Opinion Article By:
Dr. Suresh Nanda
Dr. Suresh Nanda is a seasoned corporate and international banking specialist with over four and a half decades of global experience and has worked in leadership positions with well-known DFIs and banks. He is currently active in Private Equity, Corporate Advisory, and Board Governance. He is passionate about bridging businesses with the right partners and opportunities. In this article, “Africa–India Partnership: Building a Self-Sufficient, Productive, and Globally Competitive Continent”. Dr Nanda argues that, as Africa stands at a critical juncture, spurred by a population poised to reach two billion by 2040 on the back of the world’s youngest workforce and the need to create self-sufficiency, it requires patient capital, appropriate and cost-effective technology, leveraging on the India-Africa partnership, which is uniquely positioned to help shape the development of the continent.
A Defining Moment for Africa
Africa stands at a defining moment in its economic history. With its population projected to approach two billion by 2040, the world’s youngest workforce accelerating urbanization, and vast reserves of natural and human capital, the continent possesses the raw ingredients to emerge as one of the principal growth engines of the 21st century.
The binding constraint is not potential, but the conversion of a transforming demographic scale, entrepreneurship, and resources into sustained industrial output, agricultural self-sufficiency, and globally competitive services.
Achieving this transition on a scale requires patient capital, technology transfer, institutional capacity, and partnerships that build domestic capability rather than substitute for it.
Among global partners, India is uniquely positioned to accompany Africa on this journey, not as a donor or extractive investor, but as a co-developer shaped by similar development constraints and institutional realities.
Why Self-Sufficiency Has Become Strategic
The case for African self-sufficiency has been sharpened by global developments. Supply chain disruptions, rising protectionism, geopolitical realignments, energy shocks, and climate volatility are redefining economic resilience, with nations increasingly prioritizing domestic capacity and strategic autonomy over unfettered global integration.
For Africa, dependence on imported food, pharmaceuticals, energy equipment, and manufactured goods is no longer a viable long-term model. Commodity-led growth exposes economies to price cycles, currency instability, and external financing shocks, making the creation of domestic productive capacity not merely developmental but strategic. India’s own experience of navigating scarcity while building scale in food, industry, healthcare, and digital services offers Africa a practical and relevant roadmap for resilience in a volatile world.
It is also important to note that we have also started noticing emergence of strong African corporates with substantial presence across Africa including Dangote group, Nigeria (dominant in cement across Africa now extending into refining, fertilizers, petrochemicals, and food. Central to Africa’s industrial self-sufficiency agenda.); MTN group, South Africa (Africa’s largest telecom operator by subscribers, operating across West, Central, Southern, and East Africa); Safaricom Group, Kenya (Africa’s most influential digital services company with its iconic M-Pesa).
Shared Development Pathways
India and Africa share deeply parallel development trajectories shaped by post-colonial transitions, agrarian livelihoods, informal economies, and the challenge of creating scale with constrained capital. Over the past two decades, this shared experience has matured into a substantive economic partnership. India–Africa trade has crossed the $100 billion mark, while cumulative Indian investments exceed $75 billion across pharmaceuticals, information technology, telecommunications, infrastructure, energy, mining, and agribusiness. Importantly, Indian enterprises have often embedded themselves within local economies by manufacturing locally, training workforces, adapting products to price-sensitive markets, and building long-term operating presence, laying the foundation for collaboration that extends beyond commodity exchange to joint value creation.
Constraints and Capabilities
Africa’s structural constraints remain real. Capital markets are shallow, project preparation capacity is uneven, currency risks are high, and infrastructure gaps inflate production and logistics costs.
Agriculture, which employs majority of Africans, remains under-mechanized and vulnerable to climate shocks, while manufacturing depth is limited. Yet, these challenges coexist with significant strengths, including rising domestic savings through pension and insurance pools, rapid digital adoption, and a proven ability of African firms to scale when policy alignment, capital, and execution converge.
The core challenge is, therefore, not entrepreneurship, but the absence of platforms, supply chains, and long-term capital capable of supporting industrialization on scale.
India’s Development Experience as a Reference Point
India’s development journey offers highly relevant lessons. Within a single generation, it transitioned from food scarcity to food security, built globally competitive pharmaceutical and IT industries, achieved near-universal telecom connectivity at some of the lowest data costs globally, and developed deep capabilities in frugal innovation.
These outcomes were achieved not through capital abundance, but through domestic market creation, institutional experimentation, and sustained public–private collaboration, approaches that resonate strongly with Africa’s current development needs.
Sectoral Synergies Anchored in Execution
The scope for sectoral synergy between India and Africa is both broad and deep, rooted in execution, localization, and long-term capacity building rather than transactional trade. In pharmaceuticals and healthcare manufacturing, Indian engagement has progressed from exports to local manufacturing, formulation, packaging, and distribution across multiple African countries.
This directly supports Africa’s strategic objective of building domestic pharmaceutical capacity to improve health security, reduce import dependence, and strengthen regulatory, quality, and compliance ecosystems. Collaboration increasingly spans generics, vaccines, active pharmaceutical ingredients, medical devices, diagnostics, and healthcare services, alongside skills transfer and technology adaptation.
In information and communication technology and telecommunications, Indian capabilities have played a central role in expanding digital connectivity and enterprise digitization across the continent. Engagement has supported the rollout of mobile and data networks, digital platforms, and managed IT services for governments, banks, and enterprises.
These capabilities have underpinned mobile payments, digital identity, e-governance, and financial inclusion initiatives, creating foundational digital public infrastructure rather than isolated technology deployments.
Infrastructure, energy, and industrial development form another core pillar of India–Africa synergy, characterized by long-term participation across power generation and transmission, renewable energy, transport infrastructure, industrial parks, and manufacturing ecosystems. Partnerships have typically combined engineering, project execution, financing, and operations, supporting Africa’s goals of industrialization, energy access, and regional integration.
The focus has increasingly been on renewable energy, grid modernization, and local value addition, alongside workforce development and technology transfer.
Automobiles and mobility, particularly two-wheelers, tractors, and agricultural equipment, represent a highly relevant and execution-ready area of collaboration. Two-wheelers constitute a major import into Africa from India, reflecting their suitability for African mobility needs due to affordability, fuel efficiency, durability, and ease of maintenance.
Beyond imports, there is a growing scope for local assembly, component manufacturing, and after-sales ecosystems, which can generate employment, reduce logistics costs, and build industrial capabilities. In parallel, tractors and agricultural equipment are central to Africa’s mechanization agenda. Indian experience in designing cost-effective, small and medium horsepower machinery suited to smallholder farming models aligns closely with African agricultural structures, offering opportunities for local assembly, financing linkages, and skills development.
In agriculture and agro-processing more broadly, cooperation has focused on productivity enhancement and value-chain integration rather than primary commodity extraction. Engagement has supported mechanization, irrigation, seed technology, fertilizers, crop protection, food processing, storage, and logistics, helping address food security while improving farmer incomes and rural livelihoods. These interventions have enabled African producers to integrate more effectively into domestic and regional markets, while reducing post-harvest losses and supply-chain volatility.
The chemicals and fertilizers sectors have similarly reflected execution-oriented cooperation, spanning fertilizer production, blending, distribution, and agronomic support services. This has strengthened input availability for African agriculture while contributing to soil health management, yield improvement, and more sustainable farming practices.
Beyond physical production and infrastructure, India’s engagement has extended into institutional and human capital development. Digital education platforms, vocational and technical training, healthcare capacity building, and initiatives such as tele-education, telemedicine, seed development, soil testing, and skills transfer have strengthened local capabilities. These efforts underscore a partnership model that recognizes sustainable industrialization depends as much on institutions, skills, and governance as on capital and technology.
From Investment to Co-Development
The opportunity ahead lies in elevating the Africa–India relationship from investment-led engagement to a co-development model anchored in domestic value creation. Africa can leverage Indian experience to build industrial corridors focused on agro-processing, pharmaceuticals, renewable energy equipment, transport manufacturing, and digital services, while collaboration in fintech and digital public infrastructure can deepen financial inclusion for small businesses and farmers.
Joint initiatives in renewable energy manufacturing, battery storage, and green hydrogen can simultaneously address Africa’s energy deficit and embed the continent within global clean energy chains.
Equally important is the creation of financial architecture capable of funding long-term growth. Africa can adapt India’s experience in mobilizing domestic savings through development finance institutions, infrastructure bonds, blended finance structures, and pension-led investment to support projects in local currency.
Combined with Africa’s growing pension assets, diaspora capital, and regional development funds, this approach can reduce dependence on external debt and volatile foreign capital, with Indian participation acting as a catalyst rather than a substitute for domestic capital formation.
Conclusion: A Transformational Partnership
At its best, the Africa–India partnership is not transactional but transformational. It aligns Africa’s demographic dividend, resource endowment, and entrepreneurial energy with India’s execution capability, technological depth, and experience in scaling under constraints. As African enterprises expand and Indian firms deepen local integration, the result can be resilient industrial ecosystems rather than isolated corporate successes.
In a world of fragmented supply chains, rising trade restrictions, and inward-focused national strategies, Africa and India together can articulate an alternative development narrative—one rooted in self-sufficiency, shared prosperity, and long-term value creation—positioning Africa as a confident, self-reliant, and globally competitive growth engine of the 21st century.
