India's evolving international role

GARETH PRICE of the Asia Task Force of UK Trade and Investment examines India's growing influence on international affairs, trade and investment, security and democracy, and the environment and states that India's ability to play a greater global role would evolve more naturally once its domestic development challenges were met.

In a Chatham House report, "For the Global Good: India's Developing International Role", he reviews India's history as a provider of aid to developing countries in areas such as information technology, education and low-cost alternatives in the health and agricultural sector, led mostly through the private sector and NGOs.

He concludes that India found it easier to forge deeper partnerships with other emerging powers than with established developed countries, in line with its perceived national interest, with non-interference as a cardinal principle of India's policy-making, affecting its approach to development as well as to broader foreign policy issues.

Springbok-elephant tango in the African jungle

ELIZABETH SIDIROPAULOS, director of the South African Institute of International Affairs explores the overlap of interests in Africa between India and South Africa and assesses whether they could be natural partners for development in Africa as it often appeared on first glance.

She argues in her Chatham House briefing paper, "India and South Africa as Partners for Development in Africa?" that New Delhi and Pretoria were both potential partners and competitors where Pretoria recognized components of India's Africa engagement such as human capital, info-comm, and agriculture in a positive light while its own articulation of its national interest was being reassessed and they also displayed substantial differences in their approach to development.

She concludes that there was scope for deepening the substance of political and economic relations between the two which had been hampered by capacity constraints on both sides and differing priorities and that in the short-term, development cooperation between the two in Africa was not a priority for either but using the private sector in this field could be a potential model.