Before and Beyond Energy: Contextualising the India–Africa Partnership

by Devika Sharma & Swati Ganeshan
SAIIA Occasional Paper No 77, February 2011
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Emerging Powers and Global Challenges Programme

Although the India–Africa relationship is not new, what is relatively new is the range of areas now covered by the partnership, in particular energy. Energy has played, and will play, a critical role in bringing India and Africa closer together in the future. However, while synergy in the field of energy is an incredibly important aspect of the partnership, it cannot alone seal the deal. Forces, both within and beyond the area of energy, simultaneously drive and thwart the larger relationship. Four such forces help contextualise the India–Africa partnership, and analysing how these forces interact and diverge helps to explode some of the myths that surround the geopolitics of energy in Africa and identify the issues that require both deeper analysis and determined policy interventions.