India–Africa Partnerships for Food Security and Capacity Building

India and Africa share a long history of amicable political relations, which has led a partnership of diversified functionality and economic association between the two regions. The three India-Africa Forum Summits dispersed over the first two decades of the twenty-first century have strengthened India-Africa cooperation significantly. The framework of cooperation adopted at the inaugural India-Africa Forum Summit (IAFS-I) as well as the framework of enhanced cooperation adopted at the subsequent forum summit, just three years later, positioned agriculture at the top of the list of India-Africa collaborations. Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme has led bilateral efforts in a variety of fields and provided the framework for India’s foreign policy engagement with the developing countries, including those in Africa. Under ITEC’s sister programme, the Special Commonwealth African Assistance Program (SCAAP), several African countries such as Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Malawi, Tanzania, etc. are invited to share in Indian developmental experiences and technologies. India and Africa share mutually beneficial opportunities available for Government-to-Government (G2G) and Business-to-Government (B2G) cooperation in the field of sustainable agriculture. Initiatives under the ITEC programme and the IAFS processes aim to harness this complementarity and improve the standards of production, consumption, and input technology, as well as the acquisition and channelling of foreign direct investment (FDI) and technology from private investors into Africa.

This chapter draws the reader’s attention to the common minimum position adopted by India and African states, and the areas of divergence, on the critical issue of climate change. The ‘climate emergency’ affects India and Africa significantly through droughts, floods and unpredictable weather events, and has taken a toll on agricultural productivity. This could aggravate further, depressing the living standards of largely agricultural economies. This chapter looks at how India and Africa engage in the geopolitics of multilateral climate diplomacy, and the negotiating blocks with which they align for furthering their climate agendas. India and African states are part of the G-77/China negotiating block which includes all nations of the Global South, and India along with South Africa, is a member of BRICS, which has emerged influential in multilateral platforms. There are some convergences, in their positions; such as adherence to the Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR), and calls for transfer of finances from the industrialized nations to the developing world, to finance initiatives for adaptation and mitigation to combat climate change. There are also divergences: African states continue to complain that adaptation funds achieve greater impact in countries with more developed markets, such as India. They also point out some of the largest emitters—India and China; have not taken adequate action to curb their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Further, this chapter also details the Indian capacity building initiatives in Africa for clean energy through the International Solar Alliance, Lines of Credit and aid to combat climate change.

Smallholder farmers across the drylands of Africa and Asia face similar challenges—low agricultural productivity, lack of profitable alternative livelihoods, lack of access to technology, capital, and markets, low resilience to face climate change and other issues. The challenge before African countries is to transform agriculture from the predominantly subsistence orientated smallholder systems to more sustainable, efficient and market-orientated ones which create jobs for the youth on a rapidly growing continent. International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) provides a global platform for regular knowledge exchange between agricultural research and development professionals from Africa and India. We share some of our experiences over four decades of work in Africa and India mainly through: ICRISAT uses crop improvement as a core approach to providing crop varieties that are adapted to the ecologies of sub-Saharan Africa. These include varieties that are resistant to a wide range of biotic and abiotic stresses and acceptable by farmers and markets. These successful crop improvement programmes have been underpinned by the genetic resources available in the ICRISAT gene banks in India and Africa, resulting in the development and release of over 452 varieties and hybrids of cereals and legumes in 34 African countries. Agri-based entrepreneurship promotion is another key approach towards improving the economic prosperity of smallholder farmers in the region and harnessing Africa’s youth bulge. Through its Agribusiness and Innovation Platform (AIP), ICRISAT has developed and implemented novel agribusiness entrepreneurship promotion models in twelve African countries in partnership with a diverse set of stakeholders from the agricultural and rural development ecosystem. Other areas of intervention which are not discussed in this paper include the natural resource management programmes that have created knowledge, technologies and practices that enable resilience in the farming system. In addition, the socio-economic programmes are key to understanding the potential for adoption of technologies including new varieties.

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), a CGIAR (formerly the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research) Research Center is headquartered in Kenya. It has sixteen country offices across Africa and Asia. Since its inception in the 1970s, it has been engaging in South-South collaboration projects with different organizations across India and several African countries. Through these projects and initiatives, the ILRI has participated in the coordination, management and execution of various activities with the aim of equipping farmers with the skills and tools needed to improve their livelihoods, better their nutritional and environmental situations, and provide ‘better lives through livestock’. Over the years, India has frequently been the setting of different projects in which the ILRI played an active role alongside other Indian and global partners. Although the nature of these projects varied in range from development of prototype tools, value chains, genetic research, etc., their goal remained unchanged—to help vulnerable members of society build better lives for themselves and their families by assisting them in developing new skills, introducing them to new approaches and techniques and providing them with innovative resources to implement in their daily lives. This paper provides a summary of six different projects that involved India-Africa collaboration highlighting key initiatives and lessons learnt, while also discussing how these can help inform further initiatives with regard to the design and implementation of successful South-South collaborations.

The ICAR-National Institute of Animal Nutrition and Physiology, Bangalore, funded by Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Government of India, New Delhi has developed a tool named FeedBase-India, using secondary datasets. The software assesses feed supply and demand for livestock in India. The Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) showed considerable interest in this innovative software, which resulted in a collaboration between ICAR, ATA and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), to adopt and adapt the concept for feed supply–demand analysis of livestock in Ethiopia. The supply is estimated from cropping, land use pattern, demand from livestock census and nutrient requirements for various categories of livestock based on their body maintenance, production and reproduction potentials. Key stakeholders were familiarized with the concepts, approaches, and software at an inception workshop held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia between 1^st and 3^rd August 2017 at the ILRI campus. The database and tools were modified for Ethiopian conditions based on the data collected by ATA in two districts from each of the four main regions of Ethiopia. The tool relationally arranges these datasets using algorithms that connect feed quantity and quality to livestock maintenance and production requirements to calculate surpluses, deficits or sufficiency of feed biomass and of key nutrients such as dry matter, protein, total digestible nutrients and metabolizable energy. This enables users to compare and prioritize feed and animal interventions for impact. This will support researchers, development agencies, governments, industry and farmers in constructive planning and decision-making, resulting in higher livestock production and productivity, feed use efficiency and reduced cost of feeding.

India and Africa are natural partners in view of their size, demography and historical connections; yet the cooperation between the regions has not reached its full potential. Among the various instruments that have been devised to strengthen the relationship, the India–Africa Forum Summits have shown a lot of promise. This paper assesses a case study of one such initiative by the Government of India—the Cotton Technical Assistance Programme (C-TAP) designed to address the constraints hampering the growth of the cotton sector in six countries on the continent, including the Cotton 4 (C4) countries in Africa. The programme, which has been well received by the participating countries, focused on capacity development of key stakeholders through training, exposure visits and the creation of critical infrastructure in selected host countries by demonstrating successful models in India’s cotton and textile value chains. This study provides an analysis of the feedback from the project participants on; the impact of the programme; the challenges it has faced; and projections for its extension and expansion in the future.

SEWA’s relationship with the sisters of Africa has been long standing. Groups of African sisters from various organizations have visited SEWA for exposure cum training programmes since the early 1990s. The African delegations learnt about SEWA’s approach towards economic rehabilitation through the setting up of women’s own economic organizations and women-led value chains, especially in agro-food processing. This has helped in replicating SEWA’s long-standing value-based work in countries like Ethiopia, Mali, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Kenya, etc. The African Development Bank invited SEWA to be a part of the Annual General Meeting held in their home state, Gujarat, India, in 2017. SEWA shared their experiences with African organizations during the panel discussions as well as at the side events. SEWA has taken cognizance of the many similarities between the women it works with in India and Africa, in terms of the challenges they face for trade and improving their economic situation. SEWA organized a round table conference at the Annual General Meeting of the African Development Bank held in Gujarat, India in 2016 to establish the nexus between energy, agriculture, work and women, and its impact on sustainable agriculture. SEWA-Africa relations are on an equal footing and offer opportunities with a potential for mutual learning. SEWA proposes a SEWA-Africa Women Economic Partnership which can focus on three specific areas: women’s access to ownership of ecosystem-based agriculture, women’s ownership of renewable energy products and women’s access to capital to strengthen their livelihoods.

Established in 1964, the International Trade Centre (ITC) is the joint agency of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations. ITC is the only development agency that is fully dedicated to supporting the internationalization of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing and transition economies, thus raising incomes and creating job opportunities, especially for women, young people and poor communities. Supporting Indian Trade and Investment for Africa (SITA) is a project funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DfId) and implemented by the International Trade Centre (ITC). It aims to increase and diversify exports from East Africa and attract investment to promote sustainable economic development in the region. Since 2015, ITC, through SITA, has been working to improve competitiveness by leveraging Indian expertise through knowledge sharing, technology transfer and partnerships. SITA’s interventions in the agricultural sector have focused primarily on capacity building, facilitating market linkages and investment attraction in the East African pulses, spices and sunflower value chains. With the introduction of the Duty Free Tariff Preference (DFTP) scheme for Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in 2008, India has strengthened trade and investment linkages with southern partners including East Africa. India offers innovative solutions along with a growing marketplace for East African exports. In turn, East Africa offers opportunities for Indian businesses to expand their global reach. To guide SITA’s focus, initial face-to-face surveys with more than 500 companies were conducted which assessed the competitiveness of select value chains and established the main challenges to development.

The Republic of Mozambique is endowed with fertile land and abundant minerals and has a primarily agricultural economy. A majority of the population struggle economically and only 16% of the arable land in the country is cultivated. This paper discusses a capacity building project undertaken in the town of Ribaue, located in the Nampula province of Mozambique to improve the agricultural productivity. The farmers face challenges in the form of a lack of crop diversification and risk mitigation instruments. They also lack adequate skills, tools and knowledge regarding optimal farming practices. The project aimed to overcome these barriers, by using the innovative hub and spoke model. The project successfully resulted in enhanced productivity for all the actors in the value chain, enhanced the skills of the farmer, adopted the use of technology and improved market access to the farmers. They also incorporated international actors such as the USAID and IFAD in the project.

Pulses play a key role in driving the development of modern agriculture and are an important source of food security. Changing food preferences, combined with rising incomes and populations in major consuming countries, are creating a global pulse shortage. The pulse trade between India and Africa holds considerable potential. The pulse industry in African countries has developed without a lot of focused intervention. Pulse cultivation on the continent is mainly an intercropping solution. On the other hand, pulses in India are an essential food ingredient along with being one of the cheapest sources of protein. Nevertheless, the Indian pulse sector grapples with price volatility. The entry of East African pulses in India has been facilitated by the Government of India’s State Trading Corporations and some private traders for almost the entire span of the pulse trade between the two regions. However, export from Africa to India is accompanied by challenges such as a lack of information, poor transport facilities, and language barriers. The pulses industry in India is heavily integrated with the processing sector. The demand from the diasporic community and India’s 2006 pulse export ban has pushed pulse processors and exporters to look for alternative set-ups. East Africa proves an attractive destination for such set-ups, on account of the availability of pulses through the network of smallholder producers, tax free schemes that promote exports and industrialisation, and the low cost of labour. Certain Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in the region have duty free access to American and European markets. Given such a trade climate, India has to intensify its engagement with Africa, present more transparency in its trade, and take into consideration global factors while deciding on its trade restrictions to strengthen its relations with Africa in the pulse sector.

This paper intends to ascertain the future of trade between Tanzania and India after an unprecedented ban on pigeonpeas in August 2017. It reflects on the background of bilateral trade, the inception of the ban, the response of the stakeholders, the interventions made in order to capture the effects, and the predicted outcomes of the ban. Tanzania and India have had bilateral trade relations since the early 1960s. As of December 2018, trade between the two countries stood at US$ 1895.087 million, out of which US$ 1167.465 million were India’s exports to Tanzania, while US$ 727.622 million were Tanzania’s exports to India. The lucrative pulses business encouraged many Tanzanian farmers to shift from cash crops towards the cultivation of pigeonpeas. This resulted in a surge in the production of the crop from 10,000 MT in 1961 to a projected 292,000 in 2001 (FAOSTAT 2017). The Indian ban on Tanzanian pigeonpeas, however, led to a decline in exports from 160,000 MT to 51,000 MT (Tanzania Revenue Authority 2017). This led to 73,000 MT of pigeonpeas (worth US$100 million) remaining unharvested in Tanzanian farms (EAGC 2018). Following this unfavourable turn of events, the future of Tanzania–India trade appears bleak.

The developmental potential of Tanzania’s agricultural sector presents a viable and sustainable solution for its economic growth and food security. Agricultural development in Tanzania can be accelerated through intensive South-South cooperation through the exchange of technology, expertise, troubleshooting methods, and the overall experiences of implementing best practices in the agricultural sector. This paper attempts to specifically examine the pulse sector in Tanzania and identify the challenges and opportunities that it presents. Pulses are an important subsistence and cash crop in Tanzania. Pulse production is a potentially profitable value chain for all actors, but underdeveloped harvesting and post-harvesting practices, the lack of standard branding strategies, unstructured trade, poor market linkages, and minimal access to credit arrest the growth of the sector. The paper uses field research conducted in the Kilombero district of south-western Tanzania as a case study. This study attempts to understand the socio-economic factors and agricultural practices that determine the pulse production process of the Kamwene farmers’ community. It identifies the issues that hamper production in Kamwene, such as poor agronomic practices, the presence of middlemen in farm loans, the lack of access to inputs, inadequate quality of harvesting, processing and challenges to value addition, and financial inclusion. The research then uses feedback from the farmers’ community to present an appropriate solution for these agricultural setbacks, as well as select areas in need of intensive value addition. It further recommends a Farmers’ Organization Model to augment farming practices and subsequently provide incentive for South-South trade links and investments with countries such as India.

Despite the availability of large tracts of cultivable land, Africa is unable to meet its basic food needs due to inter alia; scarce water resources, inadequate agri-infrastructure, inefficiencies in the production practices, among others. There is a need to transform the agriculture sector in Africa. This paper suggests a four-pronged strategy to transform the African agricultural sector. These are: productivity enhancement, agri-logistics, technical collaboration and investment in agriculture R&D. The paper also shares India’s experience with agricultural transformation and discusses the green revolution, contract farming, irrigation techniques, agricultural markets and the like. Agricultural sustainability is intrinsically linked to food security, and therefore critical to the progress and socio-economic development of Africa and India. The paper also illustrates win-win strategies for India-Africa agricultural cooperation, through financing Africa’s agriculture development through the EXIM Bank of India.

Despite its abundant resources, the African continent still lags behind the rest of the world in terms of agricultural output and productivity, and remains one of the most food-insecure regions worldwide. By sharing its development experience, India can help transform Africa’s agricultural landscape. Agriculture has become a key area of India-Africa partnership with the Lines of Credit (LOC) issued by the EXIM Bank of India as one of its main pillars. Indian LOCs have helped build infrastructure and add value to agriculture and allied sectors across 29 African countries. Yet, the widening gap between India’s commitment and actual disbursement of LOCs to Africa creates barriers to the full realization of mutual gains. At a time when India-Africa’s engagement is scaling new heights, this paper examines the challenges ahead Indian LOCs and their likely implications on the future of India-Africa partnership in agriculture.

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will demand a significant growth in the volume and effectiveness of development resources, mostly in Asia and Africa. In that regard, the India, Brazil and South Africa Facility for Poverty and Hunger Alleviation (IBSA Fund) and the concept of Development Impact Bonds (DIBs) are innovative multi-stakeholder initiatives of development cooperation. On the one hand, the IBSA Fund is a unique Southern initiative under the United Nations, constituting an institutional framework that allows for low cost and high impact projects. On the other hand, DIBs are projects in which the private sector gives the capital upfront and, in the case that the agreed upon impact is achieved, costs are paid back with interests by a donor agency avoiding bureaucratic and ineffective management. This paper aims to briefly analyze these initiatives, as a means to show some of the diversity and complexity of development cooperation. This paper argues that impact has to be planned, measured, monitored and reported. But even beyond that, in the context of developing countries and institutions, the capacity to learn and react quickly to adjust, correct or adapt is also essential. They need to be a complimentary part of the same process, most probably because development situations always include some unplanned or unseen. The possibility of rearrangements in inputs and learning by doing are demanded by the dynamic nature of development cooperation projects, to which traditional cooperation arrangements are less able to respond.

This volume has attempted to analyze the agricultural transformation in Africa within the framework of South-South cooperation that is being increasingly complemented by North-South collaborations. The scope of the subject is indeed extensive and only select thematic areas, namely knowledge sharing; value addition to agriculture through G2G partnerships; public–private partnerships; augmenting food security through trade in agro-commodities; and financing the development of the agriculture and allied sectors, have been discussed.