China is helping Africa in the pursuit of its goal to alleviate absolute poverty, improve its agricultural production capacity and better manage food security challenges

China's involvement in Africa through the triennial collective dialogue of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation is a confidence booster for the continent's agenda of ending absolute poverty. Africa is significantly empowered socially and economically today compared to 2000 when the FOCAC held its first summit.

This comprehensive and strategic relationship between China and Africa has grown by leaps and bounds. The two civilizations have embraced the values of equality, mutual cooperation and shared prosperity in their sustainable partnership on poverty alleviation.

As a true friend, China has always been steadfast in sharing its success story. First, under the strong leadership of President Xi Jinping, China has managed to overcome most of the problems and achieved its mission of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, hence attaining its first centenary goal.

One of China's greatest achievements is the lifting of about 850 million Chinese people out of absolute poverty. This was achieved through the development of its agriculture, ensuring food security for its 1.4 billion people. To achieve this massive level of success, China promoted programs on developing the rural economy, increased grain production using innovation in seed technology and ensuring effective distribution of grains, and promoted sustainable infrastructure development.

Second, China has never shied away from correcting its mistakes. The shift in policy before and after the reforms and opening-up was able to revolutionize China's ambition to provide poor farmers in rural areas with the necessary infrastructure they needed to implement the rural vitalization programs.

Third, China has been able to take advantage of its greatest strength, which is its huge population. By improving their labor skills, China's poor farmers established profitable businesses that lifted their entire home and village out of poverty.

For China, economic development was needed to fund the fight against poverty, but special poverty reduction policies and the right leadership were the game changers. Thus, knowing the devastating impacts of poverty, Africa's sustainable development remains a high priority.

Consequently, China established the Africa-China Alliance for Poverty Alleviation, a key platform through which the continent of Africa can tap into China's experience and success in ending absolute poverty among its people. This notwithstanding, the eighth ministerial conference of the FOCAC held in 2021 in Senegal provided a new impetus to China's quest to promote sustainable development and poverty alleviation programs in Africa.

First, China is committed to the implementation of agricultural innovation projects in Africa. According to the World Economic Forum, Africa remains a net importer of food, although it has 60 percent of the world's uncultivated arable land. In reversing this inequality, China convened the first Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Agriculture in 2019 just before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Agreements were to improve the bilateral agriculture cooperation mechanism between China and African countries, train about 10,000 agriculture professionals from Africa, and dispatch another 100 senior agriculture experts from China to Africa. Also, China committed itself to implementing the "10+10" cooperation project between Chinese and African agricultural research institutes and to setting up the China-Africa R&D Alliance for Green Agricultural Technologies.

Second, China is promoting the upgrading of agricultural demonstration parks in Uganda, Tanzania, Sudan, Mozambique and Zambia. China is also supporting Africa in building a whole value chain covering the production, processing and marketing of agricultural products. This will solve the supply chain problem that was seen during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Third, China strengthened Africa's food security through the proper use of the South-South Cooperation Assistance Fund.

Fourth, China has made it a priority to improve infrastructure development in Africa. Thus, China has prioritized implementing agricultural projects in 100 African villages across the continent to raise rural living standards. China has also built and upgraded railways, roads, bridges, ports and power transmission and distribution facilities that are boosting industrialization in Africa and increasing employment opportunities for many Africans.

Fifth, poverty is a barrier to accessing healthcare when needed. Thus, during the COVID-19 pandemic, China was quick to help Africa combat the virus by sharing information, sending medical personnel, and offering vaccines and personal protective equipment, to assist in the fight against the pandemic. Further, to aid in the supply chain of vaccines, in 2022, Egypt launched the China-aided automated and refrigerated vaccine storage complex with a capacity for storing up to 150 million doses. This facility will ensure the safety of vaccine storage and boost Africa's vaccine supply chain especially the extra 1 billion COVID-19 vaccines from China, which were pledged during the 2021 FOCAC.

Indeed, China is helping Africa to realize its African Union Agenda 2063 to alleviate absolute poverty, improve its agricultural production capacity and better manage food security challenges in the post-pandemic era, and promote wealth creation in Africa.

The author is the executive director of the China-Africa Center at the Africa Policy Institute. The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily.

Contact the editor at [email protected].