V. Stressing African People's Livelihoods and Capacity Building

Africa has sustained rapid economic growth in recent years, but it still faces severe development problems and the difficult task of accomplishing the UN Millennium Development Goals. While seeking to advance its own development, China tries to offer what assistance it can to Africa without setting any political conditions, and to benefit African people through developmental advances. In recent years, China has implemented measures adopted at the FOCAC ministerial conferences, actively developed cooperation with Africa in areas relating to public amenities, medical and health care, climate change and environmental protection, humanitarian aid, and other fields. China has also strengthened cultural and educational exchanges and scientific and technological cooperation in an effort to improve Africa's ability to develop independently.

Helping build public amenities. China has offered assistance to Africa in digging wells for water supplies, and in building affordable housing, broadcasting and telecommunications facilities, and cultural and educational sites in an effort to improve the productive and living conditions of local people. Since 2009, China has carried out dozens of well-digging projects in the Sudan, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Djibouti, Guinea and Togo, playing a positive role in easing water problems for local people. It has also provided support for the building of portable dwellings in South Sudan, school houses in Benin, and rural schools in Malawi, and in doing so, improved local living conditions and educational facilities. China's largest aid project in the Central African Republic is the construction of the Boali No.3 Hydropower Station, which, after it is completed, will greatly relieve electricity shortages in Bangui and surrounding areas.

Advancing cooperation in medical and health care. From 2010 to 2012, China helped build 27 hospitals in Ghana, Zimbabwe and other African countries. China has also sent 43 medical teams to 42 African countries and regions, treating over 5.57 million patients. In recent years, in addition to building hospitals, donating drugs and organizing medical training programs, China has also launched an initiative, "Brightness Action," to treat cataract patients, provided mobile hospitals, built bilaterally-run eye centers, and helped build demonstration and training centers for diagnosis and treatment technologies, effectively advancing Sino-African cooperation in medical and health care.

Working together to address climate change. Environmental protection and climate change are two developmental topics that the world must face, and Africa needs special assistance from the international community in these areas. China pays a great deal of attention to its cooperation with African countries in the field of climate change. Since November 2009, China has carried out more than 100 clean energy projects in African countries, including biogas technology cooperation with Tunisia, Guinea and the Sudan, hydropower generating facilities in Cameroon, Burundi and Guinea, and solar and wind power generation in Morocco, Ethiopia and South Africa. China has also donated energy-efficient lamps, air conditioners and other materials in response to climate change to Nigeria, Benin and Madagascar. All of these measures have greatly raised the ability of African countries to respond to climate change.

Offering emergency humanitarian aid. In keeping with humanitarian values, China always offers what materials or cash it is able to give for emergency aid to African countries that suffer from political disorder or have experienced natural disasters. In 2011, China provided 50 million yuan in emergency aid to Tunisia and Egypt to ease the humanitarian crisis caused by refugees stranded in the areas bordering Libya. When a famine worst in 60 years broke out in the Horn of Africa in the same year, China provided the affected countries with emergency aid in the form of grain and cash. In total, this aid was worth more than 400 million yuan, the biggest amount of food aid that the Chinese government has provided since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. In 2012, China granted food aid to affected countries in the Sahel region of Africa.

Supporting cultural and educational exchanges. Cultural and educational exchanges make up an important part of the new type of strategic partnership between China and Africa. By supporting young Africans studying in China, sending young Chinese volunteers to Africa and developing joint research initiatives, China tries to promote mutual understanding between China and African countries and strengthen the social foundation of their friendship. From 2010 to 2012, China granted 18,743 government scholarships to students from African countries. By the end of 2012, China had sent 408 young volunteers to 16 African countries, including Ethiopia and Zimbabwe. Twenty pairs of leading Chinese and African universities have begun cooperating under the 20+20 Cooperation Plan for Chinese and African Universities. From the launch of China-Africa Joint Research and Exchange Plan in March 2010 to the end of 2012, it had supported 64 projects in the form of workshops, subject research, academic exchanges, and publishing works. The project had also subsidized visits and exchanges for over 600 Chinese and African scholars.

Holding human resource training programs. Human resource training is an important part of capacity building. From 2010 to 2012, China held various training courses for 54 countries and regions in Africa; the courses involved a total of 27,318 officials and technicians, and covered topics relating to economics, foreign affairs, energy, industry, agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishing, medicine and health care, inspection and quarantine, climate change, security, and some other fields. In addition, Chinese medical teams, agricultural experts and enterprises located in Africa have also trained local people in an effort to enhance local technological capabilities.

Upgrading China-Africa cooperation in science and technology. In 2009, China launched the China-Africa Science and Technology Partnership Plan. This plan aims to promote technology transfer to Africa and research exchanges, as well as the sharing of more scientific and technological achievements. By the end of 2012, China had cooperated with African countries on 115 joint research and technology demonstration projects, including projects relating to cashew pest control technology and resources satellite receiving stations. China also gave 66 African researchers the chance to do post-doctoral research in China and donated 150,000 yuan worth of research equipment to each of the 24 researchers who had returned to their home countries to work upon completing their joint research tasks in China. In December 2011, the Chinese government launched the Science and Technology Action for African People's Livelihood, strengthening its cooperation with Africa through scientific and technological means. It also declared that it would help build a "mobile and modular general clinic" and a "demonstration center for scientific and technological cooperation in gastroenterology" to each African FOCAC member country. 

Reducing African debt. From 2010 to 2012, China canceled 16 debts owed by Mali, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Benin, Togo, Cote d'Ivoire and other countries, greatly reducing the debts of African countries.

VI. Promoting Cooperation under the Multilateral Framework

In recent years, African countries have made intensified efforts to gain strength through unity and they have made substantial progress in terms of economic integration. China firmly supports Africa's self-enhancement through unity, and works hard to strengthen cooperation with the African Union (AU) and African sub-regional organizations in a variety of fields, including infrastructure development, capacity building and mechanism construction. At the same time, China joins other countries and international multilateral organizations in leveraging one another's advantages to the fullest to help African countries reduce poverty, develop economically, and promote social progress.

China works closely with the AU and African sub-regional organizations not only in traditional areas like infrastructure construction, agriculture and personnel training, but also in emerging fields like finance, disaster reduction and intellectual property. The relationship between China and the AU plays an important role in the China-Africa new-type strategic partnership. Early in the 1970s, China started to provide the Organization of African Unity (OAU, now AU) with assistance in a variety of forms, including money, materials, turn-key projects and training. Since the AU Commission joined the FOCAC in 2011, cooperation between China and the AU has been enhanced. China's largest construction aid project in Africa, the AU Conference Center, was inaugurated in January 2012, at which time the Chinese government decided to provide 600 million yuan in aid to the AU over the next three years.

In recent years, cooperation between China and African regional organizations has been strengthened and become institutionalized. Since 2011, the Chinese government has signed Framework Agreements on Economic and Trade Cooperation with both the East African Community (EAC) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), to expand cooperation in promoting trade facilitation, direct investment, cross-border infrastructure construction and development aid. Evidence of China's efforts in the area of financial cooperation includes China's status as a member state of the African Development Bank (AfDB), the West African Development Bank, and the Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank. China has promised to contribute 615 million U.S. dollars to the African Development Fund (ADF), which is the soft-loan window of the AfDB, and has actively participated in the ADF's Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative to support poverty reduction and regional integration in Africa. The China Development Bank (CDB) has signed an Agreement on Development Financing Cooperation with the Development Bank of Southern Africa, and an agreement to loan 60 million Euros to the West African Development Bank for the development of small and medium-sized enterprises in countries belonging to the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU). The Export-Import Bank of China and the Agricultural Bank of China have both signed cooperation framework agreements with the AfDB to cooperate on infrastructure project financing and the development of small and medium-sized enterprises. In addition, China has reached relevant agreements with African intellectual property organizations, laying a solid foundation for the advancement of China-Africa economic and trade relations.

China has joined forces with multilateral organizations including the United Nations (UN) and the World Bank (WB) to utilize one another's strengths to the fullest to aid Africa in the fields of agriculture, environmental protection and training. China was the first country to form a strategic alliance with the UNFAO to foster South-South cooperation. In 2008, China decided to contribute 30 million U.S. dollars to the UNFAO to set up a trust fund. This fund, which is particularly beneficial to Africa, is used to support South-South cooperation between China and African countries under the framework of the UNFAO Special Program for Food Security. By the end of 2012, under the said framework, China had sent many agricultural experts and technicians to Ethiopia, Mauritania and Mali to provide technical assistance in the areas of irrigation and water conservation, crop production, animal husbandry, aquaculture and agricultural product processing. By doing this, China has played an active role in improving the agricultural production capacities and food security of these countries. In addition, China works cooperatively on climate change and disaster reduction with international organizations, including the United Nations Environment Programme and the secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. In 2012, China promised to contribute US$10 million to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to provide technical assistance to Africa and improve the macroeconomic management of African countries. Chinese financial institutions established an all-round cooperation framework with the WB in May 2007. The two sides are carrying out feasibility studies on some infrastructure construction projects in African countries. Chinese financial institutions also maintain a good cooperative relationship with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which is a member of the WB Group, to provide co-financing to telecommunications projects in West Africa and push forward the development of the communications industry in this region.

With an open mind, China has worked to enhance exchanges and mutual learning with other countries to explore practical cooperation in providing assistance to Africa. From 2009 to 2010, in partnership with the UK, China ran three peacekeeping police training classes in China and Ghana for African countries. In 2011, the tripartite agreement on the Liberian Tapeta Hospital cooperative project, signed by China, Egypt and Liberia, was fulfilled. According to the agreement, the Chinese government was responsible for maintaining medical equipment, and training medical, technical and managerial personnel for the hospital. The agreement required the Egyptian government to send two to five doctors to the hospital, and made the Liberian side responsible for the hospital's management and operation. This project has trained the backbone staff of the hospital and made outstanding contributions to its operation, winning universal praise.

In the future, China will work more closely with the AU and African sub-regional organizations to support Africa's economic integration and build the capacities of regional organizations. It will do this by promoting transnational and trans-regional infrastructure development and human resources development in Africa, and also by strengthening cooperation with the AfDB and African sub-regional financial institutions. At the same time, China will expand its international cooperative efforts to advance Africa's sustainable development, strengthen cooperation in the fields of agricultural development and climate change, and provide more support to Africa in ecological protection and environmental management.