The Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) concluded in mid-May has aroused much discussion and attention from scholars in Africa.

Held on May 14 and 15 in Beijing, the BRF gathered heads of state and government and delegates from more than 100 countries and more than 70 key international organizations, being the largest of its kind ever convened on the topic.

At the meeting, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged increasing funding to the Belt and Road Initiative by contributing an additional 100 billion yuan ($14.5 billion) to the Silk Road Fund and encouraging Chinese financial institutions to conduct overseas renminbi fund business with an estimated amount of about 300 billion yuan ($43.5 billion).

In addition, China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China will set up special lending schemes respectively worth 250 billion yuan ($36.44 billion) and 130 billion yuan ($18.95 billion) to support cooperation.

An ambitious plan

Proposed by President Xi in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative aims to strengthen policy coordination, connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and people-to-people ties. It comprises of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

"The Belt and Road Initiative has been the most extensive program in infrastructure and logistics planning since the ancient time," Martyn Davies, Managing Director of Emerging Markets & Africa at Deloitte Africa, told ChinAfrica.

He thinks the initiative will be most beneficial to China's neighboring countries and regions.

Benefiting the world

Funeka Yazini April, Research Specialist with the Human Sciences Research Council and Africa Institute of South Africa (AISA), told ChinAfrica that the Belt and Road Initiative is viewed within China and internationally by most developing countries as something that can benefit the whole world and lift millions out of poverty.

"When one talks about the initiative, they are talking about an array of interconnected and interdependent trade routes and infrastructure and economic development projects which could grow the global economy," she said, adding it is definitely an initiative which helps promote global governance.

Synergize with Africa's development

According to April, the China-proposed initiative connecting Asia with Europe and Africa will fit into the African Union's agenda to create more infrastructure links within the continent and will therefore bring more opportunities to African countries that are still struggling with poor infrastructure.

"It would be a positive contribution to the continent that is battling with infrastructure," said April.

Bankie Forster Bankie, Director of the Pan-African Institute for the Study of Africa Society based in Windhoek Namibia, told ChinAfrica that China and Africa's interaction goes back a long way and has a shared future.

He noticed that the cooperation plans proposed at the Johannesburg Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation have been implemented in a swift and all-round way. Nearly half of the $60 billion funds that China promised to support China-Africa cooperation projects have been disbursed or arranged. The Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway has been completed. The Mombasa-Nairobi Railway in Kenya will also soon be completed. Planning has started on the Pointe-Noire Special Economic Zone in the Republic of the Congo. Integrated port development in Tanzania is making smooth headway and steady progress is being made in building industrial parks across Africa.

According to him, the Belt and Road Initiative is designed to pool more consensus, identify cooperation directions, push forward the implementation of projects and improve supporting systems, and it will create modern transnational networks connecting Africa with Asia and Europe.

However, challenges need to be tackled to gain the "win" in Africa.

"Much of the 'wins' from this strategic undertaking would be dependent on the willingness to allow foreign participation in their often closed utilities sectors," Davies pointed out.

Davies said Chinese companies in the infrastructure sector had already been very active in building and investing in such "Belt-and-Road-qualifying" projects in Africa.