While China is latching on to the infrastructure and mining sector, the US manufacturing and aerospace and Russians defense to make their presence felt in the expanding African market, India has chosen mainly the social sector to make deep imprints in the continent. The difference is that it is not the conventional mode of social sector interventions with opening up hospitals and educational institutions; but technology-driven interjections, which can have far-reaching implications in the continent, where social infrastructure is suffering from serious flaws in most of the countries.
India has got its role cut out for Africa. Recently, it has launched two e-learning platforms to ease the delivery of online education and health to African countries. At the 55th Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme (ITEC) celebrations held recently, India’s minister of external affairs (MEA) S Jaishankar launched the e-VidyaBharti and e-ArogyaBharti. The platforms named in the Indian language would mean the digital platforms for education and health-related matters. Diplomats of 70 partner countries, current ITEC students and partner institutions attended the launch of the programs held in India’s capital New Delhi.
The e-VidyaBharti and e-ArogyaBharti, tele-education and telemedicine project for Africa, is one of the largest projects being executed by the ministry of external affairs. This project is aimed at enabling African students to access premier Indian education institutions through the comforts of their homes and offer Indian medical expertise to African doctors and patients alike.
The PAN Africa eNetwork Project (PAeNP) to digitally link Africa and India was initiated in 2004, when former President Late Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam first conceived the idea during his inaugural address to the African Parliament in Johannesburg on 16th Sep. 2004. The project was meant for the whole of African continent but was implemented phase-wise. Eventually, 48 African countries took the benefit of Indian Education and health services from India over the satellite network in the period Feb’2009 to Sept’2017 The penetration of internet in Africa was not much at that point of time. With increasing exposure to the internet, broadband and mobile telephones, it was necessary to give a new thrust and purpose to the project. Now, those operations will be replaced by two separate web-based portals – one each for tele-education and telemedicine. This would significantly increase the ease of access for students, doctors etc. who are the intended beneficiaries of this project.
Considerable planning has gone into value-adding and executing the new versions of the projects. It started with the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India signing an agreement with Telecommunications Consultants India Ltd. (TCIL) to establish a pan-African e-network between the two regions. The two projects were conceived to bridge the digital gap between the two regions in the critical areas of education and health in 2018. This e-network aims at providing quality tele-education and tele-medicine facilities by linking select Indian universities, institutions and super-specialty hospitals to African educational institutions and hospitals.
India is also a leading development aid partner of African countries and this includes implementation of 180 lines of credit worth about $11 billion in over 40 African countries
The twin project will run for five years and each year 4000 students will be given free education using web technology within the precinct of their homes or schools. A significant component of the project is training doctors, nurses, para-medical staff from Africa, using distance education. Every year, 1000 such professionals would be trained through the project, which will also provide medical consultancy to doctors free of cost.
www.trendsnafrica.com had interviewed TCIL’s director – Technical Kamendra Kumar to know about the range of the projects. He said that TCIL has signed agreements with Benin and Guinea on behalf of India for promoting education and health in these countries. This project was also discussed in depth during the visit of both Presidential and prime ministerial delegations to African countries.
