Kenyan expert says Sino-Africa development architecture leads to Africa’s prosperity

Nairobi, Kenya | Xinhua | The Sino-Africa architecture of development, featured by FOCAC and BRI helps lead to prosperity in the African continent, a Kenyan expert said on Sunday.

Peter Kagwanja, CEO of Africa Policy Institute said in a commentary published in the Sunday Nation, a Kenya-based newspaper that the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) form the twin-engine of the China-Africa development architecture.

“FOCAC is the engine of policy debates and formulation while BRI is its engine of funding and implementation,” Kagwanja said.

He observed that through the architecture, China has supported projects such as the construction of roads, railways and ports that cut across and connect African countries.

According to the expert, China has aligned its interests with Africa’s Agenda 2063, the continent’s blueprint to boost economic growth as well as the visions of specific African countries.

Kagwanja said that conceptually, the FOCAC-BRI architecture is an inextricable part of the story of ‘Africa Rising’.

Kagwanja noted that at the dawn of the new millennium, Africa’s traditional partners in the West rolled back their investments in the continent, but China ignored Africa’s doomsayers and chose a different path.

“Its strategists saw a continent of great untapped potential: natural resources, one of the world’s fastest-growing middle classes and a large and youthful market,” he said.

Kagwanja revealed that China has become Africa’s leading trade partner and the major source of foreign direct investment and development assistance. “China is also Africa’s main source of affordable technology,” he added