer of monitoring, complemented by regular engagement in Addis Ababa, where India’s ambassador to the AU interacts with the AUC and the PRC. A more formal mid-cycle review would allow both sides to recalibrate priorities.
While many African countries view India as an accessible and adaptable partner, without consistent engagement, India risks being seen as an episodic rather than a strategic partner. While bilateral summits have continued, many of the broader IAFS initiatives, regional business forums, and collaborations in emerging sectors such as agriculture, renewable energy, climate finance, the digital economy, and counterterrorism have not been sufficiently institutionalised. IAFS IV could go beyond declaratory diplomacy and be more of a process-driven partnership.
In 2018, addressing the Ugandan Parliament, PM Narendra Modi articulated a key principle of India’s Africa policy: That African priorities would guide India’s engagement. IAFS IV is the moment to demonstrate that India’s engagement is not only historic but also contemporary, credible, and committed.
The writer is former ambassador to Ethiopia and the AU and author of The Harambee Factor
