Embassy of India-Addis Ababa

India and Ethiopia:
60 Years of Friendship

India and Ethiopia at 60 have accomplished many important aspects of cooperation relating to economy, education, capacity building and human resource development etc. When we look back at this relationship it is cause for immense satisfaction for both India and Ethiopia

Historical links between India and Ethiopia go back to almost two thousand years of recorded history. Trade between the two countries flourished during the ancient Axumite period. In the 6th Century A.D. Indian traders flocked the ancient port of Adulis trading in silk and spices for gold and ivory.  The Hapshis were known to have arrived in India in the 13th Century. During the Portuguese exploits of the 17th Century, Indians came to Ethiopia from Goa and many merchants, workers and artisans came to Ethiopia in the 19th Century. Indian traders and later teachers, made lasting contributions to Ethiopia ands its relationship with India.
60 years ago soon after India’s independence, India’s first Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru deputed a goodwill delegation led by Sardar Sant Singh to visit Ethiopia and establish diplomatic relations between the two countries.  This was a rather unique way in which diplomatic relations were established since, instead of waiting for the processes for establishing a legation and later a diplomatic mission, the Government of free India decided to bring a formal bilateral engagement into existence to cap a centuries old vibrant relationship which focused on people-to-people contacts, trade and cultural exchanges.
India and Ethiopia at 60 have accomplished many important aspects of cooperation relating to economy, education, capacity building and human resource development etc. When we look back at this relationship it is cause for immense satisfaction for both India and Ethiopia .
The India-Ethiopia partnership is a true example of South-South cooperation and is becoming a model for other countries. India willingly shares its developmental experiences in a multi-cultural pluralistic society with Ethiopia. Ethiopia has always supported India in various international fora like UN and recently at IAEA Board meeting at Vienna, which has been fully reciprocated by India, most recently the support for Ethiopia's candidature for accession to WTO.
The Ethiopian Government holds India as a model for democratic development and they are benchmarking many of their institutions with their counterpart Indian institutions. In August 2008, a delegation from the House of Peoples Representatives led by Mrs. Shitaye Minale, Deputy Speaker, visited the Parliament of India 'Lok Sabha'. During last year, more than 15 ministerial level visits took place to India and Prime Minister Meles Zenawi also visited twice, to attend the 4th International Conference on Federalism at New Delhi in November 2007 and India-Africa Forum Summit held in April 2008 at New Delhi.

India-Africa Forum Summit

The first ever India-Africa Forum Summit was held in New Delhi on 8-9, April 2008. This was a historic Summit between India and Africa represented by the AU and the Regional Economic Communities of Africa. In conformity with the Banjul Decision of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of July 2006, on African participation at the Summit , leaders of 14 African countries including Ethiopian PM H.E. Meles Zenawi and the Chairperson of the African Union Commission attended the Summit.
The Summit adopted the Delhi Declaration and the Africa-India Framework for Cooperation. These documents constitute the blueprint for cooperation in the 21st Century between India and Africa. India announced unilateral duty free tariff preferential market access for exports from all the 50 Least Developed Countries, 33 of which are in Africa. Ethiopia was among the first countries to accede to the DFTP scheme. The Scheme will cover 94% of India’s total tariff lines. India has decided to enhance the provision of soft loans to Africa to $5.4 billion in a period of five years from 2008. India has doubled long-term scholarships for undergraduates, postgraduates and higher courses and increased the number of training slots under our technical assistance programmes from 1100 to 1600 every year and created a fund of $500 million to support capacity building institutions in Africa. Several outreach events took place before or concurrent with the Summit.

Visit of India’s External Affairs Minister to Ethiopia

The first ever visit by an Indian External Affairs Minister (EAM) to Ethiopia took place in July 2007 by H.E. Mr. Pranab Mukherjee. During the visit, five agreements were signed. The Indian Minister also had a meeting with the President, Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, Speaker of the House of Peoples Representatives and other dignitaries. He addressed the Standing Committee on Foreign, Defence and Security Affairs and the Ethio-India Parliamentary Friendship Group. He also inaugurated the Tele-education facility under the Pan-African e-Network Project at the Addis Ababa University and the Tele-medicine facility at the Black Lion Hospital and announced a line of credit of USD 640 million to support the sugar industry.
Minister of State for External Affairs, H.E. Mr. Anand Sharma visited Addis Ababa in January and July 2008 and had meetings with H.E. Ato Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister; H.E. Ato Seyoum Mesfin, Foreign Minister and the African Union Chairperson.

Symposium on Ethio-India: 60 Years of Friendship

During the 60th anniversary year, the Embassy of India and Ministry of Foreign Affairs organized a symposium in April 2008, which was addressed by Ato Seyoum Mesfin, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Tekeda Alemu, State Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ato Neway Gebre-Ab, Economic Advisor to the PM, H.E. Dr. Adhana Haile, State Minister of Education, H.E. Dr. Fasil Nahom, Special Advisor to the Prime Minister, Ambassador of India H.E. Mr. Gurjit Singh and others.

Commemoration of International Day of Non-Violence

In 2007, following the passage of a resolution by the UNGA declaring 2nd October, the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, as the International Day of Non-Violence, the Embassy of India in conjunction with the African Union Commission organized a function to commemorate the First International Day of Non-Violence at which the Millennium Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Lecture was delivered by His Holiness Abune Paulos, Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The other events included a blood donation camp, a quiz and a drawing competition for school children, a tree planting campaign by Indian Women’s Association and an exhibition of 50 rare photographs of Mahatma Gandhi. The exhibition was mounted at the prestigious National Museum, which was inaugurated by the Minister for Finance and Economic Development of Ethiopia H.E. Mr. Sufian Ahmed.
On 2nd October 2008, during the commemoration of the International Day of Non-Violence, which was jointly organized with the UNECA, H.E. Ato Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of FDRE delivered the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Lecture. An exhibition of rare photographs of Mahatma Gandhi was also inaugurated by H.E. the Prime Minister on that occasion.

Publications

Embassy of India published its first book in Amharic "India-A Dynamic Democracy" "I"É - Ö""^ Ç=V¡^c=" which was released by the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, H.E Mr. Meles Zenawi on October 2, 2008. The Prime Minister also released a set of Ethiopian postal stamps to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Ethio-India relations on this occasion.

India-Ethiopia Economic Partnership – Trends and Prospects

In the Goodwill Mission sent from India to Ethiopia in 1948, interestingly the President of the Grain and Oil Seeds Merchants Association of Bombay was a member and during his visit besides meeting the Indian merchants through the Indian Association, he also met with the Commerce Minister and had visits to several cities in Ethiopia including Harar.  Thus, from the very beginning of our relationship, trade and economic exchanges have been central to our engagement.
In the last 60 years the economic and commercial relationship has also attained wider dimensions in which Government of India’s soft loans, private Indian investments, capacity building and human resource development have always been at the core. The economic relationship between the two countries is moving forward rapidly mainly due to growing private sector investments from India with a total capital of more than US$3.5 billion in various sectors as per the Ethiopian Investment Agency approvals. This immense surge of private sector investment into Ethiopia has changed the image of Ethiopia in the Indian mind.  It is now seen as a land of opportunities, which welcomes Indian investors and provides a positive investment ambience.  Similarly, the Government of India has strongly supported Ethiopia’s development goals by providing more than US$700 million concessional lines of credit for rural electrification and the expansion of the sugar industry which is expected to generate nearly 100,000 new jobs, create infrastructure and provide greater momentum to Ethiopian exports of sugar and power thus strengthening Ethiopia’s foreign exchange earning capacity. Ethiopia was the first country to be benefited from the Pan African e-Network Project for tele-education and tele-medicine. Apart from soft loans from India amounting to USD 700 million in last two years a new trend is emerging from India for financing various projects in Ethiopia.  In the last six months various Indian companies received Suppliers Credit amounting to USD 100 million through Indian commercial banks supported by the Export Credit Guarantee Corporation of India (ECGC) to execute various electricity projects in Ethiopia. Though our initial economic exchanges several millennia ago began with trade, this is today the smallest part of our engagement.  Bilateral trade has risen from $ 154 million in 2002-03 to $ 443 million in 2007-08.  Therefore, bilateral trade has approximately triple in the last 6 years.
The largest ever-Indian trade exposition in Ethiopia took place at the Millennium Addis Chamber International Trade Fair in February 2008. More than 30 Indian companies participated in the Fair. During the trade fair a business symposium was organized and was addressed by the Economic Advisor to the PM of Ethiopia, H.E Mr. Neway Gebre’ab, State Minister of Trade & Industry, H.E Mr. Ahmed Tusa and President of AACCSA, Mr. Eyesuswork Zafu and they commended the business like approach and at diversity of business opportunities offered by the Indian participants.
Capacity Building
Keeping in view all these economic exchanges, we are also looking at enhancing capacity building activities by opening the ITEC programme to non-governmental and private sector partnerships to foster entrepreneurship.  Last year, 68 Ethiopian scholars have got training under ITEC program under which all the expenditure was borne by the Embassy of India. India is looking to support the establishment of Centres of Excellence by Indian companies to build local capacities, so that more qualified professionals work with Indian companies in Ethiopia and elsewhere. Embassy of India organized a training workshop for 50 Ethiopian designers to enhance their capacity in Addis Ababa and 4 designers went to India on a study tour to learn designing.
Ethiopian Airlines has been allotted new regions including Kolkatta and Chennai, besides existing links to Delhi and Mumbai. This is an important contribution to enhance business links between India and Ethiopia.
The Embassy of India and the Ministry of Works and Urban Development, Government of Ethiopia organized an Exhibition-cum-Seminar on Innovative Building Materials and Construction Technologies for Sustainable Housing in April 2008 at Addis Ababa.  The Exhibition showcased the commercial viability of manufacturing technologies of composite building material and machinery developed in India for production of building materials components for housing with the use of agro industrial waste and natural fibers.   H.E Dr. Kassu Illala, Minister of Works & Urban Development of Ethiopia, inaugurated the Exhibition. Various dignitaries addressed the Symposium, which included the Ambassador of India H.E Mr. Gurjit Singh, H.E Mr. Arkebe Oqubay, State Minister of Works & Urban Dev’t.
For the first time in the history of Ethiopia 17 villages in 10 districts in the 4 backward regions of Afar, Somali, Gambella and Benishangul Gumuz have been solar electrified by illiterate village women trained in India. Barefoot College Tilonia in Rajasthan, India trained 34 village women.
20 officers from the Defence Engineering College are studying at Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (DIAT), Pune to complete their M-Tech Degree. In 2008 Government of India has provided scholarships to 10 students from Mekele Institute of Technology to study at the Indian Institute of Technology at Delhi and Mumbai. This is a special gesture of Embassy of India to Mekele Institute of Technology.
Dr. Pachauri, co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 2007 and Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Director General of 'The Energy and Resources Institute' (TERI) visited Addis Ababa in March 2008. During his visit TERI and UNECA has signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish a UNECA-TERI Africa Center for Climate Change Policy Studies (AC3PS) to create a knowledge base to strengthen Africa's efforts to address the challenge of climate change. The MOU encompasses joint research on such issues as policy studies on climate change, integrated water resources management, rural energy access, regulatory issues on mineral resources and security. The MOU also envisages capacity building in these critical areas and pursuit of joint outreach initiatives to create consistent sustainable development in harmony with nature.
As a special gesture to mark the 60th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between India and Ethiopia, Embassy of India provided financial assistance for the treatment of a patient suffering from kidney problems. He was treated at the Apollo Hospital, Ahmedabad where his kidney transplantation was carried out successfully and he is now back in Addis hail and hearty living a happy life. H.E Mr. Gurjit Singh, Ambassador of India, handed over a cheque for ETB 1 million to His Holiness Abune Melketsedic, Archbishop of Ethiopian Orthodox Church, on behalf of an Indian company M/S Overseas Infrastructure Alliance Ltd, to fund the building for a separate dormitory for the school children attached to Mihur School and orphanage at South People Nations and Nationalities. It was a contribution from OIA towards their corporate social responsibility.
The Embassy also organized several cultural events including dance performances by Indian cultural troupes from Assam and Tamilnadu in November 2007 and May/June 2008 respectively. The dance performances were also organized in different regions of Ethiopia and widely appreciated.
An Ethiopian cultural troupe visited India in April 2008 and performed at the outreach programme organized during the India-Africa Forum Summit in Delhi.

UNMEE

India was the largest troop contributing country to the UN Peace Keeping Mission for Ethiopia and Eritrea. Out of total of 4200 troops, more than 1500 Indian troops were deployed. Indian battalions had consistently looked beyond its duties and contributed towards a variety of social services such as free medical camp, drilling of wells, construction of roads, maintenance works and the like which was highly appreciated by the local residents.