This week, the 8th Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) was held in Dakar, Senegal from November 29th through to the 30th. The event saw several key new initiatives announced – including 1 billion vaccines to be made available by China for African countries, $10 billion of China’s Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to be allocated to African countries (25% of China’s total), $10 billion in credit lines for African financial institutions, and $10 billion for trade finance to achieve $300 billion in imports from Africa by 2024, with mechanisms such as ‘green lanes’ to speed up inspections and zero tariff list of goods from African LDCs.
Development Reimagined has been actively working on several projects in the run-up to FOCAC8, including hosting a number of dialogues with the African Ambassadors to China, as well as supporting Chinese organizations, such as the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, on FOCAC-related work. Under our efforts to support FOCAC, we have also produced numerous specific policy reports on China-Africa health cooperation and agricultural cooperation to show what has been done before under the FOCAC umbrella– and what more is needed in order to meet African needs.
To facilitate dialogue on the outcomes of FOCAC8 between high-level African and Chinese experts, Development Reimagined hosted a post-FOCAC8 webinar on December 1st, one day after the close of the Forum. The webinar was supported by the China Center for Globalization, with their President and Counsellor to the State Council of PRC, Dr Henry Huiyao Wang providing welcoming remarks.
We were extremely grateful to be joined by Dr Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, CEO of African Union Development Agency (NEPAD), and H.E Ambassador Rahamtalla Mohamed Osman, African Union Ambassador to China to provide remarks. You can find Ambassador Osman’s full speech here.
This was followed by a panel discussion and Q&A, moderated by our CEO Hannah Ryder, with five Chinese and African experts – Gou Haodong, CCG Senior Fellow, Former Deputy Representative of the Chinese Mission to the African Union, Dr Cheikh Tidiane Dieye, Executive Director of African Center for Trade, Integration and Development, Professor Liu Haifang, Director of Centre for African Studies Associate Professor of School of International Studies Peking University, Madame Malado Kaba, former Economy and Finance Minister in Guinea and CEO of Falémé Advisory consultancy, Professor Tang Xiaoyang, Professor and Chair in the Department of International Relations at Tsinghua University.
We would like to thank all the participants for a brilliant discussion.
You can watch the full event below.
