OVER the past four decades, China has lifted more than 740 million people out of poverty with its poverty headcount ratio dropping to 3.1 percent by the end of 2017 from 97.5 percent in 1978. People’s lives have remarkably improved with easy access to transportation infrastructure, electricity, running water, and telecommunication networks. As China ratchets up its efforts to reduce poverty with a raft of targeted measures being introduced, those still trapped in poverty in the country are gradually finding their way out of it. All this has undoubtedly inspired the African countries that are still mired in destitution.
At the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) held in September 2018, President Xi Jinping stressed in his keynote speech that making lives better for our peoples is what we aim to achieve in growing China-Africa relations; so we need to make sure our cooperation delivers real benefits, both in China and in Africa. Xi committed that China would do more to help Africa alleviate poverty, pursue development, increase employment and incomes, and improve the lives of its people.
Workers go about their work at a shoemaking factory of Chinese Huajian Group in a local industrial park built and run by Chinese companies in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, on December 7, 2018.
China has been working together with Africa in poverty reduction. In fact, Chinese enterprises, by contracting infrastructure projects and making direct investment in African countries, have greatly spurred local development. At the 2018 FOCAC Beijing Summit, China announced to extend US $60 billion of financing to Africa to make sure that eight major initiatives in close collaboration with African countries are implemented on the ground, involving industrial promotion, infrastructure connectivity, trade facilitation, green development, capacity building, health care, people-to-people exchanges, and peace and security. The move has injected new impetus to the poverty reduction cause in Africa, and also served as a guide for bilateral cooperation in the coming years.
At the 24th Wanshou Forum themed “targeted poverty alleviation and China-Africa cooperation,” jointly organized by the International Department of the Community Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and Renmin University of China in late 2018, China Today spoke with attendees from some African countries, getting to know their perception of China’s poverty alleviation efforts and expectations pertaining to China-Africa cooperation in this field.
“Why Is It that You Are Poor?”
“Why is it that you are poor? We have so many resources, but we’re still poor,” Deputy Secretary for Youth Affairs at the Zimbabwe African National Union Lewis Matutu raised the topic at the forum, and then went on to elaborate on a range of root causes for poverty in African countries, including backward infrastructural facilities, low literacy levels, an unstable political environment, and corruption. Matutu pointed out that corruption had made it hard to effectively implement national development and poverty reduction policies in Africa. Matutu echoed the statement that Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa Vera Songwe made in early 2018 while attending the 32nd ordinary session of the Executive Council of the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, who said that the African continent loses US $148 billion a year to corruption, representing about 25 percent of Africa’s average GDP. Corruption has become the major scourge draining out the continent’s resources.
Hlengiwe Buhle Mkhize, convener of Eastern Cape Province of African National Congress.
In an interview with China Today, Hlengiwe Buhle Mkhize, a member of National Executive Committee and convener of the Eastern Cape Province of African National Congress from South Africa, said that since taking office, President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa has been devoted to curbing domestic corruption. She was impressed by China’s achievements in fighting corruption. “We really hope to learn from China in battling against corruption. We made a trip to a local Party school of China and noticed its role in disciplining cadres and enhancing the capacity of the ruling party. I think anti-corruption is critical to achieving a country’s development goals.” Mkhize hopes South Africa can have further exchanges and cooperation with China in this field with training programs set up.
“We want to learn from the CPC about how to strengthen the alliance and bring it closer to civil society,” she indicated. “And the very important lesson we got from China is to invest in poor families and communities and not to tolerate any embezzlement of funds. We shouldn’t keep officials who are failing to show integrity in the system.”
In China’s poverty alleviation, importance has been attached to education of impoverished people and helping them acquire skills in some fields. After their field trips to some poverty-stricken areas of China, African attendees of the forum came to the conclusion, as pointed out by Matutu, “Ignorance is a disease, and a root cause of poverty in Africa. It’s urgently needed to equip poor people with the necessary knowledge and skills to get out of poverty.”
By analyzing China’s experience, Matutu observed that China’s political stability is also a key factor contributing to its rapid development, which has laid a solid foundation for the country’s poverty alleviation drive. “Poverty does not disappear overnight. We need to go through pains. China’s achievements have been born out of decades of arduous efforts. From China’s experience, we also notice the persistence and consistency of its policies, which is very important,” Matutu said.
Closely-bonded Partners
Rogers Mulindwa, spokesperson for the National Resistance Movement Organization Party of Uganda.
“The reason why we want to deal with China more than the West is that China’s cooperation doesn’t have so many strings attached. Some countries would add a lot of strings in cooperation with us. You do this; we do this. China comes with an open mind with us,” Spokesperson for the National Resistance Movement Organization Party of Uganda Rogers Mulindwa told China Today. “In our country, we also have Chinese, and we see them as brothers and sisters. And we want to see this cooperation continuing,” he added.
China’s incredible development miracle over the past decades has amazed Mulindwa, who showed his eagerness to learn the secret behind it. “Forty years ago China was just like us. However, now things have gotten so different. I really want to know how China has done it, and what the magic is. Uganda seeks to have cooperation with China in economic development and poverty reduction,” Mulindwa said.
He thought the journey towards progress starts with learning. “We have not dealt with many foreign political parties, but with CPC we have close ties. As a party that has been in power for 70 years, CPC can render lots of valuable experiences to us.”
China has played a very important role in Uganda’s infrastructure construction, particularly in terms of roads. According to Mulindwa, Uganda had less than 1,000 km highways back in 1986, but now the total highway mileage has reached 6,000 km, half of which were built by Chinese companies.
The Chinese-built Kampala-Entebbe expressway that links the Ugandan capital Kampala and the country’s main gateway Entebbe International Airport came into operation in June 2018, shortening the driving time between the two places down to just 40 minutes from two hours. The project also serves as a new model for local infrastructure construction and operation management. The expressway, constructed per Chinese norms and standards, consists of a four-lane dual carriageway, and is the first of its kind in Uganda.
China and African countries all are developing countries. They have suffered foreign invasions and oppression and extreme poverty, and understand too well that poverty and backwardness lead to starvation and suffering. Now, the desire for poverty reduction closely bonds the two sides together.
“During our visit to China, we’ve come to a deep understanding of why our partner is China, not North America or Europe. There is a lot in common between us, particularly in terms of our developmental niche, where we feel we all are in the same boat. Poverty reduction has brought us even closer,” Mkhize from South Africa told China Today.
Mkhize said that some young people in South Africa thought Chinese people work too hard and work all the time and they even jest about it. “It will be important for them to come, even if it’s for visits, so as to acquire those values and attitudes towards work. South Africa has its national development targets. To meet them, we need more young people to commit to the development vision and work hard,” she pointed out.
Seeking Cooperation with China
The visit of China has also brought Mkhize to the understanding of the importance of mobilizing more social forces to join the poverty reduction efforts. Regarding this aspect, she hoped South Africa would have more exchanges and cooperation with China, for example by setting up some programs to involve more people in the poverty alleviation cause. China’s various targeted poverty alleviation measures have also greatly inspired Mkhize.
“China’s poverty alleviation measures focus on specific areas. I mean in China, it’s almost like every poor person in an impoverished county can receive targeted assistance of various forms. We saw in the countryside how e-commerce is making a difference in having young people trade online and market their goods. They trade on their own directly, thus saving the middleman costs, without worrying about infrastructure. So I think it’s a smart way of taking people out of poverty,” Mkhize told China Today.
Mkhize also indicated her intention to strengthen bilateral cooperation in science and technology in particular by introducing cooperation to afford South African youngsters more opportunities to study in China. “With this new era of the fourth industrial revolution, we really believe that young people need space to innovate, to come up with special applications, and to really begin to be the providers of technologies for the future in critical areas like transport, energy, service delivery, education, and online services. I hope China will offer young people from South Africa training programs and enable them to be on the frontlines of the fourth industrial revolution. We also want to establish partnership with Chinese universities at the grassroots level. We see it here as something extremely helpful,” she said.
Deficient human capital is another major bottleneck hindering Africa’s development. “The sad thing for some developing countries is that when you have a project, you have to find people from other countries to work on it. Hence, I think developing human resource will be very important for developing countries so that their young people will work on those projects. In this respect, we also need to strengthen cooperation with China,” Mkhize said. She also indicated her expectation towards Chinese companies to invest in South Africa’s big projects, “That will really create more jobs, give skills to young people, and help us to grow our economy.”
Mavhungu Lerule Ramakhanya, a member of South Africa’s Limpopo Provincial Executive Committee.
In the view of Mavhungu Lerule Ramakhanya, a member of South Africa’s Limpopo Provincial Executive Committee, agriculture should become a major field for China-Africa cooperation in poverty reduction. “You know that in Africa, including South Africa, there is a lot of work that is being done around agriculture. We have noticed that in China, agriculture is one of the key factors for eliminating poverty, and China has accumulated lots of experience. So if we are to focus on exchange, start with the strategies, technology, and also industrial machinery in terms of agriculture,” she said in an interview with China Today. Ramakhanya is in particular interested in China’s greenhouse planting techniques, which she thought should be introduced to South Africa.
Rogers Mulindwa from Uganda has also been strongly intrigued by China’s agricultural techniques and development model. He visited the Dujiangyan irrigation project in Sichuan. “It was the wisdom of ancient Chinese going back thousands of years to develop irrigation by diverting the flow of river water to other directions. That means the Chinese of today can do even more. We need to learn from them. Uganda is a country needing irrigation. Sometimes it suffers drought during planting season, like August and September. So we need irrigation machinery, which I think China can give us,” he said.
Mulindwa thought Uganda’s self-supporting small-scale farming model need to be changed. By learning from China’s experience in developing large-scale agricultural operations, he expected to bring more benefits to Uganda’s agriculture.
Those attendees from Africa including officials and scholars were all full of curiosity about China’s development, and showed admiration for China’s accomplishments. Apart from the above-mentioned aspects, they also hope their countries can have cooperation with China in many other fields including textiles, environmental protection, land utilization, and construction of industrial parks.
Being sober-minded, they didn’t intend to blindly copy China’s development model, as shown by Mkhize’s observation, “You know, our countries are different. When we implement those programs (which we learned from China) we really have to be very careful in terms of seeing what is working and what is not working, and implement in a smart way.”
