President Droupadi Murmu’s visit to three African nations – Algeria, Mauritania and Malawi – from October 13 to 19 marks an important step in India’s engagements with Africa and strengthen its outreach to Africa from three perspectives.

First, of the three countries that Murmu is visiting, Algeria and Mauritania are in North Africa. While India strengthening ties with overall Africa, it is important that India focuses on North Africa, a sub-region of Africa with which India’s ties remain at sub-optimal level. Within North Africa, India’s focus has remained heavily concentrated on Egypt. The president’s visit to Algeria and Mauritania provides a much-needed boost to India’s engagements in the wider North African region.

North Africa is not just important as a sub-region of Africa. Being located at the confluence of three seas – the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean – this region is strategically crucial to the developments in the global geopolitics. Besides, with the Euro-Atlantic countries and the Mediterranean countries taking increasing interest in the Indo-Pacific region, the role of North Africa is only going to become more important. Murmu’s visit to the region is necessary not only to enhance India’s interaction with North Africa but also for North Africa’s engagements with a major of the Indo-Pacific Region.

Second, while looking to enhance its engagements in the region, India is mindful of the internal dynamics at play. Murmu’s visit to Algeria and Mauritania does not just project India’s one-sided objective of greater engagements with Africa, or North Africa in this regard. Choosing Algeria and Mauritania simultaneously displays a balanced approach, which has been the cornerstone of India’s foreign policy. This factor has been more pronounced in last about three years as India has navigated successfully amid the conflicts like the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Hamas war. As regards to Algeria and Mauritania, the two countries have often been finding themselves on the opposite sides of the spectrum.

In the intra-regional rivalry between Algeria and Morocco, Mauritania has been on Morocco’s side on a number of occasions. In April this year, Algeria along with Tunisia and Libya formed a trilateral initiative of the North African countries. This initiative, considered as a replacement to the Arab Maghreb Union, excluded Morocco and Mauritania.

Further, beyond the regional level, at global level as well Mauritania and Algeria have divergent stands. Since 1995, Mauritania is a NATO partner, it was invited to the June 2022 Madrid Summit as a non-NATO partner which was seen as an indication of the West consolidating its ties with Mauritania in the wake of China’s growing interest in this North African country.  

For its part, Algeria enjoys close ties with Russia and Iran. Although Algeria maintains relations with the United States and the West, these ties are unstable as compared to relations with Russia and Iran.

Murmu’s visit to Algeria and Mauritania is concomitant to India’s stand on the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Hamas war. Despite growing polarization, India has able to maintain cordial ties with all the sides like the US, European countries, Russia, Israel, the Gulf States and Iran. With the impact of the conflicts spilling to different parts of the world, India’s diplomacy is ensuring that outreach to Africa does not suffer.

Third, Malawi as the last leg of Murmu’s visit provides a diversified outreach to India in Africa. This is the first visit by any Indian Head of the State to Malawi. With Murmu travelling to Malawi, India gets an opportunity to strengthen its presence in eastern Africa, a sub-region of Africa with which India enjoys close ties. India has stepped up its strategic engagements with the countries in this sub-region like Tanzania, Mozambique and Kenya. In particular, India has been steadily building strategic ties with Tanzania and Mozambique, both located in the Indian Ocean Region. For its part, India has included eastern Africa as a component of the Indo-Pacific Region. While Malawi may be a landlocked country, this visit by Murmu contributes to India’s continuing efforts to increase its footprint across Africa.

In the past one decade, India has made concerted efforts to strengthen its ties with the African countries. India has taken steps to engage at multilateral as well as bilateral level. Some of the multilateral initiatives have been admission of the African Union in the G20, the India-Africa Summit and the India-Africa Defence Dialogue. President Murmu’s visit to the three African nations is among the several bilateral initiatives that India has been proactively taking. India would benefit from continuing the interactions with the African countries.

Mr. Niranjan Marjani is a political analyst and researcher based in Vadodara, India.