Sanusha Naidu, Senior Analyst,
Institute for Global Dialogue, Cape Town, South Africa
Diplomatist interviewed Sanusha Naidu, one of Africa’s leading scholars on South–South cooperation, emerging powers, and global governance, to discuss the evolving trajectory of India–Africa relations in an increasingly multipolar world. In the conversation, she offered sharp insights into India’s positioning vis-à-vis China in Africa, the future of critical minerals and green transition partnerships, the evolving role of the India–Africa Forum Summit process, and the growing significance of Africa within BRICS and Global South diplomacy. She also highlighted the importance of moving beyond rhetoric towards a more transformative and equitable development compact rooted in African agency, industrialisation, value addition, and long-term structural transformation.
Your scholarship has consistently challenged simplistic narratives surrounding Africa’s engagement with emerging powers, particularly China and India. In your work “China and India in Africa: An Analysis of Unfolding Relations,” you argued that these partnerships reflected a restructuring of global power rather than a “new scramble for Africa.” Now, do you believe India has successfully differentiated its Africa strategy from China’s, or are African states increasingly viewing both through a similar geopolitical lens?
India has not fully differentiated its Africa strategy from China’s and remains, at the state level, caught in China’s shadow — almost “chasing the dragon’s tail” rather than setting a bold, independent agenda. While India presents its engagement as historically rooted, consultative and demand-driven, the muted nature of the India–Africa Forum Summit process has limited its strategic visibility compared with China’s far more institutionalised and resourced approach. As a result, African states increasingly view both India and China through a similar geopolitical lens as emerging Asian powers seeking influence, markets and strategic leverage in Africa. However, India’s private sector tells a different story: Indian firms have become more active and embedded across sectors such as pharmaceuticals, ICT, health, agriculture, education and consumer markets. Thus, India’s differentiation lies less in state diplomacy and more in its entrepreneurial, commercial and people-to-people presence, but unless New Delhi gives its Africa policy greater coherence, scale and political momentum, it will continue to be seen as operating in China’s shadow.
In your research on China’s resource diplomacy in Africa, you warned against short-term extractive gains that fail to generate sustainable development outcomes for African economies. As India deepens engagement in critical minerals, energy security, and green transition partnerships across Africa, what safeguards should African governments insist upon whenever the next India–Africa Forum Summit is convened, in order to avoid repeating earlier dependency models?
African governments should approach any future India–Africa Forum Summit with a clear message: critical minerals and green transition partnerships must not reproduce old dependency models in which Africa exports raw materials and imports finished value. The central safeguard should be beneficiation at source, meaning that access to Africa’s lithium, cobalt, manganese, graphite, rare earths, platinum-group metals and green hydrogen inputs must be tied to local processing, refining, manufacturing, skills development and technology transfer.
India’s engagement should therefore be judged not only by investment flows or market access, but by whether it helps build African industrial capacity, regional value chains and ownership across the minerals-to-manufacturing chain. This requires transparent contracts, enforceable local-content rules, African equity participation, community and environmental protections, and infrastructure that connect mines to industrial corridors rather than simply to export ports. In this sense, the summit should move beyond a transactional minerals-for-supply framework toward a development compact in which India’s energy security and green transition ambitions are aligned with Africa’s structural transformation, job creation and long-term economic sovereignty.
You have written extensively on South-South cooperation and the political economy of Africa’s international relations. India frequently frames its Africa outreach through the language of solidarity and development partnership. From an African strategic perspective, what concrete deliverables should emerge from the next India–Africa Forum Summit whenever it is held, if this rhetoric is to evolve into a genuinely transformative economic compact?
From an African strategic perspective, the next India–Africa Forum Summit, whenever convened, should move beyond the familiar language of solidarity, historical friendship and development partnership, and instead produce a concrete economic compact anchored in African priorities. This aligns closely with my view on South-South cooperation, which cautions against romanticising emerging-power partnerships as automatically equitable or transformative. While India’s Africa outreach offers alternatives to traditional North-South dependency, it must still be judged through the political economy of interests, asymmetries and outcomes.
If India’s is to translate the relationship into a genuinely transformative partnership, the summit should deliver commitments that strengthen Africa’s productive capacity rather than reproduce patterns of trade dependency. This means expanding concessional finance for infrastructure that supports regional integration, investing in value addition and beneficiation in critical minerals and pharmaceuticals, supporting technology transfer in digital public infrastructure, agriculture, renewable energy and health systems, and aligning Indian private-sector engagement with the AfCFTA’s industrialisation agenda. Consistent with my argument on African agency, African states should insist on measurable outcomes: skills development, local content, joint ventures, research partnerships, market access for African goods and transparent implementation mechanisms. The real test is whether India can translate South-South rhetoric into a partnership that enables African autonomy, builds domestic capabilities and supports long-term structural transformation rather than short-term transactional gains.
Your recent work on BRICS expansion argues that the grouping represents “incremental revisionism” rather than a complete restructuring of global governance. Given that both India and several African countries are now central actors within expanded BRICS frameworks, do you foresee a future India–Africa Forum Summit serving as a platform to consolidate a coordinated Global South agenda ahead of upcoming G20 and BRICS negotiations?
India certainly has the leverage to do so. Though there will be some foregrounding conditions that will likely influence how this can be done. The Modi government can, through a future India–Africa Forum Summit, position itself as a convenor of a more coordinated Global South agenda, especially around reform of multilateral institutions, development finance, climate justice, food and energy security, digital public infrastructure, and debt sustainability.
However, this should not be read as India seeking to overturn the existing global order, but rather as part of the “incremental revisionism” that characterises expanded BRICS: pushing for greater voice, representation, and policy space within existing institutions while selectively building alternative platforms. For African countries, the value of such coordination will depend on whether India moves beyond rhetorical solidarity to support concrete African priorities ahead of G20 and BRICS negotiations, including permanent African representation in global governance structures, fairer financing terms, technology transfer, beneficiation of critical minerals, and development partnerships that strengthen African agency rather than reproduce dependency.
South Africa’s role within BRICS and the G20 has increasingly focused on reforming multilateral institutions and amplifying Africa’s voice in global governance. As someone deeply engaged with these debates, do you believe India has done enough to support Africa’s demand for permanent representation in institutions such as the UN Security Council, or does Africa now expect more assertive diplomatic backing from New Delhi?
New Delhi can definitely deepen its engagement in this regard. While India has consistently voiced support for reforming global governance institutions and has endorsed stronger African representation, including in the UN Security Council, African expectations now go beyond rhetorical solidarity. From an African perspective, India’s credibility as a Global South partner will increasingly be measured by how assertively it uses its diplomatic capital in BRICS, the G20, the UN, and other multilateral platforms to advance Africa’s institutional representation.
This means not only supporting the principle of reform, but actively helping to build coalitions, sustain pressure on resistant powers, and align its own bid for permanent Security Council membership with Africa’s meaningful and permanent representation. If India wants to distinguish its Africa engagement from transactional diplomacy, New Delhi will need to demonstrate that Africa’s voice is not merely invoked as part of a broader Global South narrative, but defended as a concrete pillar of a more equitable multilateral order.
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