Asking the international community to move from 'rhetoric to action' on the issue of helping Africa, India has said that the rich countries should provide assistance to the continent on a sustained basis to put it on the path of development rather than responding to crisis.
While welcoming the decision of the industrialised nations to reduce or write off debt of heavily indebted African nations, Indian delegate Suresh Kurup said the emphasis should be on investment in Africa's human resources and development of the private sector, apart from increase in aid levels and debt relief.
Intervening in the debate on New Partnership for Africa Development, in the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, the MP said Africa essentially needed additional financial assistance over an extended period of time to meet its human needs and development goals and the international community needs to remain engaged during the transition period from relief to development.
Stressing that Africa holds the key to its own development, Kurup said the objective of development would be best served by an African-led and African-developed agenda - "The issues and challenges facing Africa and their solutions, are best known to African countries themselves."
Asking the international community to move from 'rhetoric to action', he cautioned against the new initiative meeting the fate of earlier ones, which failed to live up to the promises made.
Observing that India has consistently endeavoured to be a friend and partner of Africa in its development efforts, Kurup said New Delhi's objective has been to impart a substantive economic content to the relationship.
"Despite limited resources, India has, over the years, made contribution to several Africa specific funds and programmes. The Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme has, over many decades, provided a framework for enhancing cooperation between India and the African countries," he added.
Over the past six months, he told the delegates, projects worth $84.30 million have been approved within the framework of NEPAD line of credit and several projects, supported by India, have been approved. Besides, India has 'fairly extensive' investments in a number of African countries.
Referring to assistance India is providing, Kurup said it has started work on a connectivity mission in Africa, which will support tele-education, telemedicine, e-commerce, e-governance, resource-mapping and meteorological services.
"The seamless and integrated satellite, fiber optics and wireless network, to be provided by India, will connect five universities, 51 learning centers, 10 super-specialty hospitals and 53 patient-end locations in rural areas spread all over Africa and would put in place a network providing video conferencing facilities, connecting all 53 heads of state in Africa," he told the 191-member Assembly.
The Pan-African Network Project, Kurup said, has been formally endorsed by the African Union and and a memorandum of understanding between India and the African Union is expected to be signed during the visit of a high-level AU team to India later in October.
This is a landmark project, which will assist Africa in meeting the Millennium Development Goals in education and healthcare.
"We hope to encourage Indian pharmaceutical companies to establish production facilities in Africa to cater to the increasing requirement for affordable medicines, especially for anti-retro viral drugs. There is need for the international community to urgently provide resources for an expanded and comprehensive response to HIV/AIDS and other diseases," he added.
Welcoming the G-8 proposal for irrevocable debt cancellation for highly indebted countries, Kurup stressed the need for clarification on the question of additional resources and policy conditionalities such as privatization and trade liberalization that, in some cases, have been detrimental to development.
