Chinese and Mozambican technicians work in a China-built agricultural technology demonstration center

Mbelwa Kairuki, Ambassador of Tanzania to China, is excited by the opportunities brought about by the cassava plant after an agreement was signed in May between his country and China to export the dried nutrient-rich root vegetable.  

"This [exporting cassava to China] is a very big opportunity that could uplift many people out of poverty. If we work with China to acquire new technology, Tanzania will definitely benefit lucratively from the market access of dry cassava in China," said Kairuki at the Youth Forum of 2017 Global Poverty Reduction and Development Forum and the Second China-Africa Youth Exchange Program on Poverty Reduction and Development held in Beijing on October 9.  

Kairuki’s expectation mirrors Africa’s ongoing efforts of reducing poverty through inclusive economic development, something that China has successful experience. Organized by the International Poverty Reduction Center in China and supported by the United Nations Development Program, the forum brought together youths from China and African countries to share their wisdom on how China and Africa can further strengthen their economic ties.  

Strategic planning 

In 2015, the United Nations urged world countries to adopt the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to transform the world in the following 15 years and help all people to live dignified lives. The agenda’s priority is to eradicate poverty in all forms, including extreme poverty. 

According to the UN Sustainable Development Goals Report 2017, about 767 million people worldwide remained destitute in 2013, living on $1.9 or less a day. Half of the world’s poor lived in Sub-Saharan Africa, where 42 percent of the region’s population subsisted in conditions of extreme poverty.  

"Poverty is a common enemy of mankind and the source of turbulence and terror. It is partly for this reason that most African countries have put the issue of fighting against poverty high on their national agendas," said Kairuki.  

In line with goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, China has been contributing investments and skills, and encouraging tourism to Africa to accelerate its economy through mechanisms like the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). To fully reap the intended benefits provided under FOCAC, Kairuki urged African leaders to be more strategic and change the one country mindset to one where Africa is seen as a collective.   

By thinking and acting as a continental block, Africa could make cross-continental projects like railway connectivity throughout the region a reality. "It [connectivity] will boost intra-trade, promote exports and eventually create wealth and prosperity in Africa," Kairuki added.  

Newai Gebre-ab, Chief Economic Advisor to the Ethiopian Prime Minister, echoed this view. "Our economies [if separated] are small and consequently the absorption capacity in terms of loans and investments is limited," he said. 

In addition, Gebre-ab believes the singular lack of prioritization in current Africa-China cooperation should be changed to better use FOCAC to unlock the continent’s latent economic potential. "There are thousands of things that we aspire to accomplish, but resources are always scarce. So it is critical that we identify a few priority areas that will make a difference to the lives of our people and execute them systematically and effectively," he said.  

Transforming agriculture  

Statistics show that Africa is an agricultural continent where about 70 percent of its population live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihood. Sub-Saharan Africa is endowed with 60 percent of the world’s arable land.   

However, as the productivity in this region is low, due to rudimentary farming methods, the continent spends $35 billion every year importing food and this figure is estimated to rise to $110 billion by 2025, according to Kairuki. "This situation weakens African economies, decimates its agriculture and exports jobs from the continent," he said, adding that without agricultural transformation, poverty eradication would remain a pipe dream. As an example of low productivity, he said that Tanzania produces seven tons of cassava per hectare of land, while in China the figure is 25 tons.   

As China-Africa cooperation deepens under the FOCAC mechanism, joint efforts toward the goal of improving agricultural productivity have been made. According to China’s Ministry of Agriculture, China has built 25 agricultural demonstration centers to share expertise and disseminate agricultural knowledge. More centers are under construction across Africa. The country is also providing technical assistance by sending more than 1,000 senior experts to African countries. The centers have trained over 100,000 personnel and help the continent improve the productivity of rice, maize, fruit and vegetable by 30 to 60 percent, according to Ministry of Agriculture.  

Experts believe that capacity building is vital to the agricultural development and broader efforts of poverty eradication in Africa. 

Kairuki called for more cooperation with China in this regard. "China is ready to share its experiences, its successes as well as its failures in order to ensure Africa does not repeat the mistakes it made," he said.  

To accelerate the poverty eradication process, he suggested more capacity building programs that are relevant should be launched. "Areas that should be prioritized include agriculture, engineering and medicine, where China has a comparative advantage and there will be significant impact when our experts return [from China] to Africa," he said.    

The youth conundrum 

Africa is also the world’s youngest continent, with more than 60 percent of its population under the age of 25. And this figure is rising. According to the 2016 UN World Population Prospect Report, half of the world’s population growth from 2015 to 2050 would be from Africa.    

While being a demographic dividend, the huge young population may in fact undermine the economy if the issue of chronic poverty is not effectively dealt with, according to observers.

Even in South Africa, a country with a stand out economy, poverty among the youth poses a severe challenge. The Poverty Trend Report from 2006 to 2015 released this year by Statistics South Africa showed that 34.7 percent of South Africans living below the lower bound poverty line (no money to purchase both adequate food items and non-food items) of 647 rand ($46) per month were young people aged between 25 and 34.  

This can be mostly attributed to the high unemployment rate, which stands at 60 percent among the youth, according to Justin Mangulama, a Ph.D. candidate from Malawi studying youth and agriculture in Africa at China Agricultural University. "Our economies fail to create enough jobs for youth. What they manage to secure are just unstable jobs with low salaries, resulting in a widening income gap between the rich and the poor," he said.