Paper short abstract:

Analyzed here are three Indian development cooperation initiatives with Africa – the Entrepreneurship and Training Development Centre (ETDC) in Dakar; the Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence in ICT (KACE) in Accra, and e-VBAB or e-VidyaBharati ArogyaBharati (Indian e-Knowledge and e-Health) in Kumasi.

Paper long abstract:

The ETDC, completed in Dakar in 2000, was conceived under a G-15 initiative. HMT International, an Indian public sector company, established it at the behest of the Government of India (GoI). Over 6,000 students have trained there, and currently 400 students are learning mechanical and vocational skills.

The KACE was inaugurated in 2003 in Accra through a bilateral partnership between India and Ghana. It offers beginner and advanced courses in ICT and programming of varying duration. Over 3000 students have been trained there.

An e-VBAB centre was opened at the Kwame Nkrumah University for Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi in 2019. e-VBAB seeks to build upon an older GoI project, the Pan-African e-network (PAN), which sought to offer tele-education and tele-medicine to African stakeholders from super-specialty facilities in India using satellite and server technology. e-VBAB offers African learners a number of online degree courses, from the humanities to social sciences to commerce, from public and private Indian universities, as well as online medical consultations.

The ETDC and KACE have becoming self-sustaining, successfully localizing their operational cultures to cater to local demand. e-VBAB has been less successful. This paper analyses these three projects in a comparative framework, looking at how they were designed to fit into their local milieux. What models were used to ensure their sustenance, continued training of staff, student recruitment, and relevance to local economies? What roles do Indian and host institutions play in the process? What learnings may be identified for future projects of this nature?