Kenneth King

Kenneth is a Visiting Fellow at IDSA from mid-January to mid-April 2018. The focus of his work is Indiaâ€™s human resource collaboration with Africa. He is accompanied by his wife, Pravina.
Background
Kenneth King was Director of the Centre of African Studies and Professor of International and Comparative Education at Edinburgh University for many years. He is now Emeritus Professor in its Schools of Education and of Social and Political Studies.
His research has focused on the politics and history of international education, aid policy, and skills development, especially in the informal sector. He edited NORRAG News for 30 years until 2017.
Since 2006, amongst other research, he has analysed Chinaâ€™s educational aid to Africa, and published Chinaâ€™s Aid and Soft Power in Africa (2013).
From 2016 he has begun to research Indiaâ€™s development cooperation with Africa, with a focus on skills and human resource development.
His next book is on Education, Skills and International Cooperation: Comparative and Historical Perspectives (forthcoming 2018).
Research questions during the Fellowship
How, historically, has the discourse around human resource development for Africa shifted in Indian domestic debates and documentation over the last more than fifty years?
How have these shifts been accommodated institutionally in the main modalities of India-Africa cooperation within India? To what extent do these now constitute forms of cultural diplomacy or soft power?
Given that India-Africa cooperation falls within the discourse of South-South Cooperation, mutual benefit and mutual learning – and is not a one-way aid relationship – what is being learnt by both sides in this people-to-people engagement?
Visiting Fellow
E-mail: Kenneth[dot]King[at]ed[dot]ac[dot]uk
Phone: +91 11 2671 7983
office extension: 7009
residence extension: 9503

Publication

India-Africa Cooperation in Human Resource Development: Education ,Training and Skills

Human resource development (HRD) and capacity building are frequently claimed to be at the heart of India's development cooperation. This paper is one of the first to look inside these claims and to review critically the many different facets of India's capacity building. The focus is India's engagement with Africa, and the time-frame is from 1947 till the present. Many of the key HRD elements in India's cooperation are covered: from support to thousands of African students and professionals to learn from Indian institutions to the ambitious HRD pledges of the three India-Africa Forum Summits. India's soft power in Africa is examined along with its support to institutional and digital development.

Published: 2019
IDSA Occasional Papers

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