IAFS-IV should prioritise maritime resilience, linking India–Africa security cooperation to blue-economy stability
The Fourth India–Africa Forum Summit should approach defence cooperation not as a symbolic extension of South–South solidarity, but as a practical pillar of strategic resilience. India and Africa meet in a global environment defined by chokepoint insecurity, supply-chain fragmentation, maritime crime, climate emergencies, food insecurity and renewed great-power competition. The most focused and policy-relevant arena for a deeper partnership is the Red Sea–Western Indian Ocean continuum: the maritime belt linking the Suez Canal, Bab el-Mandeb, the Gulf of Aden, the Horn of Africa, the East African coast, island states, and Southern Africa.
This is where Indian and African vulnerabilities converge most clearly. India depends on secure sea lanes for trade, energy flows and diaspora connectivity. African coastal and land-linked states depend on the same waters for imports, port revenues, fisheries, humanitarian supply chains and blue-economy development. The Red Sea crisis has exposed how a localised conflict can produce systemic effects. According to the World Bank, the Red Sea normally accounts for about 30 percent of world container traffic, but traffic through the Suez Canal and Bab el-Mandeb declined sharply by the end of March 2024 as a result of regional conflict. The traffic around the Cape of Good Hope doubled around the same time due to this, indicating that ships opted for the much longer but safer route. Such global trends necessitate a proactive response by states, and cooperation is key to achieving an effective response.
African coastal and land-linked states depend on the same waters for imports, port revenues, fisheries, humanitarian supply chains and blue-economy development.
India and Africa already possess an institutional foundation for defence cooperation. The 2020 Lucknow Declaration identified peacekeeping, training, anti-piracy, maritime security, humanitarian assistance, counterterrorism, disaster relief, and support to the African Standby Force as areas of cooperation. In addition, this agenda was pushed at the 2022 India–Africa Defence Dialogue, with 50 African countries participating, including 20 defence ministers. The resulting Gandhinagar Declaration proposed additional training slots, deputation of training teams, capacity-building, military exercises and humanitarian assistance during disasters. The problem, therefore, is not the absence of diplomatic engagement but the gap between summit commitments and durable, measurable capabilities, which continues to affect many cooperation efforts globally.
Recent India-Africa military exercises have shown both promise and limitations of the cooperation. In particular, AFINDEX-2023 brought together 25 African countries and India for training in humanitarian mine action and UN peacekeeping operations. This strengthened army-to-army familiarity, rules-of-engagement interpretation and peacekeeping interoperability. Yet the emerging threat environment is increasingly maritime. AIKEYME-2025 was more strategically significant. Co-hosted by India and Tanzania, it brought together Comoros, Djibouti, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles and South Africa, with harbour and sea phases focused on anti-piracy operations, information sharing, Visit, Board, Search and Seizure (VDSS) drills, and maritime security cooperation. This and similar exercises should not remain merely diplomatic events; they should become the operational backbone of an India–Africa maritime resilience architecture.
India–Africa defence cooperation should, therefore, be framed not as external security assistance to Africa, but as support for Africa’s maritime-governance priorities.
The African Union’s own maritime strategy provides the right normative anchor. The 2050 Africa Integrated Maritime Strategy has already identified piracy, armed robbery at sea, illegal oil bunkering, human trafficking, maritime terrorism, human smuggling, environmental crime, IUU fishing, climate change, weak legal frameworks, poor aids to navigation and inadequate hydrographic surveys as threats to Africa’s maritime domain. Its vision is to generate wealth from Africa’s oceans and seas through a secure, sustainable blue economy. India–Africa defence cooperation should, therefore, be framed not as external security assistance to Africa, but as support for Africa’s maritime-governance priorities.
India has assets that fit this agenda. The Information Fusion Centre–Indian Ocean Region, launched in 2018 at Gurugram, was designed to improve maritime domain awareness, share information on vessels of interest, support capability building, coordinate incident response and contribute to disaster relief. This capability is highly relevant to African coastal states, but its utility would increase if more deliberately linked to African maritime centres, coast guards, fisheries agencies, port security authorities and regional economic communities.
A second opportunity lies in defence-industrial cooperation. India’s defence exports reached ₹384.24 billion, or about US$4.11 billion, in FY2025–26, a rise of over 62 percent from the previous year; India now exports defence equipment to more than 80 countries. This creates space for affordable African procurement, but also raises a policy risk. If IAFS-IV frames defence cooperation primarily in terms of exports, the relationship will become transactional. African partners need not only equipment but lifecycle support: maintenance, spares, repair, training, local technical skills, interoperability, financing and adaptation to coastal-security realities. A patrol vessel, radar system, drone or communications platform has strategic value only if it can be sustained.
IAFS-IV can consider five key deliverables along an India–Africa Maritime Resilience Compact. First, AIKEYME can be approved as a biennial AIKEYME-plus process that brings together navies, maritime police, coast guards, customs authorities, fisheries agencies and port security officials. Second, India can develop a dedicated Africa window within IFC-IOR cooperation, linking maritime-domain awareness to regional fusion centres and African coastal agencies. Third, participating African states and India can establish a joint programme against IUU fishing, piracy and trafficking in the Western Indian Ocean, combining vessel tracking, prosecution frameworks and legal training. Fourth, defence-industrial cooperation can be adopted to include sustainment packages, not just sales: spares pipelines, repair hubs, local technician certification and simulator training. Fifth, after-action review and follow-up can encompass a public dashboard tracking exercises, maritime information exchanges, training slots, HADR deployments, maintenance support and women in peacekeeping.
India can develop a dedicated Africa window within IFC-IOR cooperation, linking maritime-domain awareness to regional fusion centres and African coastal agencies.
The value of this proposed approach lies in its ability to connect security to development. Secure seas lower trade risk, improve disaster response, protect fisheries, support port competitiveness and strengthen African blue economies. For India, it offers a credible way to advance MAHASAGAR without appearing overextended or hierarchical. MAHASAGAR is India's principal maritime endeavour and doctrine of strategy and represents an extension of the earlier vision of SAGAR ("Great Ocean"). It reflects India's emergence as a global maritime power promoting economic development and cooperative security, and marks a shift from a regional Indian Ocean to a global Indian Ocean perspective. The distinctive strength of India’s approach should not be that it can outspend other powers, but that it can provide affordable, interoperable and politically respectful capabilities aligned with African priorities.
Ultimately, the success of IAFS-IV will depend on whether it can move India–Africa defence cooperation from episodic exercises to institutionalised resilience. The Red Sea–Western Indian Ocean corridor is the ideal place to begin because it is where disruption is visible, interests overlap, and practical cooperation can be measured. A focused maritime-resilience compact would give the summit a concrete security outcome: not another declaration of friendship, but a mechanism that helps India and Africa secure the shared seas on which their development increasingly depends.
Israel Nyaburi Nyadera is a senior researcher at the National Defence College, Kenya.
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Israel Nyaburi Nyadera is postdoctoral researcher, National Defence College, Kenya. ...
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