https://www.independent.co.uk/news/subsaharan-africa-ap-india-bengaluru-investments-b2439000.html
India is set to donate over $35 million USD to fund an energy transfer all over Africa. This money will primarily be used for small solar panels that can be installed on the rooftops of the homes inside of remote African villages. Officials from 116 nations are discussing how to maximise the potential of solar energy and how to make the most of donations and infrastructure capabilities. China, the current market leader in solar energy, is not a part of this alliance. India has already given $35 million but plans to raise over $100 million in the coming years.
I believe that this is positive for Africa but i don’t see the benefit for India. It’s abnormal for countries to give millions of dollars just to “be nice”, there’s always something that the donating country is receiving, that could be exclusive tradings on certain products, a lift on taxes or costs, or even military support. I can’t think of anything that the nations in sub-saharan africa would have that India would want. India has been saying that a lack of investment has been causing Africa to not harness it’s full potential in terms of solar energy. I wonder why India feels like an investment into sub-saharan africa solar energy is worth spending it’s budget on, and why they feel the need to go to all the effort jumping through hoops to get donations and other countries involved.
In class we talk about the “you scratch my back and ill scratch yours”. With all the money and effort that India is going to for the nations inside of sub-saharan africa there must be a whole lot of scratching that India is receiving. Throwing hundreds of millions of dollars as an “investment” with seemingly no return is not common practice, especially not by India, a country with over a billion of it’s own people to take care of.