Can New Delhi's economic diplomacy change India's business profile in Africa?

If Africa is a beautiful woman being courted by the rest of the world, India is a childhood sweetheart who is a good-natured, hesitant suitor. Touchingly solicitous, yet frustratingly distant, India is a bundle of contradictions.

In the past few weeks, in the lead-up to the India-Africa Forum summit in Addis Ababa from May 20 to May 26, India's reticence has receded into the background. Instead, what we have is a serenading of Africa by the world's largest democracy.

An example of the fervour that has gripped the government now is the amount of attention and money it is spending sending teams of journalists from India on trips to Africa. Three groups have been to different parts of the continent for about two weeks each and the foreign ministry is looking for suggestions to deepen media interaction between India and Africa. For now, there is an impression of deep involvement in the relationship.

This correspondent, who was in Senegal, Ghana and Nigeria as part of a government-sponsored team, found that goodwill for India is unquestionable. There is a feeling that India and Africa are kindred souls. "India makes us feel at ease; it respects us and supports us," says Maitre Madicke Niang, the foreign minister of Senegal, a west African nation with a population of about 12 million.

It is in Senegal that India has scored one of its biggest successes as it competes with other developed and emerging economies for Africa's market and mineral and oil resources. An Indian-led consortium is turning around Industries Chimiques du Senegal (ICS), a former state-owned company that owns one of the world's biggest phosphate mines and a plant making phosphoric acid for use in fertilisers.

Nominally, Iffco is described as the driving force behind the consortium but the public sector cooperative is actually the main consumer of the phosphoric acid and only a minor shareholder in ICS, which contributes about 2% to the Francophone nation's GDP of nearly $13 billion (Rs 58,000 crore). The major owner is the low-profile Archean Group, a Chennai-based company that also has interests in Indonesia, China and Dubai.

It is nimble-footed companies like Archean, not resource-hungry state-run enterprises, that are transforming business relationships in Africa. The government, for all its good intentions, is a step behind even as it facilitates Indian business and helps Africa.

One such sincere and ambitious initiative is the Pan African e-Network Project to use Indian expertise in telecommunications to bring top-class education and health care to the rural parts of Africa. Conceived by the former president APJ Abdul Kalam, the network links many of India's best universities and hospitals to Africa, allowing the continent access to expertise it would not have otherwise had.

While India's intentions have been noble, the benefits of the pan-African network are not being utilised fully: only 311 telemedicine consultations took place until March. JL Kachroo, the project's director in Senegal, says this is because many doctors in African nations think it is a slight to be advised by their Indian peers. In Nigeria, too, the network is underutilised, prompting high commissioner Mahesh Sachdev to urge Nigeria's foreign minister Odien Ajumogobia to make better use of the infrastructure.