Collaboration between Africa and China, through the Forum for China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) and the China Africa Think Tanks Forum (CATTF), among others, has gained momentum and triggered much interest. This is because China is playing an increasingly prominent role in global trade, investment, finance, and governance to the extent that “Made in China” is becoming a household name. This deepening engagement also extends to diplomatic and cultural relations, as evidenced by the establishment of Confucian Institutes in a number of African countries with a view to promote people-to-people exchanges.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is yet another framework, not only for consolidating and complementing existing China-Africa relations, but also for addressing Africa’s socio-economic challenges more comprehensively, given its rich menu of objectives. They range from connectivity promotion, industrialization, development of agriculture and provision of finance to enhancing inter-and intra-trade. Taking into consideration Africa’s development challenges across the board and the attendant aspirations to address them, the BRI is indeed a timely wakeup call to Africa’s political leadership to grasp this unfolding, rare and unprecedented opportunity in the history of global partnerships in the socio-economic development process.

It needs to be emphasized that the BRI has two important characteristics which appear to be a departure from past initiatives: compactness and wide synergic effects. In other words it is holistic and each of its goals leads to achieving two or more of the others. For example, pursuing connectivity by provision of the requisite infrastructure will not only enhance and upgrade regional and global trade, but also improve the investment climate of the partner countries. Subsequently, the improved investment climate would in turn lure foreign direct investment flows to countries, a critical vehicle for industrialization. Ultimately, this culminates into sustainable transformation of countries in terms of poverty reduction, environmental sustainability and inclusive social development. This virtuous cycle of results cum events emanating from the implementation of BRI is a clear indication of the uniqueness of the initiative. It is in this context that we urge African countries embrace the initiative to tackle its wide ranging development challenges.

Indeed, Africa’s development challenges are enormous. First, 70 percent of the world’s poor are located in Africa. About 600 million Africans live without electricity and thus depend on biomass sources of energy, such as wood and charcoal, which harm the environment. And 37 percent of world’s population who lack access to clean water globally live in Africa.

Second, the African continent is the least industrialized region in the globe, to the extent that its accessibility to global value chains is the lowest. Agriculture, which is the mainstay of the continent’s economy and the source of livelihood for over 64 percent of the population, has the lowest productivity in the world.

Third, Africa is home to 16 landlocked countries and the transport infrastructure is underdeveloped so connectivity is very poor. As a consequence, intra-regional trade is at 17.7 percent; the lowest when compared to other regions of the world: 55.2, 59.4, and 68.7 percent for the Americas, Asia and Europe respectively.

Last, the continent performs poorly in mobilizing domestic financial resources. Africa’s development aspirations, aimed at addressing the above challenges, are clearly stipulated in a number of planning frameworks at continental, regional and national levels, such as the African Union’s Agenda 2063; regional economic communities’ development agendas, such as the industrialization plan of the East African Community and that of Southern Africa Development Community; and national development visions, coupled with five-year development plans of various countries. These frameworks are complemented by global development frameworks, such as the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

A closer look at the content of the BRI shows that the initiative has a component for addressing each of the challenges facing Africa. This being the case, it is high time the African leadership wakes up and seize the opportunity and become key stakeholders of the initiative. The experience of China-Africa cooperation in the last few decades has clearly shown that China is trustworthy and a non-wavering development partner, and one that consistently adheres to regionally or globally set principles cum agreements, such as those of Bandung Conference (1955), the United Nations and the World Trade Organization.

Further, experience shows that those who have already joined the initiative in Africa, and beyond, have already benefited enormously from it. This being the case, Africa should ensure that its development aspirations are well aligned with BRI.

However, in order for the alignment to be effective, African policy- and decision-makers should, first and foremost, make an assessment of the conditions of their respective countries under which BRI–related engagement would take place. This will provide information on existing and required policies, human and institutional capacities, which are necessary for effective domestication of the initiative.

Further, to the extent that a country’s national development agenda is a sub-set of regional, continental and global agendas, effective coordination at all these levels is unavoidable.

In a nutshell, each country’s efforts to engage in the BRI will realize better results and outcomes when they are informed by effective alignment with national strategies for domestication of supra-national initiatives, such as those of the Regional Economic Communities of Africa Union and SDGs.

Likewise, and given the cross-border nature of BRI investments, domestic policy, institutional and governance frameworks have to be underpinned by strong coordination of efforts at these various levels to unlock and tap the synergic effects cum spillovers of the BRI in terms of investment, trade and financing.

Humphrey P.B. Moshi is director of Centre for Chinese Studies at University of Dar es Salaam.

The author contributed this article to China Watch exclusively. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of China Watch.

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